Category: News

Comprehensive, up-to-date news coverage, aggregated from sources all over the world by EduindexNews.

Assessment Without Tests

As teachers, we are often (not by choice) attached to the concept of assessment, either rightly or wrongly.
But rather than firing up the scantron, did you know that there are alternate ways for assessments to be carried out?
Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jordan Catapano, who is a seasoned high school English teacher based in the Chicago suburbs, looks at some off-the-beaten-path assessment methods that you can use to measure student mastery of the material without giving a formal test.
Jordan’s ideas include:
Video Explanation
Podcast
Infographic
Self-Reflection
Teach the Class
Here’s how Jordan describes one new way to carry out assessment: “Make a Game: We all love a good challenge or competition. Ask students to demonstrate their learning by creating a new card game, board game, or gamified learning challenge that the whole class can engage in. Games are fun and help students draw upon otherwise hard-to-remember information. And when students can make a game that successfully incorporates elements of their learning, everyone wins.”
Jordan sums up today’s article thusly, in a paragraph entitled “Let Students Generate Make Their Test”: “Challenge your students by asking them, “What should a test on this look like?” At first, they might come up with the traditional multiple choice, matching, and true/false questions they’re accustomed to. But put students in the driver’s seat of their own application and push them to consider how the skills and knowledge would look in the real world. Ask your class to use collaborative design and take their own test to demonstrate in a practical manner how their knowledge and skills have applicable value.”
What do you like from the list above? What assessment would you add or change? Share your thoughts with our community in the comments below!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Technology in the Classroom: 6 Substitute Lesson Plans

Substitute teachers generally face an uphill battle: Sub lesson plans sometimes might be unclear, the students are wound up (especially this time of year), and it’s tough to perform well in a new environment.
Subbing for a technology teacher can be even more challenging. Subs might not be technologically proficient, or the computer equipment might not function properly.
Today, real-life tech teacher and frequent TeachHUB.com contributor Jacqui Murray offers up six helpful (and easy – even for technophobic teachers) lesson plans for tech teachers to employ when they are out sick – or taking time for professional development – including:
Problem-Solving Challenge
Gameshow Competition
Khan Academy
And more!
What do other teach teachers do for lesson plans when they know they’ll be out?
Get out technology in the classroom substitute lesson plans now>>
What Happens If We Abandon the Common Core?
Nationwide, there’s a movement afoot to dump the Common Core State Standards, that set of national benchmarks that create the opportunity for an across-the-board, agreed-upon set of college and career readiness standards.
Ideally, the Common Core allows for more data-driven educational changes that ultimately could improve student performance. The standards focus on not simply providing content to students, but helping students become more solution-oriented and able to apply concepts to real-world situations.
But a fierce backlash from administrators, teachers, parents, and even students has led to the aforementioned backlash.
But what happens if more states abandon the standards? Will academic chaos reign? Today we gaze into the crystal ball and try to predict the outcome.
What are your thoughts on the future of the Common Core?
Get the answer to “What happens if we abandon the Common Core?”>>
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Handy YouTube Tools for Teachers

Many districts are realizing the potential that YouTube learning can have in the classroom. There are lots of great videos and channels out there on 1000’s of topics.

I have put together a list of some of my favorite tools to use with YouTube. Some are for the creation end, while some are for the consumption end.

Overall, they hopefully will give you a good start on getting more out of your favorite video service.

Ed Celeb Interview: NEA prez Dennis Van Roekel

How will you distinguish yourself from previous NEA presidents?

NEA’s mission—great public schools for every student—is bigger than any one individual’s intentions. It’s more about the students our 3.2 million members serve. My goal is to continue the work of the Association in creating great public schools for all children. Obviously, I am going to have projects and issues that are “near and dear” to my heart. However, make no mistake about it, I plan for this Association to stay the course of making sure that all children—regardless of their race, zip code, or economic status—have access to quality public schools.

Read the rest of TeachHUB\’s ultimate union-insider interview with NEA president Dennis van Roekel.

Have ideas for other Ed Celebs to interview? Post in the comments section OR email me at acondron@teachhub.com

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

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!

