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Commonly asked interview questions you can anticipate-plus tips and links to resources you can tap as you polish your answers.

Congratulations! You've landed an interview appointment for a teaching position at a new school, or for a different position at your current school. This is an important first step, but there will likely be a number of qualified candidates vying for the same spot-how can you distinguish yourself from the pack and land the job?

Your résumé, references, and professional portfolio will help, of course, but it'll always be the impression you make during your face-to-face interview that'll get you hired. Luckily, there are only a few types of questions a teacher can be asked, so it's completely possible to enter a teaching interview confident and prepared.

In addition to questions related to your content area, anticipate that you'll be asked questions based on your knowledge of and experience with meeting the needs of the whole child. Be ready to explain how you honor and attend to the social, emotional, and academic growth of your students-both individually and as a group. And be prepared for questions concerning classroom management, teacher-student relationships, student engagement, and learning outcomes.

Here are the types of questions you'll be asked, along with suggestions and links to resources to guide you in preparing your answers and in practicing citing specific strategies and relevant classroom anecdotes.

11 Questions You Should Prepare For

1. Why did you decide to become a teacher? Prepare a brief professional mission statement that explains not merely how you want to change students' lives but also how your own life is enriched by being a teacher. Also, look up the school's vision statement and reference how your teaching will reflect those goals.

3. How do you cultivate positive relationships with your students and create a sense of class community? Recount a time you bonded with a student who needed some extra attention and understanding. Show your concern for the emotional well-being of the most vulnerable students and describe your plan for developing students' social and emotional learning skills. Also explain how you create a sense of empathy and inclusion among your students so classmates support each other on both a personal and academic level.

4. How do you use data to differentiate instruction and support students identified with specific learning disabilities so all students can learn? First, be ready with the names of a couple of data-rich student assessments you're familiar with. Your interviewers won't demand that they be the same ones they use, but the fact that you're aware of testing practices is important. Then, here are 20 differentiated instruction strategies you can use to prepare your answer on how you respond to data. Also, show your knowledge of these 11 learning disabilities and describe a few ways you work with parents and school resource personnel to meet the individual needs of each child.

6. Do you incorporate collaborative and project-based learning? Discuss the difference between cooperative and collaborative learning, and if you have implemented PBL, describe a specific assignment your students worked on.

7. How do you keep your students engaged and motivated, and how do you promote student voice and choice to help them become self-directed learners? Here are 10 engagement techniques that drive student motivation and enthusiasm. Also describe how you create a student-centered classroom that inspires creativity, passion, and purpose.

8. How do you teach 21st-century learners, integrate technology, and guide students to be global citizens? Be prepared to talk about how you teach global citizenship and encourage critical thinking, creativity, and good communication skills. Here are ways to integrate technology into content learning.

9. How do you include parents and guardians in their child's education? Recount several ways you inform, engage with, and collaborate with parents and guardians-through face-to-face meetings, notes, phone calls, or digital channels.

10. How do you maintain your own professional development, and what areas would you select for your personal growth? You might read books and blogs, watch videos online, subscribe to journals, attend conferences and workshops, or be a member of an educators society in your field. Be ready to talk about the specific resources you use to keep up with the latest trends in education, such as growth and benefit mindsets, flexible seating, flipped and blended learning, STEAM, trauma-informed teaching, restorative practices, mindfulness, makerspaces, and gamification of learning.

In discussing your personal growth, explain ways you want to further expand your teaching efficacy-don't refer to teaching "weaknesses."

11. What questions do you have for us? Try this: "Please tell me the most important thing you know now as an educator that you wish you knew before you began your teaching career." The answers you receive will reveal what your interviewers most value about education, and this insight will allow you to tailor your closing conversation to their interests.

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11 Questions You'll Be Asked at a Teaching Interview

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Commonly asked interview questions you can anticipate-plus tips and links to resources you can tap as you polish your answers.

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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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6 Problems with Flexible Seating (and Easy Solutions for Them) - Teaching with Jodi Durgin and Company

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Flexible seating allows your students to work in a relaxed environment that simulates real life, but there are problems with flexible seating.

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There are plenty of studies that isolate the effects of light, acoustics, or air quality on learning. But the research on flexible classrooms is frustratingly scarce.

There are good reasons for the apparent lack of interest. Variables like natural light and acoustics lend themselves to single-factor experiments that can be conducted in a laboratory setting. Give subjects a task to complete in a room with ample windows, for example, and then administer the same test in a room without them.

But flexible classrooms are complex, living systems. One flexible space looks nothing like the next, and often dozens of children and one or more teachers operate within them, pushing and pulling furniture into novel configurations, dimming or turning up lights, and otherwise reshuffling things to suit an almost infinite variety of personal preferences. Studying flexible classrooms, it would seem, means circulating among real children.

Despite the challenges, an ambitious effort to study the design of lived-in classrooms, including looking at hard-to-define factors like flexibility, was completed in 2015 by the University of Salford, in the United Kingdom. Researchers put in the legwork, visiting 153 classrooms in 27 schools across the country-from small, remote village schools to much larger suburban buildings on the outskirts of metropolitan London. In the end, the effect of classroom design on academic performance was studied across 3,766 British children aged 5 to 11.

"We were trying to take a holistic perspective," explained Peter Barrett, the lead researcher and now an honorary research fellow at the University of Oxford. "In other words, we were trying to look at spaces as experienced by people. So this isn't just air quality, this isn't just temperature, or an effort to measure the factors separately. This is the whole lot together."

The Findings

The study looked at three dimensions of classroom design: naturalness (factors like light and temperature), stimulation (factors like color and visual complexity), and individualization (factors like flexibility and student ownership).

The big insight? Optimizing all of these physical characteristics of primary classrooms improved academic performance in reading, writing, and mathematics by 16 percent. The personalization of classrooms-including flexibility, which Barrett defined as "student choice within the space"-accounted for a full quarter of that improvement.

