Day: April 20, 2020

Teaching Strategies: The Ten Rules of Writing

By the time kids get to high school, the methods they use to go about writing are often hard to break. Remember that writing is the linchpin, in many ways, of the educational process – all things stem from a well-crafted essay.
With that in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jordan Catapano, himself a seasoned English teacher in the Chicago suburbs, takes a look at ten rules for writing that he employs in his classes.
Jordan’s rules include:
  • Don’t Be Boring!
  • Make a Mess
  • Follow the Process
  • And More! 

Jordan sums up his article like this: “To reinforce them as we go, I put these on a bookmark, hang them around the room, informally quiz students, and ask them to progressively apply these rules throughout the year. After spending a year writing with me, I want them to have a richer understanding of what truly goes into composition beyond the traditional, academic formula. I want them to know these rules and to have the confidence to apply them in ways they see fit in their education and beyond.”
What do you think of this list? What “rules of writing” would you add or subtract from here?
Get our teaching strategies that include the 10 rules of writing>>
Common Core, PARCC: The New Ed Glossary
Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent writer Jordan Catapano (an English teacher in the Chicago suburbs) takes a look at 10 relatively new words that have popped up in the last 10 years, and what they mean.
Jordan’s list includes:
•  Common Core State Standards
•  PLC
•  Flipped Classroom
•  And More!
What else is “new” in education that wasn’t around ten years ago? Tell us your favorite buzzwords, concepts, and initiatives!

WHY MICROLEARNING IS BECOMING A MAINSTREAM STRATEGY

It’s taken a while, but the corporate world has started to recognize the power of bite-sized, timely, highly specific training—known as microlearning.
These micro-lessons—usually packaged as a 3 or 4 minute video, podcast, infographic, game, whiteboard animation or quiz—give learners what they need to know in a quick and engaging way. It’s no coincidence that many of these formats are highly visual; while we can process and understand images in blink of an eye, it actually takes twice as long to process words. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of the information our brains process is visual.
According to a 2017 report, 38 percent of talent development professionals already use microlearning—and another 41 percent plan to start within the next year. The reason for the growth is simple: It produces results.

Jogging the Memory

One of the key ways microlearning produces results is through its ability to tackle the most significant problems facing traditional training—most notably, the retention rate of information.
In 1895, Herman Ebbinghaus discovered that within 24 hours of learning something new, 67 percent of that learning will be forgotten. That’s because too much information will cause what psychologists term “cognitive overload”—in other words, it will halt or slow down the transfer of information into long-term memory. Chopping up the information into tasty small morsels, tackling one or two key points, will lessen that cognitive load. Better yet, presented in different ways, it could even boost memory.

The Impact of Technology

While this information about memory and learning retention is old news, it’s only now taking off to such an extent because digital technology makes it easy and accessible to create such “microlearning” content. People don’t need to step away from the workplace to learn, they can learn during the day at a time and pace that suits them. They are in control.
Home décor firm, At Home, for example, uses microlearning to help with everything from onboarding to training in customer service and compliance. The company was able to train 2,500 staff members in four weeks instead of six months, and reduce onboarding time by 90 percent. Not only that, but it raised employee knowledge about critical safety topics by 14 percent. And since it takes just a few minutes a day, it is easy for workers to fit it in their everyday tasks.

Grab Their Attention

Making learning short is not enough to make microlearning a success; you still need engaging content that is more than simply a condensed version of an hour-long training course.
Combining gaming with microlearning is a great way of ensuring that people engage with the content. Medical device brand Philips Healthcare, for example, used gamified microlearning to teach sales training about a new sleep therapy platform. The company replaced their WebEx classroom training sessions with a sales performance platform, which has built-in competitive gaming. They soon saw engagement rates soar as high as 99 percent for their voluntary training—unprecedented engagement rates for the company.
The key to remember is this: Microlearning content may be short, but that doesn’t make it simple. Find ways for employees to be actively engaged with the content—whether that’s incorporating quizzes, gamifying the experience, or providing personalized suggestions—and you’re guaranteed to get much better results than if they were passively reading a training guidebook or sitting in a classroom

Summer Vacation: How Pets Can Help Kids Learn

Did you know that pets are a great way for kids to keep learning through the summer months?
It’s true! Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox takes a look at some of the ways that interacting with pets can help kids learn. Her ideas include:
  • Reading to Pets
  • Make Toys for Pets
  • Learn the Value of Money
  • And More!

