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"Should teachers call on students who haven't indicated they want to talk and, in fact, have tacitly indicated they don't want to talk?"

"These lesson plans provide teachers the materials and guidance for students to learn different perspectives on these issues, discuss them, listen to each other in a respectful and civil manner, and appreciate differences while finding common ground. With news and materials from left, center and right sources plus a structured process for discussion, teachers, administrators and parents can be assured that multiple points of view are discussed and respected in a civil, beneficial manner."

"Employers say they have trouble finding new hires with good oral-communication skills. But relatively few regular public K-12 schools explicitly teach those skills, and even fewer teach them with real-world workplace scenarios. That mismatch doesn't bode well for young people's job prospects, or for companies searching for new talent. In survey after survey, employers say they need people who are good communicators. And they say that strong speaking skills are even more important than good reading or writing skills."

"Was I teaching argumentation to empower my students? Of course. But by teaching them to focus on finding evidence to support claims, I was achieving the opposite effect. I was making them susceptible to an epidemic of our time: the tendency to select facts that support a certain perception of reality, rather than discerning what reality is by analyzing observations and facts. With this in mind, I shifted my focus to the work that needs to happen before one makes an argument-the work of looking at the world. I designed projects that would allow students to look deeply at an issue."

"There's something deeply personal about appraisals of our teaching. It's not just our professional competence that's wrapped up in an observation, but a sense of our worth as human beings. In walks an administrator, often at the worst possible moment, and suddenly our flaws loom in our minds like the distorted reflection in a funhouse mirror. So for those of us who die inside every time an observer walks into our classroom, what can we do about it?"

"What Is Workplace Writing? Though employer surveys tend to be vague about the specific skills in "written communication," studies and interviews do show some consistent requests, including the ability to analyze and explain concepts and situations succinctly, engage in clear and courteous conversations, present evidence-backed arguments and requests, and switch tone and format to respond to different audiences."

"Without strong guidance from teachers, students may opt for the easiest path instead of the one offering the best learning experience"

"Concept fuels mix of confusion, frustration, and optimism Personalized learning seems like a simple concept-basically, customize teaching and learning to students' individual academic strengths and weaknesses and even their personal interests. But the reality is that the concept is creating quite a bit of confusion and frustration in the K-12 world. What is (and isn't) personalized learning? How much control should students have over when, how, and what they learn? And what about the potential overuse of digital tools in personalized learning programs?"

"While individual efforts are valuable, students can learn the skills of collaborating on civic issues by working together as a whole class. Here are the five broad steps they should follow: Identify issues important in their lives and community, and decide on one to address. Research the chosen issue and decide how to change or improve the situation. Plan an action, including determining a goal for change; identifying who or what body in the community has power to make the change; and deciding how to approach that person or those people. Carry out the action through letters, talks, meetings with officials, policy proposals, and activities, depending on the specific goals of the project. Reflect on the effort when it is over in order to understand their successes, challenges, and ways to continue learning in the future. Two features are especially crucial to making the experience authentic and empowering. First, students must own the key choices and decisions and figure out solutions to problems themselves, so they discover that they can do this. The teacher facilitates the work, of course, but leaves as much of the decision-making as possible to the students. Second, the work should culminate in some action focused on change in the school or community. It's not enough to just talk about change, practice mock legislatures, or serve in a soup kitchen (as valuable as these activities may be). Only when students see adults listening to them with respect, do they realize they have a voice and can make a difference in their world. Their efforts may not always succeed, but in being heard they come to value the studying, reading, writing and planning that they have done."

"Given those disparities, the district plans to recommend that, as long as students participate, teachers should revert to their previous progress grades. Students could potentially improve those scores, but they wouldn't be penalized. "I don't want to give everyone an A because we're just trying to be nice," said Patrick Keeley, the principal of the district's single high school. "But we don't want to ruin people's chances in the future, either," especially when it's due to factors outside of their control. Contrast Mountain Empire's context with that of the Salem City district in Virginia, near Roanoke. The district serves a small, fairly compact city. Every student in grades 3 through 12 has a Chromebook through its one-to-one program. Salem has about 200 "hot spots" for WiFi connectivity, and a cable company has agreed to provide free internet access for students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches. So when its spring break ends on April 13, the district plans to make a legitimate go at covering the most essential of its remaining state standards via online learning-and to continue issuing letter grades for students' work. "We realize that if we tell kids today, 'Hey, your grade can't be any lower than it is now,' or if we tell them we're not going to grade them for the rest of the year, we're going to have a big chunk of kids check out," said Curtis Hicks, the district's assistant superintendent. "And that's not healthy for them for the short run, and it's not healthy for the long term, if students are underprepared for what comes next.""

"Pace yourself. You don't have to cover everything. If they don't read that play by Shakespeare, they will still live to be fine old people. Don't put too much pressure on yourself. Don't put too much pressure on your students. It's not just a matter of taking what I do offline online. I've shortened my units because of the coronavirus. I have a lot of working parents; now they have kids at home. I can't ask them to do a 25-page paper on pronouns in Shakespeare. Figure out what's really essential for learning, and what can be let go in the next three months. For my composition students, for example, my primary focus is always helping them express ideas clearly and coherently. I'm less concerned about the genre of writing or how long it is. I can do that a paragraph at a time. For my more advanced students, they need to learn research skills: how to locate, evaluate, and use information. Online learning offers great opportunities for that, including with what's going on in the news right now. For my literature students, my emphasis is helping them understand stories that come from cultures other than theirs. Are they able to see the humanity and connections across the stories? That's essential. Whether they remember all of the characters and the authors-that's not essential. This is a great time to individualize instruction and have students work at different paces. You don't want 100-120 papers coming at you all at one time. Spread it out, and it will keep you from getting short-tempered with your students. I've got some students who won't turn on a camera in their house. They don't want you to see inside their house for various reasons. Be aware of it; be very sensitive and careful with human beings. Be prepared to let your students teach you. Students can be great help to us. Be each other's tech support."

"Sommers has been researching teacher response to writing for decades. "If teaching involves leaps of faith," she says, "responding is one of the greatest leaps because we have so little direct evidence of what students actually do with our comments, of why they find some useful and others not." Her key advice? A teacher's response to a student's work can play a leading role in the student's development as a writer - but to leverage that potential, a teacher needs to understand where and how much to comment, and how to engage the student in the feedback process. GETTING IT WRITE: SIX WAYS TO TEACH THROUGH COMMENTS To avoid these issues - and to stave off comment overload - Sommers suggests that teachers begin by asking themselves, "What do I want my students to learn, and how will my comments help them learn?" A teacher can write seventeen comments on a short draft, but a student probably won't learn seventeen different lessons. Sommers advises teachers to:"

"This is the first installment in an audio series featuring teachers reflecting on one of their most challenging students-counterbalanced by the student's version of the same events."

"The true beauty in leadership is being able to discern when to pull back and not give teachers things they don't need. There is a balance that great principals learn, and because of that balance, they generally have happy teachers in their classrooms. My favorite principals have intentionally held back four things that I never wanted or needed. "

""Everyone on this planet is hard-wired to learn, extremely, all the time. The first advice I give to any learner today is: You must take control over your own learning. The good news is, it's easier today than it's ever been." As a group, our extreme learners did not fit conventional definitions of "best and brightest," as defined by high GPAs or test scores. Instead, they were opportunistic in finding places and people to learn with, using not only formal schooling but also informal learning centers, such as maker spaces and science centers. They engaged in authentic, experiential, project-based learning. These extreme learners shared five habits, which can prove instructive as we look to prepare students for an unpredictable future:"