Ways to Enhance Teacher Development Sustained professional development time has been curtailed due to changes in school scheduling. In addition, there is an online course management tool (MBC) that was […]
Category: 2014 Showcase
Reducing Office Referrals for Targeted Students
Creation of a Progressive Discipline Plan Helps Keep Students in the Classroom Assistant Principals have reduced the number of referrals for targeted students who had 5 or more referrals during […]
Community Support at Wes-Del Elementary
Partnering with Community Organizations Shafer and Smith have partnered with numerous community organizations in an effort to meet the continuing needs of their students. They believe that through this partnership, […]
The Community in the School
Students and School Staff Give Back to Their Community The school relies on active parental involvement, supported by the people, places and things of the community. The whole community is […]
All Pro Dad’s Breakfast Program
Fathers Join Children for a Monthly Breakfast at School This practice is encouraging and increasing parental involvement by creating a forum for fathers to connect with their children. During this […]
Academic Field Trips: Gettysburg, Mt. Vernon and Washington, D.C.
Field Trips as a Learning Experience The world is your classroom. Learning can—and should—happen everywhere. But valuable learning experiences outside the classroom require planning, execution and follow up in addition […]
Reciprocal Reading
Group Reading Encourages Continual Engagement Based on the four fundamental comprehension skills (summarizing, questioning, clarifying and predicting), this research-based approach challenges all readers to think within, about and beyond the […]
Renaissance 4th-8th Grade Reading
Students Read an Impressive Variety of Literature and Share Their Findings The Upper Elementary Reading Program is one of the great strengths at Renaissance Academy. Students read an impressive variety […]
Placement
Placement Testing We test new students with a 32-question placement test. This is combined with the student’s mathematics SAT score and adjusted based on the courses the student has already […]
Responsive Instruction Plan
Changing School Diversity Creates a Need for Change At Orchard Park Elementary School in Carmel, Indiana, we are seeing increasing diversity in our school population. As the population changes, we are […]
Solar House Activity
Construction of a Solar House Promotes Sustainability Education This is a Solar House construction activity originally from Wendy Van Norton developed for College Board AP Environmental Science but can be […]
Brain Breaks: Energized for Learning
Giving Breaks Enhances the Brain Brain breaks introduce physical activity into the classrooms from the classroom teachers. It assists in transitioning students between classroom subjects and increases student engagement for […]
High School Social Studies
Exercise to Encourage Students to Embrace Politics Teaching the American Presidential election of 1960 using the commercial simulation “1960: Making of the President” (Z-Man Games: 2007). This is a relatively […]
Practice Leading to Student Achievement
Individualized Service Plan Helps Students Students who attend schools today are facing an array of challenges unlike any we have seen in previous generations. When they attend school many of […]
Data Drive Instruction
Data Team Summaries Drive Educational Instruction Grade level teams meet weekly to discuss both formative and summative data. For example, upper grades use daily math work to form small intervention […]
Reading and Writing Across Subjects
Writing Enhances Student Achievement This is an assignment that would benefit most a high school level 3 French class. However, it can be altered to fit other levels and other […]
In-class Work Time
Mastery of School Material is Enhanced by In-class Work Time In order to ensure student mastery of the material, we provide our students with time in class after the lesson […]
Smartboard Technology in the Classroom
Using a Smartboard in the Classroom This Best Practice utilizes a Smart Board Projector to aid in classroom instruction. Using all the features of this technology provide great benefit to […]
REA2CH: Results of Effective Academics for ALL Children through High School
Collaboration Helps Prepare Special Education Students Burris Laboratory School practices a full inclusion model for the delivery of special education services for students identified with a disability in grades K-12. […]
Aluminum Can Recycling
Children Learning About Recycling as They Help the Ronald McDonald House Our 4/5s preschool class collects, crushes and recycles aluminum cans. Can crushing is an active center in our classroom each day. […]
Etiquette Counts
Professional Dinner Etiquette These events prepare students for professional dinner and reception-style events they may attend after high school graduation, such as: events for scholarships, job interviews, fundraisers, mix and […]
Utilizing Expeditionary Learning
Expeditionary Learning Creates Positive Changes Utilizing Expeditionary Learning as the structure of my teaching has achieved incredible results. In an Expeditionary Learning model, each semester, the teacher creates and executes […]
Literacy Framework: Focus on LLI
Workshop Models Help Benefit LLI The Project School Literacy Model is based on the systematic coordination of curriculum and instruction best practices that we have researched and selected to work together […]
Exhibition Night
Student Presentations Enhance Learning Experience Inspire Academy increases parental involvement each semester with a school-wide celebration of learning called “Exhibition Night.” The event features the culmination of a semester of […]
Success Academy
Instructional Coaching Benefits Students in an Alternative Program The Success Academy is a new alternative program at Anderson High School. The 75+ students are educated by seven teachers throughout the […]
Vocabulary Call and Response
Transitional Practice Helps Students Learn Vocabulary Vocabulary Call and Response is a best practice that can be used during transitional times throughout the day. Students are introduced to a new […]
Success in Effectively Scheduling Success Periods
Remediation Period Helps Students Who Are Potentially Falling Behind The Success period is a significantly important component of the 8-Step Process designed to increase student achievement. This best practice represents […]
Success
Remediation, Maintenance, and Enrichment Period Helps Students Achieve Success We offer a Success period at the beginning of each day. Our periods are tiered into three levels for both math […]
Streamlined Fitness Infusion Heart Rate Technology PE Program
Instruction Used to Increase Heart Rate We developed a streamlined pattern skill development curriculum in order to improve our heart rate time on task with our heart rate technology in […]
Staff-led Professional Development: Analyzing Marzano’s ‘The Art and Science of Teaching’
Professional Development Day Helps Teachers to Improve Student Performance and Engagement Our staff was given copies of Marzanos The Art and Science of Teaching and felt it was best addressed […]
Skillstreaming: Pro-social Skills Instruction
Pro-social Behaviors and Skills Taught to Teachers to Decrease Problem Behaviors in the Classroom The Burris Counseling Center implemented an intervention of social skills training, called Skillstreaming, in the elementary […]
A Response to Intervention (RTI) Model for Elementary Grades
Increasing Individualized Reading and Mathematics Instruction Helps Failing Students Burris Laboratory School developed a Response to Intervention (RTI) model during the 2010-2011 school year as a collaborative project among elementary teachers […]
Read Like A Historian
Social Studies Teaching Strategy Helps Children Learn Read Like a Historian is an instructional strategy that emerged from Anderson High School’s implementation of the RAISE (Reading Apprenticeship) efforts to improve […]
Studying World Language in High School
This is an assignment for 1st or 2nd year students of Latin who are in high school in grades 11 or 12. This project revolves around culture as it is an integral part of the study of any world language. The Romans are known for their great works of architecture and engineering. Some of these are the amphitheaters, temples, baths, aqueducts, military camps, streets, to list just a few.
