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This article goes beyond what people believe schools do and sets up a positive, encouraging atmosphere where students can anonymously compliment other students and teachers. This creates a community where everyone can feel included and a part of something.

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Administration & Leadership

A project that invites students to anonymously compliment their classmates and teachers has improved the culture at one high school.

A small act of kindness can change the complexion of someone's day. Giving someone a compliment, telling them how much they mean to you, or just sharing words of encouragement can change a person's overall outlook.

For the past six years, staff and students at Wayne Valley High School in New Jersey have participated in an activity known as Third Party Compliments. Each year, we share between 2,500 and 3,000 anonymous messages of kindness and positivity throughout our school community.

Positivity and Encouragement

I got the idea for this from an icebreaker introduced to me by my brother-in-law. Three people are separated from a group. They're kept isolated from one another and brought back in one at a time. They're blindfolded and handed 10 pennies to throw into a garbage can. For the first person, no one speaks while they throw the pennies. For the second person, the crowd mocks them during the task, and for the third person, the crowd offers encouragement.

You can probably guess that the last person performs the task best, but what may surprise you is that whenever I do this activity, the person who receives no feedback always performs at the same level as the person who received negative feedback. This activity provides evidence of the power of positivity and encouragement.

We tap into that at my school through our compliment project, which is one of several social and emotional learning activities we do. The process begins with staff and students using a Google Form to submit compliments and positive messages for anyone within our school community. The link to the form is posted on social media, emailed to staff and students, posted on Google Classroom, and also made available through QR codes posted around the building.

The form is set to only accept responses from emails within our school's domain and to collect the respondents' email addresses. It's important that we know who submitted the message for safety reasons. Over the course of a three-week period, our goal is to give everyone as many opportunities to submit their messages of positivity as possible.

After all the messages are collected, we give ourselves two weeks to sort, organize, and prepare the messages to be delivered to our school community. There's an intentional focus on detail to ensure that every student and staff member receives a message.

This part is a little tricky, but with some creative sorting using Google Sheets, it can be done. Autocrat, an add-on to Sheets, is a mail merging tool that pulls the data from the various columns in Sheets and adds them to a template. Once the merge happens, each of the messages will be added to the template in a Google Doc. Now comes the manual labor! Lots of cutting and organizing.

Once the messages are ready to be shared, they are organized into two groups. The main bulk of the messages are distributed through physical education class in batches over the course of the week. During the sorting process, around 100 messages are identified to be hand-delivered. These messages are selected because they are particularly heartfelt and impactful while also highlighting students and staff who may not typically get noticed or recognized.

A Team Effort

Students, administrators, counselors, and teachers participate in walking around to distribute these messages. Students are asked to come to the hallway to read their compliment, and the messages are read to staff members in front of their students. Our TV students capture the authentic reactions to the messages and compile them into a video.

The process of collecting, sorting, organizing, and distributing the messages requires a great deal of commitment from a lot of people. We have had counselors, administrative assistants, and students help with the process. I can truly say that seeing the reactions of the people receiving the messages is priceless and worth every minute of energy required.

Mother Theresa said that kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. Although the process can be time-consuming, the impact that this program has had on our school climate has been undeniable. Staff and students consistently share with me that this is their favorite activity of the year. The pure joy and happiness in the responses of everyone reading their messages makes all the work of putting this activity together worth it.

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Administration & Leadership A project that invites students to anonymously compliment their classmates and teachers has improved the culture at one high school. A small act of kindness can change the complexion of someone's day. Giving someone a compliment, telling them how much they mean to you, or just sharing words of encouragement can change a person's overall outlook.

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Can we just accept the fact that technology is here to stay? Bitmoji is a great way to introduce technology and its uses to a classroom. The virtual classroom is a part of education and these avatars represent us, as teachers, perfectly. Nothing gets students more engaged then an engaging, interactive virtual classroom.

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Since remote learning started this past spring, Bitmojis have taken the education community by storm.

Available through the Bitmoji app, these customizable, mini-me avatars have become stand-in teachers running virtual classrooms, enforcing rules and expectations, collecting assignments-and making students smile, we've heard. Simply put, they're fun.

Amber Weaver, a second-grade teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, says she likes that her Bitmoji classroom-a virtual replica of her real one-makes resources like the school calendar easily accessible to her young students and provides them with a sense of virtual familiarity and stability during a tough time.

