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My Newly Designed Syllabus

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Lesson plans and resources for your SMART Board - SMART Exchange

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Notes:  Make lessons bright, colorful, and exciting.

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How we use teaching strategies to engage our students in content and keep them motivated to learn has been a task that teachers have struggled with since the beginning of time. Students' short attention spans have been on top of the list of challenges that all teachers face. The only difference is that 50 years ago we didn't have technological distractions, but we did have other distractions. Children may have just been preoccupied by what was going on outside of the window or daydreaming about their lives. Today's teachers are still struggling to keep their students' attention long enough for them to learn something that they can take with them in their own lives. Here are a few teaching strategies to help you overcome the struggles of student engagement in your classroom.

Teaching Strategies that Incorporate Technology into Your Lessons

If you think that technology is a distraction and that's why you're choosing not to incorporate it into too many lessons, then you may want to think otherwise. Advanced technology shouldn't be to blame for the lack of our students' engagement. Instead we should use it to our advantage. Today's students are more familiar with technological tools then any generation before them. Many of them know how to use these devices better than adults do. Plus, what child doesn't love playing games on an iPad? If you want to get and keep your students' attention, then you must incorporate some sort of technology into your daily lessons.

Ask a Lot of Questions

Questioning students is the foundation of teaching, and when done effectively, it can transform a traditional teacher-led classroom into a more-engaging, student-led classroom. By asking questions, you are keeping students on high alert. When students are on high alert, they are more apt to stay engaged in the lesson. The key is to not just call upon a random student to ask them a difficult question to see if they are engaged in the lesson. The worst feeling for a child is to be called upon from the teacher and not know the answer even if you were paying attention. Consider asking clear, specific questions that build depth as well as complexity. Ask multiple simple questions instead of complex ones. For example, when responding to a student, ask "What do you think? Why do you think that? How do you know this?" This will make the student more comfortable as well as keep them engaged in the content.

Design Engaging Lessons

If you want to break the barriers of student engagement, and want to see your students actively engaged in all of your lessons, than you must design them so that they are engaging. You need to create lessons that students will be excited about. Make them bright, colorful, and interactive. A great way to do this is to tempt your students and make them look forward to learning. For example, on Monday and every day after that, entice the students about the great lesson that they will be doing on Friday. Each day, give them a little bit more information about it and show them a tantalizing piece of it. By Friday, the students will be so excited about the lesson that even the shy students will be engaged and talking about it!

Create a Positive Classroom Community

Create a classroom environment where students feel safe and comfortable. By building a classroom community, you are teaching students about respect, responsibility, and how to positively relate to their peers. This allows them to ultimately feel comfortable with their peers so they are able to freely speak up in class and be engaged in the classroom lessons. Try having a classroom meeting each morning. This is not only a great way to make students feel comfortable to speak and be engaged in the lessons, but also it will help students develop lifelong communication skills.

Educate Students on Their Well-Being

Digital distractions aren't the only thing to blame on lack of student engagement. Poor nutrition and lack of sleep are to blame as well. Many students' diets, or lack thereof, can lead to a poor attention span and performance in school. A child's lack of sleep can also contribute to them giving their full potential in school. If a student is tired and hungry, how can we expect them to be engaged in our lessons? This is when we need to educate our students on proper sleep and nutrition and overall healthy well-being. Encourage students to eat healthy meals and go to bed at reasonable hour. Tell them to unplug from their digital devices at least an hour before bedtime and to not have a television in their room. Remind students that being fit, getting enough sleep, and eating right play an important role in their academic success at school.
What teaching strategies do you use to overcome the barriers of student engagement? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below, we'd love to hear your opinions on this topic.
Janelle Cox is an education writer who uses her experience and knowledge to provide creative and original writing in the field of education. Janelle holds Masters of Science in Education from the State University of New York College at Buffalo. She is a contributing writer to TeachHUB.com, TeachHUB Magazine, and Hey Teach. She was also the Elementary Education Expert for About.com for five years. You can follow her on Twitter @empoweringed, on Facebook at Empowering K12 Educators, or contact her at Janellecox78@yahoo.com.

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Teaching Strategies: Overcome Student Engagement Barriers

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How we use teaching strategies to engage our students in content and keep them motivated to learn has been a task that teachers have struggled with since the beginning of time. Students' short attention spans have been on top of the list of challenges that all teachers face.

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SMART Exchange - USA - Standards correlated lessons

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(Data Analysis and Probability) Students will interpret a given set of data, including analyzing the use, misuse, and abuse of data; choose, construct, and analyze appropriate graphical representations for a data set; use technology in data collection and analysis; and apply theoretical and experimental probability to analyze the likelihood of an event.

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Interactive Education Software | SMART Notebook - SMART Technologies

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As part of the SMART Learning Suite, SMART Notebook creates interactive learning experiences that easily connect with your classroom technology.

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Do you and your students tend to do the same thing on your interactive whiteboard over and over? Us too! That's why we were excited to talk with Rebecca Penina Simon, an interactive-whiteboard expert who's also the director of educational technology at Solomon Schechter School of Queens. Here are some of the cool ways she's using Teq Unlimited, a resource that combines SMART's software with some awesome online PD and that we want to try right now.

Most interactive-whiteboard software comes with activity templates that make it easier to create activities and games. But a lot of teachers don't use them! Check them out-they're definitely worth another look. SMART's Lesson Activity Builder (LAB), features six core activity templates that can be customized in various ways. One of our favorites is Super Sort, which guides you through a series of questions to choose your theme (e.g., aliens), enter categories (e.g., nouns and adjectives), category components (e.g., beach, library, soft, green, etc.) and game components (e.g., buzzers, spinning wheel to randomly pick students, etc.). You can even import your student list, and then, voilà! You've got a super-fun, interactive and totally customized class activity!

