Dr. Shannon Burton – Marketer

4 Tips for Working with Students with Short Attention Spans

As a teacher, dealing with students with shortened attention spans can be difficult. Not only does it feel like you need to work harder to keep them on task, but they can act disruptive if they get bored and makes things difficult for the rest of your class. And yet, it’s not impossible to reach students who can’t always pay attention for long, especially when you keep these tips in mind.

Switch In-Class Activities Frequently
Since you can’t expect students with short attention spans to stick to one activity for very long, it helps to have a plan that is made up of several short activities. This is especially helpful when teaching younger students. For example, a kindergarten teacher might need to switch activities every seven minutes to keep students from getting bored. Older students can focus on tasks for longer than that, but you never want to sit and read to students for very long if their attention spans don’t allow it.

Keep Statements Short
If you tend to ramble or put too much detail into your statements, you will need to break that habit if you teach students with short attention spans. You should never assume that your students won’t understand you if you discuss something at length, but they might lose interest if you don’t get to the point quickly. Say what needs to be said without going into too much detail if you want your students to pay more attention to you. If they want to know more later about a certain subject, you can always discuss it after their work is done.

Have Extra Work Available
Many students who struggle with ADD or have short attention spans are high learners and absorb information quickly. In many cases, they act the way they do out of boredom, either because the in-class material is too easy for them or they finish it quickly. If this is the case for your students, have some extra enrichment activities ready to go or adjust your coursework, making it more challenging and interesting.

Be Patient
We know how frustrating it can be to keep students on task when they want to be doing anything else, but you need to be patient with them. They are just as capable of learning and doing their work as other students, perhaps more so. As long as you are patient and pay close attention to them, you can find something that interests them and helps them stay on task.

4 Top Online Resources for Teachers

As parents, we owe a debt of gratitude to our children’s school teachers. Think about it. While we are all hard at work in our regular offices, or now because of COVID-19, our home offices, our children’s school teachers are hard at work in their virtual or in-person classrooms, keeping watch over them and helping them grow through learning. It’s a big responsibility. And while teaching may seem like a thankless and low-paying job, the school teachers always seem to find a way to make it work because of their commitment to our children.

Evolving technology has changed many employment fields, and teaching is certainly no exception. Teachers need a way to manage their classrooms wherever that classroom may be, and many are turning to online technology to help them. Here are some of the top online resources for teachers.

Google Classroom
Google Classroom, used mainly in a primary education setting, is a learning management system (LMS) similar in function and scope to Canvas, a tool heavily used by colleges and universities. Like Canvas, Google Classroom allows teachers to develop and share their lessons with their students and help them grade assignments. There is a bit of setup involved, but Google Classroom is free for educational institutions.

The Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) lets educators tap into various primary research materials for their classrooms by providing free access to its large collection of digital resources. The general public also has free access to this digital material.

The National Gallery of Art
Teachers of Art will find the National Gallery of Art’s website especially helpful to their teaching efforts. The NGA, like the LOC, offers free resources to aid teachers in obtaining source material for their classes, and they even have a series of online courses in which the teachers can participate to better their teaching skills in various subject areas.

NASA
Teachers in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines can significantly benefit from using NASA’s dedicated STEM site for their classes. Like the other online resources for teachers mentioned earlier, access to this NASA educational resource is also free to educators at all levels.

6 Digital Tools for Educators

COVID-19 has forced educators to reimagine the delivery of lessons in a new age of digital instruction.

To conform to social distancing guidelines, school districts across the country have switched to either fully digital or part-digital models. Students receive instruction via the web from home or other locations.

This has resulted in widespread interest in digital education tools. Here are a few of the most popular for engaging, effective digital teaching.

Animoto
Animoto is a DIY, web-based animation service that students of many ages can use to create animated short films or other materials for class assignments. They can also collaborate with other students by sharing their work and combining their videos.

Extensio
Extensio may be the most versatile and practical digital tool for everyday use in the digital classroom. Users can collaborate to make high-quality presentations using the site’s software and manufacture reports or other materials often assigned to students in the real classroom.

Edmodo
Edmodo functions as a social media site that is directed towards education. Users, teachers, and students can stay updated on assignments, share information, record and view grades, and perform multiple other functions. More than 30 million students currently learn digitally using Edmodo.

Socrative
Socrative is a highly engaging app that allows students to play educational games or perform interactive tasks. The site also offers tests that teachers can administer to students that look and function like digital games.

This app is excellent for keeping students’ attention during instruction – a major obstacle to distance learning, especially for younger children. Teachers can assess their students’ performance on the games/tasks in real-time.

Ted-ED
Ted-ED is a platform for teachers and students to share resources, including lesson plans, digital instructional materials, and study documents. The site is dedicated to advancing the industry of digital learning.

Kahoot!
Kahoot is a fantastic complementary tool to support lessons with surveys, questionnaires, and discussions to assess the effectiveness with which students absorbed the material. The “game-based” learning model supports users’ engagement (students), a major plus in its favor.

We might expect to see more digital learning tools introduced as the need for effective online instruction shows no sign of letting up.

8 Reasons Your Child Should Play a Musical Instrument

Playing a musical instrument can elicit a great deal of joy and excitement. However, such an activity could also prove critical to the development of a young person in many ways including:

Goal Attainment
Even the most accomplished musicians did not demonstrate mastery the first time they picked up their instrument of choice. Proficiency requires practice and dedication. Oftentimes, improvement in the craft requires participants to set personal mandates and then work hard to attain specific goals.

