Teachers are pillars of the community and are esteemed as leaders of the educational system. Our mannerisms, behaviors, speaking skills, and writing are taught, modeled, and reinforced. We stand at our doors and encourage students to come into our room with open minds, ready to learn, practicing good citizenship or behavior. As a middle/high school […]
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Strategies to Improve Reading Comprehension
I think I found the liquid gold for English Language Arts and reading teachers. Determining the theme and how it develops is an ELA standard that begins at the elementary level, but it becomes more challenging as the text becomes harder to read. This year, I am teaching seniors ELA, and they scored low on […]
Having a Great Classroom Management Plan Makes Everyone Happy
Every new school year brings anxiety. What are my students going to be like? Will they like me? Respect me? Follow directions? Not a party in my room? One way to calm all the jitters is to plan your classroom behavior management. In Robert Marzano’s book Classroom Management that Works, he covers several topics from […]
From the Blog
Why is Teacher Collaboration Important?
This is part 6 of a 7 part series on teacher evaluations. Besides instruction and classroom management, collaboration is a vital part of teaching. You need your colleagues to make decisions, build lessons, and take advice. Along with your coworkers, you have to form a relationship with your parents. Teaching is not an one-person profession, […]
Does Your Blog Need A Blog Traffic Booster?
Are you ready to start your teacher blog? It is time; your audience awaits. I had important information to say, and I had an audience who wanted more. Before I started my blog, I had performed three professional developments, and I always received positive feedback. I was the leader of several committees, such as Intervention […]
How to Have a Positive Learning Environment
This is a 7-part series. You are reading Standard 5 of the 7-part series. Having great classroom management can increase your evaluation score and boost your confidence. The plan starts on the first day of school, is reviewed throughout the school year, and explained after breaks such as a winter break. Strong classroom management makes […]
How to Start a Teacher Blog
*This is an affiliate post and I will receive a commission through items purchased through the links.* Have you been thinking about starting a blog? Well, let me be the first to tell you, do it! Start writing your blog. I started because of a push from a college friend that had written two fictional […]
Interactive Classroom Activity: Think-Pair-Share
Yesterday, I read an article in one of my English teacher groups, and it touched my heart dearly. The article was written by a veteran teacher, who shadowed two students for two days. His personal reflection had me thinking about my own teaching style. He stated that students sat in class without talking and […]
Score Big Using an Instructional Planning Guide
After a less than stellar teacher walkthrough completed by my principal, I knew that I had to change my instruction strategy. My old way of teaching was not working, and I knew that I had to design lessons that work for every student. I began reading teachers’ professional books and focusing on learning. I […]
Instruction: Criteria for Good Teaching
This is a 7-part series. You are reading Standard 4 of the 7-part series. Teachers take pride in their instruction. Instruction involves the action of teaching, and that includes presenting new concepts, reviewing lessons, and providing practice. As teachers, we aspire to have high expectations for all students, using strategies for the students to accomplish […]
Guest Speakers for High School Students
Guest speakers for high school students can bring enrichment and liveliness to your students’ experience. I can recall in middle school, we loved having guest speakers. All the girls would murmur, “Did you hear, in Ms. Smith’s class, we’re having a guest speaker?” We would be on our best behavior to avoid any disruption in […]
Benefits of Using Rubrics for Assessment
Teaching seniors can be a high maintenance job because they are overly concerned with their grade. Of course, they want to earn acceptance into their dream school, they want to compete for the large scholarship fund, and their time management skills are divided among school, home, sports, and a job. These traits cause seniors to […]
Teaching Writing Remotely
“I’m not trying to tell you how to teach, but students are stressing out about this essay, Ms. George.” My heart began to race as I read the email sent from my fellow coworker and concerned parent. I took a deep breath and continued my nighttime routine. It was after 10:30 pm that I received […]
Comparing and Contrasting Tool for Reading
Do you have your students completing lessons identifying similarities and differences using two reading passages in your classes? According to Robert Marzano, a leader in education research, “Asking students to independently identify similarities and differences enhances students’ understanding of and ability to use knowledge” (15). Having students compare and contrast topics takes critical thinking skills […]