Janelle sums up her article thusly: “The summertime can be tough to get children to want to learn. But, you can make it easy on them by simply telling them to simply go play with their dog. Pets can be a lot of fun and may be just be the key to getting and keeping students learning all summer long!”
Do you have any pet-related activities that students will love to do during the summer months at home?
Get our ideas on how pets can help kids learn>>
Classroom Management: Guest Speakers Support Learning
To enhance the real-world aspects of your class, you should think about bringing in guest speaker to provide a glimpse into the lives of an interesting local person.
Yesterday on TeachHUB.com, writer Janelle Cox examined how guest speakers can make an impact on a class and how to set one up. Her ways included:
  • Choosing a Guest Speaker
  • How to Get the Most from Your Speaker
  • How to Host a Guest Speaker

Janelle also detailed ideas on how to carry out each idea.
In summation, Janelle noted: “Inviting guest speakers to your classroom is a not only a wonderful way for students to learn about a specific topic, but it also introduces them to other professions and career opportunities. Whether you invite a veteran, policeman, author, professor, nurse, veterinarian, dentist, musician, or lawyer, your students will leave the experience with more knowledge then they came into with.
Do you invite guest speakers to your classroom? Which speakers did you find had the most impact on your students and why?

Teaching Strategies to Keep Learning Fresh Over Summer

he dreaded “Summer learning Loss,” also known as the “Summer slump,” is a very real issue affecting kids everywhere in the U.S. Some studies ascertain that kids lose two months of reading and math skills during the months when school isn’t in session.


So as educators, how do we prevent the loss of those valuable skills? Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jacqui Murray, who is a veteran technology teacher in Northern California, looks at some time-honored teaching strategies that will certainly help with the summer slump. She breaks it don by subject; for instance, check out these examples:

Math: Grades 2-5: Set up a summer lemonade stand. Kids learn to measure ingredients, make change, listen to potential customers, and problem solve. If you can’t put one up on your street, use a virtual lemonade stand.

History: Grades 3+: Read current events on a kid-friendly website like Newsela. If students are older and prefer to find news via a Google search, install an extension like Readability to remove ads and other distractions from the website before reading.

Reading: Any age: If students use a collaborative reading tool like Subtext, encourage students to read the books together, add comments, and reply to the observations of classmates.

Writing: Grades 2+: Write a two-sentence review of something your student read. It could be a book, but maybe it’s a website, a favorite blog, or instructions for a new online game. The focus is that they read and summarize briefly.
In summation, Jacqui notes: “Whatever your summer activities, as often as possible, make them child-paced, child-directed, and inspiring. It’s the process that’s important, not the product. Enjoy watching how your child’s brain works.”

What are some of your teaching strategies to combat the “Summer slump”? Share your ideas with the TeachHUB .com community!


Top 10 Teacher Super Powers

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we want to recognize the superhuman feats teachers perform every day.

Here is the top 10 list of Teacher Super Powers:

X-Ray Vision

Superman’s X-ray vision has nothing on you. You can see eyes roving onto their neighbor’s test, covert texts, uniform infractions or a dozing student from a mile away.

Super Educational Gadgets

Batman’s known for his gadgets, just like those techie teachers who rock the projectors, interactive whiteboards and all things e-learning to live up to 21st century expectations… and beyond.

Elasti-teacher

Physics can’t explain how you’ve stretched yourself to do everything a crazy classroom requires – from differentiating instruction for every student, finishing mountains of paperwork in a single bound, keeping in touch with parents, researching new teaching tools and techniques, attending innumerable meetings and much more.V

Teaching Strategies to Deal with “Switching Teachers”

If it hasn’t happened yet, it will: A parent will ask that his or her child be removed from your class and placed into another teacher’s class.

It can big ego blow, and it can be attributed to parents simply not liking you or a personality conflict.

With that in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, who is a veteran teacher based in Upstate New York, takes a look at some teaching strategies to 
deal with this difficult situation. Janelle’s ideas include:

  • Try Not to Be So Defensive
  • Agree to Disagree
  • And More!


Janelle sums up her article like this: “You must accept the fact that not every parent is always going to like you. You can be the kindest, most generous, hardworking teacher on the planet and there will still be a parent who does not like you. Instead of taking this to heart, just learn to accept it. Always be yourself, and know that you are doing your best and that should be enough for you.”

Has this ever happened to you in your classroom? If so, how did you handle this situation? Please share your thoughts.

Learn some effective teaching strategies to deal with when parents want to switch teachers>>

The PARCC Test: An Overview
In many classrooms around the country right now, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) tests are sending teachers and students alike into new levels of anxiety.
For the uninitiated, the PARCC tests are born out of the Common Core State Standards. Thosee standards mandate very specific skills that students of each grade level should accomplish, and PARCC is designed to specifically assess whether or not students are meeting those metrics.
Recently, frequent TeachHUB.com contributing writer Jordan Catapano takes a long look at the PARCC tests, including what’s on the test, how it works, and how to practice and prepare for it.
It’s a timely read and definitely worth a look as your school prepares for the PARCC tests.
What are your thoughts on the PARCC exam? How is your state or district going about implementing it … or has your state avoided it completely?

