July, 2024

article thumbnail

Small Steps, Big Shifts: How Consistency and Continuity Unlock Lasting Change

A Principal's Reflections

We all have that nagging voice, whispering about what we "should" be doing. Maybe it's a call to eat healthier, exercise more, or finally tackle that neglected hobby. But how often does that voice translate into sustained action? The truth is that achieving lasting change is rarely about grand gestures or dramatic overhauls. It's about the power of consistency and continuity – small, steady shifts that build momentum and pave the way for a transformed you.

article thumbnail

How To Teach Artificial Intelligence In The Classroom Without Technology

TeachThought

Strategies for Teaching AI Concepts Without Technology by TeachThought Staff Preface: This post is primarily for general content-area K-12 teachers (likely 6-12). Teaching AI theory, for example, is well beyond these ideas. You don’t need a wind tunnel to learn about aerodynamics or boiling water to help students understand boiling points. How you teach something depends, obviously, on what you’re teaching.

Teaching 290
educators

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Constitution Activities that rock!

Active History Teacher

You’ve taught the Constitution to the best of your ability. You look out at the faces of your students and they are blank. I feel your pain. Teaching the Constitution is hard, especially to younger students. The question is, “What kinds of Constitution activities will help them apply what they know and help them remember?” Every year I teach the Constitution I want to try something new.

article thumbnail

Are Schools and Edtech Companies Ready for the Digital Accessibility Deadline?

ED Surge

When Jacob, a 10th grader with vision impairment, signed up for an AP class, it made him feel like a castaway. His ambitions to learn were thwarted because his teacher had assigned handouts and a three-week-long lesson plan that relied on a website that wasn’t easy for him to navigate. So he felt frustrated, isolated: “I am stranded on this desert island because that site doesn't work [with my screen reader],” Jacob later told a researcher , also adding, “You can't just re-change your whole teac

EdTech 142
article thumbnail

How colleges can become ‘living labs’ for combating climate change 

The Hechinger Report

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — At the end of a semester that presaged one of the hottest summers on record, the students in Associate Professor Michael Sheridan’s business class were pitching proposals to cut waste and emissions on their campus and help turn it into a vehicle for fighting climate change. Flanking a giant whiteboard at the front of the classroom, members of the team campaigning to build a solar canopy on a SUNY New Paltz parking lot delivered their pitch.

article thumbnail

Maybe you haven’t noticed. SHEG is DIG. DIG is SHEG.

History Tech

The Stanford History Education Group has been around since 2002. Sam Wineburg, SHEG’s founder, one year earlier had published a book titled Thinking Historically and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past. Both the book and SHEG outlined a social studies instructional concept, that at the time, was pretty revolutionary.

article thumbnail

Maximizing Time with Data and Evidence-Enhanced Rotations at All Grade Levels

A Principal's Reflections

One of the most significant challenges educators face is time. While the focus is typically on getting more of it, the emphasis should be maximizing what is already available. When it comes to student learning and success, how time is used when students are in class is pivotal. While sound instruction will always be needed in some form, meeting the needs of learners relies on other pedagogical pathways that veer away from all students consistently doing the same thing, at the same time, the same

Teaching 360

More Trending

article thumbnail

The Most Awesome Timeline Activity Ever!

Active History Teacher

Let’s be honest. Timeline activities can be really boring for students. Most of the time, students are just copying off a website or book and aren’t doing any critical thinking! Adding a little competition and fun create the best timeline activity ever! Enter: Timeline Races! Making a timeline doesn't work. The skill of sequencing can be tough for many students!

article thumbnail

What Students From Rural Communities Think College Leaders Should Know

ED Surge

During her first semester at Southern Methodist University, Savannah Hunsucker went on a retreat with the other students enrolled in her leadership scholars program. The event took them away from the Dallas campus and into the Texas countryside. “I remember everybody looking up and being surprised to see stars in the night sky, and I thought that was so odd,” Hunsucker says.

article thumbnail

OPINION: Everything I learned about how to teach reading turned out to be wrong

The Hechinger Report

When I first started teaching middle school, I did everything my university prep program told me to do in what’s known as the “workshop model.” I let kids choose their books. I determined their independent reading levels and organized my classroom library according to reading difficulty. I then modeled various reading skills, like noticing the details of the imagery in a text, and asked my students to practice doing likewise during independent reading time.

Teaching 141
article thumbnail

Teach About Immigration

Zinn Education Project

March for Children in Chicago, 2018. Source: Flickr/Kurman Communications LLC The airwaves are full of inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants. Politicians are fear-mongering about an “invasion” at the Southern border. They ignore the invasions by the United States in countries around the world — as well as the U.S. economic and climate policies that have turned so many people into refugees.