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

12 Fresh Teaching Strategies to Assess Learning

Back in the day, testing and assessment were as simple as multiple choice or true/false tests. A teacher’s classroom life and teaching strategies were simple: Just grade, record, and move on to the next chapter.
But in subsequent years, it’s become much more difficult for educators. We now need to undertake assessment teaching strategies that address students’ personal communication styles.
Frequent TeachHUB.com contributing writer Jacqui Murray goes about offering up alternative assessment teaching strategies in today’s centerpiece article. She begins by defining the uniting characteristics of all assessment:
  • What\’s been learned.
  • What can be transferred to other parts of the student\’s life.
  • The student\’s granular understanding of the material.
  • What the student understands, not what s/he parroted back to the teacher.
  • Knowledge rather than facility presenting it.
Jacqui then lays out 12 fresh ways to assess learning, including:
  • BrainPop
  • Warmups or Exit Tickets
  • Discussion Boards
  • Google Forms
  • And More!

Here’s how she introduces Digital Breakouts: “Digital breakouts are based on the popular breakout rooms played around the country where critical thinking and problem-solving allows participants to escape a room and unlock prizes before time runs out. When run digitally, participants follow digital clues and solve puzzles in a format somewhat like a scavenger hunt or the old-style webquest. Teachers can create their own, or use templates from others (click the heading link for any example). These are adaptable to any subject, student-centered, and teach students to work under pressure while promoting team-building.”
Jacqui sums up her article like this: “This year, assess student learning in ways that excite them. With most of the choices on this list, students won\’t even see them as testing. Do you have a favorite non-traditional assessment tool? I\’d love to hear about it in the comments.”

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

WHY THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF WORKFORCE ANALYTICS MATTER MOST

Presidents, chief executives and senior business leaders all understand the importance of the age-old 100-day benchmark: The first few months in a new position are critical for setting a vision, acting upon your strategy and convincing colleagues that you’re the best person for the job.
While this rule has generally been applied to individuals, I’ve found that it is just as applicable to workforce analytics. Decisions made in the first 100 days of an analytics program have strong impact on the success of a company’s analytics journey; early efforts will pay dividends, while mistakes are hard to bury.
Earlier this year, an IBM report on starting the workforce analytics journey focused on what companies should do in these vital first 100 days. The key message? Workforce analytics is not an HR-only project. To succeed, it needs to be a business initiative aimed at improving decision-making for managers company-wide.
Collaboration across departments is just one aspect of a successful analytics program, however. Here are three other pieces of advice to keep in mind as you embark on the first few months of your analytics efforts:

Define Your Vision

IBM emphasized analytics was not simply an HR project, but it’s not just a technology project, either. It requires more than buying the best software or making sure you have squeaky-clean data. The first step—and a key element of the first phase of a workforce analytics initiative—is to set the vision.
If you’ve gathered the tools and built a team for an analytics program, now is the time to gather information from business leaders in order to prioritize your goals, understand your stresses and identify areas where HR analytics can help.
These initial talks are also important for HR to gauge how other business units view your department. Is HR seen purely as a backroom operational function or viewed as a strategic partner delivering business value? If the balance is tipped heavily towards the operational side, then your HR analytics team needs to put in time and effort to build trust and persuade business execs that HR is delivering more than transactional insights.

Walk Before You Run

Once everyone is on board, it’s time to prove your worth—but it’s best to temporarily park grand ideas.
Instead of trying to implement a massive change in a management program or a new cost-savings initiative, focus on a quick-win project that can be completed within those first 100 days. Only with a successful project under your belt can you begin to plan and receive the resources for more ambitious initiatives.
Modest ambition is important when it comes to data and technology. Data can be a major stumbling block—and the most common excuse—for failing to start an analytics initiative. If you wait for perfect data, your analytics project will never get started. Data doesn’t need to be 100 percent accurate: whether attrition rates are found to be 10 percent or 11 percent, the action is still going to be the same, so don’t sweat the small stuff.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that data accuracy isn’t important—it’s absolutely necessary. But HR needs to work with business executives to determine how accurate the data needs to be or to limit the data sample to areas with more accurate data. Finding the right data requires considering individual needs for each business case.

Create a Talent Pipeline

While you may have a solid team to start running analytics, it’s likely not a full-blown team solely dedicated to workforce data—you probably have people doing work across departments, or helping out in their spare time. While this strategy may work for the first 100 days, it’s important to consider how you will continue to bolster your team and build out the right skills sets to push your analytics initiatives forward.
In the long-term, you will need more complex skills and dedicated experts across different areas of the company. Will you train people in-house, or will you look outside the company for talent? Will people join the analytics team as one part of their current jobs, or will you create a separate sub-group with HR?
In these first few months of your big data program, remember these key lessons if you want to succeed: more than HR; vision not technology; good enough data; and a solid team. If you’re able to not only convince business leaders of your vision, but also show them how you can bring it life—small project by small project—you’ll be on the road to a thriving, sustainable and impactful workforce analytics journey.

