Anxious or Worried About the Start of a New School Year? Become Curious!
Educators and kids worry about the start of a new school year. There are ways to switch worry or anxiety to curiosity to make the experience different.
Kathy S Dyer
I am a freelance writer and design strategist. My passion is seeing lightbulbs come on as people make new connections through learning and doing.
Where Learning Happens
Designing learning spaces isn’t just about furniture or layout. It’s about creating the conditions where learners feel empowered to engage, take risks and own their learning. My latest blog has some specific environmental aspects we can pay attention to, as well as choices we offer learners.
End-of-Year Reflection
End-of-year reflection – do you do it or not? Is it a habit for you? Do you collect data all year or rely on your memory? To support the process of reflecting in the spring, you might, at the end of each week, check in with yourself by asking three simple questions:
• What worked well this year and why?
• What was challenging and why?
• What might happen next year if …?
• What worked well this year and why?
• What was challenging and why?
• What might happen next year if …?
It’s the Little Things
While routines are a collection of small actions and behaviors, it’s their repeated use that turns them into habits. Habits create cognitive shortcuts for learners, freeing them to focus on thinking, questioning, and improving at what they do best—learning.
11 AI Tools for Teachers’ Formative Assessment Practice
If you're wanting to strengthen your formative assessment practice and dip your toes into the AI pool, here are 11 tools you should check out.
Tribute to Dr. Jim Popham
While many of you know Jim as a larger-than-life persona on stage or in front of a crowd, you may not know what a fiercely private person he was outside the world of education. On July 16th, Jim transitioned to professor heaven. Below is a short tribute to him.
Agency and a Culture of Learning
Both choice and collaboration involve decision-making skills. When students understand themselves as learners, understand how to advocate and seek out what they need, they develop confidence in their own executive function and self-regulation ability (Murray, 2019). This is agency in the making. Teaching learners to make choices (decisions), express themselves (voice) and learn how to work with peers (collaborate) helps grow their sense of self-confidence (self-efficacy) as it relates to their capacity to be self-directed learners or learners with agency within a culture of learning.
Feedback = Got It or Not Yet, Then What’s Next
What are some specific examples of effective feedback strategies that can be easily implemented in the classroom? How do we provide learners the information about where they are in their learning – the Got It, Not Yet and What’s Next?
As educators, we give feedback to students on their work all the time: in the moment, daily, weekly, and at the end of a unit or year. Research about formative assessment tells us that feedback is one of the foundational practices that make a difference in student learning. But how can we make sure the guidance we're providing is truly encouraging our students' learning and growth at each interval?
As educators, we give feedback to students on their work all the time: in the moment, daily, weekly, and at the end of a unit or year. Research about formative assessment tells us that feedback is one of the foundational practices that make a difference in student learning. But how can we make sure the guidance we're providing is truly encouraging our students' learning and growth at each interval?
How About Classroom Reflective Practice?
Recently, Dr. Hayley Lewis wrote a piece on the importance of taking time to think and reflect. While focused on adults (leadership) and coaching, all I could think about were educational applications and reminders as I read Why Leaders Should Engage In Reflective Practice.
And as educators, when do we allow (plan) for learners to have that time to think and reflect regularly? What strategies or processes do we provide as a guide to learners thinking or reflecting as they are learning both strategies?
And as educators, when do we allow (plan) for learners to have that time to think and reflect regularly? What strategies or processes do we provide as a guide to learners thinking or reflecting as they are learning both strategies?
Retrieval Practice – Be Deliberate
If you are not familiar, retrieval practice is what it sounds like, recalling information rather than reading or hearing it.
Jamming to Create a Bank of Multiple-Meaning Words
Are you familiar with homonyms, homophones, homographs, and capitonyms? Multiple-meaning words can be used humorously or can cause confusion. Taking time to think about what we’re saying may make a difference to others.
How to Make Summer School Effective and Engaging (Opinion)
Today’s post finishes up a two-part series on how to make summer school a place that students want to attend ...
The tag line of the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) Summer Changes Everything TM, says it all. As educators leading summer learning programs, we can keep kids learning, engaging and empowering students to finish the unfinished learning and to take
The tag line of the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) Summer Changes Everything TM, says it all. As educators leading summer learning programs, we can keep kids learning, engaging and empowering students to finish the unfinished learning and to take
75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom
There is no shortage of formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning.
A Strategy for Student-Developed Questions | edCircuit
Student learners have so many questions. How do we help them develop “good” questions to support their learning?
Peers As Instructional Resources
When was the last time you had the opportunity to learn with, from and for someone else? What was in place–environment, strategies, resources, time, etc. to make it happen? Jigsaw strategies provide different ways to support learners in being instructional resources for themselves and others. Three jigsaws to try include Expert, Pieces-Make-the-Whole and Building.
6 AI Tools for Teachers’ Formative Assessment Practice
If you're wanting to strengthen your formative assessment practice and dip your toes into the AI pool, here are 6 tools you should check out.
Check-In Questions & Social Emotional Learning | edCircuit
I can get really excited about a good sketch note… particularly one drawn by someone else. Dr. Hayley Lewis is a psychologist who makes psychology accessible, often via her sketch notes. Recently she shared one about check-in questions on LinkedIn that 1) I thought was insightful and 2) made me immediately jump to checking in with kids.
Increasing Student Productivity With One Good Question
In a recent Harvard Business Review, the article “Ask This Question at Your Next Meeting” caught my attention. The author was focused on making meetings more useful and increasing productivity. What struck me was how asking this one question could boost self-reflection, engagement, and growth in the classroom. The question is: What are you stuck on?
Connecting SEL and Formative Instruction | edCircuit
To me, SEL and formative instructional practices are ways of being in a classroom, moving beyond the practice of “doing to” students to “doing with” (Purkey & Novak, 1996). It’s interesting that formative assessment skills draw on and build SEL skills, and these skill sets feed each other.
Relationships Foster Social Emotional Learning | edCircuit
Trust is key for all relationships to reach their full potential. It’s no different in schools. Trust starts by building a relationship with your learners (and their families). What do you know about each as an individual? Quate and McDermott (2009) tell us “… that the development of a nurturing classroom community in which students are known well by both the teacher and their classmates matters…” Trust is gained when learners see that you know them and believe in them.
Forget Taking a Hard Line. Try 'Soft Tactics' to Spark Student Motivation (Opinion)
Want to engage and empower learners to motivate themselves? Create opportunities for them to have voice and choice. We’ve learned that kids thrive in environments where their voice matters and they have choices in the learning process. There are many ways this can happen in a classroom when learning experiences are designed around what, who, where, when, how to learn, and how to demonstrate.
Supporting Social Emotional Environments | edCircuit
What makes kids, families, and communities feel safe? Builds their sense of well-being? Empowers them to thrive? Safe spaces for learning, whether inside a school building or out in the community, requires equitable social and emotionally friendly environments. As Jonathan Aldis (2019) from Stantec said, “We want spaces where students can practice for the future.”
How SEL Empowers Positive Learning | edCircuit
What’s been your best learning experience? What made it the best experience for you? Like many others, the topic may have been personally relevant. You may have trusted the teacher or the environment where you were learning. You probably got to choose either the topic or another big experience aspect. Engaging in this learning and making choices about it probably empowered you.
Fostering A Culture Of Learning | edCircuit
What is a culture of learning? The Association for Talent Development (2023) says, “A culture of learning, or learning culture, is one in which employees continuously seek, share, and apply new knowledge and skills to improve individual and organizational performance.
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