Group items tagged

Childhood's End: Accountability Forces Children to Grow Up Too Fast Something is lost when little red wagons and mud pies make way for worksheets and tests.

let students create their own labs to test hypotheses

Integrate lots of interviewing into a history curriculum and have students compare stories they hear. Add a five-minute reading component to journal-writing time, emphasizing to students that real authors share their writing and need to have a sense of their audience.

Performances, presentations, displays, publications, and entries into contests are essential for student buy-in. ULS's hula class spends the semester gearing up for a final performance, and Hamilton's seventh graders forget how hard they're working on their writing when they focus on creating podcasts. "When I tell students they are going to create a podcast of their own stories, they get excited," she says. "This buy-in from the students gives them a purpose to learn new skills and a reason to come to school."