I’m excited to introduce a series of posts on a topic that is near to my heart and constantly on my mind these days: balancing literacy instruction. Over the next few weeks, I’ll tackle what I see as some of the major arguments (in no particular order), provide some research, and add my humble opinion […]
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3 Ways to Get Fired Up and Increase Enthusiasm for Teaching
As an instructional coach, one of the most depressing things I see are kids who are bored or declare themselves “done” with school. If you go into primary classrooms, kids are excited about everything they are learning. They’re eager to share, albeit sometimes overly eager, but genuinely excited to gain new information. What is happening to […]
Mastering Metacognition
While the term “metacognition” was first coined back in 1979 by John Flavell, it seems to have resurfaced in the past few years in education. It comes up in educational conversation so much that it has almost become white noise. Many times I hear it defined as “thinking about your thinking.” This definition works, but […]
Time to Celebrate Poetry in ALL Classrooms
It’s April. That means it’s time to open the door to the most feared and cherished of genres – POETRY! I wish that classrooms focused on poetry year round because of all that it can offer a language classroom, but I also know why it’s often avoided. When I was in school, I had that teacher. Yes, […]
Writers’ Workshop: Brainstorming Ideas for Expository Writing
I was thrilled to be asked to model brainstorming for expository writing to fourth graders using the Writers’ Workshop framework. The students had already been taught expository writing and were able to tell me that “expository” meant they had to explain something. Many of the students equated it to research. The Texas Education Agency has defined the […]
Engaging Learners with Interdisciplinary Teaching
As educators, we are constantly hearing how important it is to make our curriculum relevant to students, and that the students need to have ownership and find value in their learning. It seems to me that the obvious solution is to actively teach more social studies. While social studies is written in every elementary curriculum, […]
Classroom Chatter is a Good Thing
Recently I was teaching Writers’ Workshop to fourth and fifth graders and when I asked them what went well, I was baffled by a student who said “we were quiet!” I smiled and let him know that sometimes it’s good to talk. Inside I was a little crushed. How could we have a strong Writers’ […]
Screencasting in the Classroom
With so much buzz around flipped classrooms, meeting individualized needs, and including parents as partners, why not screencast? Screencasting, recording the action that takes place on the computer screen with sound, is an easy way to accomplish all those goals. Teachers can quickly create screencasts that can be viewed at home (with or without internet […]