Back in the Classroom

The goal of each of these ten activities is to structure whole class discussions in such a way that all students are included. Too often whole group discussions consist of one or two students talking and everyone else zoning out. The point of these activities is to equalize participation. Some, like the socratic seminar or debate are complex while others, like the silent discussion or stand up, sit down take no prep and can get inserted into many different types of activities. Take a look and let me know what you think-- did I forget any of your favorites?

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10 Ways to Structure Whole Class Discussions to Get Broad Participation

The goal of each of these ten activities is to structure whole class discussions in such a way that all students are included. Too often whole group discussions consist of one or two students talking and everyone else zoning out. The point of these activities is to equalize participation. Some, like the socratic seminar or debate are complex while others, like the silent discussion or stand up, sit down take no prep and can get inserted into many different types of activities. Take a look and let me know what you think-- did I forget any of your favorites?

Continue Reading10 Ways to Structure Whole Class Discussions to Get Broad Participation

10 Strategies to Equitably Increase Student Engagement in Classroom Discussions

In an ideal classroom discussion, everyone participates. In many real discussions, only a few students participate. The challenge is, how do you get from the real to the ideal? The ten activities in this post are designed to bridge that gap!

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10 Routines to Build Students’ Higher-Level Thinking Skills

Wouldn't it be nice if we had routines to build students’ thinking skills and habits of mind and not just routines to build their fluency and content knowledge? The ten activities here are (mostly!) super light-weight routines that can be woven into most activities to build students’ critical thinking skills without taking time away from the content you have to cover. Some are as simple as asking students follow up questions like, “Why do you think that?” Some are more complicated routines, like those teaching students how to ask good questions. Each however builds students’ conceptual understanding.

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5 Ways to Structure Small Groups for Success

So when I started teaching at the college level, I got pretty obsessed with the idea that if I was going to teach folks how to teach, I needed to know something about how to teach. For some reason, that morphed into an obsession with learning all of the different ways to structure groups and activities within a classroom. While I don’t think my college students were quite as into trying out ALLLLLL of the activities I found as I had hoped, I did wind up with a cool round up of instructional activities. Today’s roundup has five different ways to structure small group activities. Note that I got all of these off of the internet years ago and all of these ideas belong to way cooler people than me so check out the embedded links!

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Thriving as a Special Educator Tip #4: Treat Your Paras As Colleagues Not Employees

Paraprofessionals make special education work, but supporting them can be... complex. After years of making mistakes, here's what I have learned about making collaborations with paraprofessionals work!

Continue ReadingThriving as a Special Educator Tip #4: Treat Your Paras As Colleagues Not Employees