Waiting for Superman shined a national spotlight on the major problems facing education while painting a bleak picture of public education and glorified charter schools.

The upcoming book Finding Superman reveals the reality behind the claims in Waiting for Superman and explores the untold stories missed by the film with the help of today\’s leading minds in education. Dr. Watson Scott Swail and company also recognize the flourishing public schools, the failing charter schools, and the unlauded success stories of educators.

This chapter of Finding Superman\’s shares ways to stop waiting for Superman and find him in our schools.

Real life teachers offer inspiration to students every day. Great teachers give students confidence and knowledge that goes beyond simple education.

Here is a list of real-life teachers, some famous and some not, that stand out for their contributions to their students and the world.

While “education” and “reform” may have become dirty words, you can reform your classroom into a sparkling, spic-and-span wonderland with a little spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning can encompass many things, including:

*literally cleaning out the dirt and clutter that has accumulated over the school year
*welcoming in the new season indoors, outdoors and in your lessons
*remembering and rethinking goals for the year that get lost in the day to day

In past English classrooms, students often looked forward to the end of literature units. Once the final test was over, they knew the teacher would bring in the video version of the book – giving students a two day break to sleep, pass notes to friends, finish homework for other classes, or maybe (just maybe) compare and contrast the movie with the novel.

I have found film versions of novels to be incredibly useful in teaching literature units. By using films in a different way than we might have used them in the past, we can change their status from “fun reward with little meaning” to “incredibly beneficial tool with many uses.”

Here are my classroom movie strategies to increase student learning:

Science Fair Tips for Students

Created by high school student Kevin Temmer, this animated video is an excellent way to get students ready to complete a science fair project. The 15-minute video is a super student-friendly, step-by-step guide to science experiments that will ease science fair stress for students of all ages.

Based on this video, here\’s a text guide that you can also share with students.

Tom Bloch spoke with TeachHUB.com to discuss his transition from CEO of family company H&R Block to inner-city teacher, charter school founder and author of Stand for the Best.

It was almost 20 years ago that I attended a National Endowment for the Humanities program for teaching Shakespeare through performance as an inner city high school teacher. It was at this institute that I learned how critically important it was for students to learn creatively and kinesthetically.

We are all familiar with Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, but as a teacher I struggled with the implementation of this theory into teaching and learning activities. I decided to try out the many techniques that I learned at the Shakespeare institute with my students.

I soon realized that it was essential for me to ditch the “one size fits all” study guides. My classroom was made up of diverse learners and I knew that I needed to differentiate the teaching and learning strategies in my classroom.

There’s a faculty meeting tomorrow, a parent-teacher conference the next day, you have to prep your materials for that project next week, and – almost forgot – you still haven’t graded the assignments from two weeks ago, plus a new stack of papers walks in with today’s students. And somewhere in all of this you might actually want to see your family or catch a movie while it’s still in the theater.

Sound familiar? Don’t despair – try these tips to avoid grading