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Unfortunately, life is not multiple choice; it’s a story problem. If we want to prepare our students for the demands of college and the real world, we cannot afford to whittle away their knowledge to a, b, c, d, or e: all of the above. At the same time, our time as teachers is at a premium and very few of us can afford to spend hours grading essay tests.

Fortunately, the powers that be are aligning in the classroom teacher’s favor, and there are two great tools you can use to reduce your grading time.

So what does QuizStar have that other sites don’t? My favorite feature of QuizStar by far is the “choose all that apply” option. You can create a

We’ve all got a limited amount of working memory, so when we have to handle information in more than one way, our load gets heavier, and progressively more challenging to manage.

when you lighten the load, it’s easier for students’ brains to take information in and transform it into memory.

The duplicated pieces of information--spoken and written--don’t positively reinforce one another; instead, the two effectively flood students’ abilities to handle the information.

Exchange: swapping traditional ways of doing things with ICT Enrich: engaging learners with a richer mix of media Enhance: encouraging deeper learning through the use of ICT Extend: encouraging students to take their learning further Empower: giving students control over their own learning

Research examining student achievement in block-scheduled schools compared to traditional schools showed mixed and inconclusive results

Most research about block scheduling and classroom instruction, as with research on school climate, used student, teacher, and parent questionnaires and surveys.

Every day that first week, even in the first meeting, teach something substantive in the curriculum. Make it something that is brand new, not something reviewed from the previous year. Students are hungry for intellectual engagement after a summer off, and they want to think great thoughts and do great works.

Mix academics with administrative and Get-to-Know-You activities. It should be about 50-50: half engagement with interesting academics, half focused on forms, announcements, or activities meant to build classroom community. Keep the ratio: students will grow impatient and disillusioned if too much time is spent on get-to-know-you activities. It sounds weird, but most students are not looking for continued summer camp experiences so much as they are seeking confidence and engagement.

choose poems related to growing up or modern culture, or read share the lyrics of powerful songs of any generation.

Blended learning, with its mix of technology and traditional face-to-face instruction, is a great approach. Blended learning combines classroom learning with online learning, in which students can, in part, control the time, pace, and place of their learning. I advocate a teacher-designed blended learning model, in which teachers determine the combination that's right for them and their students.

Instructional Aid 1.1: Seven Strategies of Highly Effective Readers

Activating "Priming the cognitive pump" in order to recall relevent prior knowledge and experiences from long-term memory in order to extract and construct meaning from text Inferring Bringing together what is spoken (written) in the text, what is unspoken (unwritten) in the text, and what is already known by the reader in order to extract and construct meaning from the text Monitoring-Clarifying Thinking about how and what one is reading, both during and after the act of reading, for purposes of determining if one is comprehending the text combined with the ability to clarify and fix up any mix-ups Questioning Engaging in learning dialogues with text (authors), peers, and teachers through self-questioning, question generation, and question answering Searching-Selecting Searching a variety of sources in order to select appropriate information to answer questions, define words and terms, clarify misunderstandings, solve problems, or gather information Summarizing Restating the meaning of text in one's own words — different words from those used in the original text Visualizing-Organizing

Constructing a mental image or graphic organizer for the purpose of extracting and constructing meaning from the text

consistently use basic motivation strategies.

we need to ensure that we are implementing a series of factors that elevate our students' focus and level of concern.

Your odds of keeping your students on task go up when you mix things up and keep the energy feeling fresh.

was also concerned about her students’ lack of engagement — so few were completing the assignments she emailed to parents

Playing with her family’s laundry marked the first time Maliah seemed happy — actually happy — since the start of the pandemic.

Nobody should ever be penalized or put at a disadvantage for the supplies they don’t have,” Dillingham thought to herself. “But everyone’s got laundry!”