But not everyone is a fan of the Bitmoji craze. Some educators believe that they're a distracting fad and that teachers should be focusing more on creating effective lessons and supporting students' well-being instead of creating cutesy virtual classrooms, according to an article in Education Week. They also claim that Bitmoji resources raise issues of digital equity, as not all students have easy access to the internet or to digital devices to use them. Proponents counter that effective instruction and Bitmojis aren't mutually exclusive, and say they're broadly helpful in engaging students in virtual learning.

As teachers prepare for the fall, many are considering ways to bridge virtual and hands-on learning to keep kids engaged-and Bitmoji may provide the leg up to do so. We talked to more than 50 K-12 educators about how they're using Bitmoji and gathered links to their resources that you can download and customize for your own use.

Getting Started

To get started creating your Bitmoji universe, you need to download the app (available for iPhone and Android) and create your Bitmoji by selecting physical features like hair and eye color and an outfit. After creating your character, you can cast it in a huge array of activities, such as reading, dancing gleefully, or even eating a sandwich.

Next, download the Google Chrome extension, which allows you to choose a favorite image of your Bitmoji-perhaps your doppelganger washing its hands or saying "hello"-to copy and paste it into whatever format you'd like, such as Google Slides where you host your virtual classroom.

For inspiration, Facebook groups like Bitmoji Craze for Educators offer a range of templates and tutorials that show newbies the ropes, like this step-by-step video tutorial on setting up a Bitmoji classroom, and hacks that inspire veterans with new ideas. And of course, the examples below are a great starting point.
Note: Most of the examples mentioned in this article are linked to templates that can be downloaded. One type of link goes directly to a copy that can be customized to your heart's desire. The other goes to an open Google Slide. If taken there, click "File," pause your cursor over "Make a copy," and select "Entire presentation." From there, it's yours.
Bitmoji Classrooms

The most popular use of Bitmojis in education is for creating virtual classrooms, or virtual learning hubs (typically hosted on Google Slides, which can be integrated into a learning management system (LMS) like Seesaw, Google Classroom, or Schoology) where teachers post classroom materials and resources for students. Every teacher's Bitmoji classroom is unique. Some teachers have made them resemble their real-life classrooms or homes, while others have leaned toward fantasy.

Kindergarten teacher Sara Hannah's Bitmoji classroom looks a lot like her real classroom, she says, but with some elements of fun. In the virtual room, clickable icons link to assignments, games, read-alouds, and short video lessons-even the virtual cats are clickable. Incorporating Bitmojis has created more excitement around classes, which she says helps motivate students in virtual learning.

Brittney Harvey, an elementary school-certified occupational therapist assistant, created an occupational therapy room for her students in Oklahoma. The virtual room links to resources like Zoom for one-on-one sessions, pre-writing video lessons, and GoNoodle-a video library filled with exercises that help Harvey's students develop gross motor skills.

The Bitmoji classroom isn't limited to core subjects. Educators have created Bitmoji classrooms for at-home recess (grades pre-K-3), art classes (first grade), and maker spaces (grades K-6).

Setting Expectations and Norms

Teachers say they've found that Bitmojis can be a helpful (and fun) way to get students to remember the rules and expectations in their virtual classrooms.

Jillian Graham, a high school math teacher from Fort Mill, South Carolina, created norms around how to act during Google Meet classes and used her Bitmoji character to remind students about them, for example. While her students waited to join a Google Meet session, they saw her Bitmoji explaining how they should act on video calls with instructions like "dress appropriately" and "be an active participant."

Aimee Wilson, a 10th-grade U.S. government and English teacher, on the other hand, created a Bitmoji cell phone policy poster that outlined when it is and isn't OK to use a cell phone, while Brandi Dudley, a first- and second-grade teacher in California, created Bitmoji Covid-19 posters to remind her students of protective measures like handwashing.

Bitmoji Libraries

Many educators say they are using Bitmoji to create "libraries," or virtual bookshelves, linked to video read-alouds, PDFs, and digital books.

Cammie Duval, an elementary school teacher in Milwaukie, Oregon, created a K-2 growth mindset library for her district, for example, and has 29 libraries in total on different themes like " Mad Scientist," which have been downloaded as templates more than 90,000 times by teachers. To stimulate excitement, Duval hides a digital worm ("a bookworm") in every library that kids can search for as they peruse the books.

