Blogging isn’t new. In fact, blogging came on the scene a full decade before my current students were born. But have our students discovered the power of their own blogging? If your students are writing, I challenge you to move that writing to blogs. And if your students aren’t writing, blogging is one way to change that. When students move their work from paper to blogs, they: publish … Continue reading Read > blog > discuss > repeat
The start of a new semester can feel a lot like a do-over, like a chance to start fresh, with the wisdom of the first semester to inform us. But after two long weeks away from the classroom, my students need time to reflect on the previous semester, revisit what they learned, and recharge their academic batteries. Here are some welcome-back, New Year strategies that have … Continue reading Give your students a New Year reboot
I have read some great posts this month about the benefits of being a connected educator: Tom Whitby’s on collaboration, another from Tom featuring six educators’ journeys to connectedness, and Edutopia’s valuable set of resources to help educators become more connected. As I pondered my own journey to being a connected educator, I couldn’t think of much I could add to the discussion. And then I had a day … Continue reading Macbeth & Musical Chairs: The Power of Teachers Connecting
Asking middle school students to write (and share) book recommendations isn’t new. It gives them the opportunity to write about literature they have enjoyed, be inspired to check out books that their peers have loved, and demonstrate their growing reading and writing skills for their teacher. But move those book recommendations to the students’ own blogs, and suddenly they are learning a whole hard drive’s … Continue reading Oh, the skillz they will learn!
Although I have conveniently forgotten most of my student-teaching experiences (oh, the magnitude of what I did not know that I did not know), there is one critical piece of advice that I have tried to heed each year since: on the first day of school, do something that makes the students want to come back on the second day. Our students might be required … Continue reading Hook ’em on day-one
Laura Bradley 