Using Formative Assessments To Gauge Learning
School districts are striving to improve test scores to retain students. Students are the future citizens of our community, and every community is trying to have educated people to run the city. Long are the days of having students complete a multiple-choice test that assesses comprehension, recall, and one evaluation question. Students are having to […]
How I Announce to the Class Where They Are Going
Students need to know what they are doing in your class every day. Since the start of my career, I have posted a daily agenda. It works! When a student asks what are they doing in class, I used to point to the board, and a student could read four to five steps listed for […]
The Secrets to How I Created Rules for My Classroom
The start of a new year brings excitement and some anxiety. The week before the students return, which is considered our teacher’s professional development, I jot down new ideas for my classroom. The Marzano strategies I used were: “using a small set of rules and procedures” and “explaining rules and procedures to students.” Typically, I […]
The Secrets to Parenting While Working from Home
Have you ever thought that parenting and working from home would be a great situation? In early spring, I received news that my school district was going to online learning due to the coronavirus. My daughter’s school was also on leave, and I thought, ‘Perfect, we will be home together.’ I looked at my […]
Six Tips for Teaching eLearning Successfully
The year 2020 came as a whirlwind for teachers, students, and their families. With short notice, teachers and students had to work remotely from home. For some of us, it was a smooth transition, but for most of us, it was a rocky road. Since 2017, I had used Google Classroom and the district’s email […]
Mind’s Eye for Nonlinguistic Representation
I have to tell you thank you for visiting my website. I live in Ohio, and our last day of school was Friday, March 13. At first, I thought this quarantine was temporary and would end soon. Then I went through the grieving stages and did not feel like myself. It was online teaching and […]
How Expanding the Vision Letters Encourage Students
Do your students need motivation or encouragement? It was the end of February in Ohio, and my students need some motivation to get to spring break. I used the mandated district pacing guide for career exploration and the book Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word by Barbara R. Blackburn to help create a lesson that […]
How I Successfully Used the RAFT Strategy
RAFT strategy? What is that? It is a strategy that can be used in any subject area. RAFT stands for Role/Audience/Format/Topic, and writing from this aspect will provide students the opportunity to write from a perceptive that shows a better understanding and a higher level in their writing (Blackburn 56). I read about this strategy […]
How and When to Use Analysis Questions Effectively in Your Class
Are your students ready to perform well on standardized tests that question their analytical skills? We know that our students can answer the who, what, where, how, and why questions of a story, but can students compare/contrast, organize, assess, or examine a claim? During class discussions, I would play it safe and ask the four […]
Are You a Standard-Based Teacher And How You Can Move to Be a 21st Century Teacher
As we move to a new decade, we must leave behind the old yellow-stained duplicated (ditto) workbooks and the reading textbook with four comprehension questions and one synthesis question. School competition is a fact of life, and if your high school produces several scholars that earn ACT scores that are in the 30s, your […]
Are You Effectively Using Learning Targets in Your Classroom?
My evaluator walked into the classroom and quietly took a seat in the back of the classroom. I was just gathering the paperwork for my small reading group. I stood in front of the six students and began teaching. The evaluator walked across the room and leaned while looking at the board. She was looking […]
How Small Groups Work in A Middle School Classroom
Four teachers met in a circle discussing the direction of the reading lab. For three months, I had created lessons for the reading lab classes, using the same formula from the previous year. Now, the 7th and 8th-grade teachers, along with the teacher leader, who is also a language arts teacher, were brainstorming how the […]
Creating An Objective Roadmap for Student Success
Have you ever driven to a new city without a GPS or map? I would not suggest teaching without a “roadmap” or a lesson plan. Recently, I was traveling three hours away, and I was riding with one of my sorority sisters, Jawana. She is a supervisor of a satellite children’s mental facility, where she […]
How I Saw Quick Results with Goal Setting
On Fridays, I would check my students’ usage on the online reading program MindPlay. Students were expected to complete two hours per week on the program. I quickly saw that students were not completing the mandatory hours per week. Every day, I used a timer, walked around the classroom, and watched students on GoGuardian (an […]