2. Have students submit answers on their phones.

It's pretty much impossible to call on every student in class, but it's still possible for all your kids to participate-even the shy ones. Use SMART Notebook's LAB to create a Shout It Out! activity that asks kids to submit photos or text answers for each of the categories you specify (e.g., mammals, reptiles, amphibians). With SMART Response, your kids can use their 1:1 devices (computers, tablets or smartphones) to submit their answers.

3. Teach algebra and geometry with virtual manipulatives.

If you think the only way to use an interactive whiteboard for math is to write out equations with a pen, this one is going to blow you away. You can handwrite equations or formulas, and SMART Notebook 's Math Equation Editor will turn them into typed text! As if that's not cool enough for all you math geeks, there's more: You can use GeoGebra to take your written or typed algebraic equations and instantly create corresponding graphs. It's a powerful time-saver!

4. Add a smiley face to student board work.

Kids love getting stickers and stamps on their worksheets, so why wouldn't they love seeing them next to the work they do on a whiteboard? If you have SMART Ink, you can use the Stamp Pad feature to put a thumbs-up or a smiley face stamp next to a student's correctly answered question on the board. If a student writes an incorrect answer on the board, you can stamp a sad face or an "X." You can even add up to 20 of your own custom stamps.

5. Hand out copies without having to use the dreaded copy machine.

The copy machine can be a teacher's worst nemesis! Thankfully, if you have SMART amp, you don't have to wait in line at the copy machine (just to have it jam!) any longer. Instead, you can digitally pass out copies of a workspace to all your students. Bonus: It saves trees too!

6. Evenly divide shapes to teach fractions.

We've all been there. You're trying to teach fractions by showing your class how to divide a circle into equal parts, but the sections you've drawn are far from equally divided (some poor kid's going to get 1/16 of the pizza while another's going to get 1/3!). With SMART Notebook, you can right-click on a shape, choose the number of segments and-like magic-the shape is evenly divided! If you want, you can then drag and drop individual sections anywhere on your workspace. You can even select whether or not the fraction labels (1/4, 1/8, etc.) are shown on each section.

7. Write on anything!

Your SMART pens aren't just for writing on a blank canvas. With SMART Ink, you can grab a pen and write on just about anything. Use the pens to write over text in a Word document or circle pictures on a website.

8. Find out exactly who's contributed what in group projects.

When kids work offline, it can be challenging to know who really painted the diorama or worked on the poster. With SMART amp, you can create a digital canvas that has sections designated for each group member. It's kind of like Google Docs-but way cooler. All group members can contribute to the same workspace at the same time, but they don't have to be doing the same thing-one kid can do word processing while another watches a YouTube video and still another creates a timeline! The best part? Teachers can take control of the workspace to review a concept or use the "attribution" feature in real time to see exactly which students are contributing to the project.

9. Figure out which students "get" it.

With SMART Response, you can choose to keep students' answers anonymous or include their names to make it easy to keep track of which students grasped the concept. If you need to check off the Common Core box, there's even a way to tag standards to questions and export the data to any system your school uses. Plus you can use the time you would have spent grading quizzes to plan follow-up lessons that help them practice the skills they find most challenging.

10. Knock off some PD requirements.

If this list got you excited about all the cool stuff you can do with your whiteboard and left you inspired to learn more, you're in luck. SMART offers lots of professional development options to help you keep up with all the newest features and how you can actually use them in your classroom. Teq Online PD has multiple one-hour live broadcasts each week where you have the opportunity to ask questions and chat with the instructor in real time. Or you can access more than 150 archived sessions on-demand whenever you have time. Either way, you can knock off some of your PD requirements for the year.

11. When you get stuck, connect with your own personal tech tutor.

How many times have you taken a technology PD session only to forget what you learned when it came time to actually use it in your classroom? You might know you can create a graph out of an algebraic equation you wrote on the board but can't seem to recall exactly how to access it. With the Teq PD Instructional Support Now button, you can connect with a PD specialist who's an expert in instructional technology the moment you get stuck-or you can schedule a future time that's convenient for you.
To try out all these ideas in your classroom, check out Teq Unlimited, a software package that combines SMART's software-Notebook, Response, Lesson Activity Builder and amp-with awesome online professional development.

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11 Things You Never Knew You Could Do With Your SMART Board

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Do you and your students tend to do the same thing on your interactive whiteboard over and over? Us too! That's why we were excited to talk with Rebecca Penina Simon, an interactive-whiteboard expert who's also the director of educational technology at Solomon Schechter School of Queens.

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Making Failure More Work than Passing- I think this is the key

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Making Failure More Work than Passing- I think this is the key

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A rigorous intervention pushes students who might be satisfied with a D to aim higher.

Chemistry seems to inspire a D mentality: A significant number of students just want to pass the class to meet their graduation requirement, and do it with as little effort as possible.

Take Evelyn, for example. A junior in my chemistry class in the spring of 2015, Evelyn was bright, but she didn't see chemistry as relevant to her present or future, so she kept her head low, didn't engage with the material, missed about 20 percent of the class, and seemed to target a grade of 60 percent. That was at the beginning of the year.

By the end of the term, Evelyn was sitting in the front row, volunteering to demonstrate how to solve problems, and getting frustrated with herself when her final grade in the class was a B.