Another way to look at it: When isolated from other measured factors, classroom flexibility is about as important as air quality, light, or temperature in boosting academic outcomes.
Katherine Madden
Barrett's team singled out the effectiveness of learning zones-"a reading area, a wet area, usually a carpet area for whole-class activity, tables usually in blocks of four or six"-and made special note of unique classroom shapes, which seem to allow for easier partitioning of the space. But the study doesn't prescribe fixed solutions, setting out loose guidelines instead. When I described American flexible classrooms, which are even more individualized than their British counterparts, Barrett agreed that the Salford findings applied.

A few insights surprised even the researchers. Flexible, welcoming spaces had a startlingly large effect on learning in math- 73 percent of the students' progress that was attributed to classroom design was traced back to flexibility and student ownership. The reasons are a mystery, but Barrett and his team hazarded a guess: Academic subjects that provoke anxiety-in math, that's a known issue -are better addressed in classrooms that feel comfortable and familiar to students.

And some of the air quality data came as a shock. Despite a 2015 Harvard study that showed steady declines in higher-order thinking when carbon dioxide levels exceed 500 parts per million-the gas is a by-product of human breathing, for those who've forgotten their biology-the researchers consistently recorded levels over six times that high in a classroom they observed. That's alarming-and fixable.

"If air quality is OK at the start of the class, it won't be by the end unless you do something," according to Barrett. "It's an absolute fact. So you have to open a window or a door. But you have to do something."

Form, Function, and Flexibility

So will lugging new furniture into your room improve student outcomes? Do Hokki stools and throw pillows drive up test scores?

The answer is no.

Barrett thinks it's the old dictum that form follows function at work: Flexible classrooms are successful because they go hand in hand with a change in pedagogy. That conclusion never fails to emerge in teacher-led discussions on Edutopia. Flexible spaces, educators agree, alter the fundamental dynamics of teaching and learning, giving students more control and responsibility, improving academic engagement, and undermining the typical face-forward orientation of the traditional learning environment.

In other words, it's not the inert fact of the furniture itself-the new couch in the center of the room or the standing desk near the window-but the dynamic use of the space by the teacher and students that pays, in the end. Changing the layout of your classroom will almost certainly have no impact at all-if you don't change your teaching too.

The takeaway: Flexibility, combined with characteristics like acoustics and air quality, has a real impact on student achievement. If used properly, flexible classrooms produce better academic outcomes among primary school children than more traditional, static classroom designs.

The author of this article is the chief content officer at Edutopia. You can follow him on Twitter @smerrill777.

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Flexible Classrooms: Research Is Scarce, But Promising

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An ambitious study of 153 classrooms in the United Kingdom provides the best evidence that flexible spaces can boost academic performance.

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A middle school teacher shares the benefits of giving students voice and choice in their learning environment.

Courtesy of Brooke Markle

The author's classroom, ready to go for the new year.

Changes to a learning environment are often driven by the teacher's philosophy regarding how students learn best. When I decided to remove the student desks from my grade 7 English classroom for the last school year, I was motivated to do so after observing the way my students learned and analyzing how I could best support them in that learning.

According to the NEA article " Understanding Universal Design in the Classroom," the learning space is an important aspect of the whole educational experience: "One cannot have a community of learners without having a positive instructional climate. Instructors help to create this climate by everything that they do, from the way they respond to student questions to the arrangement of the classroom chairs." For my students, traditional seating hindered their ability to use the classroom in the ways they needed to accomplish the learning goals I set for them as modern learners.

The classroom environment should mirror what students will encounter in their future careers, and collaboration, problem solving, and meaning making are at the forefront of most job descriptions. Standard desks situated in rows do not foster open communication and collaboration. Before I moved the desks out of my classroom, I had typically arranged them in partners or small groups to try to facilitate conversation, but traditional desks in groups didn't foster the personalized, collaborative learning environment my students craved.

My Journey With Flexible Seating

Once I started researching options to shift the classroom environment, I was careful not to attempt a "Pinterest perfect" classroom and instead maintained focus on the purpose of flexible seating: allowing students a voice and a choice within their classroom. I incorporated various types of seating at different levels throughout the room, and students were able to find workspaces where comfort met capability.

Since I wrote about changing my room a year ago, educators from across the country have reached out with questions regarding how to manage flexible seating in a middle school classroom. Middle school students offer a unique challenge since they are in the midst of adolescence, which brings with it a great deal of change for them. I've answered questions on everything from student feedback, funding, parental concerns, and planning for substitutes to basic logistics and materials. There are many ways to address these questions-in the end, a classroom environment is all about the needs of the students within the room.

Although I started last school year with no traditional desks in my classroom, I did have traditional options available, such as standard tables with ergonomic plastic chairs. I tried to be sensitive to the needs of all the learners-many students enjoy nontraditional seating options, yet an equal number prefer a standard learning space.

Last year I used student feedback surveys in each marking period to determine "home base" seats for my students-where they sit each day for attendance and initial instruction. Having home base seats helped with the distractions and confusion that come with transitions between classes.

I also asked whether they wanted any traditional desks-the answer was no-and if they had opinions about the placement of furniture. This feedback was really helpful, especially with multiple classes using the room every day.

I made changes to the classroom several times throughout the school year based on what my students suggested, which I strongly believe was a key component to the success of the pilot program. My classroom was in fact their classroom, and being responsive to their changing needs was critical.

As summer ends and I think about the furniture I have in my classroom and the new items I acquired through various local grant opportunities, I'm planning multiple placement options for each piece.

The Benefits I Saw

One benefit of flexible seating that I didn't anticipate was that when I incorporated station work and students moved to new seats to work with a new group, they seemed more open to collaborating with an assortment of peers in a variety of locations than had been the case with traditional seating.

