Classroom Perspectives

When I first created the reading test, it was supposed to simply track student progress. But I quickly discovered that sharing the results of my personal tracking system with students has completely changed their engagement and motivation levels.

Certain buzz words and topics come and go in the arena of education. Currently, the word to know is STEM, the acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math.

I have gleaned three wise teachings from King Lear's fool and each one informs my practice in the classroom more and more each day.

The Spread the Net Student Challenge is a friendly competition between Canadian schools to raise funds for malaria-preventing bed nets for families in Africa.

Here is some helpful advice for educators just beginning the long journey to establishing a successful, effective technology classroom.

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 of embraced. Over the years, quite by accident, I have discovered that this precept from days gone by is critical to classroom rules and to learning itself. Relationships are an essential part of learning, especially relationships between teachers and students.

Often, we forget our students come to class each day with a lot more on their minds than academics. Despite this, my students willingly express gratitude each morning.

This past year, in a small Midwest community, we lost a student to a drug overdose. We have lost many more to drug addiction, and although we haven’t attended their funerals, they are no longer the students we once knew, while some are unrecognizable.