Responsibility
Playing an instrument can foster a greater sense of responsibility. Learning notes, chords, melodies and even full songs or compositions requires allotting rehearsal time. Additionally, many musicians are members of bands or orchestras. Good teammates understand the importance of performing their role well and ensuring the whole functions better than the individual.

Listening Skills
A significant aspect of musical mastery in the ability to listen. Components like pitch, rhythm and tempo are basic concepts that must be understood. That said, these subjects cannot simply be explained or grasped through book learning. Aspiring musicians have to hear such concepts in the music. Ergo, budding musicians often develop and subsequently display superior listening skills.

Social Skills
Aspiring musicians often learn optimal social skills. Musical mastery is often a collaborative effort. Band members and instructors must be on the same page. Such coordination necessitates effective communication.

Confidence
It is safe to say that everyone in the world enjoys some form of music. Therefore, it goes without saying that individuals who can produce such joyous sounds are often admired. That said, not everyone possesses these unique skills. Persons who demonstrate such talents often gain a great deal of confidence.

Brain Strengthening
Reading music can be an intricate process. However, researchers opine that mastery of such a skill improves one’s reasoning and thinking abilities.

Stress-Busting
Many people listen to music when experiencing times of stress or tumult. Therefore, it should be no surprise that many mental health experts suggest that playing an instrument is often an effective method for alleviating stress and improving the participant’s general well-being.

Coordination
Proficiency on an instrument requires the brain and body to work in tandem. Producing specific sounds or hitting certain notes necessitates serious concentration and superior coordination.

The Benefits of Field Trips

Classrooms provide structure and authority for students, but getting students out of the classroom to experience another form of learning is one of the best things we can do for our students. While field trips can cause some headaches for teachers in charge, well-planned and thought out field trips can provide students with an educational experience they can not achieve will in a classroom.

Experiences
Field trips expose students to different experiences while they are out of the classroom. This allows students to take concepts they learned in the classroom and have the lesson reinforced through activities set up by the people in charge at the location of the field trip. This also allows students who might not ever experience these types of opportunities the ability to engage with individuals outside of their everyday life and expand their views.

Learning is reinforced
On an educational field trip, students are learning and processing information through different activities that engage different types of learning styles. Field trips allow students the ability to learn instead of just sitting and listening to a teacher to feed them the information. Concepts are then reinforced and seeing the information presented to them in different ways allows them to comprehend it differently.

Forms new relationships
Getting students out of a classroom setting allows them to interact with each other differently. Not only does this help increase communication between both students and teachers, but it also allows students who do not speak up in the classroom the opportunity to interact in different ways with their peers and educators. Often students are broken into groups and are put into a new social setting allowing them the chance to interact with classmates they may not talk to every day and can foster new relationships between the students.

Parental Involvement
Involving parent chaperones allows the students’ parents the chance to feel more connected to what is going on within the classroom on a day-to-day basis. Parents might also feel more connected to their student’s teacher and allow for open dialogue between each other. Chaperoning a field trip will also allow the parent to be actively engaged in their child’s educational experience.

While a field trip is not right for every situation, planning a well-chosen field trip is often worth the extra hassle. Whether it is a day at a science museum or a trip to a local park, students will remember the experience of leaving the classroom and will be able to recall what they learned because they were actively learning through hands-on experiences all day.

How To Keep Your Students Engaged in the Classroom

In an age of technology and tv streaming services, it’s becoming harder and harder to keep a students attention throughout the day at school. It only takes a few disengaged students to push the rest of them that direction. This happens when they are uninterested in what is being taught or have no desire to participate in activities. More experienced teachers can bring students back into the task at hand, but for those teachers who are new to classroom settings or have less experience, it can sometimes be challenging.

Movement-based activities
One of the best ways to get students engaged is through movement. Throughout the day students are stuck sitting at desks, so throwing in a simple physical movement will help them stay focused and want to participate in the lesson. Adding in something like hand-clapping or stomping patterns when memorizing math facts or spelling words will help students with memorization but also keep them actively engaged throughout the lesson. If you are teaching older students, randomly throw in a creative rhythmic clapping pattern or snapping pattern that the students have to echo back. This challenges them to pay attention during class.

Hands-on learning
Hands-on learning is a great way to make sure students are completely focused on the lesson being taught to them. Using their hands allows them to manipulate and learn and will help them process the information. Hands-on learning can be incorporated into a lesson plan in a variety of ways. This can be done through visual diagrams, counting objects or individual whiteboards. Once a student is engaged in the lesson, they will be able to retain the information better.

Allow collaborative learning
Collaborative learning is another powerful tool for classroom engagement. Not only does it teach students how to work effectively with each other, but it allows the students to learn from each other. Group work will enable students to be productive, but it also introduces them to a variety of different learning styles. Every student learns at a different pace and being able to foster individual accountability in a group project will actively engage the students in both the project and the subject the project is based around.

These are just some ideas for keeping students engaged in the classroom on a daily basis. What works in one classroom setting might not work in another so being able to change how students are engaging in their course work is an important aspect of their education. Students do not want the information just thrown at them, and they need variation to keep them actively engaged.

Advantages of a Public School Education

Public schools play a significant role in shaping young minds and preparing them for life after school. Families are currently exploring other options for their children’s education through homeschooling, private schools, and cyber schools. None of those educational options compare to the advantages of public school education.

The Best Teachers
Some of the best teachers teach in public schools. Public school teachers must have a bachelor’s degree in a specialized education field, and most continue their education to receive their master’s degree. Public schools often have lower teacher turnover rates due to higher salaries than those at private or charter schools. Public school teachers also show higher job satisfaction because they can join unions and have a greater sense of stability that creates a safer workspace for teachers as well as students.