I admired the way my students took an active role in their educational journey when provided with a choice as small as where they preferred to complete an assignment. As the NEA article notes, "Students know how they learn best. Give them credit for the knowledge they bring to the classroom, and make them partners in the creation of a positive instructional climate."

Students are completely capable of doing their best work while stretched out on the classroom floor, sitting in an Adirondack chair, or even curled into a tire seat. I've been amazed at the discussions that occurred among my students and the ease with which they shared writing samples and ideas about literary questions with an array of peers.

Flexible seating is about more than simply having a variety of different, fun seats in the classroom. It's about utilizing student voice, creating buy-in, heightening collaborative learning, and prioritizing students' needs concerning the environment in which they learn.

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Reflections on Shifting to a Flexible Classroom

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A middle school teacher shares the benefits of giving students voice and choice in their learning environment.

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6 Ways to Engage Every Learner Using UDL -- THE Journal

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Special Needs Universal Design for Learning can make your lessons more accessible and your lesson-planning more fun. In any given classroom, there are invariably learners who simply don't connect with what's being taught. Lectures can be easy to tune out. A textbook can feel dense and boring to finish.

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First Person

Most teachers will agree that student brains are as diverse as their fingerprints. Each student is compelled by different interests, aided by different strengths, and hindered by different struggles.

Universal design for learning, or UDL, provides a framework for embracing the neurodiversity that exists in all our classrooms. It asks teachers to create flexible learning environments and practices to support a broad range of learners. It might seem like you have to be an expert to start employing UDL principles in the classroom-but in fact, you can start laying the groundwork as early as tomorrow.

What Is UDL?

UDL is predicated on the simple belief that designing lessons based on our conventional learners ignores the instructional needs of the outliers. Most importantly, UDL suggests a fundamental shift in how we understand learning challenges. It puts an emphasis on remediating the classroom rather than the student.

Think of it this way: When you put a wheelchair ramp in an airport, it helps people in wheelchairs, of course. But it also helps many other people, including those with roller bags and strollers and sore legs.

UDL is meant to work the same way-it helps lots of different students and in lots of different ways. With UDL, teachers can reduce barriers to learning by providing accommodations, different modes of instruction, and alternative assessments to help all students achieve their learning potential.

In order to design learning environments based on our students' diverse interests, needs, and abilities, it helps to know more about them. That might involve simply surveying our students-or talking to others who know them, like their parents and former teachers. This information helps identify our builders, poets, inventors, and illustrators. It is also valuable to know if our students think in numbers, pictures, or words. Maybe most importantly, knowing their history of problems at school: Identifying which students have struggled to read, write, or connect with their classmates will inform necessary adjustments to instruction.

Different Ways to Read and Write

My understanding of how UDL can work in my 5th grade classroom has been gradual but steady over time. Initially, my instructional shifts were attempts to develop singular strategies to help individual students. However, when I adapted the delivery of my content, introduced assistive technology for school work, or granted an assessment accommodation for one student, it usually became a helpful practice for many.

For example, I recently had an amplification system put in my classroom to assist a hearing-disabled student. But many more students with normal hearing reported that it made a dramatic difference in their ability to attend to instructions and explanations. This served as an important reminder that solving an issue for one student often becomes an improved practice for the rest of the class-which is a central tenet of UDL.

The growth of assistive reading technology has made it easier than ever for teachers to adapt texts for different learning needs. Students who struggle to read need to find a different way to access words and ideas. Many students can understand audio information that they are unable to consume and comprehend in text form. Providing subject content via audiobooks, podcasts, videos, and text-to-speech apps helps to address the gap between students' reading ability and their intellectual abilities. Additionally, certain reading supports, like Learning Ally's VOICEtext and the Voice Dream Reader app paired with Bookshare, allow students to read along with the audio content while the words are being highlighted on screen. This can help strengthen and support students' decoding abilities while allowing them to consume information.

Lately, I've been trying to make written text in my classroom available digitally as much as possible. Students can enlarge font size and use text-to-speech apps to read digital content (Voice Dream Reader can vocalize text from almost any digital platform, including Dropbox and Google Drive). Digital material is also easier to locate for my less-organized students.

Meanwhile, dictation apps and software can help students who struggle with the mechanics of writing by allowing them to speak their ideas into a device instead. Students are often stunned when they can swiftly evolve from three poorly composed sentences to several thoughtfully composed paragraphs. And when the playback option is employed, students who struggle to edit their own work can catch mistakes they would have otherwise missed.

Steady Goals, Flexible Modes of Assessment

When our teaching objectives are clear, we can be more flexible about how we measure student understanding. For example, if I'm trying to determine whether my students understand the three branches of the U.S. government, I can have them write out an explanation, tell it to me orally, perform a rap, design an infographic, or create an iMovie. The mode of expression is not what I'm measuring. Furthermore, if I don't set strict rules, some of their demonstrations of understanding will likely exceed my less imaginative assessment structures and make the task infinitely more personal and engaging.

Likewise, when I assign an essay, if my goal is for students to support a meaningful idea in a clear and organized manner, whether they speak into a laptop or type with their fingers is not relevant. For my students who do not struggle with dysgraphia, a learning disability that affects one's writing, combining composition and keyboarding can provide helpful practice with integrating both skills. However, insisting on making my strugglers combine the task of writing an essay with keyboarding practice will certainly backfire when it comes to the quality of their output.

Oral expression can also be designed to be more inclusive of different personality types. I have recently committed to punctuating our full-class discussions with more frequent "think-pair-shares," during which students explain a concept to a partner. These more intimate conversations let my introverted, or less boisterous, personalities stay engaged and practice sharing their thinking with their classmates.