Evelyn's grade had gone from a 60 percent to an 85 percent, but the real changes that I saw in her were much more rewarding than an improved grade point average-she was engaged in learning, taking risks, and working harder than she had once believed she could.

Many students will avoid working hard in a class that they see as challenging because of the risk involved. If they work hard and fail, they've proven their inadequacy. But if they don't work hard and manage to get a D, their pride remains intact and they haven't lost anything. That's why I make failing harder work than passing.

Turning "I Can't" Into "I Can"

Here's the typical learning cycle for a unit in my chemistry class.

1. I present the students with a list of learning objectives for the unit. The list is short and worded as "I can" statements. For example, these are some of the objectives for the unit on dimensional analysis and the mole (Holt Chapters 7 and 3):

I can identify the mole as the unit used to count particles, and use Avogadro's number to convert between moles and particles. (7.1)

I can calculate the molar mass of an element or compound. (3.4)

I can perform molar conversions (use the Mole Road Map). (3.4)

2. There are guided practice opportunities for students on each of these objectives. I also use formative assessments, which can be homework, quizzes, or labs. They count for very little in the grade. The point of these assessments is to give kids a lot of practice with the material in a low-risk environment, and to provide feedback on their progress toward mastering the objectives.

3. Students prepare for the summative assessment. After a period of guided practice, formative assessment, feedback, and review for each objective, the students get ready for the unit test. This summative assessment is weighted heavily in determining the grade, so we practice the types of questions they'll encounter on it.

4. Students take the summative assessment. A passing grade is 70 percent. Students who don't pass have to retake the assessment. I give them a test map like the one below showing which objectives they didn't master. The test map is accompanied by an intervention worksheet organized by objective. Students are expected to complete the worksheet sections that they need to practice in order to improve their score.

Differentiation and Incentive

The final stage of the learning cycle is where instruction is truly differentiated. Students who are required to retake their test must show me their completed intervention worksheet so I can see if they're getting closer to the targets. Usually they raise their grade to a passing score on the first retake. Sometimes it takes a couple of rounds, but they have a time limit: They have to finish the retake cycle before the next unit test.

Students who score below 90 percent but have passed the assessment may also go through this cycle. Many students in the 70-89 percent band opt to do the intervention and retake the test.

Students who are content to score at or below 60 percent are faced with extra work they wouldn't have to do if they scored just 10 points higher. This cycle helps them understand that, if they can do the work required to get 70 percent, it's not much more work to get an even higher grade. And the progress is addictive.

This isn't a canned curriculum. I write my own tests, quizzes, test maps, intervention worksheets, homework assignments, and labs. I use sample questions from the state tests as a guide for the types of questions to include on my exams. I do all of the grading and fill out the test maps by hand. It's time consuming, and I have to take work home with me every single day. I do my grading while my own children do their homework. While this learning cycle works, it requires a lot of effort. But I think the final result is worth all that effort.

UPDATE

For the past two years, I've been teaching chemistry and physics in an International Baccalaureate program at a school in Albania. My own children have been students in my classes. I've continued to use this method of instruction with intervention and retesting, and I've also added rewriting lab reports for the B and C rubrics as part of the IB Science Criteria.

More than 90 percent of my students are English language learners, and they definitely appreciate the chance to retake their assessments and use the feedback I give them. One of the Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills that the IB program emphasizes is giving and receiving meaningful feedback. The method I outline above provides an excellent opportunity for students to work on this ATL skill.

In addition, the Learner Profile for IB students includes the attribute of Risk Taker. I think students who believe teachers are willing to help them learn from their mistakes are more likely to be risk takers and invest the time and energy needed to be successful. So all the effort still seems worthwhile.

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A rigorous intervention pushes students who might be satisfied with a D to aim higher. Chemistry seems to inspire a D mentality: A significant number of students just want to pass the class to meet their graduation requirement, and do it with as little effort as possible. Take Evelyn, for example.

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Students that don't receive a C or higher must do the reteach worksheets and retake their test. Assign them beartime to come in to work on these. If they do not come then they can work on it in after school tutoring and/or detention.

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Click Picture below for Google Drive Link to posters

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Edutopia

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Henry* is a student I will remember forever.He was a charming young man with a bright smile.He had the ability to make every other student stop to listen to whatever he was saying.Henry could make anything I was teaching a million times more interesting to the rest of the class by simply showing interest in it.He was energetic, creative, funny, and often a pleasure to have in class.

Henry was also the student who made me think - I have got to find another line of work! - more than any other student I have ever encountered in my 10 years as a Special Education teacher.His reading and writing skills were at least five years behind his grade level, and he often attempted to hide this fact by acting out in class.

Henry called out almost constantly; he got out of his seat and wandered around the classroom for no reason.He would ask to use the restroom at least once a class period and, if given permission, would often be gone for 15 minutes or more.If I denied his request, Henry would become sullen, refusing to do any work or respond to any request for the remainder of class.Henry only responded positively to upbeat requests, "Henry, please return to your seat.I've asked 7 times."

If I raised my voice, Henry would raise his, "What you yelling at me for, d*mn!" was a common response.Sending him to the principal's office would occasionally give me a one or two day respite while he sat in in-school suspension, but it didn't change anything.And, like so many educators, I did not like sending Henry to the office too often for fear that my classroom management skills would be called into question.It was exhausting.

Many educators can relate to this story.We work hard to develop our positive classroom management skills, becoming skilled at stopping problem behaviors before they begin - but what happens with those infrequent students who simply refuse to follow those rules?What do you do when administration seems unwilling (or unable) to work with you to help address the behaviors?In this article, I will explain what I did with Henry and why I think collecting data on, and documenting, the behaviors you are dealing with is beneficial for numerous reasons.