Community Roots
Public schools are also the hearts of the communities they serve. Most public schools have been around for a long time and did more than educate students. They often host extracurricular activities, sporting events, academic clubs, open libraries, and invite the community to attend local events.

Public school districts are also known to have generations of family members who have attended the school. Not only does the community know the teachers that work at the school, but they might be the same teachers that have taught multiple family members over time.

Diversity
The more diverse a child’s environment is, the more well-rounded and adjusted they will be when entering the adult world. Besides learning essential reading, writing and math skills, public school students learn to deal with a variety of different people and personalities while at the same time being exposed to a sea of diversity in the human race.

Fiscal Responsibility
Public schools are very wise and conscious of their money because they have to stick to budgets! Their financial records are general knowledge to the entire community as well as the state. Every single spending decision a public school makes is made public, and state laws require that every expense must relate to educating children.

While budgets have gotten tighter and families have had to pitch in for additional school supplies and the cost of extracurricular activities, schools remain budget-friendly and a free alternative to the ballooning costs of private and boarding schools.

While the state of public schools relies heavily on additional funding, these schools are still actively working to make sure students are receiving the best education. Public schools will continue to offer students a diverse education and a chance to be apart of a growing and evolving community.

How Does Poverty Affect Education

In the United States, many students are at a disadvantage to receive a great education. Poverty can handicap learners before they even attend their first day of school. It also causes students to fall behind in class and can lead to individuals dropping out of school altogether. The following are just two of the reasons poverty affects education.

Disadvantages Due to Parental Choices
The choices made by parents greatly affect their children and their educational futures. Exposing children to drug use before birth can lead to cognitive deficiencies and learning limitations. Studies have shown that not eating enough can hinder the brain’s capacity to retain information and poorer families are often unable to afford proper nutrition and often send their children to school without a proper breakfast or lunch.

Children who are exposed to violence or household related stress also face limitations in the classroom. They are often unable to cope with these situations and can become disruptive in class. Unfortunately, these types of situations happen more regularly with low-income families.

To combat these conditions, many cities offer free parenting workshops to help parents give their children a better start. Organizations offer classes in parenting, nutrition, and stress control to make sure poorer children are giving the chance to succeed in school.

Bad School Conditions
Schools that provide poor educational environments affect poorer students just as much as things that happen outside of the classroom. Most schools across the country are funded through property taxes and school districts with lower property values often have less tax money to use for improvements. Less money means a school lacks books and other resources and the school will often struggle to retain teachers.

Schools also often lack federal funding and districts and individual schools often have to form committees to prioritize their needs, develop action plans and create fundraisers to raise money for construction projects and other resources they may need.

To combat parental disadvantages and poor school conditions, a variety of charities and educational organizations are gathering resources to level the playing field for disadvantaged students and children. Education is what will shape a child’s economic and social future so equipping them with the right tools will allow them to have successful futures and break the cycle, so their children do not grow up with the same disadvantages.

Tips to Improve Student Vocabulary in the Classroom

The English language can be tricky especially if it is not a students first language. Students should be using a word ten times before it sticks in their everyday vocabulary. While teaching vocabulary should be done with more than just memorizing words on flashcards, it is important to remember that every student learns at a different pace and it may take some students a little extra time to nail down additional vocabulary words. The following three tips are just some of the ways you can help your students increase their vocabulary while in the classroom.

Read for Meaning
Reading is one of the most effective ways to help a child increase their vocabulary. Reading for meaning is a research-based practice that helps students understand challenging vocabulary. This practice gives students the opportunity to not only practice but master phrases that lead to success and improved word usage. Students can use strategies that include actively searching for new words while they read and then reflecting on what they learned while reading.

Vocabulary in Context
Using a subject to teach students adjectives is a fast way to increase a students vocabulary. When students learn lists of words that are not connected to a subject or a story, it is sometimes harder for them to comprehend what those words mean. Asking students to answer questions based on the description of an object or playing word games can help them recall words at a later date.

Vocabulary and Content
Teaching students content related to a specific term, concept, or vocabulary is not only a great way to build up their vocabulary, but it also helps them understand specific content related to what they are learning. Student reading comprehension is based on their knowledge of words and teaching them keywords is a way they will be able to comprehend texts. They will be able to define words, recognize how the word can be used in a sentence, and know the difference in the multiple meanings some words carry.

Increasing students vocabulary is an important part of their education. Harder words will become second nature to them, and teachers will start to see higher test scores and an increase in their students reading levels because of it.

The Importance of Art in Education

Throughout the last decade, schools have been cutting art programs out of their curriculums. While students develop active play skills through art classes, they also develop other fundamentally important skills from music and theater classes. The following are just five ways art help students develop essential traits for their futures.

Student Engagement
Art is hands-on and allows students to focus on positive achievements and allows them to create projects that foster collaboration. Attending art classes allows many opportunities for a student to increase their confidence and learn how to demonstrate their skills through their artwork. Art education helps students express themselves in ways they might not be able to communicate and connect to new personal experiences.

Develop Positive Habits, Behaviors, and Attitudes
Students who are given a chance to participate in an arts education help foster a positive culture with their fellow students. Schools with arts curriculums have seen a decrease in disciplinary referrals because art classes give students a way to channel bad behavior through creativity. Artistic disciplines also help students develop character and teach them good habits in behavior and attitude that help them be successful in the future.