The Homework Wars

Kids don’t want to do it.

Teachers don’t want to grade it.
Experts don’t even know if it has any true education value.
So the question is: Is homework really necessary?

No thorough answer to the homework question would be complete without the input of students.
After surveying 72 students in the south Los Angeles middle and high school, students expressed a desire to move beyond the “how many pages?” homework mentality. Many of the surveyed students preferred challenging homework assignments that “make us think” or “involves a part of our lives.”

Top 12 Free Ways Teachers Can Rock Spring Break

Let’s admit it, we’d all like to spend our spring breaks relaxing on a beach or on some once-in-a-lifetime trip, but that’s not always in the budget. That doesn’t mean you can’t avoid the everyday routines of home and truly enjoy your vacation!

Here are 12 ways to make the most of your spring break without spending any cash.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Turn Parents into Partners

A high school English teacher told me about a student who struggled with analytical writing and avoided it by skipping her homework assignments. The students’ parents constantly pressured the teacher to overlook the missed assignments.

A third grade teacher told me the mother of one of his students left twenty-minute messages on his voice mail every day and showed up in his classroom unannounced.

A middle school teacher who gave an exam the day after Halloween said she received an e-mail from a parent containing a four-paragraph poem titled, “The Grinch That Stole Halloween.”

Adversarial parents can create frustration and impede your progress with their child. To foster positive relationships with your students’ parents and encourage their cooperation and support, try the following three-part approach:

WHY MICROLEARNING IS BECOMING A MAINSTREAM STRATEGY

It\’s taken a while, but the corporate world has started to recognize the power of bite-sized, timely, highly specific training—known as microlearning.
These micro-lessons—usually packaged as a 3 or 4 minute video, podcast, infographic, game, whiteboard animation or quiz—give learners what they need to know in a quick and engaging way. It\’s no coincidence that many of these formats are highly visual; while we can process and understand images in blink of an eye, it actually takes twice as long to process words. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of the information our brains process is visual.
According to a 2017 report, 38 percent of talent development professionals already use microlearning—and another 41 percent plan to start within the next year. The reason for the growth is simple: It produces results.

Jogging the Memory

One of the key ways microlearning produces results is through its ability to tackle the most significant problems facing traditional training—most notably, the retention rate of information.
In 1895, Herman Ebbinghaus discovered that within 24 hours of learning something new, 67 percent of that learning will be forgotten. That\’s because too much information will cause what psychologists term \”cognitive overload\”—in other words, it will halt or slow down the transfer of information into long-term memory. Chopping up the information into tasty small morsels, tackling one or two key points, will lessen that cognitive load. Better yet, presented in different ways, it could even boost memory.

The Impact of Technology

While this information about memory and learning retention is old news, it\’s only now taking off to such an extent because digital technology makes it easy and accessible to create such \”microlearning\” content. People don\’t need to step away from the workplace to learn, they can learn during the day at a time and pace that suits them. They are in control.
Home décor firm, At Home, for example, uses microlearning to help with everything from onboarding to training in customer service and compliance. The company was able to train 2,500 staff members in four weeks instead of six months, and reduce onboarding time by 90 percent. Not only that, but it raised employee knowledge about critical safety topics by 14 percent. And since it takes just a few minutes a day, it is easy for workers to fit it in their everyday tasks.

Grab Their Attention

Making learning short is not enough to make microlearning a success; you still need engaging content that is more than simply a condensed version of an hour-long training course.
Combining gaming with microlearning is a great way of ensuring that people engage with the content. Medical device brand Philips Healthcare, for example, used gamified microlearning to teach sales training about a new sleep therapy platform. The company replaced their WebEx classroom training sessions with a sales performance platform, which has built-in competitive gaming. They soon saw engagement rates soar as high as 99 percent for their voluntary training—unprecedented engagement rates for the company.
The key to remember is this: Microlearning content may be short, but that doesn\’t make it simple. Find ways for employees to be actively engaged with the content—whether that\’s incorporating quizzes, gamifying the experience, or providing personalized suggestions—and you\’re guaranteed to get much better results than if they were passively reading a training guidebook or sitting in a classroom
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Teaching Strategies to Aid Your Gifted Students

