One of the most important skills of a coach – think life coach, instructional coach, or leadership coach - is asking curious and powerful questions. Here are three tips to amplify your question asking and elevate your coaching skills – even if you are not a trained coach: Tip #1: Start your questions with “what,” [...]
Teachers, we know you work hard. Check out our list of retail stores that help support teachers by offering special discounts and promotions. All store discounts in the list have been verified! Banana Republic – 15% off full-priced purchases for both students and teachers, in stores only Barnes & Noble – Sign up for their [...]
Keeping your students engaged in the classroom can be a difficult task for any teacher. Check out this great list on some ways you can help make this more effective*! Set the Stage - Atmosphere is critical in helping your students stay engaged. This can range from having colorful bulletin boards and a theme for [...]
Evaluating student performance through tests and assessments plays a large role in measuring student success. The information that educators gain from these help format methods of instruction and advance student learning. Tests and assessments typically fall into three categories: summative, benchmark, and formative. Once you identify and understand the testing category, you can then begin to write your [...]
It’s Sunday night and you can’t put off the looming pile of assignments you’ve got to grade before morning any longer. We’ve all been there. Grading papers and scoring tests isn’t the most exciting part of teaching, but the data and insight it provides is critical to the learning process. Here are four tips that [...]
Teaching is a very demanding profession, requiring long hours spent reviewing coursework. Between creating lesson plans, grading tests, and reviewing papers, it seems that teachers never get a break. Not to mention the “normal” 40 hours a week they spend teaching in a classroom. It’s no secret that teachers are overworked and underappreciated. But do [...]
Testing season can be stressful for students and their teachers! We asked teachers for their favorite positive, motivational, stress-reducing, hard-work-encouraging and just plain fun read-alouds for those bubble-test kinds of days. Here are 14 favorites. 1. An Awesome Book! by Dallas Clayton “This is just a really fun and colorful book about dreaming big for [...]
It seems we spend a big chunk of the school year focused on summative assessments. From the big end-of-unit and end-of-semester tests to state standardized testing, this drive toward the final test can leave many educators feeling pressured to hurry through the curriculum to make sure they cover all of the material. Taking a moment [...]
Sometimes it can be difficult to know whether students are really “getting it” as you move through a unit or lesson. Formative assessments provide in-the-moment insight into student comprehension. Here are six formative assessments that can be administered as you’re teaching to help guide instructional strategies. These assessment ideas also encourage students to take an [...]
Collecting data is not necessarily every teacher’s cup of tea, but in today’s teaching climate, it’s definitely a necessity. After all, good data can provide important information to teachers and students and go a long way toward improving teaching and learning. And if keeping track of all the streams of data coming your way is [...]