Teaches Language and Mathematics Skills
As students learn to read music, they are learning how to build their vocabulary and understand language. This also helps them develop their mathematics skills through measurement, number manipulation, and proportional thinking. Studies have shown that students who take art classes or play an instrument often outperform their classmates who do not participate in the arts.

Increases Leadership
Many students who are apart of art education programs develop a variety of leadership skills. These skills prepare them for their future careers and help them create a sense of identity and confidence.

Teamwork
Students who regularly engage in a variety of art classes are becoming active members of their school community. They build skills that help them work in teams and help them work to achieve common goals with each other. This helps students understand the differences they all have and help them realize that teamwork leads to a great project or performance.

Overall, arts education is essential in shaping the minds of our students. Without art, our students will miss critical opportunities to grow and develop for their futures.

The Importance of STEM in Education

Occupations in the STEM field are growing at a rate of 17% across the United States. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics play a major role in the sustained growth and stability of our economy and are one of the most critical components to help lead us into the future. Involving our students in STEM education at an early age helps create critical thinkers, increase their science literacy, and enables them to become innovators.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are present in our every day lives from the creation of roads and bridges to create a more environmentally friendly world; STEM is all around us. If we can expose our students to STEM and give them an opportunity to explore concepts related to it, it can help spark a passion for their future career in a STEM field.

Engineering is About Creating
Creative, artistic students often shy away from engineering because they do not see the creative side of engineering. True innovation comes from unexpected combinations and instead of emphasizing the analytical side of engineering, introduce students to the creative side. Allow them to engage their artistic and creative side through experimentation.

Get Them Involved in What They are Interested in
It is important to use students passions and things the things they are interested in and allow them to use those skills to explore new skills. Using their interests helps create a “buy-in” and helps keep them interested and engaged with the material they are working with.

Math and Science
One of the biggest barriers that make students shy away from STEM is the belief that they will only be focusing on math and science. Students are often afraid that they are not very good at one or both of the subjects then the field of STEM is not for them. As educational professionals, it is imperative to remind students that they do not have to be perfect in something to be able to participate! STEM is more about being a creative problem solver then figuring out the ratio of a circle!

Let Them Help Others
Studies have shown that students respond better when they are in a position to help other people. Giving them a project that allows them to solve a problem for someone while exploring the STEM field can capture their interest. This not only allows students to connect with what they are working on but it also allows them to become problem solvers which is one of the biggest skills students gain when engaging in STEM-related activities.

4 Ways to Improve Reading Comprehension

As educational professionals, we’ve heard every excuse when it comes to reading, but the one that is constantly repeated is “I do not understand what I just read.” While this statement is usually uttered more by students in grades 7-12, it is important to help students build reading comprehension skills early on to help them achieve academic success later on in their educational career.

Reading comprehension problems do not mean that a student reads at a lower reading level; they just have problems understanding what they just read. Often textbooks in middle and high school are trying to cram as much information as possible into a chapter, and the density of the information may be at the expense of the student reading the chapter.

Students often struggle to determine the key ideas while other students have a hard time understanding the purpose of the chapter. To help students better comprehend what they are reading, try the following strategies.

Mental Activities
Reading comprehension is the result of many mental activities done by the reader. These skills are done automatically and simultaneously to understand what is being communicated by the text they are reading. These mental activities include:

Predicting the meaning of a word
Determining the purpose
Connecting experiences to the text
Visualizing the characters, settings, and events
Reflecting on the meaning of the text
Reading comprehension done through a process that is interactive, strategic and adaptable for each reader at any level. Students who can use some of these mental activities will be able to understand better what they are reading and when they get to middle and high school, they will be able to quickly understand some of the harder subjects and denser material they are expected to read.

Read Aloud
While reading aloud is done a lot in elementary school, it is something that has also been proven to benefit middle and high schoolers. By reading aloud a teacher is not only modeling good reading behavior, but it allows for stops to check for a students understanding. It also allows a teacher to demonstrate their interactive elements and help students focus on the meaning of the text.

Ask Questions
Instead of rushing through a reading, students should be pausing and generating questions to understand further what they just read. These questions can be as simple as asking which just happened or digging a little deeper and discussing what they think the author means by a certain subject in the chapter. This can help students focus on the main idea while also increasing their engagement with the material they are reading.

Summarize
Students should be encouraged to stop reading and summarize what they’ve just read periodically. Creating a summary makes helps students to integrate the most important ideas from what they’ve read. This also helps them determine the important ideas from the irrelevant elements in the chapter. Adding this practice can also help make long passages more understandable.

How to Prepare Students for Standardized Testing

The month of March is the kick off of standardized testing across the country, and while it can leave parents overwhelmed, it is also stressful for educators. Whether it is elementary students preparing for state standardized tests or high school students preparing to take the SATs, testing is stressful for everyone. While there is no secret formula for achieving great scores on these tests, there are a few practical things that teachers and parents can do to help their students prepare for standardized testing.

Take Practice Tests
The more practice tests a student can take, the better they will do. Practice tests help prepare students with an understanding of the expectations of the test. If a test format seems familiar on test day, a student will be more likely to feel much more confident taking the test. Practice tests can be found online through the Department of Education state websites, or websites that specialize on a specific test like the SATs.

Introduce Strategies
Sometimes students become overwhelmed during standardized testing and easily want to give up when they do not know the answer to a question. It is easy to automatically give up instead of spending the time to work through the question. Introducing students to ways to break down a question when they are unsure will help them feel more successful during the test. Strategies like chunking text, breaking down sentences, visualizing concepts and using prior knowledge will ultimately help students who come across questions they may struggle with.