Teaching 132
article thumbnail

Collaboration is the Lifeblood of Change

A Principal's Reflections

We are all familiar with the saying that there is no "I" in team. Collaboration is the lifeblood of successful change initiatives. It harnesses the power of diverse perspectives, fostering a rich environment for idea generation and problem-solving. When individuals from different backgrounds and expertise come together, they can identify blind spots, challenge assumptions, and develop more comprehensive and effective solutions.

Cultures 344
article thumbnail

10 Calendar Apps For Improved Scheduling

TeachThought

by TeachThought Staff Life can be crushingly busy–especially if you’re an educator or any other profession where deadlines are constant and the pressure is, unfortunately, unrelenting. With that in mind, keeping your schedule organized and managing your time efficiently is more important than ever. With so many calendar apps available for iOS, it can be tough to find the one that really fits your needs.

Education 268
article thumbnail

US History Vocabulary Review Activity That Rocks!

Active History Teacher

US History vocabulary review can be fun and student centered! Using the game Envelope Races, students can review US History vocabulary in a competitive way. Do your students struggle with US History vocabulary? If you have taught History for any length of time, you know that some vocabulary is just HARD to learn, apply and remember. Popular Sovereignty anyone?

History 195
article thumbnail

An Education Chatbot Company Collapsed. Where Did the Student Data Go?

ED Surge

When Los Angeles Unified School District launched a districtwide AI chatbot nicknamed “Ed” in March, officials boasted that it represented a revolutionary new tool that was only possible thanks to generative AI — a personal assistant that could point each student to tailored resources and assignments and playfully nudge and encourage them to keep going.

EdTech 133
article thumbnail

What aspects of teaching should remain human?

The Hechinger Report

ATLANTA — Science teacher Daniel Thompson circulated among his sixth graders at Ron Clark Academy on a recent spring morning, spot checking their work and leading them into discussions about the day’s lessons on weather and water. He had a helper: As Thompson paced around the class, peppering them with questions, he frequently turned to a voice-activated AI to summon apps and educational videos onto large-screen smartboards.

article thumbnail

Protected: Getting Your Ducks in a Row – an icebreaker activity

Teaching Anthropology

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: The post Protected: Getting Your Ducks in a Row – an icebreaker activity first appeared on Teaching Anthropology.

article thumbnail

Beyond the Comfort Zone: Why Calculated Risks are the Key to Unlocking Student Potential

A Principal's Reflections

Taking a leap of faith can be daunting, but it is often needed to grow. Stagnation is the enemy of progress. In education, sticking solely to what's comfortable hinders growth. Calculated risk-taking becomes crucial for improving practice. Sticking to the familiar routine feels safe, even if it means being perpetually stuck in neutral. Self-doubt creeps in, making us question our capabilities to navigate the unknown.

Tradition 258
article thumbnail

What Problem Does Technology Help Schools Solve?

TeachThought

by Terrell Heick Will robots replace teachers? I was asked this in an interview a years ago for Futurism and tried to offer up some abstract nonsense whose lack of clarity represented my own thinking: “Will artificial intelligence replace teachers? Will the students themselves replace teachers through self-directed learning, social/digital communities, and adaptive technology?

article thumbnail

Teaching the Industrial Revolution Inventions

Active History Teacher

Teaching the industrial revolution inventions can be so boring! Our textbooks often put the industrial revolution inventions in multiple places and they are often just a sentence or two! Getting students to process the impact of the industrial revolution inventions in a meaningful way is always my goal. When I put this lesson together, I wanted to get kids up and moving.

Teaching 195
article thumbnail

Orientation Is the First Step to Finding Belonging in College. It Is Changing Post-Pandemic.

ED Surge

Colleges are adjusting to a lingering impact of COVID-19 shutdowns that kept kids out of physical schools at key points in their social development: It’s harder than it used to be to teach students to adjust to college life when so many are coming to campuses nervous about making social connections. As a result, many colleges and universities are rethinking their freshman orientation programs, adding new options and doing more to help students forge relationships.

article thumbnail

Alternative STEM education: A noncollege path to jobs for students from underrepresented groups

The Hechinger Report

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — About one and a half years ago, Isaiah Hickerson woke up in the middle of the night having dreamt he was a coder. The dream was totally random, as dreams so often are. He didn’t know a thing about coding. He was 23, and though originally from California, he’d been living with his uncle in Miami. By day, he was answering phones in the grooming department at PetSmart.

