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John Evans
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When an accusation like “you don’t care” hurtles an adult’s way, the inner turmoil of adolescence can seem purely excruciating. But these reactions actually stem from a positive force, says Ronald Dahl, who founded the Center for the Developing Adolescent at the University of California, Berkeley: a unique drive to find meaning in life and relationships. And no relationship, parents and educators know well, is as central to the moment-to-moment wellbeing of most tweens and teens as friendship.
“Spending time with their friends isn’t just a pastime,” says Mitch Prinstein, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina. “It’s actually something that they need for their brain development and identity formation. They don’t know who they are until they see themselves through their peers’ eyes. So there is a lot of testing out new roles, new relationships.” It can all be quite stressful.
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"FREE resources for you to share with kids & families!
77 Simple STEM Activities for Families (ideas for doing STEM at home or school)"
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After a challenging year of pandemic schooling, these activities help students reflect on what they’ve learned and look forward to what’s coming next.
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"Kids 12 and up no longer need to get sick with the coronavirus."
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A driving strategy that serves students–whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content–is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or “getting unstuck” tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context.
Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual–requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student’s belly to the educator’s marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above.
It’s okay to say “I don’t know.” Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion.
Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it’s that I don’t know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don’t know means I’m missing information that I’m supposed to have.
Every January, Nashville teacher Joel Bezaire reads The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time aloud to his students. Sounds pretty standard, right? It would be — for an English class. But Bezaire teaches math. The novel is part of a unit on number sense.
While it’s easy to envision using math picture books in elementary school classrooms, literature for older grades poses a bigger challenge. Can reading fit into the curriculum as the books get longer and the math gets more complex?
Bezaire thinks it can, and so does another teacher, Sam Shah, of Brooklyn. The two occupy opposite ends of the secondary math spectrum — seventh-grade pre-algebra and 12th-grade calculus, respectively — and both have found ways to strengthen student engagement through reading.
"Teenage anger is a thing of legend. The stereotype of the eye-rolling, door slamming rebellious adolescent is often played for laughs, but for parents dealing with the real thing, it’s anything but funny. Bitter outbursts, unpredictable mood swings, and frequent battles about everything from school to friends to clothes to who’s going to set the table can leave parents feeling like they’re walking on eggshells. And teenage anger is having a moment. Because, if we’re honest, there’s a lot for teenagers to feel angry about right now. The pandemic has caused a year of frustration and disruption. No school (well sure, the work part but none of the socializing), no hang outs, no parties, no dating. Endless time spent on screens and cooped up with family. Stress about getting into college. Add to that the greater issues adolescents are facing: The ongoing fight against racial injustice, fears about climate change, and uncertainty about what the future holds."
Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa)
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John Evans
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Looking for positive things to say about every student helps teachers develop an asset-based approach to teaching—and helps students lean into their strengths.
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John Evans
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In addition to teaching, educators play a number of vital roles in students’ lives.
They serve as listeners and leaders, counselors and coaches, disciplinarians and disruptors, mediators and motivators, surrogates and soldiers, entertainers and energizers, and advocates and allies. In a typical day of switching among the ever-evolving list of roles, it is typical for educators to experience stress, burnout, guilt, and deviation from their ultimate purpose.
We hope this curation of quotes from the most compelling teachers and educational leaders in the field can serve as a source of inspiration for educators who need an extra boost at the beginning of each day, and a reminder of the reasons why they stepped bravely into the complex, critical role of guiding children from potential to possibility.
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John Evans
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Mistakes are a natural part of learning, but students cannot develop into critical thinkers if they regularly freeze out of the fear of making a mistake. As educators, we can shift the culture of our classrooms to embrace mistakes, and one way to do this is through mistake analysis, one of several powerful but practical strategies I share in my book, Thinking Like a Lawyer: A Practical Framework to Teach Critical Thinking to All Students. As a math-teacher-turned-attorney, I wrote this book and started my organization, thinkLaw, to help educators seamlessly incorporate critical thinking into their curriculum.
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John Evans
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One thing that is important to me is that we, as adults, are modeling the practice of elevating other adults and inspiring them to succeed in meaningful ways. Not only is this beneficial to others, but ourselves. When I do things to help others, it selfishly leads me to have a better feeling about myself. To know that I had a part in amplifying someone’s message or helping them in some way to get to a higher level of success is something that I find satisfying. But it is also modeling something to our students (and children) as well. Why would kids cheer on one another if the adults are not doing the same?