"Most of my students cannot read and don't have family members who have a lot of time to read with them," says Duval of the benefits of the digital read-alouds. "Bitmoji libraries give those kids the ability to fall in love with reading at home by themselves."

In light of recent events, some educators have been inspired to create libraries with a host of diverse books. Overcome with emotion after the murder of George Floyd, Tracey Burton, a pre-K-5 technology teacher in Ishpeming, Michigan, created a Bitmoji library that houses VideoLink links-YouTube links without the ads-that connect to read-alouds of books about different races and cultures like Mixed Me and Too Many Tamales.

"I didn't think I could change the world, but I do feel like I [can] make a change," says Burton. "Reading about other cultures makes the world smaller and more connected."

Relationship-Building Activities

Other educators have found that Bitmojis can play a role in building relationships and making deeper connections with their students from afar.

Last spring, Angie Baton Ritenour, a fourth-grade teacher in Farmington, Michigan, collaborated with two grade-level colleagues to create an iSpy Bitmoji room, which they used during a video call to get students more engaged in remote learning. They filled the virtual room to the brim with objects, like photos of students and items from their classrooms. During the video call, students took turns saying "I spy with my little eye...," and their peers had to guess what object they had picked-helping students build connections with one another.

And Amanda Wells says she plans on having her eighth-grade students complete an All About Me Bitmoji assignment so she can get to know them better this fall. On a templated Google Slide, students will share their interests coupled with a drawing or photo, such as a drawing of them playing with their dog, and write two complete sentences explaining why they enjoy each activity.

While some educators argue that teachers should be spending their time on developing engaging lessons rather than creating superfluous Bitmoji resources, educators have proved that they can do both.

Laura Hoomes, a kindergarten teacher in Huntsville, Alabama, says she's spent more time planning this summer than in previous ones, having already created over 40 Bitmoji libraries to use next year. She's also created home learning kits, weekly at-home crafts, and 22 center games for each of her students-none of which are Bitmoji-to give students a range of activities to choose from.

"I have two young kids, so it's mostly what I can accomplish at night after they go to bed!" says Holmes. "I'm just trying to be ready for virtual kindergarten."

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Educators Turn to Bitmoji to Build Community and Engagement

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Both fun and practical, Bitmoji classrooms are adding some levity to fall planning this year.

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It's all about setting up an enticing environment and exciting atmosphere. Engage with the students and it will not only benefit you, but them as well. We are a large part of students' lives and a simple welcome goes a long way. You want to create that sense of belonging.

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Greeting each student at the door with a positive message brings benefits for both students and teacher, according to a study.

A widely cited 2007 study claimed that teachers greeting students at the classroom door led to a 27 percentage point increase in academic engagement. The problem? It included just three students.

Now a new, much larger and more credible study -comprising 203 students in 10 classrooms-validates that claim: Greeting students at the door sets a positive tone and can increase engagement and reduce disruptive behavior. Spending a few moments welcoming students promotes a sense of belonging, giving them social and emotional support that helps them feel invested in their learning.

The first few minutes of class are often the most chaotic, as students transition from busy areas such as the hallway or playground. Left unchecked, disruptions can become difficult to manage, but a proactive approach to classroom management can help students get focused and ready to learn. Rather than address disruptive behavior as it happens, proactive techniques-like greeting students at the door and modeling good behavior-reduce the occurrence of such behavior as teachers and students build a positive classroom culture together.

In the study, when teachers started class by welcoming students at the door, academic engagement increased by 20 percentage points and disruptive behavior decreased by 9 percentage points-potentially adding "an additional hour of engagement over the course of a five-hour instructional day," according to the researchers.

Ten middle school teachers were randomly assigned by the researchers to one of two groups. The first group started class by greeting their students at the door, saying each student's name while using a nonverbal greeting such as a handshake or nod. The teachers also used precorrective statements -reminders of what to do at the start of class like, "Spend the next few minutes reviewing what we covered yesterday." If a student had struggled with their behavior the previous day, the teachers often gave a positive message to encourage them to improve.

Teachers in the second group attended classroom management training sessions offered by their schools, but they weren't given any specific instructions on how to start class.

Researchers observed classrooms in the fall and spring, looking at academic engagement-how attentive students were to their teacher or classwork-and disruptive behavior, including speaking out of turn, leaving one's seat, and distracting classmates. Both measures improved in classrooms where teachers greeted their students, confirming what many teachers already know: Meeting students' emotional needs is just as important as meeting their academic needs.

