M401 Fall 2014

A 'game plan' written by the Prince George's County Public School corporation on how they believe a teacher can and should effectively manage their classroom.

An article written by the American Psychological Association, this article is a result of all of their research in recent years of looking into successful classroom teachers and their management styles.

A guide of tips, tricks, and other useful ideas for teachers getting back to school that is written by the National Education Association.

This is a great website where teachers share advice to other teachers about the first week of school!

A guide for new and experienced teachers on things to bear in mind when starting a new year- such as not having preconceived notions about what you have heard about your new students.

A collection of strategies and tips written by a veteran teacher for teachers new to the classroom.

A simple activity wherein students walking in the door pick one to four M&M's and for each one, they tell the class something about themself before eating one.

This article is a humanitarian article about using education as a way to improve human right conditions across the globe.

Parents are feeling the stress on their children from standardized testing and are protesting.

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 website lists several resources for issues related to bullying in the classroom. There are several articles about how to prevent bullying, how to deal with students who are both bullying and being bullied, and how to facilitate an open and empathetic classroom.

This website gives a plethora of activities to use for many different grades and topics. The activities are designed so the first day is a useful one.

This website provides a number of lessons to do with your class for the first week. It is important to get off to a good start with students and this website provides ways to do so.

A list of great activities and ice breakers to do on the first day of school. Some activities even include ideas for English Language Learners who may not be able to follow the normal back to school activities.

This article talks about ways to respond to your students in the first weeks to make the rest of the school year go more smoothly. Its important to adapt every year to your new classroom.

This is a website all about getting prepared for the first week of school.

This is a website by scholastic and it is a planning guide for teachers. For the first week of school and beyond.

I found this article extremely interesting because it is taking place at Ball State, a school known for their education programs. Numbers of education majors are decreasing and students are saying it may have something to do with the public opinion of teachers and schools. I can relate to this - I have felt that some of my friends do not always appreciate my major so it is not surprising to me that this is keeping some students away from this profession, just disappointing.

This article takes a look at potential changes that will be happening to NCLB in the upcoming months. NCLB has both support and criticism so it is interesting where the program might be heading and how that will effect us as teachers.

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.