"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." – Victor Borge In my first year of teaching, I taught kindergarten. There are moments from that year that parallel later moments teaching middle...

One of my favorite days of the year is when I give students their first independent reading assignment. I believe the best way to keep the love of reading alive is for students to read what they love and share their...

The eighth-grade girl approached Tom Adams in the cafeteria. "Dylan just asked out Samantha as a joke," she said. "Now he's laughing about it with his friends, and Samantha is sitting at our table crying." Adams, the...

Much of the writing we assign our students is public writing—writing to communicate with others. Writing-to-learn is personal writing, writing that helps students increase comprehension of texts—fiction...

iGen, a term used by generational researcher Jean M. Twenge (2017), is used to describe children born between 1995 and 2012. In her book, Twenge analyzed large data sets to understand the struggles and hopes of this...

Reading and writing are powerful learning tools that can be used effectively in the math classroom to draw connections between mathematics and its application to the other school disciplines and the real world....

It's Monday morning. You're refreshed after a weekend spent with your family, your favorite fuzzy socks, and an unashamedly impressive amount of streaming content. You're excited about your lesson plans. You've...

As a mathematics teacher I have often struggled to help my students feel inspired and motivated to do mathematics. Some students are unmotivated because traditionally they have not been successful in mathematics. This...

In my first year of teaching, I was actively looking for new ways to renew my students' excitement for learning. My search led me to Google's 20% Time initiative, where employees are given 20% of their working time to...

I'm an 80s kid. I was born in 1977 and spent the bulk of my childhood in the greatest decade ever. I wore knee high striped socks with my short shorts. I listened to Michael Jackson, Tiffany, and Guns and Roses. My...