"The results from this study suggest that teachers who spend time on the front end to implement strategies such as the PGD [positive greetings at the door] will eventually save more time on the back end by spending less time reacting to problem behavior and more time on instruction," the study authors write.

Building Community

Why do positive greetings work? When teachers use strategies like this, they help "establish a positive classroom climate in which students feel a sense of connection and belonging," the study authors write. "This is particularly important considering the research demonstrating that achievement motivation is often a by-product of social belonging." In other words, when students feel welcome in the classroom, they're more willing to put time and effort into learning.

Nonverbal interpersonal interactions, such as a friendly handshake or a thumbs-up, can help make greetings feel authentic and build trust -as long as students feel comfortable with physical contact.

Say the student's name

Make eye contact

Use a friendly nonverbal greeting, such as a handshake, high five, or thumbs-up

Give a few words of encouragement

Ask how their day is going

When greeting students at your door:

Addressing Underlying Causes of Misbehavior

Disruptive behavior is contagious-if one student misbehaves, it can quickly spread to other students. And while most teachers try to respond immediately, punishment often backfires. Research shows that trying to fix student misbehavior may be futile because doing so can spur resistance and more misbehavior instead of compliance.

"Despite overwhelming evidence that such strategies are ineffective, many teachers rely on reactive methods for classroom behavior management," explain the study authors.

So instead of asking, "How can I fix misbehavior?" teachers could ask, "How can I create a classroom environment that discourages misbehavior in the first place?" In many cases, low-level disruptions and disengagement have less to do with the student and more to do with factors that the teacher can control, such as teaching style and use of stimulating activities. For example, a study found that when teachers encouraged students to participate in classroom activities rather than lecturing to them, students were more likely to stay on task.

Another recent study provides additional insights: When teachers focused their attention on students' positive conduct and avoided rushing to correct minor disruptions, students had better behavior, and their mental health and ability to concentrate also improved.

Benefits for Teachers, Too

A welcoming classroom environment doesn't benefit students alone-it can improve the teacher's mental health as well. Slightly more than half of teachers- 53 percent-feel stressed by student disengagement or disruptions. The consequences can be serious: A 2014 study found that "teachers report classroom management to be one of the greatest concerns in their teaching, often leading to burnout, job dissatisfaction, and early exit from the profession."

All too often, teachers spend time and energy responding to misbehavior with corrective discipline, such as telling students to stop talking or giving them a time-out. These may work in the short term, but they can damage teacher-student relationships while doing little to prevent future misbehavior. Research shows that it can be beneficial for student and teacher well-being to instead focus on creating a positive classroom environment.

The takeaway: Starting class by greeting your students at the door helps set a positive tone for the rest of the day, promoting their sense of belonging, boosting their academic engagement, and reducing disruptive behavior.

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Greeting each student at the door with a positive message brings benefits for both students and teacher.

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This article talks about the elephant in the room. The author, Crystal Frommert, analyzes what makes a student a good math student and the answer may surprise you. It's not strictly grades! Creating an environment where all students believe they can be successful is the key.

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Creating an Environment Where All Students See That They Can Be Good at Math

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When teachers guide students to look beyond narrow metrics of success in math, more students will see their potential for learning.

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I've always been a fan of public speaking and rewards that go with it. When students are asked to present or even teach a lesson, they will become more engaged with what they're learning and want to explain it properly. This will also teach how to interact with one another and create a unique environment.

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After the initial energy and excitement of the early school months, the fall and winter seasons bring the annual challenge of maintaining student engagement. This precise point in the school year provides teachers with an opportunity to sustain crucial student engagement through project-based learning (PBL) that allows for collaboration and student choice.

Youki Terada powerfully conveys the value of project-based learning in his Edutopia article " New Research Makes a Powerful Case for PBL " when he writes that PBL "fosters a sense of purpose in young learners, pushes them to think critically, and prepares them for modern careers that prize skills like collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity."

All teachers know that learning never ends, so we're acutely aware that teachers continuously enter and exit our lives. We spend hours in professional development seminars taught by experts, but sometimes our best teachers are right there in our classrooms. We all know, too, that one of the best demonstrations of mastery of a specific skill is to teach that skill to someone else.

