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We love using project based learning as one teaching strategy to engage students. The challenge with this type of learning is keeping students on track. Nothing is worse than getting to a deadline and discovering none of the students are done. So how do we keep our students accountable during project based learning?
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Some students love to work in groups, while other students prefer to work independently. There are many reasons students should learn to work in groups, but often we find teachers forget to teach the students what that looks like. Students need explicit teaching to understand the different group roles and processes. Here are some activities you can try to help your students get the most out of their group work.
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December can be a great month, but it can also be exhausting. your schedule which you’ve carefully curated is likely tossed aside for concert rehearsals, bad weather and overstimulation of the little darlings in your care. So what do you do when your whole schedule needs to be tossed, but you still need to teach?
There are three whole weeks of learning that are supposed to happen in December, but it can be VERY challenging to fit it all in. Here is what we do to mitigate the chaos.
While December is the month with the most disruptions for us, these ideas can work any time of year.
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Hands down, this is the biggest question we get asked on a regular basis when working with teachers in the classroom. In fact, this is a question we ask ourselves daily. What will the other students be doing while I meet with my Guided Reading groups?
First of all, before you can make your time with your Guided Reading groups count, you need to establish the routines in your classroom. If you don’t have your classroom management down pat, your small group instruction time will be constantly interrupted and your students won’t progress. Nothing good will come from everyone being frustrated.
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Recently I was having a discussion with a former student teacher. She had reached out because her last school year felt like a disaster and she was wondering how could improve. She’d tried clip charts, behaviour charts, communication journals, reward baskets and everything else she could think of, but nothing worked. She wanted to know how she could improve her classroom management because she feared she couldn’t last another year. She asked about my secret because she didn’t remember what I did.
Was it that uneventful that she didn’t know what I did? No. Not quite.
[Read more…] about The Reasons Your Classroom Management Isn’t Working and How to Fix It
Do you want to try flexible seating in your classroom but you aren’t sure where to start? Maybe it’s not the right fit for your classroom management style. Let us walk you through how to start alternative seating options in your classroom so you can decide for yourself if it’s the right fit for you.
Hint hint! It’s not right for everyone.
Our goal is not to convince you to try flexible seating, but instead give you a realistic idea of how flexible seating can be a benefit to your students, problems you’ll encounter and what you should think about before you go buying yourself flexible seating furniture.
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