'A More Inclusive Learning Environment'

As with many educational evolutions, staying updated about the landscape of UDL best ideas, practices, and assistive technologies can seem daunting. But one does not have to personally do all the discovery and vetting. I recommend leveraging the existing (and generous) expertise that exists online and in our own school faculties. Creating ways of sharing instructional practices in your school community and allowing assistive tech experts to keep you updated on different apps are simple ways to offset feeling overwhelmed.

Ultimately, in the same way the wheelchair ramp also helps all passengers, I have witnessed how my own (inexpert) shift toward UDL has helped all my students, not just the ones with the quirky learning profiles. Allowing students to access and express knowledge in multiple ways has allowed all abilities to more effectively optimize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Creating a more inclusive learning environment has involved no unique expertise, just a shift in instructional thinking and practice. Maybe you want to ease into UDL by rethinking classroom seating or discussion techniques. It may make more sense to explore alternative assessment techniques or simply make your existing ones untimed. Incorporating transformational assistive tech is another way to level the playing field. I guarantee that you will never regret time spent investigating how to get your struggling readers connected to Bookshare or Learning Ally.

Although-each UDL adjustment I have made has improved my instruction, I did not make these changes all at once. And, of course, I am not finished.

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When It Comes to Universal Design for Learning, Don't Wait to Be an Expert

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First Person Most teachers will agree that student brains are as diverse as their fingerprints. Each student is compelled by different interests, aided by different strengths, and hindered by different struggles. Universal design for learning, or UDL, provides a framework for embracing the neurodiversity that exists in all our classrooms. It asks teachers to create flexible learning environments and practices to support a broad range of learners.

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What issues have the potential to define-or re define-education in the year ahead? Is there a next "big thing" that could shift the K-12 experience or conversation?

These were the questions Education Week set out to answer in this second annual "10 Big Ideas in Education" report.

You can read about last year's ideas here. In 2019, though, things are different.

This year, we asked Education Week reporters to read the tea leaves and analyze what was happening in classrooms, school districts, and legislatures across the country. What insights could reporters offer practitioners for the year ahead?

Some of the ideas here are speculative. Some are warning shots, others more optimistic. But all 10 of them here have one thing in common: They share a sense of urgency.

Accompanied by compelling illustrations and outside perspectives from leading researchers, advocates, and practitioners, this year's Big Ideas might make you uncomfortable, or seem improbable. The goal was to provoke and empower you as you consider them.

Let us know what you think, and what big ideas matter to your classroom, school, or district. Tweet your comments with #K12BigIdeas.

No. 1: Kids are right. School is boring.

Out-of-school learning is often more meaningful than anything that happens in a classroom, writes Kevin Bushweller, the Executive Editor of EdWeek Market Brief. His essay tackling the relevance gap is accompanied by a Q&A with advice on nurturing, rather than stifling students' natural curiosity.

No. 2: Teachers have trust issues. And it's no wonder why.

Many teachers may have lost faith in the system, says Andrew Ujifusa, but they haven't lost hope. The Assistant Editor unpacks this year's outbreak of teacher activism. And read an account from a disaffected educator on how he built a coalition of his own.

No. 3: Special education is broken.

Forty years since students with disabilities were legally guaranteed a public school education, many still don't receive the education they deserve, writes Associate Editor Christina A. Samuels. Delve into her argument and hear from a disability civil rights pioneer on how to create an equitable path for students.

No. 4: Schools are embracing bilingualism, but only for some students.

Staff Writer Corey Mitchell explains the inclusion problem at the heart of bilingual education. His essay includes a perspective from a researcher on dismantling elite bilingualism.

No. 5: A world without annual testing may be closer than you think.

There's agreement that we have a dysfunctional standardized-testing system in the United States, Associate Editor Stephen Sawchuk writes. But killing it would come with some serious tradeoffs. Sawchuk's musing on the alternatives to annual tests is accompanied by an argument for more rigorous classroom assignments by a teacher-practice expert.

No. 6: There are lessons to be learned from the educational experiences of black students in military families.

Drawing on his personal experience growing up in an Air Force family, Staff Writer Daarel Burnette II highlights emerging research on military-connected students. Learn more about his findings and hear from two researchers on what a new ESSA mandate means for these students.

No. 7: School segregation is not an intractable American problem.

Racial and economic segregation remains deeply entrenched in American schools. Staff Writer Denisa R. Superville considers the six steps one district is taking to change that. Her analysis is accompanied by an essay from the president of the American Educational Research Association on what is perpetuating education inequality.

No. 8: Consent doesn't just belong in sex ed. class. It needs to start a lot earlier.

Assistant Editor Sarah D. Sparks looked at the research on teaching consent and found schools and families do way too little, way too late. Her report is partnered with a researcher's practical guide to developmentally appropriate consent education.

No. 9: Education has an innovation problem.

Are education leaders spending too much time chasing the latest tech trends to maintain what they have? Staff Writer Benjamin Herold explores the innovation trap. Two technologists offer three tips for putting maintenance front and center in school management.

No. 10: There are two powerful forces changing college admissions.

Some colleges are rewriting the admissions script for potential students. Senior Contributing Writer Catherine Gewertz surveys this changing college admissions landscape. Her insights are accompanied by one teacher's advice for navigating underserved students through the college application process.

Wait, there's more.

Want to know what educators really think about innovation? A new Education Week Research Center survey delves into what's behind the common buzzword for teachers, principals, and district leaders. Take a look at the survey results.

Published in Print: January 9, 2019, as What's on the Horizon for 2019?

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The 10 Education Issues Everybody Should Be Talking About

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What issues have the potential to define-or re define-education in the year ahead? Is there a next "big thing" that could shift the K-12 experience or conversation? These were the questions Education Week set out to answer in this second annual "10 Big Ideas in Education" report.

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Wish you understood your students better? Here's twenty questions that will help you get to know them.

