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When I Call Your Name … Encouraging Students to Do Their Homework

When I Call Your Name … Encouraging Students to Do Their Homework

The element of surprise can go a long way in the classroom.

"We had homework?" I cringed every time I heard that question as students entered my classroom that first year. Even today, I view homework as a somewhat controversial topic: Is it beneficial? Do students...
Author: Emily Deforest
Number of views (13787)/Comments (1)/
Topics: Teaching
Tags: Homework
Getting Students Excited About College

Getting Students Excited About College

Middle school is not too early to encourage students to dream big.

College is a place where students’ minds grow and flourish and where they see the wide range of possibilities before them. However, some students never have the opportunity or the interest in pursuing all that...
Author: Brian Cook, Jolene South
Number of views (14652)/Comments (0)/
Topics: Teaching
Tags: College Readiness
Ensuring Valid, Effective, Rigorous Assessments

Ensuring Valid, Effective, Rigorous Assessments

How can you ensure your assessments provide accurate feedback?

What's the best way to assess students' learning? During the past several years, we have developed a process that help us ensure we are using valid, effective, and rigorous assessments with our students—a...
Author: Nimisha H. Patel, David L. Herick
Number of views (28286)/Comments (0)/
Topics: Assessment
Tags: FormativeSummativeStandards-based Grading

How can I offer language support to the English Language Learners in my classroom if I don't speak their native language?

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to support ELL students’ language acquisition by adapting strategies already in use. These small things may make a big difference to ELLs. Here are a few ideas. 1. Create...
Author: Kristina Robertson
Number of views (5698)/Comments (0)/
Topics: ELL/ESL/ESOL
Tags:
Anxiety in the Classroom—Another Learning Disability?

Anxiety in the Classroom—Another Learning Disability?

Anxiety is the most prevalent mental health crisis facing Americans. Eight percent of teens are diagnosed, though countless more suffer symptoms. Few seek help. Teachers are on the front lines wondering how to help...
Author: Paula Prentis, LMSW
Number of views (10587)/Comments (2)/
Topics: Teaching
Tags: Mental Health
What Have Rubrics Got To Do With It?

What Have Rubrics Got To Do With It?

It's time to put your traditional rubrics aside and change the way students learn.

In today's assessment-focused education system, we must change the ways we assess students. Our focus should be on changing our classrooms into environments that are focused on learning with support from teacher...
Author: April Zawlocki
Number of views (16905)/Comments (0)/
Topics: AssessmentTeaching
Tags: GradesStandards-based Grading
Transporting Historical Figures from Past to Present

Transporting Historical Figures from Past to Present

Perspective-writing activities bring "a bunch of dead guys" to life.

To young adolescents, historical figures are a bunch of dead guys. Many students believe the issues, values, and perspectives of the people from the past hold no relevance to their lives in the 21st century. However,...
Author: Jeremiah Clabough, Nefertari Yancie
Number of views (11975)/Comments (0)/
Topics: Teaching
Tags: Social StudiesWriting
PG-13 and Then Some!

PG-13 and Then Some!

How are middle grades educators supposed to act outside school?

As a middle level educator (since prehistoric times), I am sometimes immune to the many behaviors, antics, and attitudes of early adolescents—those behaviors often interpreted by others as inappropriate,...
Author: Sandy Cameli
Number of views (3534)/Comments (0)/
Topics: Teaching
Tags:

Middle School, not Junior High

We are a middle school, not a junior version of high school. To be effective in our teaching, we are developmentally appropriate for young adolescents, not for 16- to 18-year-olds nor for 8- and 9-year-olds. There is...
Author: Rick Wormeli
Number of views (29697)/Comments (0)/
Topics: Middle School ConceptYoung Adolescent Development
Tags: Rick Wormeli
Understanding Assessment Changes Everything

Understanding Assessment Changes Everything

A commitment to understanding assessment for learning changed this school's culture.

Much of today's conversations around assessment include discussions about standards-based grading. Missing from this dialogue have been anecdotes about schools that have successfully made the transition from...
Author: Elizabeth Hancock, Lindsay Kilgore, Andrew Maxey
Number of views (14199)/Comments (0)/
Topics: Assessment
Tags: Standards-based Grading
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