Latest Articles

I sat with my youngest son during what was supposed to be a student-led conference. I have been through these before when my son was in fourth and then fifth grade, so I knew what to expect. The teachers have the students practice during the school day what they’re going to cover with the parents during the conference. Students select work samples that show how they are doing in each subject, along with tests, and goal sheets that they’ve written for themselves. These items are placed in a binder, and then the child goes through each one explaining to the parent what it is and why he chose it. Now that my son was in sixth grade, I expected more of the same; however, what really happened disturbed me to my very core. After my son covered his part, and I saw that his scores were good (students don’t receive letter grades in this school) Mrs. Judd (all names are pseudonyms) stared at Caleb, my son, and started to confront him with personal issues. She moved in physically close to him, up ...

Teamwork
The configuration of today’s work environment calls for people to work more collaboratively than ever before. Similar to how a sports team works together for the common good of the entire team and not just for any one individual. Sports teams typically practice working together on a daily basis that can span over the years. They get to know each other during seasons of individual health, sickness, sadness, happiness, rough times and joyful times. They become very aware of each other’s personality traits along with each person’s strengths and weaknesses. Increasingly, job situations are requiring people to work together more like a sports team; however, most people are not born with a collaborative nature; therefore, it is up to elementary teachers to help build these team-building characteristics and perspectives with their students.
In working with elementary students, it’s best to begin team-building skills in small, incremental steps. A very effective literacy strategy to ...

For the purpose of this article, integrating writing and differentiation into your classroom, I have designed techniques that meet most writing needs most of the time. Teaching writing and differentiation fluctuate with the student and the assignment, the moment and the timing, but the information that follows provides some insight for you.
Differentiation focuses on what students need to know and be able to do
Just as it focuses on what students already know and are able to do. Differentiation also recognizes that there may be gaps in past learning and so materials and techniques are combined to fill those gaps. Think of this as rebar and cement re-enforcement, not sand and a dab of paste. Differentiation accepts that some students already know what they need to know and be able to do at their current level of education and then creates scaffolding, challenges, and adventures to let that learning soar while also accepting that students learn at different paces and that sometimes "One ...

Churches (2007)'s intellectual and timely revision of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy is a consequence of evolving varied areas of instructions dictated by fast changing times. This contemporary taxonomy pursues to elevate the order thinking skills that every learner should acquire. With the proliferation of emerging technology and media intervening with pedagogy, changes are yielded paving educators' innovative perceptions to flourish. These variations enabled the alliance of media and technological tools in pedagogy to form common goals for the viability of knowledge absorption. Because of these two factors' inseparable interconnections, technological fruition is media proliferation; both are adopted as teaching tool-kits. As a favorable result, traditional learning is systematically being replaced by 21st century methods and strategies in formal and non-formal classrooms as a manifestation of advocacy among educators worldwide.
Benjamin S. Bloom's (1956) Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain which ...

It seems as though I get an email asking that question in an email almost every week. The answer is a 'qualified' yes... for now. More and more countries are not granting work/teaching visas to anyone unless they have a degree. Some countries are more bureaucratic than others. Here is an example:
In Thailand, where I taught for 14 years, three ministries are involved in the process: Education, Immigration and Labour. You can't teach officially without all of their stamps of approval. Let's say you receive a job offer from a school in Thailand. What you then do is go to the nearest Thai embassy or consulate and get 3-month Non-Immigrant B visa. The 'B' allows you to travel to Thailand and work while your documents are being verified and processed. You also have to get a letter from your local police department stating that you are a good person and not on anybody's wanted list. Once you get to Thailand, your school should be able to do most of the legwork for you... if you are to be ...

List Poetry
Many teachers shy away from teaching poetry. They mistakenly think that everything has to rhyme, contain deep meaning, or follow a complicated formula; however, poetry can take many, uncomplicated forms with one such form being List Poetry. List Poems are simply lists of words or phrases that are all related to an overall topic, so it’s the topic or main idea that connects them together. They don’t have to rhyme, although they can, if that’s what you want.
If students have very little experience with poetry, a great strategy to start with is Magnetic Poems (adapted from Gillespie, 2010), which incorporates the elements of List Poetry. In addition to gaining the literacy benefits of this strategy which are described in the next section, elementary students will begin to learn and understand the differences between themselves and their classmates, thereby leading them to a deeper appreciation and tolerance for people unlike themselves, which is a terrific skill that they can ...

Effective classroom teachers tend to have strengths in classroom management efforts. Teachers who know how to manage their classrooms create an effective environment that is conducive to educating students. The challenge for some teachers is knowing how to organize their classrooms so they have minimal behavior problems. In college, teachers are generally taught how to put together a discipline plan for their classrooms; this plan is supposed to resolve any behavior problems in their classrooms. We know that effective classrooms require more, and teachers who are successful end up creating a classroom environment that is caring, thought-provoking, challenging, and exciting. These classrooms serve as examples of how effective teachers run their classes.
One strategy these teachers use begins on the first day of school. Veteran teachers have learned that how they start the year off will determine the success of their classes for the entire school year. Initiating classroom procedures on ...

Abstract: How to assist in getting English language learners help by building strategies into your lessons, and using these tools to create vocabulary and increase fluency.
Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners
As in any good building, if you want to begin properly, you need to build a solid foundation that will support it through the construction process. Similarly, if you want a student to build a foundation of knowledge, you need to construct a base of learning that will see that person through to understanding of the material. In both cases, this is where scaffolding comes into the picture. Whether you are using verbal scaffolding to model how to pronounce a new word, to instructional scaffolding to intentionally use graphic organizers to prepare students for the content of a new chapter, or building strategies into a lesson is critical for ELL/ESL students. One solution to a student not being able to pronounce a new word correctly, even after several attempts, ...

The main vector of the Old English language in the history of the English language was formed with settlement of Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes on the British Isles in the 5th century, who came to Britain, which was the Roman province during 400 years, and settled there after the breakdown of the Roman Empire. The original geographical names that had survived since that time, originated from the language of the Celtic population of Britain subjugated by the Anglo-Saxons. At that time, the population of Britain communicated basically, like all Roman provinces, in Latin - simplified official Latin language. The Germanic tribes that had replaced the Romans, actively adopted the Latin lexis. At that time, Christianity was actively spread in Britain, and during the 6th century the Latin alphabet had already replaced the Old German runes, and influence of the Latin language reflected on the English lexis. Given close interaction with related dialects of Scandinavian tribes - ...

In today's world, the workplace has been transformed. Computer technology is present to one degree or another in virtually every job or profession. To prepare students adequately for the workplace we must recognize that integrating computer technology into the classroom is essential. To execute this integration properly, careful planning must precede implementation. We must be prepared to explore different means of implementation inasmuch as there is no perfect system or a "one size fits all" software program. Each institution must decide to what degree they will implement technology and how quickly they will do so. It is also important to appeal to educational leaders for support as well as gathering preferences from both teachers and students.
In his article, "Investing in Digital Resources" David McArthur explored the notion that the decision regarding whether or not to use technology as an educational medium has already been made. What must be done is plan carefully to ensure that ...