Why Collect Data?

Often, teachers grumble about the time data collection takes.It's true; it becomes an additional task in your already packed-full day.But done properly, it can be unobtrusive and simple: the benefits of the information you collect are invaluable.First, decide on which behaviors are the most obtrusive to learning.You can't fix everything at once - so just choose the one that makes you want to pull out all of your hair.

Tally Marks

One of the easiest methods of data collection is simply to make a tally mark on something - a post-it note in your lesson plan, a clipboard you carry with you, etc. - each time the student exhibits a certain behavior.I started with this method for Henry.Each time he called out, I made a tally mark on a post-it note.In no time at all, I was able to do this without breaking from the lesson at all.

Time Checks

Do you feel that the student is never on-task?Decide on a time frame - every five minutes, every ten minutes, etc. - and look at the student at each increment.Is she on task?If so, write a "+" on the post-it note.If not, write a "-"(or any other marks you choose, or , for example).With Henry, I made up a sheet ahead of time that broke the class period down into five minute increments.I went with such a small amount of time because if Henry was on-task, it was often for just five minutes or less.I wanted to be able to document that he was, occasionally, doing what I asked him to do, but that it didn't usually last very long.

Behavior Log

This, I feel, is the easiest method of data collection - and it can often be the most "therapeutic" to a teacher dealing with a challenging student.I had my planning period immediately after Henry left my classroom.Each day, I would take the first three to five minutes to document what had happened in class that day.I kept a word document on my computer that I could access quickly and would type in an entry that included whether or not Henry had arrived to class on time, what the lesson had been, and how Henry had behaved throughout class.I made sure to include everything I had done during the class to assist Henry in making positive decisions.

If it had been a particularly difficult day, I documented each step I had taken up to the decision to ask Henry to leave my room and go to the principal's office.I say this can be "therapeutic" because it was helpful for me to see just how much I was trying to do to help Henry.Although it did not always feel like I was doing anything right, looking over the behavior log I was able to see - Look, I did try proximity, I did try encouraging the positive behavior and ignoring the minor negative behaviors, I did try to move his seat, etc.As educators, it can be beneficial to remind ourselves how much we are doing right when it feels like everything is going wrong.

Ok, so I've got all this data...now what?

With Henry, I began to send my behavior log to his Special Education case manager and the principal whenever I asked him to leave my room.I explained that I wanted them to fully understand what I was seeing in my room and exactly how many issues I was dealing with on a daily basis.It was important to me for my administrators to understand that by the time I sent them a student, I had tried multiple interventions in the classroom first.The information in the behavior log and that data gathered from tally marks and time check charts also proved invaluable to his case manager when updating his annual IEP.

Rather than the data he received from other teachers, "Henry is a constant distraction.""Henry is always out of his seat."I was able to provide exact information on just which behaviors were the most distracting and needed to be addressed in his behavior plan.

Aside from providing you with support in disciplinary issues, you will be able to use the data to better deal with the behaviors you are encountering while the student is in your classroom.After gathering data on Henry for about two weeks I realized that he did not call out nearly as much as I felt he did.Although it was incredibly frustrating to me, the knowledge that it wasn't happening constantly made me better able to deal with it while teaching and focus on the bigger problems.I shared some of the data with Henry himself, working together with him to develop behavior contracts (bathroom passes three times per week and only for five minutes or less, for example).

Finally, although it happens rarely, teachers are occasionally placed in situations (i.e. meetings with disgruntled parents, IEP meetings, due process hearings) where they are required to prove that they treated a student with behavior issues fairly or that every attempt was made within the classroom to address the behaviors.If you have been documenting, you will have no problem showing exactly how much work you have done with the student to help them experience success in your classroom.With this in mind, make sure that your documentation is professional.Do not include personal feelings in your behavior log but rather write it with the belief that it will someday be read by the student or his/her parents.

In fact, I did sit down with Henry one afternoon and shared his behavior log with him.He said it was lame that I wasted so much time, but he couldn't argue with me when I showed him just how often his behaviors interfered with his learning and the learning of others.It actually ended up being one thing that I feel greatly improved his behavior in the classroom.

Positive classroom management is one of the most important skills an educator needs to possess.Used properly, most teachers enjoy a well-run classroom the vast majority of the time.But on those rare occasions when you encounter such a student, I hope that some of the tips I've shared with you will encourage you to roll up your sleeves and help that student become a successful, life-long learner.

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3 Data Collection Tips for Your Most Challenging Students

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Henry* is a student I will remember forever.He was a charming young man with a bright smile.He had the ability to make every other student stop to listen to whatever he was saying.Henry could make anything I was teaching a million times more interesting to the rest of the class by simply showing interest in it.He was energetic, creative, funny, and often a pleasure to have in class.

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Amie Dean has a passion for the "problem" students of the world. The students who are disrespectful, defiant, broken, and shut down have been a part of her every day for almost 25 years. As a former special education teacher, Amie spent many years teaching in classrooms with the most challenging students on campus and found a way to reach each and every one. She believes most teachers truly want to help these students - want to believe in them - but are not trained on HOW to do it. This has become Amie's new personal mission - to help teachers implement positive, practical strategies in their classrooms to save our most challenging students - and themselves. Book Amie for your school, your district, or your conference so she can teach your teachers how to:

Teach Hard. Love Harder.

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Behavior Queen | Rule Less. Teach More. | Teach Hard. Love Harder.