We all know how important strong relationships are to successful teaching. But in order to build strong relationships, we need to understand how our students thinkand why they make the choices that they do.

Often we think we know what student's going on in our students' heads, but we could be way off. And when we're off, students can tell. They bemoan that we don't get them (because, let's be honest, we don't!), and any advice we give tends to fall flat.

We get frustrated. Our students get frustrated. And it all becomes a big mess.

So how do we remedy this? By actively seeking to understand our students. By getting to know not just their school persona but who they really are. This includes their background and home life, but possibly more importantly, their innermost thoughts and feelings that include their hopes, dreams, fears, and anxieties.

Because when we start to understand what drives them, we begin to appreciate them as a unique individual, and our relationships blossom.

And when challenges arise, we can talk about the real issues and address their true thoughts, motivations, and fears, rather than the ones we thought they had.

hOW TO GET TO KNOW YOUR STUDENTS

So we're back to the question of how. How do we get to know our students' innermost thoughts and feelings? Things they might not even quite be able to put into words themselves.

As we discuss in Beyond Classroom Management, the key is to be intentional. Look for opportunities to observe, notice, and ask good questions. And always be seeking to understand how your students think, what motivates them, what frustrates them, what they're worried about, etc.

But while observing and casual conversations are important, they're also easy to forget about in the busyness of the day. That's why a more intentional approach can be immensely helpful.

And that intentional approach could be writing.

`Now, no, I don't care if you teach math. Student writing can enrich both your classroom and curriculum, no matter what you teach.

I share some of my favorite ways to incorporate writing here, but one of the easiest forms is exit slips. Rather than wasting the last couple minutes of class, have your students answer a quick question and turn it in on their way out.

These exit slips can often include academic questions like "tell me one thing you learned today" or "what's one thing you're still wondering about today's topic?" But you can also intersperse questions that help you better understand how your students think. Questions like these....

WRITING PROMPTS TO HELP YOU BETTER UNDERSTAND YOUR STUDENTS

1. What's one thing you wish you could change about this class? Why?

2. Describe one thing that makes you feel a sense of accomplishment. Explain why.

3. What was your first impression of this class?

4. What's your least favorite part of school? Why?

5. Share a favorite memory you made with a family member.

6. What's one thing you wish I knew about you?

7. What's your biggest dream in life?

8. What's one thing you wish you could change about our school? Why?

9. What's one thing that you worry about?

10. What's the best book you've ever read? Why did you like it?

11. What's your family's religious background? Does it match your personal beliefs?

12. If you could pick one person (dead or alive) to have lunch with, who would it be? Why?

13. Describe your relationship with your parents/guardians.

14. Describe a lesson you learned when you faced something difficult.

15. What's one thing that makes you feel happy?

16. Describe something that annoys you.

17. Who is someone you consider a hero in your life? Why?

18. If you could live anywhere, where would you live? Why?

19. Who is someone you consider a friend? What do you like most about him/her?

20. Describe one of your favorite [insert holiday] traditions.

BONUS: The Student Opinion section of The New York Times' website offers thought-provoking prompts based on current articles. Some of them are pretty great! Check back regularly for current topics here: ​ www.nytimes.com/column/learning-student-opinion

And if you'd like to discover more strategies for how to connect with your students and build stronger relationships consider joining us in Beyond Classroom Management. In this course, you'll learn strategies to help you create a classroom culture where, rather than constantly butting heads, you and your students actually work together to accomplish amazing things. Click here for more details about our Beyond Classroom Management course.

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20 Questions to Help You Get to Know Your Students

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Wish you understood your students better? Here's twenty questions that will help you get to know them. Subscribe to the Teach 4 ﻿the﻿ Heart Podcast. We all know how important strong relationships are to successful teaching. But in order to build strong relationships, we need to understand how our students think and why they make [...]

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Sometimes it's all about the little things. And every teachers know a little thing like no-name papers sure can be a pesky timewaster.

When this question came up in our Christian Teachers' Lounge Facebook group, I knew these ideas needed to be shared.

Some ideas may work better than others depending on your situation. So find an idea or two that resonate with you & go for it!

13 Ways to Get Students to Write Their Names on Their Papers

Ask students to touch their name. About two minutes into an assignment, stop and ask students to touch where they wrote their name on their paper. - Jennifer F.

Alternate ideas:

*Have students put a star (or other symbol) by their name. Change the symbol each time so they have to stop & check for their name. - Nicole C.

*Ask students to raise their hand if their table mate has their name on their paper. - Sara B.

1. Have students circle their name in green, yellow, or red. Andrea B. recommends having students circle their name in green if they understand the concept and are confident about it, yellow if the assignment was hard but they're pretty sure they got it, and red if they need help or struggled. (I love this idea! It totally kills two birds with one stone because you not only ensure their name is on the paper but you can also quickly see who needs help.)

2. Have students highlight their name before turning their paper in. Simple, effective, but I love the previous idea more. 🙂

3. Deduct points. Simply deduct a point or two if there is no name on the paper. - Catelyn M.

4. Give stickers. In primary grades, walk around the room and give each student a sticker when their name is on their paper. - Lisa M.

5. Throw away no-name papers. Elizabeth M. says that she simply throws away any no-name papers. Students can find their paper in the recycle can or redo the assignment. (At first this sounded a bit harsh to me, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to expect older students to be responsible in this area. It's a natural consequence.)
Halyna M. has a fun twist to this. When she finds a no-name paper she announces "I've found another paper for the recycle bin - one less for me to grade!" Typically the kid hurries to fish it out and correct the mistake.

1. Record a zero in the gradebook and keep a file of no-name papers. If the last idea seemed too harsh, then try this: record a 0 in the gradebook then put the no-name paper in a file. Students who notice they've received a 0 can find their paper in the file & turn it in for credit (or partial credit). - Catelyn M.

