Writing Essential Questions for your units may seem like a new concept, but it's the most important engagement strategy that we can harness as middle school teachers and high school teachers. A unit shaped and inspired by an essential question drives students inquiry and encourages student centered lesson planning. Here is advice for lesson and unit planning.

Activities that were once hands-on are now digital with three possibilities for collaboration: small group lessons, partner work, or peer review.

BCQ is a prereading strategy that makes the prereading process visible to readers. This minilesson will provide your readers with the tools they need to actively engage in prereading. Readers need tools to use before reading to get familiar with a new book. Check out this BCQ Prereading Strategy Minilesson.

When you have a problem to solve but you just can't find a way to tackle it, you may find that brainstorming can help you find the solution. Brainstorming can help you find an innovative solution to a difficult problem. These techniques are easy to learn and apply.

Don't let Project Based Learning overwhelm you, it is a fun process where the students are engaged, learning and using their life skills.

Two new gold-standard studies provide compelling evidence that project-based learning is an effective strategy for all students—including historically marginalized ones.

"I Have a Time Machine" is a great poem for teaching main idea and analyzing how figurative language intersects with theme, point of view, and structure. To help you teach this living poet, I have designed main idea questions, analysis questions, and a symbolism extension activity. Includes a fillable .pdf. Everything is also available in Google Drive. Let me know how this works in your classroom! Teaching living poets is one of my favorite ways to help students connect with literature…

For this interactive lesson, students will use the board in order to interact with each other. It also provides a means for assessment during a class period. Students can collaborate and use the board to brainstorm new ideas, share information, or reflect upon the lesson/ activity/ project from th

Project-based learning often starts with a driving question. The driving question clarifies the purpose and goals of the experience, which makes the experience as a whole seamless for students. The driving question includes an action, an audience, impact, and more. Check out this blog post for details and a template for writing driving questions. #projectbasedlearning

Does your classroom offer one-and-done types of learning activities, or does the learning grow, inspire, and evolve throughout the year and beyond? With tools like G Suite for Education that are available 24/7, the learning doesn’t have to stop when the bell rings at the end of class, or when the worksheet is turned in, or even when the school year ends. The learning takes on a life of its own; it becomes dynamic. This concept alone should change the way you think about learning in general…

If you're looking for ways to use Google Forms during Project Based Learning, click through to keep students engaged, make grading easier, and even more.

When it comes to teaching upper elementary, guided reading groups are one of the most complex areas of planning and instruction. I still remember when I first started teaching thinking, “Okay, I have my groups. Now what do I do.” Hopefully, this blog post will be helpful to anyone who has experienced that same thought […]

Increase student engagement and student performance by changing the way you assess!

If you are in education, it’s likely you encounter terms and abbreviations for just about everything possible, everyday. One of the more common ‘buzzwords’ in education today is the idea of project-based learning, or PBL. Today we’re going to discuss how to bring together Google apps and project based learning. What exactly is project-based learning? It ... Read more How Can I Bring Google Apps and Project Based Learning Together?

Three steps to simplify the reciprocal teaching process. Use these