Search results for: lesson design

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Happy Go Teach Conference [HGT] in Raleigh, NC. This conference was created by Jen Jones of Hello Literacy and Kayla Delzer of Top Dog Teaching in efforts to provide a flipped professional development [PD] session where best practices are modeled and participants are active in their…

Most teachers have a section in their classroom that contains books for children to read, whether for academic learning purposes or pleasure. However, the majority of these teachers struggle to utilize this space in an organized, efficient manner. As a result, books are lost or ruined and students miss out on reaching their potential through…

Summer is winding down and the upcoming school year is rapidly approaching. Teachers are trying to balance their time between setting up their classroom and attending professional development sessions as well as numerous meetings with school personnel. Most schools host a “Back-to-School” night prior to the first day of school so that parents and students…

Graphics courtesy of Erin Waters Holy Cow! I have been podcasting for two years now- can you believe it? Check out my podcast’s 1st birthday blog post here. Thanks to all of you who have supported the Empowering Educators podcast, subscribing to get weekly episodes right to your devices and leaving thoughtful reviews on iTunes…

Professional development [PD] is often an experience where novices learn from experts. In education, this generally means bringing in a consultant of some kind to lead a very dry, boring information session. There is little practical application and no time to practice. During my career, I have endured many ineffective PD sessions. However, a principal…

Being a 3rd grade teacher for years, I know firsthand about the battle that students face with solving word problems. For many students, a paragraph of complicated math concepts and verbiage are enough to send them into an anxiety provoked tailspin. No matter how much I encouraged kiddos to take it sentence by sentence or reference…

This past year I dove into Facebook Groups. I have met lots of inspiring educators, but I have also come across quite a few S.O.S. requests from teachers in the area of Literacy. It seems many teachers across the country are given too much freedom in the classroom without any clear expectations. You might think this…