2. Post a sign where students turn in papers. Post an obvious sign that says "STOP! Did you write your name on your paper?" - Catelyn M.

3. Post no-name papers on the wall. Students must walk over & claim their papers. - Heather W.

4. Use a "name check" call-and-response. If you use whole brain teaching, your students will totally get this one. Say "name check" and have the students repeat it back to you out loud three times while they check for their name. - Hannah S.

5. Ask a student to check for names. When passing in papers, have a student check papers for names before the stack goes on your desk. Charlotte H. takes this technique one step further by assigning team captains who collect papers, check for names, and turn in papers to her. She immediately checks for no-name papers & hands any back to the team captain to find who them belongs to.

6. Walk around and check. Simply walk around the room while students are working on an assignment and check for missing names. (This might be especially worthwhile during tests or quizzes.)

7. Emphasize name AND date. Elizabeth H. notes that since she spent time at the start of the year teaching students to write the name and date on their paper, she has fewer students forget to write their name.

So try these tomorrow & you'll never have to deal with a no-name paper again (that's a realistic promise, right? 😉

But, seriously, if you want more procedure ideas, check out our newest training: 50 Classroom Procedures that Will Save Your Sanity.

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13 Smart Ways to Eliminate No Name Papers

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Subscribe to the Teach 4 ﻿the﻿ Heart Podcast. Sometimes it's all about the little things. And every teachers know a little thing like no-name papers sure can be a pesky timewaster. When this question came up in our Christian Teachers' Lounge Facebook group, I knew these ideas needed to be shared.

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Universal Design for Learning—A Paradigm for Maximum Inclusion | Terence Brady | TEDxWestFurongRoad

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Please [contact us](https://www.ted.com/contact) and let us know what happened.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

This must be on the minds of many teachers, because I came across two different studies via Education Week: one about how prior school experience is one of the largest predictors of the success that refugees will (or will not) encounter in a school setting, and the other about how important it is that teachers adapt to the culture of their newcomer students. Fellow TESOL blogger Nathan Hall also provided some ideas for helping ELL students acculturate to a new context, as well. While not every ELL is a refugee or a newcomer, both of these studies and Nathan's blog support the answer that I gave in class, which supported the necessity of including culture in the language classroom for both students and teachers. For TESOL teacher educators, though, I think there is one more step that teachers should take, and that is to go so far as to integrate students' culture and background knowledge into your instruction to be more effective.

In one approach to culturally-inclusive education, González, Moll, and Amanti (2013) stress the importance of using students' , which are created by the out-of-school life experiences that students have. For example, it may be tough for a beginning ELL to express his knowledge of fractions, but he may be well-versed in portions and ratios as he helps his parents cook. Thus, it isn't that he doesn't understand fractions; he might not understand them as presented in a book, but is well aware of the concept in real-life. A math teacher who is aware of this would try to incorporate more of the familiar context to support the classroom learning.

It seems the more we know about the role of students' funds of knowledge, the more important they seem to be. Even if you are working with English learners in a foreign language, rather than a second language environment, drawing upon your learners' life and cultural experiences as they learn language can strongly impact their language learning. In addition, if you're a teacher trainer or teacher educator, teachers' life experiences and beliefs should also be taken into account, as Johnson (2006) put forth in her discussion of the sociocultural turn in L2 teacher education. Teachers who are learning how to teach in a preservice university setting, as well as in-service teachers with their own career experiences, have their own funds of knowledge that effective teacher educators will account for as they facilitate coursework, professional development, and reflection.

Some practical ways of beginning to learn more about your students' cultures and funds of knowledge, in addition to web-based research, are:

conduct home visits;

have students create photo essays of a typical day or weekend in their home/family life;

have students create a collage of hobbies/pastimes;

interview your students/students' families;

invite guest speakers from various linguistic communities to share traditions, celebrations, or slices of daily life;

attend public events in your students' communities;

host an event at your school where students and families can contribute food and/or music; and

advertise events from your cultural community that students/families might enjoy.

Then, don't stop there-challenge yourself or the teachers that you work with to take that cultural knowledge and integrate it into teaching via texts and activities that place language and content in contexts that tap into those valuable funds of knowledge.

Feel free to add ways that you've integrated funds of knowledge into your language teaching in the comments below!
Reference
González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2013). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Routledge.

Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 235-257.

About Kristen Lindahl

Kristen Lindahl holds a PhD in linguistics with a specialization in L2 teacher education from the University of Utah. She is currently assistant professor of bicultural-bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she teaches pre-service ESL/TESOL educators at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Dr. Lindahl has taught K-12 and college ESL, and actively pursues consulting and coaching teachers of English learners in public and English language schools around the globe.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

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What do you want kids to do with technology

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As a Dean of Students at DC Public Schools, I consider it my primary duty to ensure that students and staff feel connected and engaged at school. Langley Elementary, a school within our district, has historically struggled with behavior challenges, high suspension rates and an unimpressive student satisfaction rate. To compound this, an increase in charter schools in the area has resulted in a competition between public and private education, and the area neighborhoods are becoming gentrified.

Rather than leave things as they were and hope for the best, I decided it was time to weave a social-emotional learning program into curriculum and craft a school culture from scratch -- one that focused on the success and happiness of the student, as well as consideration for each individual's emotional needs. It's too often that we fall victim to one-off tools, I wanted to find something that would evoke long term change for our district yet was practical enough that it could be easily implemented into existing curriculum.
Finding an answer
In Washington, D.C., the rise of charter schools has resulted in unprecedented drops in student enrollment rates at some traditional public schools. The diversity of the area has shifted, with 50% being made up of affluent families, and the other 50% being middle- and lower-class families.