For many teachers, the most difficult part of being an educator isn’t the mountains of paperwork due at the end of the semester, mastering the Common Core State Standards or even disciplining the naughty kids.
Rather, many teachers struggle with engaging the gifted students in their classes — the ones who always seem to finish their work early and find themselves sitting idly waiting for their classmates to finish.
Today, frequent TeachHUB.com contributor Janelle Cox offers up some suggestions on how to keep the gifted students engaged throughout the school day, including:
Differentiate Instruction
Involve Parents
Allow Students to Accelerate Their Learning
And More!
Learn some teaching strategies to engage the gifted students in your class >>
Teacher Team-Building Activities
At this time of the year, it’s important that teachers maintain the good relationships they’ve worked hard to forge with their own colleagues.
As the year speeds on, though, it’s easy to let your professional relationships erode.
But we all know that staying in close contact with fellow educators is of the paramount importance. Therefore, it’s worth reading about some team-building activities you can embark upon at your next in-service session, including:
Who Am I
Six Degrees of Separation
Candy Conffessions
Read about our team-building activities that can help you get to know your fellow teachers >>
Let TeachHUB run your next in-service session

Did you know that TeachHUB offers top solutions for your school’s in-service sessions? It’s true! Our tailored, professional training is designed to fit any budget.
Meanwhile, we’ll do all the heavy lifting for you, which will save you valuable energy and time!
The topics our talented professionals are prepared to address include:
Common Core State Standards
Singapore Math
Differentiated Instruction
Classroom & Behavior Management
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Co-Teaching / Inclusion
Guided Reading
Special Education
Six Traits Writing
Gifted Education
Education Technology
Brain-based Learning
Motivation
Subject Specific Training
Bully Prevention
Urban Education
Here’s an endorsement from a professional:
\”When considering professional development for our teachers it is very difficult to find quality Presenters on a specific topic at a reasonable cost. In my case, the K-12 Teachers Alliance (the TeachHUB parent company) produced an expert speaker who provided outstanding training to our teachers. I would not hesitate to reach out to them again in the future and would highly recommend their services to other administrators.”
— Pamela Angelakis, Principal, Stanley Elementary School
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Technology in the Classroom: How to Assess Writing

If you’re like most teachers, teaching the craft of writing is a task that goes across multiple educational platforms: A history teacher for instance, must instruct on how to write a five-paragraph essay, synonyms, plan-revise-edit-rewrite, persuasive essays, letter writing, and more.
With this in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jacqui Murray, who is a seasoned technology teacher based in Northern California, takes a look at how to use technology in the classroom to assess writing.
Jacqui begins by calling out what writing brings about, including:
  • Conduct research based on focused questions that demonstrate understanding of the subject.
  • Gather relevant information, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
  • Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
  • Write routinely for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
She also notes what shouldn’t be assessed when grading writing, including:
  • Ability to catch typos: Even excellent typists make typos. Don\’t let keyboarding errors affect a writing grade. You may assess keyboarding as a separate skill, deducting from the final grade for each mistake, but don\’t blend that into the writing grade. 
  • Skill with technology: If a writing project requires a student to create a digital timeline, trifold, or poster, don\’t assess how well they blend colors, use tools, or mash up apps. That\’s a separate skill. You want to only assess how well they communicate ideas.
Jacqui sums up her article like this: “By mentally removing the detractors that obfuscate good writing and providing students with the tools they require to communicate in the manner best suited to them, writing assessment becomes more authentic, granular, dynamic, and personalized.”
Get our technology in the classroom tips for assessing writing>>
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Classroom Activities: Discussions With Your Feet

Lively classroom activities like classroom discussions are fun for teachers and students alike, and technological advances have made discussions even livelier.
But today on TeachHUB.com, longtime contributing writer Jordan Catapano extols the joys of discussions wherein students physically move around to participate.
These classroom activities include games like Cross the Line, a game whose variations include:
  • Answer the Question
  • Race to the Answer
  • Last Student Standing
  • And More!

Remember, as Jordan says, “As long as you ask meaningful questions and allow students an opportunity to figure out something new about themselves and their peers, the activity will be a hit and lead to greater thinking in the days to come.”
What are some of your favorite activities to get students on their feet? Any variations on the suggestions above?
Learn more classroom activities that involve discussion and moving around>>
Classroom Management: Bringing Art, Music Back
Budget cuts have historically leveled arts and music programs in schools first. It’s too bad, because for many kids, art and music are two of the subjects that are favorites.
Beyond that, research has shown that art and music curriculums help kids with language development and IQ, they help students visualize elements like solving math problems, and they help improve test scores.
If your district has slashed arts and music programs, we’re sorry. But with a little outside-the-box thinking, you can use return music and art to your own classroom in creative ways. Frequent TeachHUB.com contributor Janelle Cox today outlines some easy ways that teachers can do just that.
Learn some classroom management techniques to bring art and music back into your class>>
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First Day of School Activities Students Love

The first day of school will be here before you know it. Most teachers face the big day with enthusiasm, but they dread the inevitable challenge: what to do on the first day of school.

Every teacher’s approach is different. Whatever your goal, here are a few things to try to get the school year off to a great start!