In January 2013, educators in Ohio’s Mentor Public Schools decided to align the district’s academic focus to the instructional practices of blended learning. After extensive piloting of a variety of devices, the district chose the iPad for its durability, battery life and, most important, its power to transform instruction. The district embraced a 1:1 structure
Weekly reflections guide teaching and learning. Reflect is what educators do. College professors give value to reflecting on pedagogical practice. Administrators expect us to reflect on our practice in instructional evaluations. Inservice instructors ask us to reflect on what we learned from each training session. As teachers reflecting on ways to enhance our daily instruction,
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Cultivating, building, and sustaining relationships is not guaranteed in all learning environments; however, just as we help students develop cooperative and communication skills, we can adopt and hone collaborative practices that will enhance our personal and professional lives and those of our colleagues. Here are some simple but inclusive strategies for establishing relationships around campus:
Colleges and employers emphasize the importance of core skills. Standards writers, curriculum designers, and classroom teachers have spent the past several years clamoring to find ways to revitalize curriculum and instruction and increase rigor in ways that prepare students for life after school. We all agree that students need an education that prepares them for
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An old-fashioned radio broadcast encourages deeper reading. Connections between students, connections between texts and students, and connections between texts and the real world are vital to student learning. In classrooms, one way to make connections is by linking people, ideas, behaviors, and activities through projects. My first experience teaching in a classroom was when I
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Speed date a book? Let students give it a try! Although it’s been said that all learning should come from the teacher, sometimes it’s the students who do the teaching. In my second year of teaching, Chad, an eighth grade student, taught me my first lesson. Under a district mandatory reading program, all students, regardless
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