This signaled the need for change and called for a solution that would be able to adapt to each person's unique situation and needs. To me, this signaled a demand for something that would not only draw students in but retain them. The answer was SEL.

Washington, D.C.'s average student satisfaction rate is 90%. Prior to implementing an SEL program, Langley Elementary's rate was hovering at 70%. Between the enrollment drops and lack of student happiness, it was time to implement a system and long-term solution.
Implementing a system
The first step toward change was to invest in our teachers. District leaders and teachers collaborated, choosing Conscious Discipline because of its comprehensive approach that integrates social and emotional learning, discipline and school climate, three elements often addressed separately. The program's unique "adult first, child second," foundation immediately distinguished it from other SEL offerings. With a goal of holistic implementation in mind, we knew that buy-in and support were essential at all levels -- from principal down thru the whole school. Our faculty recognized that students were struggling with emotional regulation, and we knew that a well-rounded, effective program was required and that professional development resources would be beneficial. A trainer was brought in and an SEL team was formed, giving teachers the support to make change happen.

One of the things that Langley has struggled with in the past is relationship building between students and staff, and staff and parents. Through the SEL program, we identified a new morning routine that targeted this need, where faculty hosts a ritual where every student chooses how they'd like to be greeted prior to entering the school doors. We encourage students to talk with one another in the cafeteria, a stark contrast to when they would be reprimanded in the past for making noise. We also created a family engagement team made up of teacher leaders who planned family fun nights, a back-to-school barbecue, and school-wide academic partnering where families meet to learn about the curriculum, their child's data, learn how to help their child at home and they get to bring home those activities to practice.

When each student gets to school in the morning, they are greeted by administrators who initiate a connection through a greeting ritual. With this, we're gauging how students are feeling at the beginning of the day and intervening as necessary. Another change that the system has brought is to incorporate a Brain Smart Start each morning, where students can connect and get rid of any stresses they came in with that day. There are four main components that make up these sessions: an activity to unite, an activity to disengage, an activity to connect and an activity to commit. In conjunction with this strategy, teachers hold brain breaks throughout the day, where students take part in meaningful activities to relieve tension and anxiety.

We also hold monthly assemblies where our entire school family participates in a Brain Start Smart activity that includes the four components. As an example, we recently united by participating in our school family song, which is a take on the classic "We are Family" and practiced a breathing strategy for the disengage component.

When conflict between students does arise, we use a strategy dubbed the Conflict Resolution Time Machine. This is a step-by-step process of how to solve problems in a healthy and helpful way, focusing on our school family and functioning based on helpful behaviors instead of hurtful.

Recess has also experienced a large shift. We partnered with , an organization that ensures that recess activities are positive, safe and meaningful. Prior to this implementation, we realized that recess was not as safe as it could be, and often promoted division among students. Now, students are led through different activities that promote an active lifestyle and build valuable life skills through play. Playworks has provided students in upper grades with the opportunity to become junior coaches, and they meet regularly with our Playworks coach to learn games to teach to younger students. Since implementing this program, we've observed a significant decrease in the amount and frequency of negative interactions among peers at recess, and instead, the program has given students an environment to foster meaningful connections and relationships. Similar to Conscious Discipline, this program reinforced our desire for practical, long-term difference.

Change wasn't just happening with our students, it was impacting our staff as well. Teachers were commenting that they enjoyed SEL practices so much, that they were bringing the strategies home to use with their own children. Our teachers are enjoying the new, nurturing culture at Langley, where everybody can feel connected to one another.
Incredible results
Today, one of the strategic priorities outlined in D.C. Public Schools' five-year strategic plan, A Capital Commitment, is educating the whole child. That includes providing SEL to ensure all students are college and career ready. We know this system-wide focus on embedding SEL into DCPS' culture and classrooms will pay off, because all of these little changes at Langley have led up to a schoolwide shift. After implementing an SEL program, we experienced immediate change. Student satisfaction rose to 86% within one year, and suspension rates have dropped from 65% to 23%. Additionally, our students are happier. They are learning how to cope with their emotions in a healthy way while growing social skills.

My advice to other districts who are interested in the benefits of SEL is simple: do it. Invite teachers, parents and students to collaborate to identify needs, and source SEL practices that meet those needs. Through the intentional implementation of SEL, big changes will result. Having faculty buy in is critical to the success of any program, and SEL is no exception. We created a team specifically tasked with helping to implement our program, and after seeing the positive ripple effect that SEL had, we now have full faculty support. SEL has helped our school to promote a safer, more loving and joyous school family environment, and has truly transformed our school.

Where before we were trying to convince students to come to our school, we're now currently overenrolled by 110%, which is unique for our district. Our school has become a family, and we're confident that this success would not have been possible without a thoughtful SEL program implementation.
Monique Robinson is a dean of students at District of Columbia Public Schools.
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As a Dean of Students at DC Public Schools, I consider it my primary duty to ensure that students and staff feel connected and engaged at school. Langley Elementary, a school within our district, has historically struggled with behavior challenges, high suspension rates and an unimpressive student satisfaction rate.

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Social-emotional learning has taken on a new level of importance as schools and districts adapt to meet the increasingly complex needs of students. SEL informs how educators approach culture, climate, management and discipline, and how they deliver the supports needed across schools and districts. There are many aspects to creating a robust system of supports that ensures schools and programs in the district not only speak the same language, but also have a shared understanding of resources and expectations for success.

The community contributes

A year ago, our district partnered with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health to train staff on trauma-informed practices. Small teams of educators from seven schools learned to better understand the impact that adverse childhood experiences have on students. We now recognize the impact that trauma and certain disciplinary actions have on students' decision-making.
This training now includes all 52 schools in the district. School-based teams have served as leads in providing hands-on support for their colleagues.

Another partnership in the tiered support system is telehealth services for parents and students in a rural area of the district. In the district's urban center, the United Way provides health services, job training and related assistance to families to help boost student attendance and academic success.