Teaching to Learn

One of the most successful strategies to bolster student engagement is the ever-reliable flip of the classroom, in which teachers give over the teaching to their students. A student-centered project-based learning lesson that works well for me is a specific type of collaborative project: the student lecture. This strategy has, for me, boosted engagement, particularly at the close of a semester or the end of the school year.

My first experience with student lectures occurred in college when my literature professor assigned a collaborative lecture project. My group and I had the flexibility to choose our subject and then present a lecture to our peers, teaching them a lesson we researched and prepared. Decades later-many decades later-I vividly remember this experience: It was a potent learning experience that has left an indelible imprint on me to this day. My aim is for my high school students to have a memorable opportunity like this.

My own method for assigning student lectures is simple and straightforward: I either assign groups or allow students to self-organize into small groups, usually of three to four students. They research an area of interest, create a lecture, and then teach a carefully constructed lesson to the entire class (and to me). Here, students become the teachers and, therefore, the experts on their subject. Students have a variety of interests to choose from-lecturing on an analysis of time and memory in Romantic poetry, the autobiographical elements in Virginia Woolf's essays, or the rhetorical strategies of U.S. presidents or world leaders.

Groups also create assessments and quizzes to deliver to their class. They field a variety of questions testing their knowledge on their selected subject and often assign homework to their peers. Finally, each student completes a self-reflection on the learning experience. This is an opportune time to reveal the inner workings of the group dynamic, what worked or didn't work, who did all the work, and so on.

Above all, student lectures not only teach students essential skills like research, reading comprehension, oral presentation, and reflection, but also provide a sense of ownership over their own learning, encouraging their collective curiosity. Student lectures teach content and a variety of inter-curricula knowledge.

For the teacher, there's a palpable charge-a teacher joy-to see a group of students lecturing to other students, seeing your students become learned teachers to others. The audience doesn't have to be solely fellow students. Several times, I've invited fellow English teachers, social studies teachers, principals, and other administrators to be the "students" for my student lecturers.

During one student lecture on braiding the themes of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald, an English teacher grilled my students with a series of challenging questions, and my student lecturers answered them with confidence and poise. If we hope to instill a lifelong love of learning in our students, wouldn't it be good to instill a love of teaching within them as well?

Student lectures are also amazingly versatile. At my school, the social studies department assigned a lecture project that lasts the entire year. The group determines an issue that our community-local, national, or global-faces and then researches potential solutions for that issue. Groups conduct interviews, compile research, determine a design plan, and prepare for their lectures. Then, at the end of a year, we hold an evening symposium in which each group presents to peers, teachers, and members of our community. This yearlong lecture assignment provides an indelible learning experience that intertwines content knowledge with practical, real-world skills.

Student lectures provide teachers with a product that reflects a culmination of student learning, allowing us to interweave several important skills into one summative project. Perhaps even more important, beyond content-specific skills, student lectures also teach tangible real-world skills such as collaboration, problem-solving, conflict resolution, communication, and researching that will travel with our students into their futures.

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After the initial energy and excitement of the early school months, the fall and winter seasons bring the annual challenge of maintaining student engagement. This precise point in the school year provides teachers with an opportunity to sustain crucial student engagement through project-based learning (PBL) that allows for collaboration and student choice.

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This article deals with an issue I've always been fond of. When I get an answer wrong, I want to know where I went wrong and learn from it. Corrections are another form of teaching and it tackles each students' individual needs because it was a question they had difficulty with. This method promotes a chance to learn from your mistakes and a way for teachers to further advance their students' way of thinking.

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Using Test Corrections as a Learning Tool

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Assigning corrections as classwork and then retesting students allows a teacher to accurately assess if they have mastered the material.

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This article is a reference for me when it comes to interviews. Teachers should know which questions they will be asked and how they should answer it truthfully and effectively. It is good to know you are assessed beyond what you've done and important to show what you can do.

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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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Confidence, confidence, confidence is key! When students become estranged to any topic, they simply "shut it out". It is important to make sure students are confident for the lessons to truly hit home. The earlier confidence is instilled, the more productive it will be later in their lives. Use math-themed picture books at an early age!

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It's important that students in preschool through third grade believe in their growing mathematical capabilities.

Studio.G photography / Shutterstock

Raise your hand if you've heard or said the phrase "I am terrible at math." (OK, hands down.) I'm sure that if I could see all of you, there would be a sea of hands in the air. How is it possible that so many people have reduced a subject encompassing so many activities and perspectives and come to the conclusion that they are "bad" at it... all of it? And yet, this is the situation we have-people generally align themselves with either Team: Good at Math or Team: Bad at Math.

