M401 Fall 2014

This article talks about the importance of brain breaks in order to keep students' attention throughout the day. I have been in classrooms where teachers constantly do brain breaks, and others where they do not implement them. It is crazy to me how much more stir crazy the students without brain breaks get by the end of the day! I know I will definitely be using brain breaks in my future classroom constantly.

I thought this was an interesting article about an argument going on right now on if students should be allowed to skip school for religious classes and who that hurts in the classroom. I understand skipping for holidays, but classes? I am not sure about this one, I feel like the religious organizations should be offering these classes outside of school time because they know that the younger students are in school at certain points of the day.

This is an interesting article about some of the biggest challenges we are facing with public education in this day and age. Some were obvious and others were things I had not thought of. This is a good article to read in order to educate yourself on the types of issues you will be dealing with in your future classroom.

This is a really interesting reference about standardized testing. It is very fact based and there is very little opinion. The different sections provide a history of standardized testing, a pros and cons list, different statistics related to testing in public schools, along with many other interesting resources. This is a really powerful resource that relates to a very prevalent issue in today's schools.

Nobel Peace winner Malala speaks about the importance of education in combating intolerance. A great article about why education is important, especially in developing countries.

This article looks at math in the earliest years of education as an indicator of ongoing academic achievement. It is interesting to think about with so much focus on literacy during those years.

This site gives ideas and context for teaching about recent issues of racism and police brutality.

This article, from the perspective of one of Michael Brown's former educators, talks about the importance of teachers in communities that are in pain.

This article talks about discovering the underlying causes of behavior, since undesired behaviors communicate to teachers about what is going on with their students.

This article talks about implementing Positive Peer Review, where students support each other's good behaviors instead of just tattling.

This outlines the CHOICES management system, where letters are erased for undesirable behavior. It also gives long lists of texts to address the choices that we make.

This website focuses on supporting learners with learning disabilities and other individual needs. This article details a plan for preventing negative and reinforcing positive behaviors.

This website shows commonly used management strategies that are ineffective.

This website has a list of classroom management songs with links to lyrics and music.

This article gives 7 classroom management tips. I love how positive it is, focusing on caring for and seeing the best in students individually and as a class.

This is a great blog that a experienced teacher made with 7 easy tips for better classroom management. This also includes a video where he shows you how he uses everything he said on his first day of school.

This article outlines a recently proposed mandate about juvenile offenders and their right to education

The white house released a statement in support of computer science programs in all levels of education.

I think that this is awesome! Whenever I am talking to kids who are worked up, I always noticing that they are working themselves up even more as they talk. I think this is a great tool to actually get them to cool down and relax by making them count the breaths that they are taking.

This site lists teacher openings across the country.

This gives great advice about teacher interviews from questions being asked to what to wear and what to do before the interview.