Tag: Student Motivation

Tinkering to Learn: A Reflection on a Promising Practice

Providing students with opportunities to explore, wonder, and discover. Mini-Course Day As I began teaching a thoughtfully designed lesson on conductors and insulators, I was met with blank stares and compliant students, patiently waiting me out. If they weren’t such compliant young people, they might have said, “Really, is this necessary? Can we start learning

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Helping Students Become a Better Version of Themselves

As a family and consumer science teacher at the middle school level, the Lead2Feed Student Leadership Program lessons seem to blend seamlessly into my curriculum. Some of the major units of family and consumer science are interpersonal relationships, leadership, community connections, resource management, and global citizenship. The Lead2Feed lessons connect to each of these units on multiple

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Making Meaning with Films

Films can—and should—be more than time-killers in your classroom. We all know the stereotypical image of the teacher who, tired of direct instruction, dims the lights, turns on the DVD player, and sits quietly while students stare at the screen. The problem here is not that students are watching a film in class—it’s that the

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Set High Standards for Your Students and for Your Lessons

How your teaching philosophy can guide inspiration and creativity in the classroom One of my first mini-lessons in my fifth-grade language arts and social studies class is to have my students write a six-word memoir. For this assignment, students have only six words to share the most important thing about themselves. I write my own

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