When I became a teacher of young children, I never wanted my students to feel incapable or fearful of any subject. As much as possible, I wanted my words and classroom visuals to act as mirrors and windows for students to see that their work had value and meaning in the classroom and in the world.

Two ways to help students feel affirmed in their mathematical endeavors are posting portraits of the students engaged in math activities, and reading math-themed books to students that feature children who are engaged in personally meaningful math activities.

'Math Is Everywhere' Student Portrait Display

A teacher who photographs a child at work sends the message, "You are seen, and your work has value and meaning here." Seek out moments that capture the often-elusive yet fully awe-inspiring math moments that children create and are instantly gone at the end of a lesson:

Designate wall space for a "Math Is Everywhere" display.

Encourage math moments to photograph by providing inspiring STEM materials-for example, math manipulatives (e.g., Unifix Cubes, wooden cubes, and pattern blocks); collections (e.g., shells, buttons, and keys); construction toys (e.g., Magna-Tiles, Lego Duplo, and unit blocks); or craft materials (e.g., beads, craft sticks, and pipe cleaners).

Take a portrait of each student engaged in a math investigation.

Print out each portrait, ideally 8.5 by 11 inches.

Label each photo with the student's name, the date, and a student dictation of the math connection depicted in the photograph.

Post new portraits each month.

Encourage classroom math discussions about the portraits.

Include these portraits in each student's portfolio.

Math-Themed Picture Books

A second way for students to identify what math looks like is by reading picture books about math. The benefit of the following eight math picture books is that these are foundational books that affirm that there are many ways to see math in the world.

Each of these picture books proposes a mathematical journey for young children and offers the possibility for fuller classroom discussions with a math and literacy connection.

Five Creatures, by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Tomek Bogacki. Five creatures live in a house: two adult humans, two adult cats, and one child. The little girl sorts her family throughout the day, categorizing each member via different attributes (e.g., "Three short and two tall"). (Preschool-kindergarten)

I Know Numbers!, by Taro Gomi. The first sentence proclaims, "Numbers are everywhere!" Gomi then takes us on a tour through a home and community to showcase all of the places and ways that numbers help people navigate their world. (Preschool-kindergarten)

We Are One: How the World Adds Up, by Susan Hood, illustrated by Linda Yan. The star of this book is an enthusiastic and whimsical cosmic tour guide. This book emphasizes number standards for groups of people, objects, and systems. (Preschool-grade 2)

, by Monica Wesolowska, illustrated by Kenard Pak. Leo counts objects in his world applying the Fibonacci sequence. Lea is a new girl in Leo's class who loves drawing as much as Leo loves counting. Soon the duo find something that they have in common: They both love patterns! You can watch Wesolowska and Pak introduce their book. (Preschool-grade 3)

Uma Wimple Charts Her House, by Reif Larsen and Ben Gibson. Uma has been a cartographer since age 4. Years later, a school assignment makes her chart-making dream come true. What was so easy in the past, however, becomes her biggest challenge to date: Make a chart of your home. You can watch Larsen read this book. (Preschool-grade 3)

Zero Is the Leaves on the Tree, by Betsy Franco, illustrated by Shino Arihara. This book follows a group of children throughout the year as they identify examples of zero. Zero is poetically explained as the absence of something. (Kindergarten-grade 2)

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It's important that students in preschool through third grade believe in their growing mathematical capabilities. Studio.G photography / Shutterstock Raise your hand if you've heard or said the phrase "I am terrible at math." (OK, hands down.) I'm sure that if I could see all of you, there would be a sea of hands in the air.

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This article brings up an important part of math; the subject builds upon itself. The strategies mentioned include anchor charts, numberless problems, math talks, and small group instruction. These issues can enhance later learning in mathematics. The building blocks must be concrete before we can build on top of them.

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I spent 18 years as a high school mathematics teacher, but it wasn't until I became the K-12 director of mathematics at my school that I was able to truly see many wonderful activities happening in the elementary math lessons that could add so much value to a secondary math classroom. Often, in the secondary classroom, we get overly focused on content and don't appreciate the value of communicating to all of the different learners in the classroom.