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Amie Dean has a passion for the "problem" students of the world. The students who are disrespectful, defiant, broken, and shut down have been a part of her every day for almost 25 years. As a former special education teacher, Amie spent many years teaching in classrooms with the most challenging students on campus and found a way to reach each and every one.

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In order to be an effective teacher, you must be able to effectively and efficiently use classroom management. Great classroom management skills don't come overnight, they are something that must be learned and practiced over a period of time. Teachers are much more than just an authority figure to their students: They must have the ability to manage time, build a relationship with their students, and structure their learning environment so that it's equal for all. They need to be able to prioritize so their classroom will run smoothly. Here are a few classroom management suggestions and tips to help you become an effective teacher.

An effective teacher needs to be prepared for anything and have the ability to seamlessly transition from activity to activity in a timely manner. Think about all of the time that is used to take attendance, transition in between classes, eat lunch, use the restroom, and the countless things like classroom parties and presentations that go on all day long. This is time that's wasted, and children aren't learning. Effective teachers must know how to spend their time on teaching so their students are always learning.

An effective educational professional should be able to create quick routines for entering and exiting the classroom, as well as passing out papers, and answering student questions. By protecting and utilizing the time that you have in the classroom, you will find you will have more time to teach, and your students will have more time learn.

Create Engaging Lesson Plans

While this component may seem like a no-brainer to you, it's still an essential priority of your classroom management plan. Focusing on your students' learning objectives and building activities that help students achieve these objectives in an effective, motivating manner is your ultimate goal. Effective educators say that the best classroom management plan is an engaging lesson plan. Once you have that, then you will not have to worry about any discipline problems in your classroom. So make sure that your students are always engaged in everything that you plan.

Establish Clear Expectations

Effective teachers make the effort to establish clear expectations as well as the consequences that correlate with them. These teachers understand that by establishing appropriate and clear behavior standards in their classroom, their students will abide by them. They also understand that each standard needs to interact with all of the other priorities in their classroom management plan. This means that standards need to be limited, as well as appropriate. The teacher's expectations should hit the main points, such as being respectful and always coming to class prepared. Once you have established these main points with your students, then it will be much easier for you to run your classroom.

Foster a Classroom That's Equal

All students have the right to a fair education that promotes the success of all students. There are two components to fostering a classroom of equity. The first is that the teacher must promote it. The second is that the teacher must go beyond the basic principles of teaching to provide fair standards to all students in the classroom. Once a teacher does this, they will have succeeded in creating a learning atmosphere that is equal to all children in their classroom.

Build a Genuine Relationship with Students

One of the most important components in your classroom management plan is to know how to build a real, genuine relationship with each one of your students. This starts on the very first day of school when you meet your students for the first time and should continue throughout the year. You should always greet each student every day with a warm smile and friendly hello and handshake. That can be followed by a personal greeting using their name, or any other special gesture that you want to create with the child. By doing this, it will help solidify and strengthen the relationships you have with each of your students. Once you have a good, solid relationship with your students, it will be easier for you to push them to success.

Being an effective teacher isn't just establishing and prioritizing your classroom management plan. You must continue to work on it throughout the entire school year. You'll have hits and misses and a few hiccups here and there. But ultimately, you'll get there. There even may come a time when you will need to tweak your plan. This is where it's important to be flexible and know how to adjust to all situations. In the end, if you want your classroom to run like a smooth, well-oiled machine, it will take a bit of work on your part, but will all be worth it in the end.
What do you think makes an effective teacher have a great classroom management plan? Share with us in the comment section below, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Janelle Cox is an education writer who uses her experience and knowledge to provide creative and original writing in the field of education. Janelle holds Masters of Science in Education from the State University of New York College at Buffalo. She is a contributing writer to TeachHUB.com, TeachHUB Magazine, and Hey Teach. She was also the Elementary Education Expert for About.com for five years. You can follow her on Twitter @empoweringed, on Facebook at Empowering K12 Educators, or contact her at Janellecox78@yahoo.com.

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Classroom Management: How to be an Effective Teacher

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In order to be an effective teacher, you must be able to effectively and efficiently use classroom management . Great classroom management skills don't come overnight, they are something that must be learned and practiced over a period of time.

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Most teachers I know care deeply about helping their students succeed at school, and if you are reading this article, you are undoubtedly one of them. Yet, research has revealed some teaching strategies have far more impact than others. These are evidence-based teaching strategies. Busy teachers have so many demands on their time that it is hard to keep abreast of what the research really says - especially amidst the noise of trendy fads.

That's where I can help. I am a passionate teacher who recently had both my legs amputated. This gives me time to read the research and share my findings with teachers like you.

If you want to make a larger difference in how well your students do, then learn about these 10 evidence-based teaching strategies. Some of them may surprise you!

Evidence-Based Teaching Strategy 1: A Clear Focus

A clear focus enables you to focus everything you do and everything you get your students to do on achieving this intended learning. In turn, this has a sizeable impact ( d = 0.75) ¹ on your students' learning.

Note, the impact of a clear focus relies on you adjusting your teaching and learning activities in line with that focus. It doesn't come from fancy names such as learning intentions or learning targets. You can call them goals, intentions, objectives or anything else - it doesn't matter.

Teaching Strategy 2: Pretesting

The term 'testing' tends to get a bad rap in teaching circles. Yet, when viewed more broadly, it actually a potent teaching strategy that underpins x strategies in this list. Pretesting is the first of these.

