All AboutDifferentiating

When we differentiate, we simply offer students opportunities to think at a level appropriate to their ability - not their age nor their grade level.

Encourage Curiosity With Calculators

It’s easy to fall in love with chasing the newest technology to use in the classroom. But sometimes, the perfect tool is a plain old calculator. We’ll be using this tool to develop curiosity about math.

Is a Task Boring, Relaxing, Challenging, or Stressful?

Too easy for your skills and the task is boring. Too much of a challenge, and it becomes stressful. Medium challenge, high skill? It’s a relaxing task. But when we match high skill and high challenge, we can activate “flow.”

A Remix Library

A list of stories inspired by older stories to teach your students about the history of reusing ideas.

Creating A Class Motto

Using Hilda Taba’s model of inductive thinking, use your students’ prior knowledge to develop a statement about expected class behavior.

Introducing “Criteria” To Students

Teaching our students to identify the criteria behind a decision will make them better decision makers and help them understand others’ points of views.

Forming A Big Idea: Details Within Details

We’ll use a deductive-style lesson. While inductive thinking is open-ended and student-controlled, deductive thinking is focused on a teacher-designed topic. It makes it easier to teach a specific concept and raise the expectations of a lesson.

3 Sites For Free Classics

The public domain is a rich collection of creative works whose copyrights have expired. More than ever we have incredible access to this art and literature. Public domain images and writings add depth to lessons and expose students to classic works.

Creating In Science

It’s easy for science instruction to linger in the bowels of Bloom’s Taxonomy as we try to cram everything into the tiny time allotted. However, isolated facts don’t inspire our students. Let’s set up units that invoke creativity but demand knowledge.