Robert Fulghum famously wrote, " All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten." In this case, the strategies that are so successful at teaching math in early elementary can pay dividends in higher-level math as well. We spend a lot of time vertically aligning content, but we could vertically align teaching strategies as well. Below are some of my takeaways after working with elementary teachers on what could help enhance learning and engagement for the secondary student.

4 Strategies That Work

1. Math talks to start every lesson: In elementary classrooms, we begin our math workshops with math talks to help engage student minds and begin to focus on the mathematics lesson. The power of the math talk is essential to make students feel welcome in the math classroom, help focus their brain to logical thinking, and build collaboration. A math talk is such a powerful teaching tool, where students continue to build mathematical thinking and discourse around any topic that continues to help build foundational understandings in a unit, while listening to and critiquing the reasoning of others.

Often the teacher will lead off with a question like "What do you notice?" and allow conversation about strategies and new situations to arise naturally from student answers and discourse. Starting class with a thinking problem, fluency practice, or other brain teaser or logical thinking problem that all students can engage in as well helps build student confidence at the start of each class.

Many secondary classrooms are crowded; therefore, it may be more challenging to get all students involved in the math talk. The best suggestion for this is yet another elementary classroom strategy, the popular turn and talk. When engaging students in the talk, pose the question and have students talk with a partner or small group about their different answers and approaches. Then, encourage them to share one of their partner's ideas with the class. I have seen this be very effective in the classroom and help build community and confidence for all students.

Some great resources that I have found to help secondary classroom students with their math talks are Which One Doesn't Belong and Jo Boaler's " data talks." All students can engage in these math discussions, which in turn helps their confidence and motivation to continue to engage in class as well. Fluency practice too is always a plus!

2. Small group instruction: This is a strategy that I wish I had used more of as a high school teacher. Small group instruction is a powerful way to not only differentiate a lesson but also provide extra scaffolding to students who might be struggling with a specific topic. For example, when teaching factoring, you might have some students who are struggling with the concept of factoring with an a value of 1, while others are ready to move on.

Based on data, a teacher can work directly with a small group of students struggling with the basics of factoring, while allowing others to work collaboratively on different trinomials with an a value greater than 1. Teachers can use exit slips, quick checks, observation checklists, and other tasks to help assess student understanding of a specific skill and to identify areas for additional targeted instruction.

Placing students into small groups once a week based off of this data allows the teacher to meet students at their level. Teachers can perform a mini-lesson for different groups, scaffolding the lesson appropriately and accelerating learning. Small group instruction fills in gaps, accelerates learning, and provides high-level Tier 1 instruction in the secondary classroom. This is an opportunity to repurpose the role of tiered intervention in the secondary setting as well.

3. Anchor charts: We often expect our students to come into the secondary setting as expert note takers. Even though they often copy everything that was on the board, students sometimes forget to refer to the important content that they recorded, or it gets lost in a sea of notes. Important information that students are expected to hold on to and transfer could be better represented around the room on anchor charts. Noting important ways to think and solve problems, theorems, or proofs can help students transfer thinking to new situations and remember their basics. This is a great way to decorate the walls of a secondary classroom!

4. Numberless problems: After attending a few of Graham Fletcher's professional development sessions on metacognition, I recognized the power of his message even for the secondary classroom. When you show students a problem, a picture, or an error-analysis problem, ask them, "What do you notice? What do you wonder?" Too often we don't allow students in the secondary classroom to notice and wonder about the beautiful math around them.

One way to start math class, or to have a break in a longer block, is to show a picture that has math in it (math is everywhere) and ask students to notice and wonder. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Notice and Wonder program features images that can spark so many different math conversations, leading students to see math all around them! Ask students what questions they have about the picture, mathematically, or even just what they are wondering. All of this helps students become problem solvers, a skill that we are constantly growing and developing, even into our adult lives.

So, even if we didn't learn everything we need to know in kindergarten, we can still learn from the past. The teaching strategies used by kindergarten teachers can inspire ways to engage our students in the beauty of mathematics at every age.

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4 Elementary Teaching Strategies That Enhance High School Math

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I spent 18 years as a high school mathematics teacher, but it wasn't until I became the K-12 director of mathematics at my school that I was able to truly see many wonderful activities happening in the elementary math lessons that could add so much value to a secondary math classroom.