Spread the loveWith technological breakthroughs, we have replaced certain aspects of our society with new tools, all while creating new opportunities for people to take up. While there is undoubtedly much debate as to the ethics of replacing man with machine, there is no denying the usefulness of using technology and devices to enhance our world space. Education is one such sphere of society that we are still trying to enhance with technology. As we have made progress, education and classroom learning have been slow to accept change, but it’s getting there. In fact, with the comparatively small amount of […]
Via NextLearning
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John Evans
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Teachers have long used literature to help students examine their own lives, and that may be more valuable than ever right now.
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John Evans
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AFTER MORE THAN a year of living online, you’d be forgiven if the line between reality and digital life started to get blurry. And the latest viral face-swapping app, Voilà AI Artist, isn’t helping by turning all your friends and loved ones into Pixar-style animated characters, renaissance paintings, and 2D cartoons. If you haven’t already been swept up by the app, here’s what it does and why you might want to be careful using it.
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John Evans
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Young readers learn how to self-direct when they read in pairs, read the same text repeatedly, and use fluency trackers.
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John Evans
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The human brain is constantly changing with every experience and interaction. Although experience-responsive brain growth occurs throughout our lives, and the brain’s most rapid growth occurs during gestation, there’s an intense second period of accelerated growth between ages 2 and 5. The brain responds particularly robustly to learning experiences, environmental influences, and emotional interactions during these childhood years. This is where preschool teachers come in.
These structural changes, reflected in children’s accelerating understanding skills, and in their cognitive, social, and emotional maturation, are the result of neuroplasticity, which is the activation of a group of neurons connected in a memory circuit that makes the connections stronger. That is the amazing process of learning. Neuroplasticity generates these changes in neural networks in response to knowledge and experience, enhanced by each new and repeated activation of the network.
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John Evans
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It is no secret how we retain information, construct new knowledge, and develop competencies critical for success in the world of work and, more importantly, life. Learning is shaped by specific conditions that are either created or engaged in by chance that allow for authentic application through an immersive experience. If there were a secret sauce, then that is it, but it's not as mysterious as one might think. When it comes to classrooms and schools getting students actively involved, it isn't a gimmick. It is a proven way to improve academic outcomes.
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John Evans
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When now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was "accused" of being "too ambitious" on the campaign trail, it spurred her niece, activist and author Meena Harris, into action.
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UPDATED: "Fake news is a big issue right now. News companies are in the pockets of mega-billionaires. Media bias, inaccurate reporting, and sensationalism are on everyone's mind. We are in an age where we don't trust the people reporting the news.
Despite all this, there are still some trustworthy news sources out there. You just have to know where to look."
The weather may be warming up, but this year more than ever, “school’s out for summer” won’t be true for thousands of students across the country.
After more than a year of teaching under quarantine, school districts have big plans for summer learning. It’s a time to bring kids back together in person, try to address at least some academic stagnation due to COVID-19, and maybe most importantly, have fun.
Via EDTECH@UTRGV
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John Evans
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"They say misery loves company, but research shows it also creates it. Being around unhappy people makes us unhappy too—if you didn’t know that was true before the pandemic lockdown, you probably know it now.
The good news is that it also works the other way—being around happy people makes us happy. But how do we make sure the people we interact with every day are happy? It’s actually easier than you think.
One of the quickest ways to boost your own happiness, according to science, is to engage in acts of kindness towards others. "
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John Evans
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Recently, a teacher posted a comment to my blog lamenting that direct instruction consumed much of the class period. Like many, this teacher felt intense pressure to teach the standards and wasn’t sure how to embrace Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and blended learning. This is not unusual. There is often a tension created by the pressure put on teachers to cover content with the student-centered approach to learning described by UDL and blended learning. I understand the pressure teachers feel to cover the standards and move through their curriculum. We can indeed cover more ground when we present information in a traditional lecture format, but that doesn’t mean students understand the information.
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John Evans
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"Don't give up on the year. Use your time left to create something meaningful!"
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A look at common contributors to burnout—and more importantly, the positive strategies teachers can use to fend it off.
TCEA helps Pre-K-16 educators integrate technology solutions in schools. We provide tools and support needed to get the buy-in and results you want.
Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa)
This toolkit will help educators understand and address reactions to physical stress so they can renew their focus on their students.
Via NextLearning
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