Emphasize Effort
It is important to make sure students understand that standardized tests are in place to measure what they’ve learned throughout the school year. But students should understand that it is more important to do their best instead of achieving the highest score. Try to stress the importance of the test without making students feel responsible for the outcome, but emphasize the effort they put into the test.

Make Test Day Simple
Students have the most success on standardized testing when test days are kept as close to a regular school day as possible. If the student isn’t one who eats breakfast, do not force them into something they don’t regularly do. Changing one thing in their day could throw them off and have negative effects on their test scores.

Plan Something Post Test
While students should be rewarded for an entire day of testing, do not put the event directly after the test. If they know they are going to be rewarded, they will rush through the testing to get to the reward faster. Whatever you are planning on doing in the classroom or at home after school can wait until the day after testing.

4 Tips To Write A Great Lesson Plan

Creating a lesson plan at any grade level can be a daunting task for some teachers. Writing lesson plans allows you to address the requirements of the curriculum and allows you to plan out how you will address your students needs. Some school districts use specific templates when creating lesson plans, but you can also create your own or use lesson plan templates found through a simple Google search. Whatever your lesson plan layout preference is, make sure you are creating something that is engaging for both you and your students!

Gather Materials
What do you need to teach your lesson? Create a materials list that will allow you to gather supplies before teaching the lesson. The list should include everything down to the technology your students may need to have access to. When it comes to the day you’re teaching the lesson, make sure that you have everything ready to go and situated before your students arrive. Having your resources ready ahead of time saves valuable class time and will put you at ease when the lesson to your students.

Know Your Objectives
What do your students need to get out of the lesson once it’s finished? This should be the first question you ask yourself as you prepare the lesson plan. This should also be communicated to your students at the beginning of the lesson and posted in a visible location. Communicating learning objectives both verbally and in written form helps motivate them to work towards a clear goal. The objective should be the focus of the entire lesson and can be maximized through learning outcomes and SMART objectives (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound).

Instructions
The instructions are one of the most important parts of a lesson plan. Not only is this where you are presenting them with a new concept, but it’s where you are preparing your students for success. You should also speak clearly and concisely when delivering this information to a classroom full of eager learners and be sure to take your time so that your students fully understand the concept.

Incorporate All Styles of Learning
At the beginning of the school year, it is hard to accommodate every learning style because you’re just not familiar with your students. But the further the school year goes, the more your lesson plans should accommodate all learning styles. Knowing how to accommodate different styles will help equip your students for future academic and professional success and give them each a sense of belonging in the classroom.

Project Based Learning

Project based learning (PBL) allows students to achieve academic successes and helps prepare them to face the challenges of the everyday world. Project based learning allows students to work on a project over an extended period and brings learning to life. Teachers will often pick projects that have students solving a current real-world problem or answering a complex question. Students can develop their critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills during their participation in project based learning initiatives.

Project based learning isn’t something that you master in a short amount of time. The first couple of times you try it, there are bound to be some hiccups. As you develop how you initiate your projects, you will also learn right alongside your students. What works for one class, will not work the following year for another class. If you are looking to integrate project based learning into your classroom, the following techniques will help make this teaching method a great tool for your classroom.

Create Learning Spaces
One of the characteristics of a PBL classroom is that the teacher puts emphasis on group work and that students work with their peers to solve problems and answer questions they may have. For this to happen, a classroom must be organized to support collaboration. Desks should be arranged in pods or groupings and elementary classrooms, it’s important to allow students to have access to floor mats or cushions for alternate places to work.

There still needs to be a central location in the classroom where students can gather to listen to stories, be given instructions for projects, or hear stories, but there needs to be room beyond that where students can break into group work.

Technology
Classrooms that are PBL classrooms prominently feature and make full use of educational technology. Project based learning helps students develop real-world skills and technology allows them to do that. While technology can become a distraction, it should be monitored, and teachers should provide the appropriate guidance when students are using the internet.

Be the Resource
As an educator, you need to become the most important element of a classroom where project based learning is used. PBL classrooms are unpredictable and mostly guided by students. As a teacher, it is important to be flexible, supportive and engaged in your students learning processes even if you kind of feel like a spectator. It is the teachers’ job to introduce project themes, goals, and ensure that your students have all of the resources and materials they need to complete their projects.

If you are considering transitioning to a PBL classroom full or part-time, it can be intimidating at first. As project based learning continues to gain traction throughout the education community, expect it to become apart of educational training eventually. But for now, any additional information you may need about project based learning can be found in continuing education programs, conferences, books, and online resources.

How to Prevent Bullying in the Classroom

Bullying has become a widespread problem across many school districts in the U.S. Whether it is physically altercations, rumors or gossiping, bullying can have a lasting effect in an educational setting. Preventing school bullying has become one of the most important things educators have to be aware of in their classroom. Creating a safe and positive environment for the students in your classroom will help combat bullying. The following tips will help ensure that your students are in a positive, friendly environment where bullying is not tolerated.

Talk Through it
It is important to make sure your students are fully aware of how individuals are affected by bullying. Instill empathy and emotional intelligence and ensure that your students know the consequences of bullying. It should also be regularly announced that bullying is something that is not tolerated in the classroom, in the hallways, or anywhere else on school grounds.

Be Familiar With Bullying Indicators
Bullies come in size types: physical bullying, verbal bullying, relational aggression, cyberbullying, sexual bullying, and prejudicial bullying. As an educational professional, it is important to be aware of these types of bullies. Boys and girls are often bullied or bully each other differently. While girls tend to take a more indirect approach, boys are often influenced by “boy code.”

