If You Havent Got Anything Nice To Say He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary's School in Morris, Minn. All 34 of my students were dear to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance, but had that happy-to-be-alive attitude that made even his occasional mischievousness delightful. I didn't know what to make of it at first, but before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day One morning my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once too often, and then I made a novice-teacher's mistake. I remember the scene as if it had occurred this morning. At the end of the year I was asked to teach junior-high math. One Friday, things just didn't feel right. That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said about that individual. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. Several years later, after I returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. - Sister Helen P.
13 Wiki Tools Teachers should Know about Wikis are great learning and teaching tools. They have some distinctive features that you cannot find elsewhere particularly the collaborative feature they provide to its users. Several teachers from all around the globe embrace wikis in their classrooms and use them to create a student friendly environment where to enhance what is being taught in the classroom. If you are not yet familiar with how to use wikis in education or you want to learn more about how to integrate them into your lessons , here are some interesting posts to start with : Today we are providing you with a list of different wiki platforms. We did not include Wikipedia because it is taken for granted that everybody knows about it . This is an online project to add videos to Wikipedia articles. This is a great platform for teachers and students. Wiki Summarizer is a great application for educators. Wikihood also uses Google Map services allowing users to geolocalise what they search for.
How to teach … photography | Teacher Network Students of all ages are fascinated by taking photos – and, now photography has gone digital, it is easy and cheap to get your students snapping. The Guardian Teacher Network has resources to help schools harness the potential of photography and use it as a really powerful cross-curricular tool. Thanks to PhotoVoice, a participatory photography charity that runs projects in 23 countries, for sharing its resources. The charity was set up to provide people, especially young people, with a way of expressing themselves through photography. A great start is PhotoVoice's introduction to composition, which introduces key concepts in composition of photos and will help students to make decisions about how they frame and represent subjects. This photo treasure hunt is a simple and accessible way to introduce creative exploration of an environment or subject with digital photographs. Photography is an accessible way to look at a multitude of issues in the classroom.
Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them In the Evolution vs. Creationism debate, it is important to be able to spot all the logical fallacies that Creationists tend to throw around. This essay covers many bare essentials of logical thinking, as well as ways to critically evaluate an argument. The logical fallacies listed here are the ones most often used by Creationists, although Creationists have, to date, used almost every single logical fallacy in existence to "prove" their case. Each fallacy will have its own little paragraph, describing it, why it is fallacious and how to counter it. THE STRAWMAN ATTACK: The strawman is, perhaps, the most heavily-employed tactic used by Creationists. "Evolution is a ridiculous theory! This is an example of a strawman attack. Spotting a strawman attack isn't that hard. Strawman attacks, once exposed for what they are, are not all that difficult to counter. THE FALSE DILEMMA FALLACY: The false dilemma is at the heart of the Creationist argument.
Collaborize Classroom - Online Education Technology for Teachers and Students 50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom. Social Learning These tools use the power of social media to help students learn and teachers connect. Learning Lesson Planning and Tools Useful Tools
How to teach … philosophy | Teacher Network In testing times such as these, is there really space in the timetable to teach philosophy? The great German philosopher Hegel (1770-1831) said: "Education to independence demands that young people should be accustomed early to consult their own sense of propriety and their own reason. To regard study as mere receptivity and memory work is to have a most incomplete view of what instruction means." Perhaps Michael Gove wouldn't agree, but for those who are interested the Guardian Teacher Network has resources to help young people think about philosophical questions and come to some coherent conclusions – and there is some evidence to indicate a powerful knock-on effect on student achievement in other subjects, not to mention the capacity to reflect on life choices. We start with an educational movement Philosophy for Children (P4C). And now a couple of ideas for using popular picture books that teachers are likely to have in class as a way into a bit of deeper thinking.
Becoming a Flexible Reader - Study Skills To become a flexible reader, you need to know how to select and use a reading style that is consistent with your purpose for reading. There are three important reading styles you should learn to use. Each has its own purpose. Knowing when and how to use these three reading styles will make you a flexible reader. Read to learn about the three reading styles used by flexible readers. Study Reading is the reading style used by flexible readers when their purpose is to read difficult material at a high level of comprehension. Skimming is the reading style used by flexible readers when their purpose is to quickly obtain a general idea about the reading material. Scanning is the reading style used by flexible readers when their purpose is to quickly locate a specific piece of information within reading material. Before you begin your next reading assignment, identify your purpose for reading.
The 5 E Learning Cycle Model Priming the Pump: Peter Elbow's prompts to help students explore topics, objects, places, issues Questions to help a student write about someone s/he has studied or read about: · Describe _ as an ordinary person. · What was/is special or unique about _ ? · Imagine _ were the opposite sex: describe the life s/he would have lived. · What if _ had lived in a different era, such as _ : describe the life s/he would have lived. · Make up or guess what might have been an important event in _'s childhood. · Create a soap opera plot with _ in it. · What does _ most need to cry about? · What should _ be most appreciated for? · What would _'s mother or father say about _ ? · What would _ be likely to dream about? Questions to help a student write about someone's life as a whole: · What about _'s life remained unchanged? · Describe _'s life and character as determined by important changes or turning points. · Imagine you believe people are truly free and that they somehow choose or cause what happens to them.
Free Art Teaching Resources This page contains some useful resources and links to help teachers in their art teaching. You will basically be directed to websites where you can find art materials, videos, printables, worksheets, activities, games, and many other teaching ideas that are art informed. 1- Songs for Teaching Creative teachers can use music to teach content across the curriculum – to students of all ages. This website offers thousands of children's songs, lyrics, sound clips and teaching suggestions. 2- Art Smart This is a great website full of art resources that aim at engaging students in the creative process through artistic inquiry into topics that span many different subject areas of the curriculum. 3- Federal Resources for Educational Excellence FREE is a platform that is sponsored by the American government and that has over 1.500 federally supported teaching and learning resources collected from dozens of federal agencies. 4- Canon 5- Teaching Ideas 6- Teacher Vision Art Resources