Education 132
article thumbnail

Protected: Practicing Primatology

Teaching Anthropology

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: The post Protected: Practicing Primatology first appeared on Teaching Anthropology.

article thumbnail

2024 APAC presentation

Geography Education

I’m very excited to be presenting in Las Vegas for the AP Annual Conference. My presentation on spatial relationships in AP Human Geography is archived here with the slides available here on Google Drive or the PDF below.

Archiving 130
article thumbnail

How To Connect Schools And Communities Using Technology

TeachThought

How To Connect Schools And Communities Using Technology by Terry Heick It’s possible that there is no time in the history of education that our systems of educating have been so out of touch with the communities. Growing populations, shifting communities, and increasingly inwardly-focused schools all play a role. In light of the access of modern technology, social media, and new learning models that reconfigure the time and place learning happens, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Artifacts 244
article thumbnail

My favorite First Week of School Activity

Active History Teacher

The first week of school is crazy. From the first day of school through at least the first week, we have schedule changes, assemblies and all the chaos! I mean my class is nuts. I needed a first week of school activity I could do with kids that would get them interested in my class in a meaningful way. We all need an activity for the first week of school that goes beyond the normal “get to know you” games.

History 195
article thumbnail

Announcing New White Paper: Access to Powerful Technology as a Catalyst for Career Pathway Engagement

Digital Promise

The post Announcing New White Paper: Access to Powerful Technology as a Catalyst for Career Pathway Engagement appeared first on Digital Promise.

129
129
article thumbnail

Government Classroom Decor

Passion for Social Studies

Teachers spend hours and hours decorating their classrooms each year. They know that how a classroom looks directly correlates to how students feel in the classroom. So, if the walls are bare and everything is disorganized, students will not be excited to learn. On the other hand, if there are too many decorations, students may feel overwhelmed by how much there is.

article thumbnail

Protected: An Archaeological Adventure

Teaching Anthropology

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: The post Protected: An Archaeological Adventure first appeared on Teaching Anthropology.

article thumbnail

What Future Teachers Can Tell Us About Why People Enter the Profession Today

ED Surge

For the last year, EdSurge has been showcasing students enrolled in teacher preparation programs to understand who is going into teaching today — and why. In each profile, we hand the mic over to an aspiring educator, letting them explain, in their own words, what drew them into this career path and why they’ve stuck with it. The series, called “ America’s Future Teachers ,” comes at a time when the teaching profession is in turmoil.

Geography 129
article thumbnail

The Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Freire

TeachThought

by TeachThought Staff Paulo Freire’s “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” is a foundational text in educational theory. Its enduring significance stems from its profound critique of traditional teaching and learning methods. Written in the 1960s, this influential work remains as relevant today as it was at the time of its publication, offering insights into the nature of oppression and the transformative potential of education.

Pedagogy 232
article thumbnail

Call for Pitches: Care

Anthropology News

Issued: July 15, 2024 Pitches due: rolling until November 1, 2024 First drafts due: 3 weeks after pitch decision Submit Here Anthropology News invites submissions on the forms of care that permeate human and nonhuman worlds. How do we care for ourselves and others? How do we care for objects, archives, words, history, traditions, animals, plants, ideas, and obligations?

article thumbnail

OPINION: What teachers call AI cheating, leaders in the workforce might call progress

The Hechinger Report

As the use of artificial intelligence grows, teachers are trying to protect the integrity of their educational practices and systems. When we see what AI can do in the hands of our students, it’s hard to stay neutral about how and if to use it. Of course, we worry about cheating; AI can be used to write essays and solve math problems. But we also have deeper concerns regarding learning.

article thumbnail

Digital Promise Reflections: 5 EdTech Insights from ISTELive 24

Digital Promise

Digital Promise leaders reflect on top insights and learnings around education technology from the ISTELive 2024 conference.

EdTech 123
article thumbnail

Radical Portraits of Working Class Women Writers – Laura Maw

Women's History Network

Virginia Woolf’s maxim in her now-classic polemic was this: ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’.[1] But what if a writer did not have access to these resources – this independent wealth, this private space? What, then, might her fiction look like?

119
119
article thumbnail

When Students Are Absent, Do Their Relationships With Teachers Suffer?

ED Surge

Students are missing a lot of classes. Chronic absenteeism, when a student misses at least 10 percent of the school year — which includes missing school for any reason, and not just unexcused absences — nearly doubled from 2019 to 2022. In May, the White House flagged chronic absenteeism as a national “challenge,” pointing toward its connection to lower reading and graduation levels.

article thumbnail

Is Neutrality Possible…or Even Necessary? Reflections from the 2024 Faculty Institute

Institute for Citizens & Scholars

The post Is Neutrality Possible…or Even Necessary? Reflections from the 2024 Faculty Institute appeared first on Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

110
110