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The article tackles how schools can utilize the AI craze and use it to their advantage. AI is only going to increase in its presence and integrating with it successfully will become crucial. The article also goes over ways to make kids avoid using the technology, but the main focus is to use it to their advantage.

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Teachers can use tools like ChatGPT as one strategy in their efforts to teach students how to think critically and write effectively.

As a learning specialist who, along with supporting the students in my charge, works side by side with colleagues in all content areas, I want to encourage faculty as they consider the impacts of tools such as ChatGPT. For English and social studies teachers, for example, this just might be their "calculator moment": As math teachers had to adapt their teaching when calculators became ubiquitous, so, too, must teachers of courses that are rich with reading and writing, now that AI tools are at students' fingertips.

December 2022 saw a spike in the number of articles, blog posts, and think pieces musing about what ChatGPT and the like might-OK, do -mean for education. Many rang alarm bells, and a few pointed out the shortcomings of the tool as currently configured. I spoke to our division's director of technology just before our winter holiday about what's being talked about in his professional circles regarding these artificial intelligence tools.

It was a lively conversation with far more questions than answers. I did respond with certainty, though, when he asked me what my philosophy is about ChatGPT and tools like it. "If I could turn back time and make sure we do not invent such things, I would."

My response gives away the fact that I'm what can only be described as a Luddite. My watch only tells time. I listen to records. Not too long ago, I had a Nokia phone. Still, I'm no ostrich. I continued, "But that horse has already left the barn. ChatGPT is not coming to our classrooms-it's already here."

Here are some ideas for incorporating AI tools into our classes while retaining and reinforcing critical thinking skills.

Prompt dissection

Zeynep Tufekci, a New York Times opinion writer and associate professor at the University of North Carolina, warns that, as tools like ChatGPT are training themselves on everything written on the internet, there's a fairly good chance that there will be inaccuracies in what is being drafted. She describes the risk of being subjected to " a high-quality intellectual snow job."

There can be an upside, however. In a social studies classroom, students might craft a prompt about a topic they've been considering and then examine the machine's response in forensic detail. This may involve a sentence-by-sentence dissection of what the AI has written. By unearthing possible inconsistencies or straight-up inaccuracies, students reinforce their correct understanding of the topic.

Find the biases

As a variation on the above, students create prompts across a variety of related topics, then evaluate them looking for themes of inaccuracy. Since ChatGPT and their ilk are trained on what exists, underrepresented writing and voices will necessarily be marginalized further through the iterative processes inherent in AI tools.

How can we guide our students to not only recognize these blind spots but also incorporate a greater multiplicity of viewpoints in their scholarship?

Spot the computer essay

For a playful exercise, share two or three pieces of human writing from the past year or two and slip in an example from ChatGPT, and have students discuss what makes these examples human-or decidedly not. Nuance, passion, and, perhaps, even fallibility will be clues that students can investigate.

Use primary sources and first-person accounts

This and the following ideas are writing assignments that will make the use of AI tools superfluous, if not counterproductive.

My colleague Joy Xu in the English department asks students to interview someone and connect this person's experience to a text. First of all, the narrative/expository combination provides more points of entry for student writing.

Second, this synthesis ensures that no machine prompt can provide language to express new learning.

Compare two readings

Students will create unique essays that demonstrate their learning, the connections they've made, and the meaning. Again, because these AI tools are trained on what can be found on the internet, the rarer the story, the rarer the computer-generated analysis.

Expect classroom discussion to be used as a resource

This idea, loosely based on another Peter Greene suggestion, considers a key component of what he calls "authentic writing" class discussions. He recommends that the discussion "[become] one of the texts being considered."

A rather positive result that would likely emerge from this idea would be students paying closer attention during classroom conversations. Dare I say they may even take notes?

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Beth McMurtrie shares that students often submit writing that they consider little more than "an assemblage of words repeated back to the teacher," while we teachers believe that student writing represents their thinking. We want our students to think and to continue to develop their thinking.

Tufekci reminds us in her opinion piece that essay writing teaches students how to conduct research, judge claims, synthesize knowledge, and express that knowledge persuasively and coherently. She continues, "Those skills will be even more important because of advances in AI."

Rather than bury our heads in the sand, let's equip our students for the world of right now and for what it might be going forward.

I'm still going to listen to records, though.

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Some Ideas for Using ChatGPT in Middle and High School Classes

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Teachers can use tools like ChatGPT as one strategy in their efforts to teach students how to think critically and write effectively.