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 […]
Category: School
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, […]