I avidly recall a second grade class that would excitedly huddle around my rocking chair for story time. Students scrambled around sliding chairs to the carpet where I read heartwarming and sometimes zany tales, they reminded me that story time was counted among the most meaningful and cherished moments of a child’s day. Story time is a child’s portal into endless worlds, kingdoms, and dimensions.

Can unicycles serve an important educational purpose? Are there good pedagogical reasons for learning to ride them?

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.

In honour of Asian American Heritage Month, which is celebrated every May, I tasked the students in my three Asian American Literature classes with a special project.

Thanks to a collaboration with musician and anti-bullying advocate RobenX, I discovered many strategies for reaching students in new and lasting ways.

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.

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.

When you have a teacher who has presence, students are impacted in ways that positively affect the class. But what exactly is teacher presence?

The benefits of play-based learning are huge, and we shouldn’t be depriving our children of it just because they are getting older.