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Lesson Plans
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Assessment: Turning a Blunt Instrument Into a Powerful Learning Tool It’s ironic that assessment in schools is most often “something adults do to students,” as Rick Stiggins puts it, because all humans are highly evolved for learning, and self-assessment is a powerful tool all learners use. Whether you are trying to master a recipe, solve an equation, improve your golf swing, you continually ask yourself questions such as “Have I learned to do what I need to do?” “What did I do wrong?” Wouldn’t it be great if schools didn’t turn a finely honed learning skill that all students master to some degree (if they can read and write, for example) into a blunt instrument for institutional measurement that clearly hasn’t been working? Although my pedagogy has moved more and more toward empowering learners to take responsibility for their own learning, assessment in my courses has not heretofore strayed from comment feedback in students’ reflective blogs and in traditional grading methods. “It won’t count on your final grade at all.” Shareski trains teachers.

Doing it Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary Every Monday my seventh grade English teacher would have us copy a list of 25 words she'd written on the board. We'd then look up the dictionary definitions and copy those down. For homework, we'd re-write each word seven times. Good, now you know it. Copying definitions from the dictionary we would probably all agree is not an effective way to learn vocabulary. The truth is, and the research shows, students need multiple and various exposures to a word before they fully understand that word and can apply it. Selecting Words Ah, so many words, so little time. My first year teaching, before my tenth graders began reading Lord of the Flies, I went through every chapter and made lists of all the vocabulary words I thought they'd have trouble with, so that I could pre-teach them. When I looked at those long lists, I began to freak out. Then, here's what to do after the students pick their own words: Read through them all and use the results as a formative assessment. Ranking Words The Rationale

Worksheets, Lesson Plans, Teacher Resources, and Rubrics from TeAch-nology.com Should Kids Pick Their Own Punishments? - Room for Debate Let Them Choose Their Fate Bruce Feiler 5:32 PM KJ, I don’t know about you, but my wife and I have different approaches to raising children. I tend toward the more controlling; she tends toward the more forgiving. When I started working on “The Secrets of Happy Families” a few years ago, I stumbled on a novel solution that seemed strange at first but that has transformed our lives. We let our kids help pick their own rewards and punishments. Far from being lax, our girls turn out to be little Stalins. But hear me out. We now hold a 20-minute family meeting every Sunday in which we discuss what went well in our family this week, what didn’t go well and what two things we will work on. I’m Not Ready to Give Up My Control KJ Dell'Antonia 5:32 PM Would it work? I want my children to be just a little afraid of what I might do if they really mess up. Shouldn’t We Prepare Them for Independence? Oh, I have no doubt my children are just a little afraid of me. Take overreacting.

Super Teacher Worksheets Shery Sandberg Says, 'Lean In,' But Is That Really the Way to Lead? - Room for Debate André da Loba In her book “Lean In,” the Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg tells women they need to jettison many traditionally female habits to get ahead — to act, in certain ways, more like men. But what if men were more like women? Sandberg notes that, even early in life, women tend to be less driven and less determined to be a boss than men. Read the Discussion » Welcome Browse Resources Verizon Foundation proudly partners with some of the country’s top educational organizations to provide you with the latest topics, tools and trends in education. Created by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ARTSEDGE provides resources and examples for teachers to teach in, through and about the arts. The site includes lesson plans, advocacy and professional development resources, and up-to-date information on arts programs from around the world. Visit ARTSEDGE Developed by the Council for Economic Education, EconEdLink provides teachers and students with lessons and classroom learning activities based on economics topics in the news and real-time economics data. Visit EconEdLink Presented by the National Endowment for the Humanities, EDSITEment features lesson plans and additional classroom resources about art and culture, literature and language arts, foreign language, history and social studies. Visit EDSITEment Visit Illuminations Visit ReadWriteThink

Critical Reading Practices Details Hits: 5198 "Identifying a Conversation" was written by Jason Carabelli An important part of research writing (and many other kinds of writing) is identifying when sources are “speaking” to each other. Many Speakers and Conversations When writers mention “conversations” and sources “speaking” to one another, they are referring to the ways that many voices shape how communities see a topic. For example, if you were interested in writing a paper about workplace inequalities between men and women, you would have many different speakers and conversations to look at. Putting It All Together Sometimes your role as a researcher is to figure out when and how sources seem to be dealing with the same thing, and decide how that changes what you know about the topic. There are many ways to put sources together to make a conversation. It is important to remember that some authors have already put themselves into conversation with other sources, and some have not.

45 ways to avoid using the word 'very' Writers Write is your one-stop resource for writers. Use these 45 ways to avoid using the word ‘very’ to improve your writing. Good writers avoid peppering their writing with qualifiers like ‘very’ and ‘really’. They are known as padding or filler words and generally add little to your writing. According to Collins Dictionary: ‘Padding is unnecessary words or information used to make a piece of writing or a speech longer. Synonyms include: waffle, hot air, verbiage, wordiness.’ Adding modifiers, qualifiers, and unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, weakens your writing. This post gives you 45 ways to avoid using the padding word ‘very’. Three Telling Quotes About ‘Very’ “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. If you enjoyed this, you will love: Top Tip: If you want to learn how to write a book, sign up for our online course. by Amanda Patterson © Amanda Patterson

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