Low-Cost Summer Vacation Learning Ideas for Parents

To capitalize on what students have learned over the course of the past year, and to avoid the dreaded summer slide, it’s imperative that parents get on board and keep their children learning over the summer months.
With a little bit of foreplanning, however, parents can use the summer months to carry on the learning process. Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, also a seasoned educator, makes several suggestions on how parents can introduce some fun-based learning to those long summer days. Her ideas include bringing kids out to:
  • Bible School
  • Volunteer
  • Pick Fruit
  • And More!

In summation, Janelle says: “It’s so important to integrate learning into everyday of your summer vacation. Whether you at home, in the car, or even at a restaurant, make sure that you are always teaching your children. Talk to your children and encourage them to use their critical thinking and problem skills to answer you. Don’t do anything stressful or even go out and buy games, all you have to is ask them to read the menu, or figure out how much to tip at dinner. Just buy keeping an open-line communication with your children you are teaching them and they are learning.”
Do you know of any low-cost summer learning activities to do with children during the summer months?
Get our ideas on getting parents to incite summer learning>>
How to Create a Curriculum Map
A curriculum map is a catch-all tool (really a process) that collects and records curriculum-related data that spotlights skills taught, content taught, and methodology and assessments used for each subject and grade.
Whew, that’s a mouthful for even the wonkiest of educational enthusiasts! But recently, frequent TeachHUB.com contributor Jacqui Murray, herself a technology teacher on the West Coast, took the time to explain what a curriculum map is, and how to design and use one effectively.
Jacqui noted that a curriculum map generally includes:
•    Specific skills
•    Assessments
•    Essential questions
•    Big ideas
•    Accommodations
•    Materials required

Classroom Management Tips for Progress Reports

Among the most tedious and time-consuming tasks that teachers face a couple times a year are progress reports. These classroom management-tasking reports are designed to give parents a heads-up if their child is doing academically, points out potential red flags, and offer advice on possible improvements students and parents alike can undertake to improve things.

Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, herself a seasoned educator based on the East Coast, answers the perennial question, “How do you use classroom management to write an effective report that will get results?”

Her specific classroom management tips to answer that question include:

  • Record Everything
  • Plan Ahead
  • Writing the Report
  • And More!

Janelle sums up her article in this manner: “The goal of writing a progress report is to help parents stay informed on how their child is doing currently in your class. If you do not want your students to see the report, then you should either mail it directly to the parents, or send it home in a sealed envelope.”
Do you have tips on writing effective progress reports? What are some of your dos and don’ts? Please share your expertise with your fellow educators, we would love to hear your ideas.
Get our classroom management tips for writing and administering progress reports>>
How to Build Your Professional Development PLN
Today, we look at the importance of PLNs within the education world. Just what is a PLN?  It’s “A self-created set of experts, colleagues, and resources … that meet one’s daily learning needs.” More simply, it’s, “An extended group of knowledgeable people you reach out to for answers, and trust to guide your learning.”
Why is it important to build a PLN? Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jacqui Murray looks at the reasons why educators need a PLN:
  • It helps you grow professionally
  • If forces you out of your comfort zone
  • And more!

Jacqui also instructs us on how to build a PLN. Her ideas include:
  • Reach out to others in your field
  • Use #hashtags
  • Always answer questions and acknowledge comments
  • And more!

 All in all, the imp[ortance of having a PLN can’t be emphasized enough.
What are some of the ways you build and cultivate your PLN?

Technology in the Classroom: Strategies to Help Stay Current

Assisting teachers who use technology in the classroom is one of the primary goals of TeachHUB.com. Whether it’s app reviews, lesson plans that extol the virtues of technology in the classroom or just think pieces getting educators to think outside the box with regards to using technology in the classroom, we’re all about getting them on board technologically.

But how does a busy educator stay on top of these trends? If you blink, you miss the next best thing!

With that in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent TeachHUB.com (and TeachHUB Magazine) contributing writer Janelle Cox takes a look at ways that educators can keep up the trends in technology in the classroom and how teachers can stay abreast of the latest developments.

Janelle’s ideas include:

  • Figure Out What You Need
  • Use Social Media
  • And More!