Assign Groups
Allowing students to choose their groups potentially opens the door to bullying. But if you choose the groups, you are making sure every student feels included. Pre-selecting groups will also give students the opportunity to learn to work with different personality types and allow them to work with someone they might not have ever chosen to work with.

Be an Anti-Bullying Advocate
As an anti-bullying advocate, it is your responsibility to ensure that your school has an effective anti-bullying policy in effect. Partnering with other teachers and staff members to develop a culture where bullying isn’t tolerated. Victims of bullying are often blamed for bringing it on themselves, but a bully will always show bullying behavior. Encouraging everyone to adapt to this mindset will help ensure that bullying isn’t tolerated in your school.

Taking these steps to help prevent bullying in the classroom will go a long way to improving yourself as an educator. Bullying distracts students from learning and makes the learning environment hostile. Implementing these steps from day one and establishing that you will not tolerate any type of bullying will have the best impact on your students.

How Is Artificial Intelligence Changing Education

Over the past twenty years, artificial intelligence has become a standard part of our lives. Technology surrounds us, from our phones to our cars and even our refrigerators. Back in the day a lot of classrooms were considered tech-free zones, but today we see AI being used for educational purposes nonstop. Here are a few ways artificial intelligence is changing the way we approach education.

Personalized Learning
Have you ever logged onto Netflix or most other streaming services, and seen the personalized recommendations they give you? That’s AI technology, and that same technology is being used in classrooms to help students learn. One of the big issues is that traditional systems typically try to cater to the middle but it doesn’t serve the students as sufficiently as it could. When we introduce AI into the classroom, teachers are put into a position to perform better because of the personalized recommendations the AI will recommend to each individual. A good example of AI helping students learn is the Carnegie Learning app, which is a program that looks at a student’s unique learning process and adapts the lessons as needed.

Efficiency
One of the biggest upsides of AI in education is how it is and how it can make so many things, such as administrative tasks, much more efficient. An example of this is grading. Teachers tend to dedicate a lot of time to grading, and AI can help reduce that time so they can spend more of it actually engaging with their students. There are programs such as Gradescope, which can grade a student’s paper, asses their answers, and even recognize handwriting. AI can also be used for things such as making seating charts, ordering supplies or even processing paperwork.

Global Learning
AI has changed education by helping to eliminate boundaries around the globe. With the way technology works today, you can learn from almost anywhere at any time. Whether a student is in another country or they’re ill and confined to their bed, we can use AI to help bring the classroom to them. An example would be Presentation Translator, which is a plugin for PowerPoint that will create subtitles while the teacher is speaking. This can be great in helping students who speak a different language, or who have an audio or visual disability.

As time moves onward, artificial intelligence will only grow and with it the benefits it can bring to the education industry. The time when teachers would confiscate phones or when kids would get excited when the teacher would bring out the TV is not as far behind us as you may think, and with all of that changing so much in the past twenty years, it’s not hard to imagine how much AI will evolve in that same span of time.

3 Things Teachers Can Do To Help Students Succeed

When it comes to teaching, the success of your students should be the first thing on your to-do list. What that success entails will likely be different from student to student, but there are countless ways to help all of your students achieve that success regardless of the student or your own personal teaching style. Here are a few things teachers can do to help their students succeed.

High Expectations
One of the most important things to do to help your students succeed is to set high expectations for them. You don’t want to set impossible standards of course, but if you can push your students to achieve higher standards, they will get there with time. It’s also important to try and offer praise to your students when they succeed in things, whether big or small. The expectations you set and the moral support you give will help your students push towards their goals while also having someone to fall back on in case they fail.

Be Consistent
Another important element to helping your students succeed is to be consistent. This can apply to multiple things, such as classroom rules or the way you grade or even just the expectations you have for your students. Often times the classroom needs a certain level of structure otherwise students may end up getting distracted. This can take away from valuable classroom time, so it’s important to make sure you establish that structure early on and stick with it. By staying consistent, you can focus on teaching instead of dealing with disruption in the classroom.

Vary Your Teaching Style
It might seem odd that I’m telling you to vary your teaching style after just emphasizing how important consistency is but by varying the way you teach you can give your students more opportunities to learn. Students tend to have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to how they learn best, so it’s important that you try to vary the way you reach as opposed to sticking with a single style. This will help students be more successful, whether it’s because one teaching style works better or because it helps prevent the students from getting bored.

As a teacher, there are so many different ways to help your students succeed. It really all depends on the students, and your own personal teaching styles. These are just a few of the things you can try doing in order to assist your students in achieving their goals. By helping your students succeed you can not only help them feel better about themselves, but you can feel good about the work you’re doing as a teacher.

5 Ways To Keep Students Engaged Over The Summer

The last thing our students think about over the summer is their education. However, ensuring that a student remains scholastically engaged over the summer not only has the potential to build their interests and intelligence but can help them maintain a competitive edge once the new school year begins. The following activities are recommended by educational professionals and will help prepare your student for the next school year.

Promote Summer Reading
Whether it’s through a local library or a program created by the school library, summer reading is a great way to make sure your student continues to work on their reading skills. Some districts make summer reading lists mandatory and as parents in a district without a mandatory summer reading list, and it’s important to encourage your student to read. The subjects read do not have to be heavy or academic, but the important thing is encouraging children to enjoy reading and not look at it in a negative light.

Go On Learning-Based Excursions
Certain family outings over the summer can encourage learning without your student even realizing it! Trips to the local museums, theatre, zoo, aquarium, and other historical locations are a great way to instill a little bit of learning while still having fun!

