by adminhead | Nov 13, 2020 | French language learning
I teach French to kids and adults. Teaching kids is easy; formulaic. Find a text, teach the content, and pull out reading, writing, speaking, and grammar to help develop their second language. Adults aren’t so simple. Adults are eager to capture the unique...
by adminhead | Nov 10, 2020 | Student empowerment
Last week, I published a little vignette on my poor decision-making skills. The story starts with me in total ignorance of an impending Lord of the Flies moment and ends with a saccharine and original reflection that the rules actually work! It’s nice they...
by Laura Head | Nov 6, 2020 | remote learning
A good teacher rule of thumb is to have your classroom rules come from your students. It empowers them to know that they’re the ones who curated the classroom culture, and increases their awareness of how they should behave. In the first week of school every...
by Laura Head | Nov 3, 2020 | remote learning
Getting student buy-in is a fundamental step to uncovering the inspired learner within. The most well-known way to do this is to create a classroom community built upon empowerment, validation, and belonging. In the classroom, there are countless ways to do this:...
by adminhead | Nov 1, 2020 | remote learning
In a traditional classroom setting, we as teachers present a new idea to students, and then send them off to grapple with it so that they can reach their own understanding. This student-centered time may look like a collection of voices finding patterns in common...
by adminhead | Nov 1, 2020 | remote learning
It’s a common practice in remote learning to have students put themselves on mute while a teacher presents the lesson. If learners have an idea or question, they un-mute to share, and then reactivate the default setting. Personally, I’m not a fan. In the classroom...
by Laura Head | Nov 1, 2020 | remote learning
Remote learning means a lot of potential tech noise that interrupts the flow of a lesson. “I can’t find the document!” “How do I zoom in?” and “Where’s the ‘new tab’ button?” are all worries that have come from my kids, and can add up to a lot of time lost on content....
by Laura Head | Oct 30, 2020 | remote learning
Log on. Go to your Drive. I’ll share my screen. Turn on your camera. Chat your answer. A year ago, this kind of language was foreign to the vast majority of students — if it was familiar, it was probably only in the context of TikTok or Minecraft. But today this...
by Laura Head | Sep 16, 2020 | remote learning
Homework is a controversial issue. A lot of research shows that especially in lower grades, there’s no link between assigning homework and higher rates of academic achievement. Still, other research insists that if homework is designed purposefully, it can be the...
