4 Classroom Organization Must-Haves

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4 Classroom Organization Must-Haves

Like many other teachers, I started this school year determined to be more organized in my classroom. I have started every year with the same determination and I have never been able to stick with it. So, this year, I decided I needed even MORE than determination. I need the right tools to STAY organized. After thinking about the areas of my classroom where I needed the most help I started researching and I found the best tools for classroom organization.

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6 Essential Supplies I LOVED Implementing this Year

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6 Essential Supplies I LOVED Implementing this Year

Being a teacher is hard, some days more than others, but every day presents its own challenges. We work at what we love and we do it for our students. We only want what is best for them despite the hardships. So if I find something that makes my life just a little bit easier, then you can bet I am adding it to my toolbox.

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Facilitating Collaborative Learning

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Facilitating Collaborative Learning

If you’re just joining me, I’ve been posting a series of articles on the 3 Crucial Elements of Any Collaborative Learning Task. I’ve done my first deep dive into part 1 of the process: Frontload. Now we are going to jump in with the next element: Facilitate.

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Teach Students to be Independent Problem-Solvers

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Teach Students to be Independent Problem-Solvers

Teacher friend, can you relate to hearing your students say: “Teacher, I’m stuck!”, “What do I do now?”, “Where am I supposed to turn this in?”, “Can I go to the bathroom?”…

On and on and on the never-ending stream of inane questions comes. Can anyone relate? Does reading that list of questions immediately make you cringe as you think of all the times your students have asked you these questions so many times you want to pull your hair out?! Well, it might be time to train up some independent problem-solvers, so your students can spend more time learning and less time asking all those maddening questions.

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Ways to Give Productive Feedback to your Students

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Ways to Give Productive Feedback to your Students

Have you ever found yourself despairing when you’re grading an assignment and discover that either the same student as always, struggled immensely on the worksheet, or that a large portion of the class got many questions wrong that you specifically went over in class with them or spent a lot of time teaching those concepts in the lesson. I mean, hello, TEACHER FAIL, right?! Teacher friends, I’ve been there, too! Now while there are a myriad of strategies to attack this series of problems head on, I want to suggest one that does not require any preparation on your part. It’s quick and super effective!

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Overhaul Your Morning and Dismissal Routines

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Overhaul Your Morning and Dismissal Routines

Have any of you experienced the all-too-familiar mayhem of beginning and ending the school day? Is it a battle to get your students in their seats and ready to start their day? Is your dismissal like herding cats (LOUD ones)? Well, let me just say, you’re not alone.

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How to Curate Your Classroom Space with Purpose and Vision

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How to Curate Your Classroom Space with Purpose and Vision

How do I sort through all that rabble and focus my brain power on the things that truly matter in preparing for the next school year? If I want to do it all, do I actually have the time? What should I prioritize when the image of my ideal classroom begins to get out of hand and the to-do list spirals out of control? Is anyone else getting overwhelmed by all these questions???

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Student Emotional Health During a Pandemic

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Student Emotional Health During a Pandemic

Now, more than ever, we have been increasingly concerned about our health. Amidst the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, people became frantic in an effort to preserve their own health and the health of those they love. Something we need to think about as we approach the beginning of this very strange and different school year is: If we, as adults are having a hard time processing the complexities of this virus and what’s going on in the world because of it, how much more are our students going to be struggling with those same things?

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Tools for Successful Collaborative Learning

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Tools for Successful Collaborative Learning

If you don’t already know by now, I am quite a fan of collaborative learning. Maybe fan isn’t quite the right term, obsessed may be more accurate? Either way, I am passionate about implementing collaborative learning into the fiber of my classroom and advocating for and equipping other teachers to use it in their classrooms as well. One of the things I love most about collaboration is that it brings the amount of talking students get to do in the classroom to an all time HIGH. Does that proposition chill you to your very core? Why would I want my students talking all the time when I spend so much time trying to get them QUIET?! And that is PRECISELY why this method is so successful, because we all know we are fighting a losing battle trying to keep students quiet all day, but also, research shows that students learn much more when they get to talk about their learning and process it with other people out LOUD.

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Train Your Students to STOP INTERRUPTING Each Other

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Train Your Students to STOP INTERRUPTING Each Other

We all know it is natural for the majority of students to interrupt while they’re having conversations.  They want to be heard, and they want to ensure their friends and peers affirm their own point of view. SO THEY SAY THEIR OPINION AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE OVER ALL THE OTHER STUDENTS AT THEIR TABLE.  The struggle is real, am I right teacher friend? So I created a Talking Stick to help scaffold my students’ development in learning how to LISTEN and allow one person to talk in a team at a time.  

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Training Active Listeners to Become Leaders and Facilitators of Collaborative Discussions

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Training Active Listeners to Become Leaders and Facilitators of Collaborative Discussions

Collaboration.  That infamous buzz word we hear echoing through the hallways, in the teacher seminars, professional development, blogosphere, Pinterest, it’s everywhere.  And the one primary response most teachers give when presented with implementing collaboration in their classrooms, “That all sounds great, but it sounds like too much work.” 

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No Prep Student Conferences

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No Prep Student Conferences

Have you ever struggled to get your students to take ownership of their learning progress?  Have you ever assumed that students were going over their graded work with their parents each week and carefully reviewing things they did well on and things they still needed to work on?  Well, I have experienced both of these issues and I found that in reality, only 2 or 3 households in my entire classroom were actually using their graded work sent home as a launch pad for helpful discussion and progress monitoring.  I knew something had to change. I couldn’t just expect the intentionality to happen automatically between students and their families, I had to create a precedent, a routine in my own classroom with my students that they would be more likely to recreate at home. 

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