Online Learning Courses and Apps
Online educational programs continue to be released every summer and offer students the chance to brush up on skills they might have learned at the beginning of the last school year. Most of these programs are game based and make learning fun while also encouraging creativity in younger students.

Any app store whether you use an Apple or Android device will have a wide variety of apps that are built to help students brush up on their vocabulary or practice their addition and subtraction skills.

Volunteering
Summer is the best time to get older students involved in things happening in the community by volunteering for local organizations. While it provides valuable experience through the development of leadership and job skills, it also can point them toward a potential career opportunity and build a professional network within the community.

Arts and Crafts
Whether it’s borrowing a cookbook from the local library and following a step by step recipe, coloring in a coloring book or taking an art class at a local art college or craft store, working on arts and craft projects over the summer helps foster creativity. It also means they’re doing something physical instead of sitting in front of a computer or TV screen playing video games.

As parents, we are in a great position to help get our students ready for the next school year. You know your child and know how to help turn their interest into great learning opportunities this summer!

How to Write a Curriculum

Any education professional who has sat in on a curriculum writing team meeting knows that this part of teaching isn’t for the faint of heart. Writing a curriculum has a lot of moving parts, and everyone has their own opinions on what should and should not be included. But how do you write a curriculum that works for both students and the subject being taught? The following tips will help make sure you are writing the best curriculum for your students to succeed in their futures.

Determine Your Vision
Understanding what needs to be achieved with the curriculum you are writing is crucial. When starting, it is best to think with the end in mind, which is the step most teachers skip. Skipping this step can lead to lessons being disjointed and can put gaps in students education. Take the time to figure out what you want the curriculum to look like, and how you want it to flow from one topic to the next. While some teachers prefer a scripted curriculum, others prefer something that is more free-flowing. Your curriculum will also depend on what has been outlined by the school for specific lessons.

Outline Overarching Topics
Once you have the basic design and the intention of your curriculum, it is time to select overarching topics. Some standards, like common core, are already broken into topics, but you can create a basic outline to see which topics will be overarching. You also want to look for topics that will provide flexibility within the context of your curriculum.

Review of Current Curriculum
It is important to review the current curriculum before completely getting rid of it and starting over. There is often something that can be repurposed and used in the new curriculum. If you keep anything, you need to figure out what topic it falls under and how you can naturally weave it into the new curriculum. If it fits in, it will also need to be brought up to standard and match any requirements put into place by the district.

Write Lessons to Provide Comprehensive Learning Experiences
Once your topics are outlined and you’ve reviewed the current curriculum, you can start writing your lesson plans. Make sure your lessons are engaging for the students and offer a variety of teaching strategies that will meet the needs of a classroom of diverse learners. Make sure you also include transitions within the lessons so that it is sequenced appropriately throughout. The lesson should also clearly explain the standards and relate to overarching topics where needed.

There are a variety of ways to design a new curriculum, and ultimately, you know what will work for your classroom.

Managing Conflict in the Classroom

Handling the conflicts and tensions of students in the classroom can be challenging for even the most seasoned teachers. While you can establish and maintain a positive classroom attitude for all of the students that come through the door each school year. And while conflicts are sure to arise, the following tips will help you deal with outbursts and confrontations.

Problem-Solving
Problem-solving usually helps solve any conflict. When the goal and the relationship are important to students, problem-solving negotiations can be initiated to solve the conflict. Students will seek a solution that will ensure both sides achieve their goals and that all tensions and negative feelings between the two sides are dissipated.

Smoothing
If the end goal doesn’t matter in a classroom argument, it might be best to just smooth things over on both sides. Often, smoothing means that one person has to give up their goal so that the other person can achieve theirs. Smoothing helps maintain the highest-quality relationship, and as a teacher, you can detect which students’ goals and interests are much stronger than the others in conflict. As the teacher, you can also help facilitate the smoothing process and even bring a little humor to the situation.

Compromising
If both the goal and maintaining the relationship are important and neither side can have their way, both students involved will have to give up part of their goals and reach an agreement that both sides are happy with. A compromise may involve flipping a coin or meeting in the middle. Compromising can be used when students want to engage in problem-solving negotiations, but they do not have enough time to do so.

Withdrawing
Sometimes during a classroom conflict, the goal is not important to the students, and they value their relationship more. In this situation, one student may withdraw from the conflict by giving up their goal completely to avoid the argument continuing with another student. This is a great way for students to calm down and control their feelings, and as the teacher in the classroom, it is important to support each student when this happens.

How To Get Your Kids Ready For The First Day Of School

The start of a new school year is right around the corner, and that means early mornings, busy schedules, and lots of homework. Staying on top of all those tasks while getting the kids to school on time can be a challenge for any parent, but there are several ways to make getting your kids ready for school an easier task.

Get Them Used to an Earlier Bedtime a Week in Advance
Bedtimes are often a thing of the past when it comes to summer. Days are consumed with plenty of activities, which may mean staying up later than usual. To make those early mornings a bit easier, start having them go to bed at their regular time at least a week prior to the first day of school.

Establish a Routine
Kids thrive on routine, so establishing one early on will make every morning run smoothly. A good routine starts with a reasonable bedtime so they wake up refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

Do as Much as Possible the Night Before
Even with a strong cup of coffee, it can still be difficult to accomplish all the tasks required on school mornings in such a short amount of time. Try preparing lunches, setting out school clothes, and packing book bags the night before to save time in the morning.