Teaching Strategy 3: Show & Tell

I call the second evidence-based teaching strategy show and tell, although the research refers to be various other names. It is grounded in the idea that novice learners learn best with explicit instruction ² and represents the I Do phase of the I Do - We Do - You Do model. instruction should make use of:

The nature of show and tell varies slightly between procedural and conceptual knowledge.

Procedural Show & Tell

With procedural learning, show and tell involves:

Modelling often involves working an example, which has a moderate-to-large impact on students learning ⁴.

When worked examples are coupled with verbal explanations of the steps or actions needed, they have even more impact ⁵.

Conceptual Show & Tell

With conceptual learning, show and tell involves:

Visuals may include text, but they are not text-based. Research on the modality and multimedia effects 3 show that combining meaningful visuals with verbal explanations enhances learning.

However, visuals must be used carefully. See The Use of Visuals article.

Checking for Understanding

Models of explicit instruction, such as the I Do - We Do - You Do framework, advise that you should check for understanding before moving on from this stage.

Strategy 4: Integrate Prior Understandings

Pretesting is a powerful way to activate prior understandings. Yet, activating prior understandings is only the first step. You also need to prompt your students to integrate the new information with what they already understood, with questions such as, how does/is this new information:

Relationships could be sequential, hierarchical, cause-effect or comparative. You can ask your students to show these relationships using some form of a graphic organiser:

And, the impact is even larger in mathematics when integrating prior understandings is coupled with worked examples.

Strategy 5: Retrieval Practice

Research shows that retrieving information from memory is a powerful way to learn. In psychology, we refer to this as the testing effect.

In fact, students who practise retrieving information from memory do far better than students who spend an equivalent amount of time restudying.

You can also ask students to practise using a mixture of the above methods.

Strategy 6: Feedback

Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and it is the breakfast served by extraordinary teachers around the world.

Giving feedback involves telling a student:

Feedback is different to praise. Praise focuses on the student, while feedback focuses on what your student did. It provides your students with a tangible understanding of:

In John Hattie's view, any teachers who seriously want to boost their children's results should start by giving them dollops and dollops of feedback.

If you want to learn more about giving feedback, subscribe to our email list. You will then receive a free copy of our eBook How to Give Feedback to Students: The Advanced Guide. You should also check out our student feedback infographic.

Teaching Strategy 7: Spaced Practice

We know that retrieval practice works well, that it works better than restudying material, and that it gas even more impact when accompanied by feedback.

Yet, research shows that students learn more when they practice the same thing repeatedly with spaces in between than they do when they study the same thing intensely for a block of time.

For more details see Distributed vs Massed Practice.

Teaching Strategy 8: Productive Group Work

Group work can have a potent and positive impact on your students' learning.

Yet, group work done at the wrong time or in the wrong way can backfire. Kids can muck around and leave one or 2 group members to do the work. So, follow these tips:

1. Don't use group work as teaching strategy until your class is routinely behaving well as a whole class

2. When you first use group work, make the task easy enough that students won't need help. Then spend your time watching all the groups, offering praise and positive correction when appropriate.

3. Only use group work once all indivdual students have a basic mastery of the task

4. Choose tasks that have a small number of discrete steps

5. Make group sizes equivalent to the number of steps in the class

6. Have each student complete one step, then rotate roles with repeat tasks

7. Hold groups accountable for their behaviour, effort and results

SHAUN KILLIAN
(MEd., MLead.)

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10 Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies for 2023

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Some teaching strategies have more impact on your students' results than others. Discover this core list of 10 evidence-based teaching strat ..

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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January 25, 2014
Below is a list I have been working on for awhile now. The list features some very useful Math websites specifically handpicked for teachers to use with their students. The initial list I compiled contained over 40 websites but as I reviewed it deeper I decided to take some out and keep the rest here. I invite you to have a look and share with your colleagues. Enjoy

Aplus Math provides Interactive math resources for teachers, parents, and students featuring free math worksheets, math games, math flashcards, and more.
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Math TV is a platform that features a wide range of math videos covering a plethora of mathematical concepts. These videos are browsable via topic or by textbook.

AAA Math offers thousands of arithmetic lessons from kindergarten through eight grade. Unlimited practice is also available on each topic which allows thorough mastery of the concepts.

This philosophy behind this website is to make math learning fun and enjoyable. It features a myriad of lessons and activities provided by teachers and math community from all around the world.

Math Central is an Internet service for mathematics students and teachers. This site is maintained by faculty and students in Mathematics and Statistics and Mathematics Education at the University of Regina in Canada.

TenMarks provides students with access to hints and video lessons on every problem, so if they can't recall something, or didn't quite get the topic when it was covered in class, they can quickly review the content, and move forward.

Mathsframe has more than 170 free interactive maths games. All resources are designed, by an experienced KS2 teacher, to help children to visualise numbers, patterns and numerical relationships and to develop their mathematical thinking. New games are added most weeks
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The SMILE program was designed to enhance the elementary and high school learning of Science and Mathematics through the use of the phenomenological approach.
9-The Math Forum

This is a community of teachers, mathematicians, researchers, students, and parents using the power of the Web to learn math and improve math education. The forumoffers a wealth of problems and puzzles; online mentoring; research; team problem solving; collaborations; and professional development. Students have fun and learn a lot. Educators share ideas and acquire new skills.

The Simpsonsmath contains over a hundred instances of mathematics ranging from arithmetic to geometry to calculus, many designed to expose and poke fun at innumeracy.

SuperKids lets you create your own Math drills. Simply select the type of problem, the maximum and minimum numbers to be used in the problems, then click on the button! A worksheet will be created to your specifications, ready to be printed for use.

