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The Cornerstone

The Cornerstone
My name is Angela Watson (formerly Powell), and I was a classroom teacher for 11 years: five in the Washington, D.C., area and then six years in South Florida. I started this website in 2003 at mspowell.com and called it Ms. Powell’s Management Ideas for Teachers because I wanted to share ideas around the practical aspects of running a classroom. Since that time, both the site and my work as an educator have evolved in many different ways, but I’m still focused on my passion for creating resources that make teaching more effective, efficient, and enjoyable. The original design and title for this site ten years ago. Currently I’m an Educational Consultant based in New York City.

http://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/

Top 10 Ways to Wake-up Students in Class - SimpleK12 The following is a guest post from Michelle Doman, a 7th and 8th grade Language Arts teacher at Brandon Middle School in Wisconsin. Top 10 Ways to Wake-up Students in Class Many people get a little squeamish, wiggly, and offer a scrunched expression when I respond to the question, “What grades do you teach?” I teach middle school, and with heart and honesty, I find great joys (and challenges) in teaching the group referred to as “tweens” and adolescents. A Turn to Learn: September 2012 This idea is actually a gem that one of my students thought of a few years ago! One of my classes' favorite YouTube videos was this one... "If You're a Boy" from Harry Kindergarten.

Kelso's Choice - Conflict Management System “When exploring this kit, students gained skills with problem solving, positive choices, identifying feelings, comprehension, listening, direction following, and reading.” - Teacher’s Choice Award 2012 Telly Award Winner2011 Omni Award Winner★★★1/2 out of 4 by Video Librarian 2013 Communicator Award of Distinction This conflict-management curriculum for elementary students based on the premise that every child is capable of becoming a peacemaker. Designed around Kelso the Frog, this program offers nine options students can choose from to resolve minor conflicts on their own. Students will be able to determine the difference between minor problems they can handle and serious problems that require an adult’s help.

Guidelines for Online Teaching Success Years ago at a faculty meeting Larry Ragan, PhD, director of Faculty Development for Penn State’s World Campus, was trying to soft-sell the idea of performance expectations for online faculty. He didn’t want the discussion to be misinterpreted as an indictment against their teaching style, but he also saw an opportunity to share proven practices for improving the online teaching and learning experience. Finally a senior faculty member grew tired of the tip-toeing around the subject and said, “If you don’t tell us what is expected, how will we know what to do to succeed?” The faculty member’s point was well taken, and over the years Ragan and others on various committees at Penn State have worked to define:

Best 20 Sites to Download eBooks 20 Sites to Download Free eBooks for your Digital Library With all the technology around these days, we don’t need a tree to make a book. Scholastic survey of 2014 shows that 61% of school kids in the USA read digital books vs. 25% in 2010. Print books, CDs, Blu-ray discs are going to the past. Now we can download eBooks onto our Kindles, iPads, iPod, phones, laptops… the list is endless. Here’s a useful collection of sites for getting free eBooks (yes, free!) The Ten Commandments of Effective Classroom Management The Ten Commandments of Effective Classroom Management By William Shoap closeAuthor: William Shoap Name: William ShoapSite: See Authors Posts (1)

Blog I am grateful for… With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I am taking some time to reflect on just how very fortunate I am. Since becoming a connected educator in 2011, my learning world has expanded beyond my expectations and then some. I know that many of the successes our school is experiencing would not have been realized without this support.

Tips for Engaging Parents this School Year It’s that time again for many of us worldwide to start the new school year! This time of year is very exciting, but also comes with new challenges. One of the most important challenges of the school year is how to engage parents. Larry Ferlazzo, author of Building Parent Engagement in Schools, points out that while many schools involve parents they rarely engage parents. According to Larry Ferlazzo, engaged parents are those that enter into partnerships with teachers and school staff to provide the best learning environment for children.

Top 10 FREE Plagiarism Detection Tools for Teachers - eLearning Industry Editor's note: We have originally written and published this article in November 2013. Thanks to your useful suggestions and our own following of the latest developments in the fast paced field of technology, we have updated this piece in October 2015 in the hope that you will keep finding it useful. Thank you for sharing! The act of taking someone else’s ideas and passing them off as your own defines the concept of “plagiarism”. As it is shown by the growing educational concerns, plagiarism has now become an integral part of our digital lives as technology, with the billions of information it gives us access to, led to the exacerbation of this phenomenon. Are you still undecided about whether or not plagiarism checkers are really necessary in eLearning?

Scoring Rubric: Business Letter/Memo Printable (6th - 12th Grade) Hanukkah Celebrate the Festival of Lights in your classroom! Hanukkah begins at sundown December 6. December Calendar of Events December is full of events that you can incorporate into your standard curriculum. Understanding Rubrics by Heidi Goodrich Andrade Understanding Rubrics by Heidi Goodrich Andrade Authentic assessments tend to use rubrics to describe student achievement. At last, here’s clarity on the term. Every time I introduce rubrics to a group of teachers the reaction is the same — instant appeal (“Yes, this is what I need!”) followed closely by panic (“Good grief, how can I be expected to develop a rubric for everything?”).

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