Keep Things Fun
Even though school mornings can be hectic, it’s still valuable time spent with your children. Keep things fun and entertaining by playing some games at the bus stop or on the drive to school. Sing songs, turn on their favorite music while they’re getting dressed, allow them to watch a short cartoon, or give them a few extra moments to cuddle with you and their favorite stuffed animals before heading out the door. They’ll carry those special moments with them all through their day at school.

Offer Rewards
If you really struggle with getting your child ready for school, offer a reward system for staying on track. Something as simple as a quick trip for breakfast on the way to school once a week or a reasonable allowance might be enough to keep them motivated.

3 Tips to Create a Positive Classroom Environment

As a teacher, there are certain things that you need to do in order to have a great environment for learning. Creating a positive classroom culture is a key step in helping your students learn as much as they can through their time in your class. Once you have learned the tips for having a positive classroom culture, it will be easy to implement them.

Create a Class Social Media Account
In our modern digital age, just about everyone has a mobile device and a connection to social media. Your students are going to feel much more connected when they are able to have a say in what gets posted on the class social media account. It will be fun to see which posts get the most likes on your Instagram or YouTube account.

Do a Check-in Every Week
Even if you have trouble makers in your class, they are going to be very well behaved during a weekly check-in. After a fun weekend, it is a good idea to check with your students and see if they did anything fun during their time off. It isn’t required that they have to share something. However, you will find that most of your students will want to participate in this weekly check-in. These sharing times will be a great way to teach even your rowdiest students how to be polite and respectful of their fellow classmates.

Make Learning an Engaging Experience
It is important to make sure that your classroom has a learning experience that is engaging. Instead of simply just reading out of a textbook, you will want to make sure that you are creating an engaging experience that allows all of your students to be a part of a community learning style. Whether you are using the latest media or simply using fun games as a part of the learning process, you will be able to push through to a whole new level of learning that is unlike any your students have had before.

Creating a positive classroom culture isn’t something that is going to happen overnight. You need to make sure that you are working on creating this new culture just a bit every day. Before you know it, you will have positivity in your classroom that will make learning much more enjoyable.

The Benefits of Academic Assemblies

If done right, school assemblies can be an influential learning tool for children. Students can become bored with the day-to-day humdrum of classes, recess, and home. Assemblies help break the monotony of the school routine. In many ways, they can help instill a sense of camaraderie, school spirit, or even help develop an interest in potential extracurricular activities.

As children get older, moving from elementary school to middle school, children start losing the opportunity to gather en masse. Being given the opportunity to experience school life on a larger social level can allow children to develop a sense of social awareness and responsibility. During large social gatherings like assemblies, the rules of the classroom are extended a bit. Children are required to sit still, participate, and listen effectively, with a modicum of supervision. This allows the students to stretch the limits of personal discipline.

By following the common rules set up in expectation of larger gatherings, a good assembly leader will then be able to allow anyone who would like the chance, to participate. The communal sharing of ideas could be a foreign concept for some students, but once comfortable in the situation, the quieter students might find themselves participating more often. This helps to build confidence in quieter, oftentimes introverted students.

Confidence can foster a sense of unity. Through unity, an igniting of school spirit, it becomes the assembly leader’s job to then instill core values. Assemblies can touch on subjects that can be glazed over in the classroom. Lessons on values such as responsibility and the importance of diversity are given a wider audience. Bullying and the anti-bullying campaigns get a larger reception. Students can be engaged in several different areas. This makes the student body aware of larger themes in adulthood. Emotional quotient is just as valuable in personal growth as intelligence quotient, and it is the responsibility of the school systems to help develop social awareness and accountability in the next generation.

Using motivational speakers during these assemblies gives the students a direct correlation from the thoughts and feelings being expressed through stories of personal growth and success to the positive energy that can bring about immediate change. This gives an assembly the unique ability to breakthrough the boredom, and reach the struggling and bored student population.

The Importance of Evaluating Learning Disorders

Far too often, learning disorders are swept under the rug. Some children may be classified ill-behaved or just not wanting to learn. Sadly, this is usually not the case. Learning disorders affect children differently. Some may struggle with attention deficit disorders while others have dyslexia. The need for evaluation and diagnosis is vital to proper treatment.

Importance of Evaluation
If a learning disorder is suspected, time is of the essence. Living with a learning disability is possible; in fact, many learning disorders are treatable with therapy and medication. The key is identifying the disability and creating a treatment plan.

A lot of children suffer from depression and anxiety, which makes meeting educational milestones difficult. The same children may again be classified as disobedient or labeled as slow. A proper evaluation identifies to the underlying issues and helps even small children excel in school and at home.

Signs of Possible Learning Disorder
There are a lot of red-flag signs that accompany learning disorders. A child’s academic abilities may not correlate with their age. In addition, they may have trouble paying attention, are unable to understand directions and struggle with staying on task.

Requesting Evaluation
Many learning disorders are easily diagnosed as young five years old. The key is knowing what signs to look for and requesting evaluation. Parents, physicians and educational providers are usually the ones who request evaluation.

Evaluation Process
The first step of the evaluation process is gathering information from the family, treating physicians and educational providers. Children may also be observed in school and at home. In addition, there are a set of standardized tests that are given to determine where the child is academically. All testing is age appropriate and focus on the child’s current fund of knowledge.

After proper evaluation, if deemed eligible for special education services, the educational institution is notified. Together, family, teachers and the test administrator determine the best course of action. IEP may be put in place at school, giving children extra time and assistance is completing tasks. They may also qualify for more one-on-one assistance in areas where they need a bit of extra guidance.

Every child deserves a chance to thrive in school and in their private life. If you suspect your child or student may have a learning disorder, it’s important to request a formal evaluation and if diagnosed, proper treatment.