This is an interactive math dictionary with enough math words, math terms, math formulas, pictures, diagrams, tables, and examples to satisfy your inner math geek.
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MATHguide offers a variety of mathematics lessons. Numerous lessons in algebra, geometry, and pre-calculus are available. One can also utilize an assessment resource, called quizmasters.

Mathleague.org offers a number of services focused on enhancing the quality and quantity of competitive mathematical opportunities available to students everywhere. We offer a variety of programs for students in grades 3-12.
15-Math Drills

Math-Drills has thousands of Free Math Worksheets for teachers and parents on a variety of math topics.

Math Goodies is your free math help portal featuring interactive lessons, worksheets, and homework help.
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Math-Aids is a free resource for teachers, parents, students, and home schoolers. The math worksheets are randomly and dynamically generated by our math worksheet generators. This allows you to make an unlimited number of printable math worksheets to your specifications instantly
18-Math Basics

Math Basics offers help with basic math like subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, times tables and percents. It provides math tutorials and learning interactives to make learning math easier, and allow you to practice basic math skills at your own level and pace.
19-Get The Math

Get the Math is about algebra in the real world. See how professionals use math in music, fashion, videogames, restaurants, basketball, and special effects.

Absurd Math is an interactive mathematical problem solving game series. The player proceeds on missions in a strange world where the ultimate power consists of mathematical skill and knowledge.

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20 Great Math Websites for Teachers and Students

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January 25, 2014 Below is a list I have been working on for awhile now. The list features some very useful Math websites specifically handpicked for teachers to use with their students. The initial list I compiled contained over 40 websites but as I reviewed it deeper I decided to take some out and keep the rest here.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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February 7, 2017
Below is a chart we have been working on during the last few weeks. It features a number of key websites and online resources arranged into different categories. We did not cover all school subjects but we will be adding more resources to the list in the future. Our purpose is to provide teachers and educators (and students) with a repository of EdTech websites that can potentially help them with the teaching of their content areas. The great thing about this work is that it is curated by teachers for teachers. It only contains what we believe are resources with a direct relevance to the education community. We have extensively drawn on our archive of EdTech tools together with a bunch of external resources (see the list at the bottom of this post) to compile this selection. You are free to download, print. share and distribute this chart the way you want provided you credit our blog as the source and keep it free of charge.

You can download this chart in PDF format from this link.

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The Ultimate EdTech Chart for Teachers and Educators

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February 7, 2017 Below is a chart we have been working on during the last few weeks. It features a number of key websites and online resources arranged into different categories. We did not cover all school subjects but we will be adding more resources to the list in the future.

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Jumping into Planbook Plus is easy. In minutes, our step-by-step, guided tours will help you organize your lessons. Quickly create a scope and sequence mapped to units. Efficiently add standards and lesson components. Organize your calendar by day and by week.

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3 Ways to come up with more engaging assignments

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3 Ways to come up with more engaging assignments

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I decided that the enduring value students should get from the assignment was not directly about The Odyssey at all-I wanted them to recognize how the literary archetypes we had studied in connection with the epic are found in other stories. From there, I wanted them to realize that understanding how archetypes work could help them form a deeper appreciation of the people around them.

I challenged myself with the questions: "How do I design a meaningful assignment around this big idea that engages students?" and "How do I get kids to understand the value of the work we do?"

Designing an Engaging Assignment

1. Provide choices: According to teacher and blogger Larry Ferlazzo, "Teachers in the real world recognize that although personalization has the potential to improve learning, our first job in applying any approach is to engage students in the learning process.... It's about helping students find their spark and make their own fire."

In order to ignite students' interest, I asked them to identify a familiar archetype from a book, movie, or television show of their choice. They would then determine how the character breaks the archetypal mold, and write a response to analyze and explain their findings.

The students were initially skeptical and asked questions like, "So we're just doing this to brainstorm, and then we're writing our papers about The Odyssey, right?" I had to work to convince them that they really could write the whole paper about a story of their choosing.

The students' ability to make their own choices generated an explosion of ideas. A few of my Harry Potter aficionados stopped in excitedly at lunch to share their insights, and there were heated discussions about the myriad ways in which Harry Potter breaks the mold of the hero archetype: "He can't make a rational decision, so Hermione has to tell him what to do!"

A student who used to love The Magic School Bus series questioned Miss Frizzle's role as a "teacher as a heroic figure": "Doesn't she actually repeatedly risk students' lives?"

When we paid closer attention to television and films, students noticed a high school chemistry teacher who cooked meth, and how Superman, in the movie Man of Steel, was bullied as a child and felt isolated as he tried to suppress his powers.

2. Offer a challenge: Students persevere when an assignment is not only interesting, but intellectually demanding. When John Hattie lists factors that relate to student achievement, he indicates the importance of ensuring that each assignment has the optimal level of challenge-not too hard, not too easy-because "the effect size of this so-called ' Goldilocks ' level of challenge... nearly doubles the speed of learning."

Our study of archetypes introduced students to a concept they hadn't before considered. They were generally able to identify a character's archetype, but struggled to articulate the specific ways their character broke the mold.

One student was perplexed by the conflicting realities about Betty Cooper, the "good girl" from the Netflix series Riverdale. She ultimately realized that despite Betty's good intentions, her impulsive and often careless behavior reveals that she is much more complex than her blond hair and seemingly perfect exterior lead viewers to expect.

