Snow Days: Creating Distance-Learning Opportunities
Snow days are routine for many teachers; some school calendars are planned with the assumption students will miss class because of bad weather. But school closures, ...
Class Management
High School Angst: Calming Freshman Jitters
No matter the grade level you are teaching, the new school year brings excitement: a new class list, configuring seating arrangement, hanging inspirational posters or ...
Breaking Up: Strategies for Teaching Split Classes
The 2016-2017 school year could get off to a rocky start in Newfoundland and Labrador, before it even begins. In April, the government announced split-grade classes would be ...
Hope and Despair: Q&A with an Inner City School Teacher
Ed Boland wishes he’d read his book before he began teaching. After more than 20 years in educational administration, much of that time spent helping students from low-income ...
Bathrooms and Blackboards: Helping Students with IBD
School is a part of every child’s life. During their academic years, students deal with so many different facets of growth and development—physical, cognitive, emotional, and ...
Rows or Groups: The Classroom Seating Debate
When Catherine Hickey’s youngest daughter was in kindergarten, the teacher organized the class into rows. Some parents were up in arms: preschool was all play, and now the ...
Relationships as a Teaching Tool
I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that rules without relationships lead to rebellion. Yet today, relationships with students seem to be feared instead ...
Managing an Allergy-Free Classroom
For most students, a water fountain can give refreshment. But for those with life-threatening food allergies, it could be a site of cross-contamination. “Everything is a ...
Interrupting and Other ‘Bad’ Class Behaviours
It’s quiet reading time. You ask students to grab a book, take a seat, and glue their eyes to the page. All is well for about four minutes. Then two chatterboxes start ...
The Trials and Tribulations of Substitute Teaching
It’s 8:25 AM and there are no notes left in the classroom. I scramble around the room and a few papers fall from the desk to the floor. I can hear the students chattering in ...