Teaching Strategy Posts
Powerful Cooperative Learning Strategies (And One You Can Try Tomorrow)
Discover why cooperative learning strategies boost student engagement and learn the Give One, Get One activity—a simple 10-minute strategy teachers can use tomorrow.
Exit Tickets That Increase Engagement & Learning
Learn how exit tickets improve student learning, engagement, and formative assessment. Discover powerful prompts teachers can use in any classroom.
How To Improve Your Exit Ticket Strategy
Exit tickets are one of the most commonly used formative assessment strategies in classrooms.But here’s the problem: Most exit tickets don’t actually tell teachers what students understand. Too often, exit tickets ask students to...
Superior Questioning Techniques to Use in the Classroom
Asking open-ended questions is an important part of teaching for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most obvious reason is that questioning can reveal what a student already knows or has learned. In this article, we will explore how questioning can also be used to...
Five Senses, One Lesson: Why Multisensory Instruction is Powerful
Have you ever smelled something that instantly took you back to another time or place? Perhaps you have tasted a particular food, felt a texture, or heard a song that brought back distant, but powerful, memories. In this article, we will look at the science behind...
Think-Pair-Share-Pair-Share: A New Twist on a Classic Teaching Strategy
Think-Pair-Share-Pair-Share: A New Twist on a Classic Teaching Strategy by Daniel Biegun If you are a veteran teacher, you are likely familiar with the think-pair-share strategy. This version of the activity takes interaction to the next...
Trust Me, You Need to Try These Innovative Exit Tickets!
Exit Tickets are growing in popularity across the field of education, and for good reason. A thoughtfully-crafted Exit Ticket activity can provide valuable formative assessment data to educators, and to the students themselves. Formative assessment refers to prompts...
7 Teaching Strategies That Will Lead to an Amazing Year
As I write this post, teachers across the world are returning to their classrooms for a new school year. Educators are always looking for new teaching strategies to update their practices. Below are seven amazing ideas to get your school year started off right. We...
Icebreaker Bingo: The Ultimate Getting to Know You Game
Icebreaker Bingo is the ultimate getting-to-know-you activity for large groups. It is perfect for students at the beginning of a school year or for adult audiences at the beginning of a workshop or conference. Beyond the classroom, you can play Icebreaker Bingo at...
Multisensory Instruction: Powerful Strategies for All Learners
Have you ever smelled something that instantly took you back to another time or place? Perhaps you have tasted a particular food, felt a texture, or heard a song that brought back distant, but powerful memories. If one particular sense can bring back such memories,...
Formative Assessment vs. Summative Assessment: Which is Better?
In classrooms across America, summative assessment is the reigning, undisputed champion when it comes to collecting data on what students have learned. But should this be the case? Does summative assessment do what we need it to do? Is formative...
Become a Better Teacher by Embracing Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a hot topic in education. Many UDL-related books, websites, and research articles are long on jargon and short on practical ideas that you can use with your students. This series will grow over time and offer...
Let’s Go! Ten of the Most Amazing Virtual Field Trips
Field trips are one of the great joys of school for many students. They get to leave school and generalize learnings by interacting with artifacts, witnessing demonstrations, or meeting with experts. Unfortunately, COVID has denied opportunities to visit...
The Pause Procedure: Offering Learners Time to Process & Reflect
Teachers tend to know a lot. It can be too easy to try cramming too much content into short amounts of class time. Research tells us that we should periodically pause during our lessons and allow students time to process and reflect. This strategy is important for all educators, whether teaching in K-12, lecturing for a college, or training adults.
Here is The Most Important Thing That Great Teachers Do When Asking Questions
Think about when you are asking questions to your class. Does this sound familiar?: You are ask a question and one or two of your eager learners are quick to raise their hands. In fact, the same few students always seem to be the first to raise their hands. Perhaps...
Highlighting Some ‘How To’ Videos that Will Energize Your Virtual Instruction
Great teachers often pause to review previously discussed content with students. This is done, in part, to ensure that important concepts don't get forgotten or lost in the shuffle of other content. To this point, I am going to bring back a few helpful Visionary...
These Strategies are Guaranteed to Make Your Asynchronous Instruction Meaningful
Asynchronous learning has certainly become more common in light of the 2020 COVID reality, but it may remain a part of public education going forward. Many students are actually thriving during virtual instruction. Another thing to consider is the...
21 New Year’s Resolutions for Teachers in 2021 (Part 3)
Here it is- the third and final section of potential New Year’s resolutions. If you have not already done so, go back and check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. As with any professional development, do not try to do everything that is presented to you. Check...
21 New Year’s Resolutions for Teachers in 2021 (Part 2)
Welcome to the second blog post of a 3-part series on potential resolutions for teachers. Be sure to check out Part 1 if you have not already done so. We are well-practiced at making personal resolutions each January, but there is nothing wrong with pursuing...
An Innovative Way to Show Videos During Virtual Teaching
Showing short video clips during virtual teaching can be beneficial. The trick is to ensure that you have an activity planned around a video that will keep your students actively engaged. This idea offers opportunities for students to interact, make...
Science Choice Boards: A Formula for Authentic Assessment
This post will be short on theory and long on materials that you can use with your class. We have previously discussed the why and how of using choice boards for assessment. As follows are 5 choice boards that you can use for...
5 Soft Openers That All Virtual Teachers Should Know
Soft openers are pre-planned activities that take place before class officially starts. These activities typically take the form of games and can be utilized in virtual or face-to-face environments. This blog post will focus on virtual soft openers. ...
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...
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 student...
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 with...
Scavenger Hunt! Energize Your Class with this Ultimate Virtual Brain Break!
When we are teaching in a face-to-face classroom, it is always a great idea to utilize a Brain Break when needed. Virtual Learners also need opportunities to recharge and re-energize. Some folks might even argue that such activities are even more...
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 simple. The...
How to Entice Students to Turn Their Cameras On During Virtual Instruction
Teachers tend to want students to turn their cameras on during synchronous virtual instruction. Unfortunately, many teachers find that their students prefer to leave their cameras off for one reason or another. Having cameras on during class immensely increases the...