20 Ways to Keep Your Students' Attention
As the end of the year approaches, it can be more and more challenging to keep your students' attention. Brain Breaks are important, but there are plenty of things you can do within a lesson to keep kids from day dreaming...or worse yet, nodding off. Here are some ideas:Desk Switch: Students have ten seconds (count down from ten) to find another desk to sit in that is in a different part of the room than his or her normal desk.
Best Websites for Teaching & Learning 2017
The 2017 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. Gone but Not Forgotten The following sites have closed, reorganized, or become pay-based since being recognized as an AASL Best Website: The Learnia (Digital Storytelling)
Bringing Congress to the Classroom
skip navigation Library of Congress Law Library of Congress Suggestions enabled.
4 Ways to Think Outside the Rectangle with National Geographic Geo-Inquiry
Exploration, adventure, curiosity. Who wouldn’t want to go on expedition with National Geographic? Now you can, by launching a Geo-Inquiry project in your own class. Let’s run through the gear you’ll want to pack for this learning adventure.
20 Ways to Keep Your Students' Attention - Minds in Bloom
If you struggle with making anchor charts, then this post from Sara at Inclusive Insights is for you! minds-in-bloom.com/2016/05/anchor-charts-101-keep-simple-keep-clean.html ... See MoreSee Less Photo
Useful WebQuest Resources
Site menu: Latest news: June 17, 2015: This year marks the 20th anniversary of the WebQuest model. Watch this space for announcements of some new resources coming later this summer! October 22, 2008:WebQuests and Web 2.0? This webinar conducted by the Discovery Education Network features a discussion about how blogs and wikis fit into the WebQuest model.
Social Studies Central
Featured Product: Evidence Analysis Window Frame We often ask students to analyze evidence and to think historically. But these are skills that often need scaffolding. So we’ve printed historical thinking questions along the edges of heavy duty plastic sheets that your students place on top of photos, documents, maps, political cartoons, and other pieces of evidence. Kids then use dry erase or overhead pens to connect historical thinking questions with evidence found in the document. This Evidence Analysis Window Frame combines critical thinking with a visual, tactile activity that is great for encouraging historical thinking, developing analysis abilities, and supporting literacy skills.
Best A Wrinkle in Time Activities for the Classroom
Are you just as excited as we are for the A Wrinkle in Time movie release? So many of us have loved and taught this book for decades that it’s beyond thrilling for us to see it finally come to the big screen. In celebration, we’re sharing some of our favorite A Wrinkle in Time activities for the classroom. Be sure to check out our Follett Collection for additional A Wrinkle in Time resources, discussion questions, videos, activity ideas, and more! 1.
Arts Integration Lesson: Historical Figures Mashup
Who doesn’t love a good mashup? From Madonna to Zombies, mashups are a way into pop culture and lead to big opportunities for creative expression. In today’s free high school arts integration lesson, we’re using those mashups to help connect social studies, literature and media arts in a brand new way.
Smart Strategies for Student Success
Even students who’ve had years of active involvement in learning activities don’t automatically use strategies that best foster learning. However, working smarter through the use of specific success strategies can have a profound influence on learning outcomes. In this article, we share practical strategies teachers can use with students to help them learn smarter and with greater independence. Explain It to Your Brain One creative way for teachers to help to get students engaged in the process of developing effective learning strategies is to apply a metaphor we call “explain it to your brain.” Students who use self-explanation tell themselves what they are thinking and doing when learning.
National Archives: Teaching With Documents
When we ask students to work with and learn from primary sources, we transform them into historians. Rather than passively receiving information from a teacher or textbook, students engage in the activities of historians — making sense of the stories, events and ideas of the past through document analysis. Document Analysis Document analysis is the first step in working with primary sources.
Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say?
Many educators have had the experience of not being able to reach some students until presenting the information in a completely different way or providing new options for student expression. Perhaps it was a student who struggled with writing until the teacher provided the option to create a graphic story, which blossomed into a beautiful and complex narrative. Or maybe it was a student who just couldn't seem to grasp fractions, until he created them by separating oranges into slices. Because of these kinds of experiences, the theory of multiple intelligences resonates with many educators. It supports what we all know to be true: A one-size-fits-all approach to education will invariably leave some students behind.