3. Tell them why: According to best-selling author Daniel Pink, "research has shown that people do better at a task-whether that task is spelling, hitting a curveball, or playing the viola-if they know why they're doing it in the first place. School is often all about how-here's how you do a quadratic equation, here's how you write a five-paragraph essay, here's how you do a paper chromatography experiment in chemistry. The fact is, we often give short shrift to why."

I explained to students that people, like archetypal characters, are complex. One purpose of studying archetypes is to remind us that our tendency to generalize and stereotype is often incorrect. We may think, "Oh, that person is a jock-he couldn't possibly be good at math" or "She's so pretty and popular-life must be so easy for her."

Noticing how superheroes suffer with feelings of isolation and so-called good girls really aren't so perfect after all reinforces the fact that we cheat ourselves and others when we label people based on appearances and false assumptions. My students know that we studied literary archetypes to gain a deeper understanding of why we must not judge people based on appearances.

Preparing Students for the Real World

Classroom assignments should provide students with the opportunity to make informed choices, struggle through challenging tasks, and draw their own conclusions so they can transfer these essential skills to their lives outside of school. We can foster our students' independence in these areas by designing assignments that matter.

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Designing Engaging Assignments | Edutopia

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I decided that the enduring value students should get from the assignment was not directly about The Odyssey at all-I wanted them to recognize how the literary archetypes we had studied in connection with the epic are found in other stories.

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Brain-aligned discipline isn't compliance-driven or punitive-it's about supporting students in creating sustainable changes in behavior.

©Shutterstock.com/Andrew Derr

There are many perspectives on the topic of discipline in our classrooms and schools, and I'd like to explore the idea of using brain-aligned discipline with students who have adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

Traditional punishment with these students only escalates power struggles and conflict cycles, breeding an increased stress response in the brain and body. Punishment is used to try to force compliance. The vast majority of school discipline procedures are forms of punishment that work best with the students who need them the least.

With our most difficult students, the current way schools try to discipline students does not change their behavior, and often it escalates the problems.

Discipline, unlike punishment, is proactive and begins before there are problems. It means seeing conflict as an opportunity to problem solve. Discipline provides guidance, focuses on prevention, enhances communication, models respect, and embraces natural consequences. It teaches fairness, responsibility, life skills, and problem solving.

There are times when students need to be removed from the classroom and school for aggressive, volatile actions, but upon re-entry we should make a plan of action that begins to address these actions in these brain-aligned ways.

The neurobiological changes caused by chronic negative experiences and a history of adversity can trigger a fear response in the brain. As Pam Leo says, "A hurtful child is a hurt-filled child. Trying to change her behavior with punishment is like trying to pull off only the top part of the weed. If we don't get to the root, the hurtful behavior pops up elsewhere." In children the fear response often looks aggressive, defiant, and oppositional.

Young people with ACEs have brains that are in a constant state of alarm. In this alarm state, consequences don't register properly. Discipline can only be done when both the educator and the student are calm and self-regulated. If they aren't, behavioral difficulties will escalate.

In a brain-aligned model of discipline, we must teach the behaviors we want to see, laying the groundwork for prevention systems and strategies.

Preventive Brain-Aligned Strategies

Preventive systems are taught as procedures and routines. They are collaborative and filled with choice. Their purpose is to create a sustainable behavioral change, not just compliance or obedience for a short period of time.

I teach students about their neuroanatomy, so they understand what happens in their brains when they become stressed, angry, or anxious. When we understand this, we feel relieved and empowered.

In morning meetings or whole class time, I discuss the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and neuroplasticity with students. We identify and make lists of our emotional triggers and coping strategies, and I teach students to use their breath and movement to calm their stress response systems.

Is there an adult in the school who connects with this student and has a space where the student can go if they need to regroup and calm their stress response systems? Are you teaching these procedures ahead of a time when a student needs to regulate away from the class?

Could your school create a area for both teachers and students to go to when they need to reset their emotional state? This area could be stocked with paper, markers, crayons, water, soft music and lighting, a jump rope, a stationary bike, lavender scented cotton balls, jars for affirmations or worries, or a rocking chair. Students will need to be taught ahead of time how to use this area, which they should need for just two to five minutes in order to feel refocused and ready to return to class.

Examples of Natural, Non-Punitive Consequences

Name-calling: Have the student create a book of positive affirmations for the class, or have them create a list of "kind words" and teach them to a younger class.

Low-level physical aggression (pushing, kicking, hitting): Some consequences could include giving the student a new learning space in the room or a new spot in line, or they could be tasked with performing an act of kindness or service for the hurt person.

If this occurs at recess, the student could be tasked with assisting a teacher on recess duty in monitoring the playground, noticing everything that is going well. They can roam around the playground, still getting the exercise they need. Or again they could perform an act of kindness toward the student who they hit.

Inappropriate language: This calls for a discussion when both student and teacher are in a calm brain state. Sometimes words that are inappropriate at school are used at home, so we need to understand the cultural context and have a discussion with the student.

An older student could research the words they used and report to you on why they're not school words; younger students could try to write out what they were trying to convey using school-friendly language or drawings.

Incomplete assignments: Have a one-on-one discussion to convey what this behavior communicates to you. Ask if something has changed at home or school, or if the student doesn't understand what is required. Make a plan with the student and possibly a parent for making up the work that has been missed. And consider assigning a student mentor to help the student.

The research is clear. Our brains learn best in a state of relaxed alertness. Our discipline systems must begin to shift toward creating this state in all the members of our school community.

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Aiming for Discipline Instead of Punishment

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Brain-aligned discipline isn't compliance-driven or punitive-it's about supporting students in creating sustainable changes in behavior.