My Friends and Me
Making Discoveries with Friends Enhances Personal and Social Growth MY FRIENDS AND ME is a program of group activities and versatile materials to help nurture the personal and social development […]
Mini-assessments for High School Biology
Assessments Help Teachers Improve Students Biology Knowledge Starting in the summer of 2013 the biology teachers at Anderson High School in an effort to get ahead of the day when […]
Lost Generation Literature: Parisian Salon Simulation
Simulation of Literary Characters Sparks Higher Level Thinking This literary salon simulation is the final exam and major scholarly project of the Lost Generation Literature class I teach at the […]
The Language of Anatomy
Creation of a Life-Size Body Helps Students Learn Anatomy A comprehensive, semester long project creating a life-size shell of the anatomy student from the inside out! Issues this Best Practice […]
iLit Reading Instruction
Student Personalized Learning Support Helps Students Who Struggle With Reading Pearson’s iLit core reading program for struggling readers is designed to meet the national crisis of students who simply cannot […]
High School World History Lesson: How & Why Major Cities Around the World Developed and Expanded 1500-1820
Using NPR as a Model to Present Historical Information About a Major City Students used an NPR article about “How Paris Became Paris” as a model; chose a major city […]
Fluency Development Lesson
Developing a New Way to Build Reading Fluency and Comprehension In The Fluent Reader, Timothy Rasinski describes “slow, disjointed, and labored” reading from struggling readers as an underlying factor in […]
Environmental Design for Infant Care
Classroom Design Meets the Needs of Infant Care Best practice for infant care focuses on the unique characteristics and needs of each individual child. Our best practice is exhibited by […]
Dramatizing Within and Outside the Context of Text to Engage and Motivate Learners
Drama Performances Increase Student Engagement Students utilize a variety of drama performances in order to enhance their thinking and understanding of the concepts from the text. Issues this Best Practice […]
Dinosaurs and More
Dinosaur Presentation Allows for Student Creativity and Expression This is a cross-curricular unit of study that is used for showcasing all kindergarten core subject areas. Kindergarten students collect and present […]
Digital 8-step TEAM Data Wall
Google Spreadsheet Helps Teachers to Analyze Students Standard-Based Data The 8-Step Process steps 1 & 4 require a school to do “test score disaggregation & assessment”. After being in our […]
Developmentally Appropriate Learning Activities
A Mixture of Teacher-directed and Student-directed Learning is an Effective Tool Best Practice includes developmentally appropriate learning activities that encourage a mixture of teacher-directed and child-directed activities. Teacher-directed learning involves […]
Co-Teaching
Use of Differentiated Teaching Methods Helps Students Learn For the school year 2013-2014 the first grade team at Burris Laboratory School implemented a co-teaching model. All first grade students are […]
Constructing a Constructed Response
School-wide Initiative Helps to Improve Student Writing Northside Middle School implemented a school-wide initiative to improve student writing on extended and constructive response questions. We implemented a formula for all […]
Bottledome!
Student Driven Activity Sparks Learning About an Ecosystem Building a little ecosystem in a bottle! Issues this Best Practice Addresses: Inquiry-based instruction/ Ecosystem concepts and standards Major Challenges to Implementation: […]
Blogging in the Classroom—A remedy for Disinterested Writing Students
Blogging Serves as a Way to Practice Communication Skills My students participate in weekly blogging activities. These activities are designed to have students practice writing paragraphs in proper form, help […]
Analyzing Poetry
Students Find Elements in Poems I teach students to analyze poems by introducing them to a list of elements that appear in many poems and helping them learn to find […]
ABCDEF Card Voting
Multiple Choice Voting Sparks Classroom Discussion and Debate This best practice uses ABCDEF voting cards as a method of increasing student participation among all students in the classroom. Students are […]
iPads Help Level the Playing Field
Technology is integrated into the curriculum through the use of iPads. Students utilize the iPads through skill building and practice, creating projects, and researching classroom topics as well individualized projects. […]
Discipline Pyramid
Tiered Discipline Plan Pyramid Helps to Decrease Negative Behaviors This is a tiered discipline plan that has been proven through data to decrease negative behaviors and increase student time in […]
Multigenre Research Project
Research Project Created Through Multigenre Writing According to Best Practice, Third Edition by Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde, the recommendations for teaching writing are increased student ownership, writing for real audiences, […]