Janelle sums up her article thusly: “Integrating educational technology in the classroom takes a lot of planning, work, and patience. Given the tools available and the tools that will become available, an effective classroom where all students are learning at their highest level is within our reach. Your goal is to keep up with the times, and create objectives that work for you and your students. The tech tools that you use in your classroom today will only enhance your students learning for tomorrow. You are positioning your students to be able to live in a world of technology, and that will only help them be more of a success.”

How do you stay current with all of the new digital tools that seem to arise each week? Do you have any strategies or suggestions for us? Please share your tips!

Get our tips on staying current with technology in the classroom>>
Plan your next in-service day with our in-service professional 
development speakers
Did you know that the K-12 Teachers Alliance, the parent organization for TeachHUB.com and TeachHUB magazine, can staff your school’s next in-service day with the help of our professional development speakers?
It’s true – our team of experts is ready to energize your faculty with our turnkey solutions to your needs. We can address anything:
Common Core State Standards
Motivation
Anti-Bullying
Co-Teaching
Urban Education
And More!
Best of all, our in-service speakers can fit into any budget, and satisfaction is 100% guaranteed!
Here’s what one teacher said about our professional development solutions:
“The material was presented in an honest, relevant, and engaging way. I plan to start using some of her techniques this week!” — Michelle G., high school science teacher

Top 12 Holiday Gifts from Students

As I learned on the blog last year, teacher gifts can be as surprising as a calm, quiet classroom the friday afternoon before a vacation. Some gifts you just could never see coming.

Some of my best and worst “teacher gift stories” include:

“I got half a bottle of Lady Stetson one year from a kid who stole it from him Mom. I talked to his Mom and she was really filled up though, that her kid wanted to give me something and wasn’t mad that he took the cologne.”

How to Engage ALL Kids in Reading

One of the greatest challenges facing educators is getting students to be proficient, passionate readers. Surprisingly, the solution to conquering the reading challenge is surprisingly simple…

About two years ago, I was working with a school district with a poverty rate of over 70% in a semi-rural area. The teachers and I were transitioning the middle school literacy curriculum from a more teacher-directed, traditional paradigm to a student-directed, literature circle, and writing workshop paradigm.

As I worked with my teacher colleagues, I was fortunate enough to get to know them and their students. One teacher (I’ll call her Ms. Smith) taught the lowest level readers in the 6th grade. As she and I prepared some team lessons, I was eager to meet her kids and I was immediately struck by the differences I witnessed in her class and their attitudes toward reading.

More than 20 years of literacy teaching experience has taught me was to be ready to deal with reluctant and disinterested readers, as this is usually the case with the lowest level readers. Yet this was not the case on the first day and every day that I co-taught with Ms. Smith.

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

Top 12 Lesson Plan Websites

With the 2.0 teaching community getting bigger by the day, there are endless options to look for lessons.

You can gain the expertise of veteran teachers, the resources of major news agencies, ed tech capabilities that would make Bill Gates jealous or just the combined brainstorm of innumerable teachers around the world , all with the click of a mouse.

To save you the time of wading through the thousands of sites out there, we’ve compiled the Top 12 go-to websites when looking for lessons

Teaching Strategies that Teach Speech Skills

If there’s one thing that still strikes fear in the hearts of people of all ages, it’s public speaking. Whether you’re 7 or 70, chances are the act of getting up in front of people and reading or reciting something is absolutely petrifying.
Nonetheless, instructing kids on the teaching strategies necessary for public speaking are essential. Even in this age, when electronic means of communications makes for an easy method of sharing thoughts and ideas, there’s something that much more powerful about live interaction with another person. Think about it: Live concerts are more moving  that recordings, and live comedians at a comedy club are far superior to watching them on TV.
With that in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jordan Catapano, himself a seasoned English teacher in the Chicago suburbs, offers up some of the key components that may help educators design a system for getting your students to meet the goal of becoming more comfortable and confident with speaking in front of a group.
Jordan’s tips include:
  • Discuss the benefits and the detriments of public speaking
  • Give samples of speeches
  • Offer ample time for preparation
  • And more!

Likewise, Jordan offers up some during- and post-speech tips for additional learning and public speech polishing. His during-speech tips include:
  • Emphasize respect
  • No reading
  • No poster boards
  • And more!

All in all, public speaking is as old as democracy itself, and teaching, perfecting, and administering it are paramount to surviving in many college and career environments.
Was this helpful? What else do you wonder about teaching speeches in your class? What else would you add to this playbook?