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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

"This "Teacher's Guide to Flipped Classrooms", offers one place for a teacher to go to if they want to try changing their classroom focus. You get a good grounding in the principles and mentalities that a flipped classroom requires. "The following 10 amazing (and free!) resources will further ensure the flipped classroom is as successful as can possibly be"

Reading Australia has been developed by the Copyright Agency and aims to make significant Australian literary works more readily available for teaching in schools and universities. These works are supplemented with online teacher resources and essays by popular authors about the enduring relevance of the works. There is a list of titles (download as a PDF). These titles have been selected by the Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) Council. They were asked to select works they thought students and others should encounter, to give a view of Australia's rich cultural identity: works that would tell Australia's history and also how we are currently developing as a nation. The ASA Council are adamant that this list should be merely the beginning, and it should be built upon with other works that have already been published, as well as the great new works that continue to be published in Australia. There is a wide range of teacher resources available (PDF) for Primary and Secondary school teachers and all of these teacher resources include classroom activities, assessments and links to the Australian Curriculum. In addition, many of the Secondary resources include an introductory essay on the text written by high profile writers. The Primary level resources have been commissioned by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia and the Australian Literacy Educators' Association, and the resources for Secondary level have been jointly commissioned by the Australian Association for the Teaching of English and the English Teachers Association NSW."

Reading Australia has been developed by the Copyright Agency and aims to make significant Australian literary works more readily available for teaching in schools and universities. These works are supplemented with online teacher resources and essays by popular authors about the enduring relevance of the works. There is a list of titles (download as a PDF). These titles have been selected by the Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) Council. They were asked to select works they thought students and others should encounter, to give a view of Australia's rich cultural identity: works that would tell Australia's history and also how we are currently developing as a nation. The ASA Council are adamant that this list should be merely the beginning, and it should be built upon with other works that have already been published, as well as the great new works that continue to be published in Australia. There is a wide range of teacher resources available (PDF) for Primary and Secondary school teachers and all of these teacher resources include classroom activities, assessments and links to the Australian Curriculum. In addition, many of the Secondary resources include an introductory essay on the text written by high profile writers. The Primary level resources have been commissioned by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia and the Australian Literacy Educators' Association, and the resources for Secondary level have been jointly commissioned by the Australian Association for the Teaching of English and the English Teachers Association NSW."

"A summery about the report that offers a guide that provides references to research supporting the teaching methods used in flipped classrooms and includes three case studies focusing on flipped classrooms in action at the high school and college level." Links to the full report

By Kelsey Allen. "Gone are the days of children sneaking comics past diligent parents and teachers watching out for sub-par literature. The comics of today not only have plenty to offer, they are gaining well-deserved recognition and awards. Take advantage of the natural affinity children have for comics and use them as a powerful teaching tool in your classroom. The post contains links to tips, tools, and resources.

teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards. Underlying these transformations are a number of forces eager to privatize schools, substitute vocational training for education and reduce teaching and learning to reductive modes of testing and evaluation.

"Calendars can be a great classroom resource and inspiration for research. The Australian Schools Calendar on edna and this one from New Zealand both alert teachers and students to special days that can be "observed" in the classroom. Student activities can be as simple as working out how old the person whose birthday is marked on the calendar "is", or looking for websites that are celebrating the day, the month or the year. Many of those sites have an educational focus and special activities for students."

Raises some interesting and strategies about how to use Google Calendar in the classroom with students.

How to teach text structures for better reading comprehension and improved retention. Teachers of history, science, and other subjects are now expected to weave literacy instruction into their teaching of content. But how should they do that? What are the most effective ways to help students learn to read challenging content-area texts? This article breaks down the research behind explicit teaching of text structures and includes a video that shows how to do it (Great for content-area literacy)

The author of the post has culled a bunch of ideas from different teachers who have shared their approaches to using QR codes in a classroom setting. Once students are equipped with a device that can read QR codes and they know how to scan them, it is easy to adapt the ideas here to use a classroom.

Several lists of digital tools you can use for these activities. Icebreakers are " discussion questions or activities used to help participants relax and ease into a group meeting or learning situation" (Dover, 2004). Icebreakers are very important in the learning-teaching process that takes place within the classroom. They can help in creating and maintaining a healthy and successful learning environment for students and are also the best warm-ups to get students engaged in a learning task." 

Welcome to your definitive teaching and learning guide for buildings and places. BSF, teaching activities, sustainability, visits, built environment, what's on, architecture, innovation, family learning, learning outside the classroom: it's all here on Engaging Places.

"Classroom rules posters for those who believe that behavior is not only learned, but a product of self-awareness and self-respect-then a new tact must be taken. "

"Whether you are just beginning your flipped teaching journey, or an experienced flipped teacher, YouTube offers a variety of ways to organize instructional videos for both teachers and students alike. Note taking with VideoNot.es is just one avenue teachers and students can explore to increase the benefits of video instruction."

"An explanation about how two teachers overcome the challenges of flipping their classrooms and co-planning lessons across states"

"Eight basic principles for the "Innovative Classroom," around which one teacher designed a middle school course called Physical Computing. Some of the projects and tools are specific to that course, but the fundamental ideas could be applied to almost any course at any level"

Technology, when used appropriately, can help make the history and social studies classroom a site of active learning and critical thinking and further student connections with the past. Teachers can use technology to enable students to meet people of different cultures, explore ancient and modern worlds, do authentic primary-source research, problem-solve through inquiry-based activities, and much more.

Some concrete ideas that will assist teachers to begin to encourage students' critical-thinking skills in the classroom - an beyond.

This post on Edutopia offers a list of resources that includes tips and guides on classroom design and layout to help maximize the possibilities of the learning environment.