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 of preschool children. With FRIENDS, children participate and are encouraged to make discoveries about themselves and their friends and to develop healthy, realistic attitudes about […]
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 biology may become a graduation requirement. As coordinator leader of this project to the the goal was to be simple: a. Develop a common calendar […]
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 Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities. Students who take this course not only read the great literature written by such twentieth-century literary giants as […]
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 Addresses: Practice leading to student achievement and student performance Major Challenges to Implementation: The only major challenge is the initial cost of the supplies. Benefits […]
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 read at the appropriate grade level and who, by the time they reach high school, are dropping out, checking out, or acting out. iLit engages […]
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 in the world that also developed and expanded some time between 1500 to 1820; and created and presented their own article. Issues this Best Practice […]
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 decreased comprehension. As an answer to this issue, he created a reading intervention, the Fluency Development Lesson, to help build reading fluency (and consequently comprehension). […]
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 the environmental design which includes those individual needs/characteristics. The design of our infant room acknowledges and reflects the field of study’s researched elements of such […]
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 Addresses: This Best Practice was developed to increase student engagement and to encourage all students to be an active part of developing understanding while reading. […]
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 expository information about an assigned dinosaur. Science facts and information are used to conduct inquiry research that is presented to K-12 peers, faculty, and family […]
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 third year of implementation we have developed an efficient tool to meet that requirement. Our digital “8-step TEAM data wall” is LIVE with Google Docs. […]
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 the teacher as a facilitator who models learning strategies and gives guided instruction. Child-directed learning allows the child to assume some responsibility for learning goals. […]
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 taught together using differentiated teaching methods. Teachers use whole group, flexible small group, and one-on-one instruction. Issues this Best Practice Addresses: There are several issues […]
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 students to use in all settings. Issues this Best Practice Addresses: Our data showed that our students were not successfully responding to constructed response questions. […]
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: This does take several days to implement the project and then requires daily observations and journaling. Benefits Derived from Implementing this Best Practice: This project […]
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 them learn to keyboard, and to assist students in learning modern communication skills. Students are given writing prompt they must answer with a five sentence […]
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 these elements themselves and think about how they work together. Rather than asking them what the poem means, or inviting them to respond only in […]
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 presented with multiple choice questions based on material discussed earlier in class. Students work individually to start, then vote for what they conclude is the […]
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. The iPads also help in the differentiation for all learners. Issues this Best Practice Addresses: Through the use of iPads students are allowed different creative […]
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 the classroom. This additional time in the classroom has led to little to no instructional time being lost. Issues this Best Practice Addresses: The number […]
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, teacher modeling writing, learning grammar and mechanics in context, and writing across the curriculum as a tool for learning. All of these recommendations are found […]