Each school has created a mentoring or support program for students who may need additional interactions with positive, caring adults. One of the most important resources for assisting schools with this work is the partnership with community and state agencies, as some issues can be greater than districts and schools alone can handle.

We recognize the impact of trauma not only in students' decision-making and actions, but also the impact certain disciplinary actions may have.

New views on behavior

As a district with a poverty index over 74 percent, we needed to equip all of our certified staff with classroom strategies to cope with the neurological impacts of poverty and the associated trauma. Administrators and teachers now understand the science behind certain student behaviors, and how educators can create a healthier social landscape.

Over the past two years, the district has aligned programming and other activities in a tiered and strategic approach to SEL. School communities are different, but their ultimate goals are engaging students and staff, maintaining a positive school climate with high expectations, and ensuring that students know that caring adults work in every building.

That said, we had to look systemically at the approach to certain aspects of SEL. We revised the student code of conduct so that level 1 offenses (minor infractions) now lead to activities such as mediation, community service and restorative justice, as well as training and information sessions for parents. At the elementary and secondary levels, schools now have the ability to tailor level 1 interventions to meet the needs and circumstances of the student.

A big difference

We are in the early stages of aligning the many steps and activities required to be a trauma-informed district, as it relates to meeting the social-emotional needs of our students. Trauma-informed practices are an important tool embedded in our SEL activities and our tiered support mode of operation. We find that these activities and training make a big difference as we strive to improve outcomes, options and opportunities for all students in the district.

Craig Witherspoon is the superintendent of Richland County School District One in Columbia, South Carolina.

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DA Op-Ed: SEL takes center stage | District Administration

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Social-emotional learning has taken on a new level of importance as schools and districts adapt to meet the increasingly complex needs of students. SEL informs how educators approach culture, climate, management and discipline, and how they deliver the supports needed across schools and districts.

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Autism — what we know (and what we don’t know yet)

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In this factual talk, geneticist Wendy Chung shares what we know about autism spectrum disorder — for example, that autism has multiple, perhaps interlocking, causes. Looking beyond the worry and concern that can surround a diagnosis, Chung and her team look at what we’ve learned through studies, treatments and careful listening.

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By Barbara Blackburn
Although our assessment of students is critical to learning, we also want students to learn to assess themselves. Encouraging students to take measures of their own learning is more rigorous than the teacher providing all the assessment.

As always, with greater rigor comes plenty of support. We can't expect students to immediately grasp what it means to gauge their own academic progress.

Let's look at four strategies that allow students to provide a brief snapshot of their learning, then three that are more detailed.
First, you may want to have students assess simply where they are in the learning process. Although these provide a brief look, you could ask students to expand on their responses.

Triangle Reflection

Melinda Crean, author of Top Notch Teaching, shares a way to have students reflect on where they are in the process of learning. Using triangles, she asks students to choose their level of learning.

Musical Notes/Color Clusters

Carolyn Chapman and Rita King in their book Differentiated Assessment Strategies: One Tool Doesn't Fit All provide two ways for students to share how well they understand the content. Both require students to think about their own learning and identify their progress. In musical notes, students use songs to identify their learning stage.

Similarly, in color clusters, students label their learning progress through a series of colors.

Laundry Day

Similarly, in Laundry Day, students group themselves in four categories derived from detergent brands. With the groupings you can then determine how much re-teaching needs to occur.

You also may want to ask students to provide detail on their thinking, rather than simply gauging their progress.

A Bump in the Road

With A Bump in the Road, students reflect of their learning and identify two to four points where they hit bumps in the road, or struggles. Then they partner with another student to see if they can work their way through their struggle.

Muddy Point Board

With Muddy Point Board, you designate an area in the room or a board for students to use to pin questions they have - the "muddy points" that confuse them.

You may have students do this at the end of lessons, or you may use them throughout the lesson. Not only does this provide you a perspective of their learning, it allows you to customize your instruction to their needs.

Reflective Journals

Another strategy for self-assessment is the use of reflective journals. Former middle school teacher Kendra Alston used journals with her students. She asked students to continually reflect on their learning in their daybooks, simple bound notebooks. Then she asked them to write a reflection on their learning at the end of the nine weeks. Some wrote about specific content they learned; others of her students reflected on how they learned.

You can also use journals for students to reflect on specific information about their subject area. For example, in math, students might focus on explanations.

Your students can write in their journals daily, weekly, or at the end of the month or grading period. Students can also keep their journals online in a blog format, or through Google Docs.

Conclusion

Providing students opportunities to reflect and self-assess is an important part of your instruction. It allows students to take ownership of learning, and reflects a more active, rigorous approach to learning. When you use self-assessment techniques frequently, you're gathering information "in real time" that can help fine-tune lessons and differentiate more effectively.
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A nationally recognized expert in the areas of rigor and motivation, she collaborates with schools and districts for professional development. Barbara can be reached through her website or her blog. Follow her on Twitter @BarbBlackburn. Barbara Blackburn was named one of the Top 30 Global Gurus in Education in 2017. She is a best-selling author of 16 books including Rigor is Not a Four Letter Word and most recently Rigor and Assessment in the Classroom.

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7 Ways to Help Students Self Assess Effectively

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By Barbara Blackburn Although our assessment of students is critical to learning, we also want students to learn to assess themselves. Encouraging students to take measures of their own learning is more rigorous than the teacher providing all the assessment. As always, with greater rigor comes plenty of support.

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Amy Price Azano: The ruralities of autism | TED Talk

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In this eye-opening talk, Dr. Amy Price Azano speaks up for rural families who live with developmental differences such as autism. Many current therapies for autism require frequent visits to doctors and specialists, with plenty of online research to boot. But the realities of rural life -- remote h…