Try having a group analyze a text with this checklist for them to check off as they discuss. It allows students to be in charge of their learning and teachers to facilitate the level of their discussion without reinventing the wheel each and every time they complete a close reading analysis about a text. LiteracyContinue reading “How do I raise the level of my questioning while teaching online, facilitate, and get grades?”
Category Archives: tech tip
Teach a quote of the week. Here is why and how.
Why? Teaching quotes from different sources broadens their critical thinking, is often researched based when using educational gurus, increases exposure to more historical names and events, and increases vocabulary. How? Find your own or look around the net for teachers who have already created them for the year. One for each week. Some have evenContinue reading “Teach a quote of the week. Here is why and how.”
Teaching secret-make anything you are teaching into a game. Tech Tip.
SPINNERS! Yes, spinners. Make a spinner two different ways. (Hint: Them make online spinners and phone/tablet apps you can edit.) To fit any worksheet or premade questions broadcast on your screen a set of questions: If you want it to generate for any sheet, make a spinner with up to 30 or 50 numbers goingContinue reading “Teaching secret-make anything you are teaching into a game. Tech Tip.”
Assigning online articles for students to create new hobbies.
Over the years when assigning current events to students to help the social studies and science related articles, I found students often became interested in new genres they might not have otherwise. Sewing, coding, cooking, painting, building model planes, creating 3-D objects. All studies could lead to many jobs involving creativeness and mechanics, engineering, computerContinue reading “Assigning online articles for students to create new hobbies.”
Write too…during our stay at home time this Spring, write anything. Read…and write. And do it again.
Read and write all the time to keep students active in learning. Free writing anything is great. Poetry. Stories. Autobiographies. If you want free writing prompts, try thinkwritten.com for tons of ideas. Write everyday whether two minutes or ten. Write an ongoing story. Use any book like Harris Burdock by Allsburg to create an imageContinue reading “Write too…during our stay at home time this Spring, write anything. Read…and write. And do it again.”
When in doubt…read. Reading is the number one “schooling” if you need to know where to start.
Whether homeschooling or distance learning or learning to assign digital content…if you stick with reading material then you have not just a good start but also and great foundation. With the exception of extensive mathematics, all subjects can be taught. Websites like newsela.com and commonlit.com help any teacher assign articles and stories related to theirContinue reading “When in doubt…read. Reading is the number one “schooling” if you need to know where to start.”
Distance Learning FREE Paired Text Week ELA Unit for High School online learning
Teaching online courses in high school does not have to be a re-invention of the wheel. Try using the short stories you planned to teach and use websites, videos, and tables to get higher order thinking taught flipped classroom style. Here is a lesson plan that can work for you. Tweak and scale to fitContinue reading “Distance Learning FREE Paired Text Week ELA Unit for High School online learning”
Distance Learning FREE Fables/Poetry Two Week lesson plan for online teaching with higher DOK questions for upper elementary/middle school classes
Teaching online can be time consuming if you make it so…or make it meaningful content to a DOK 2 or higher level with a paired text unit of short texts. Here is a poetry/fable unit to help you get started making online ELA two-week long units at a time. Theme: Stay the course without lettingContinue reading “Distance Learning FREE Fables/Poetry Two Week lesson plan for online teaching with higher DOK questions for upper elementary/middle school classes”
Distance Learning Poetry lesson Week UNIT for middle or high school-Here is a FREE Poetry lesson for you to use
Use poetryfoundation.org to assign poetry or close reading analysis found on online teacher-made videos all over the web. Here is a sample lesson using Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” paired with Aesop’s Fables “The Boy and the Nettles” The The Bat and the Weasels”. Lesson Plan: Set: Introduce Week Unit with theContinue reading “Distance Learning Poetry lesson Week UNIT for middle or high school-Here is a FREE Poetry lesson for you to use”
Problem Solving in today’s world.
Tackling problems isn’t something new. Tackling something head on with all the needed tools is what we are charged with giving the younger generation with every year they grow older. And then even everyday after that for we are all learners each and every day of our lives. Moving past the textbook is hard forContinue reading “Problem Solving in today’s world.”
ELA On The Move 