Group items tagged

"Professional Development is a life-long learning process that involves different activities including individual progress, continuing education, inservice education, peer collaboration, study groups, and peer coaching or mentoring. The importance of professional development lays in the fact that it is closely related to the overall quality of education and students achievements. Teachers who stop learning and suffice themselves with the curriculum content soon turn into hard working students only a step above their actual students."

"What it is: 300 free, teacher-developed Common Core-aligned lessons for Basal reading series in grades 3-5. Why it matters: These lessons can be used immediately in the classroom and for professional development Who creates these materials? Hundreds of teachers worked collaboratively to develop these replacement materials, following deep training on the Common Core by Student Achievement Partners. Each lesson has been authored, edited, and reviewed by a team of teachers."

National Writing Project (NWP) is a site dedicated to digital writing. Educators can read articles, explore resources, and submit their own publications. The sub links from Google are: About - Since it is hard to filter information via internet, sites must be trusted. This is especially important for educators wanting to incorporate what they find on the internet into their lessons. NWP is a networking community that comes together to provide, "Professional development, develop resources, generate research, and act on knowledge to improve the teaching of writing and learning in schools and communities."

"Social Studies Techbook is built from the ground up to be a unique, web-based teaching and learning resource. Unlike other digital social studies programs that are converted from existing textbooks, Techbook™ takes full advantage of digital capabilities to offer multi-modal resources that transform teaching and learning. Powerful yet simple-to-use, Social Studies Techbook supports teachers as they transition to digital, while simultaneously helping them to meet Common Core State Standards. Real-time assessments also enhance a teacher's ability to individualize instruction. From interactive maps to "enduring debates", Social Studies Techbook links social studies to key historical resources, features activities that help students to think critically, and encourages students to develop arguments that are supported by evidence. "

Something to think about

"iKeepSafe is dedicated to the education of families on how to stay safe online. That's why we've teamed up with Google to develop curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. The curriculum is designed to be interactive, discussion filled and allow students to learn through hands-on and scenario activities. Each workshop contains a resource booklet for both educators and students that can be downloaded in PDF form, presentations to accompany the lesson and animated videos to help frame the conversation."

"How have schools successfully transformed their students' learning experiences by incorporating 21st Century Skills into teacher practice, curriculum, assessment, and professional development?"

"Bestselling author Mike Schmoker describes a plan for radically improving student learning that is built on three core elements: a focused and coherent curriculum (what we teach); clear, prioritized lessons (how we teach); and purposeful reading and writing, or authentic literacy. With this "less is more" philosophy, educators can help students learn content at a deeper level, develop greater critical thinking skills, and discover more clearly how content-area concepts affect their lives and the world around them. Both a call to action and a blueprint for creating more effective classrooms, Focus: Elevating the Essentials for Radically Improved Student Learning will challenge your assumptions about schooling and show how educators who have embraced this approach quickly achieved spectacular results."

"Practice: Through Problem Solving. The question is just the beginning. Every problem in the TenMarks library is developed with the intent to engage the student's problem-solving skills. With a continually growing bank of questions, students are assured access to a wide variety of problems to practice and perfect their skills and build a strong foundation."

Lesson for teaching students to paraphrase.

Common CORE resources

Free resources for teaching. I found some useful comprehension and literary analysis pieces of text (folktales) to use with my class.

Inspiration and advice for teachers, including how to integrate the arts and technology.

A professional article (and resource) with information about PLC, including what they are how and tips for successful implementation.