Teaching Ideas That
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Three Virtual/Hybrid Exit Tickets That You Should Try Immediately
Exit Tickets are formative assessment activities that teachers use to collect valuable data. They can answer any number of important questions including Did my students learn what I expected them to learn? Were my teaching methods...
How to Use Simile Cards Across Content Areas
Let’s acknowledge that similes are not just for English class. Similes can present creative, fun, and deep means of synthesizing information across content areas. For this response type, the teacher will provide a selection of printed simile cards that...
Exposing the Truth About On-Task Behavior
We hear a lot of well-meaning educators talk about the importance of students being on-task. Are they making eye contact while the teacher is speaking? Are their heads down and focused on their reading materials or...
How to Engage Your Whole Class with Pinch Cards
Teachers are always looking for new ways to engage and educate students. Pinch cards offer simple, but powerful opportunities for students to respond to teacher questions or discussion points. As discussed in a previous blog post, the traditional model of one...
Choice Boards: A Powerful Way to Engage & Assess Your Students
Using choice boards just makes sense! Every individual student represents a unique blend of strengths, interests, needs, experiences, and background knowledge, so it stands to reason that a one-size-fits-all approach to assessment is not ideal. Giving students some...
Opportunities to Respond That Improve Engagement & Learning
Opportunities to respond (OTR) include instances where teachers elicit answers or responses from students. Unfortunately, the traditional OTR involves teachers calling on one student at a time to answer a question. When we call on a single student, it makes it easy...
Make Your Own Individual White Boards with Household Items
Individual white boards are an extremely versatile instructional tool in both face-to-face and virtual settings. Teachers can pose a broad range of questions and prompts for students, who indicate their responses using dry erase markers. As...
How To Play ‘Would You Rather?’ During a Virtual Lesson
Would You Rather? is both a classic ice breaker game and a powerful educational activity. I find that many teachers are aware of Would You Rather?, but have not considered how it can be used academically. The rules are...
