21stcenturyskills. Participatory. The Best New Children's Books from Esme's Shelf: THE B. Why should I subject students to negative experiences now in order to prepare them for negative experiences later? I just don't think mindless work is what I should be grooming them for. I grow weary of hearing teachers say, 'We have to get them ready for seventh grade, or high school, or college.' The Book Whisperer. High Tech Reflection Strategies Make Learning Stick. Share to Learn: Teacher George Mayo helps students Fernando, Binyam, and Johana edit their blog posts before publishing them.
In their blogs, the students record podcasts and write about a novel they read. When he started teaching middle school five years ago, George Mayo immediately began using blog posts to teach writing because he knew that there are myriad benefits to using the technology. Chief among them, Mayo says, is that blogs "naturally put an emphasis on reflection. " At his Maryland middle school, Mayo asks his students -- many of whom struggle with reading and writing -- to create at least one blog post a week. The real reason Americans don't read.