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A few weeks back, the language arts teacher on my sixth grade team and I whipped up an enrichment activity for our top performing students.
Called 60 Second Book Hooks, we've asked our students to generate short, persuasive metaphorical reviews of the books that they are reading.
The rules are pretty simple: Students have to compare the books that they are reading to unlike concepts, ideas or items. Both supportive and critical reviews are encouraged.
Our thinking was that 60 Second Book Hooks would require the same kinds of higher-end thinking that we are trying to encourage in...
I don't have a ton of time to write tonight, but I wanted to fill you in on something I'm planning on rolling out on my academic team in the next few months.
We do a daily sustained silent reading period----30 minutes that rotates from classroom to classroom depending on the day---and we love it. Our kids fall into a comfortable routine over the course of the year and develop a reading-for-pleasure vibe that is just plain cool.
Having fallen madly in love with my feed reader several years ago---who COULDN'T get behind a digital tool that automatically checks my favorite websites for new content every day and brings updates to one homepage for me---I decided to put together a collection of interesting...
By Susan Graham
Susan Graham, a National Board Certified Teacher and Teacher Leaders Network member, retired in spring 2011 after 28 years in the classroom. However, she continues to encourage innovative reforms in teaching and learning, and is currently serving as a Virtual Community Organizer for CTQ’s new Implementing Common Core Standards project.
...
By Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello
One of the most exciting parts about working with expert teacher leaders is seeing their hard work and expertise appreciated. The Denver NMI team’s positive contribution to shaping and implementing teaching policies in Colorado attests to the importance of teacher voice in the policymaking process. I’ve asked two members of the Denver NMI team, Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello, to share some of their recent involvement with the state legislation process. Jessica also spoke about her involvement during a special Rocky Mountain PBS roundtable held last Friday, where she represented her team with solutions-focused...
An interesting email landed in my inbox this week from a private school teacher—we’ll call him Jim—who attended one of my sessions at this summer’s Solution Tree PLC Institutes.
Jim wrote:
One of the main messages I picked up on [at the Institute] was that you need to have the school schedule designed in such a way so that teachers have time to collaborate with one another in order to do this right.
Collaboration couldn't be something extra you did before or after school. My principal seemed to be on board with that while at the conference.
Well...things have changed…In our meeting yesterday, our principal mentioned that we probably wouldn't be able to alter the schedule for...
How do you feel during the first few days of returning to school each Fall? This year, as I attended the opening faculty meeting at my school, I felt just as overwhelmed as I did in 1987—the year when I started teaching in a public school. Our faculty has so much to learn as the school year begins!
I’ve been teaching drama and TV production at my middle school for the past six years, but this year, I am teaching U.S. History, which means that my lesson planning has a greater focus on using standards to drive my instruction. Our school district, like many others in the nation, is working with the new Common Core Standards....
You can't really be in charge if you don't see what happens. In our ideal...
I haven't hidden the fact that I was a HUGE fan of Google's Wonder Wheel---a quirky feature hidden under the More Search Tools link that took broad topics and broke them down into visual webs highlighting related subtopics for researchers.
In fact, I dedicated an entire section of my tech book---Teaching the iGeneration---to the tool, figuring that it was SO good, Google would never get rid of it.
And then they got rid of it.
#justmyluck
Understanding that breaking broad topics into more manageable and meaningful subcategories while...
Jose,
I think your post really gets at just the tip of my 
frustration. If my colleague weren’t mentoring a first year teacher in best practices, I might not have had a problem with the absent lesson plan book as long as she had a plan. But, the thing is, it was more a matter of ownership of her practice, like you mentioned, than disorganization. She was using plans from 3 or 4...
Mr. Schue from Glee, Wondering If Your Lesson Plan's Got Soul
Hey John,
I remember a few weeks ago when you were upset that a colleague of yours didn’t have their lesson plan book. I winced because, as it turns out, I didn’t even know we had to have one of those things. I played it...
Blogs
The Implementing Common Core Standards (ICCS) team blogs about best practices for integrating common core standards into the classroom.
The TeacherSolutions 2030 team blogs about improving the teaching profession between now and the year 2030.
Megan M. Allen is a National Board Certified Teacher and the 2010 Florida Teacher of the Year. She is a proud fifth-grade teacher in Tampa and a 2012-13 CTQ teacherpreneur.
Barnett Berry is the Founder and President of the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), Inc., based in Carrboro, NC. CTQ seeks to dramatically improve student learning by advancing teaching as a 21st-century, results-oriented profession. He wrote TEACHING 2030 with 12 accomplished teachers.
Dan Brown is a teacher and the author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. His writing has also appeared in The Boston Globe, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, and Education Week. He is a co-author of TEACHING 2030.
Jessica Cuthbertson is a teacherpreneur who divides her time between teaching 6th-grade literacy in Aurora, CO, and supporting teacher leadership through the Denver New Millennium Initiative.
Bill Ferriter teaches 6th grade language arts in North Carolina, where he was named a Regional Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006.
John Holland is an artist, a teacher, a writer, and an innovator. After 12 years as a preschool teacher, John began working at Early Head Start/Head Start Program as a child development specialist. He is a co-author of TEACHING 2030.
Jessica Keigan is a secondary language arts teacher at Horizon High School in Thornton, CO, and a teacher leader for the Denver New Millennium Initiative.
Ryan Kinser is a 6th grade English teacher in Hillsborough County, Florida. After a career in television production, Ryan taught in urban Washington as a D.C. Teaching Fellow. He is a member of the Hillsborough New Millennium Initiative.
Renee Moore has taught English and journalism for 20 years in the Mississippi Delta region at both high school and community college levels. She is National Board Certified, a former state Teacher of the Year, and a co-author of TEACHING 2030.
Dave Orphal is a teacher in Oakland, CA. Dave serves as a veteran teacher leader for the Bay Area New Millennium Initiative and works with the California Teachers Association's Institute for Teaching.
Ariel Sacks teaches eighth grade English at a middle school in Brooklyn, NY. She has published articles about her work in Teacher Magazine and is a co-author of TEACHING 2030.
Mark Sass has taught public high school for 18 years and has been involved in various leadership positions and policy discussions in Colorado. Mark is a member of the inaugural Aspen Teacher Leader Fellows.
In addition to our regular transformED bloggers, we frequently feature guest posts written by teachers involved in CTQ communities. We welcome teachers to share their reflections and expertise on transformED.
Jose Vilson is a math teacher, coach, and data analyst for a middle school in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. He is a co-author of TEACHING 2030.
Noah Zeichner is a National Board Certified Teacher in Seattle. He currently serves in a hybrid teaching role, dividing his time between teaching social studies and supporting CTQ's global teacher leadership initiatives.
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