Madeline Noonan starts every class day with a morning meeting. Students use vocabulary to describe how they're feeling, practice speaking in front of peers, and gain trust by sharing a little about themselves. A daily "greeting" adds a bit of fun.
Madeline Noonan uses "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss as a touchstone text creating a shared experience with the class that can be referred back to again and again. In this lesson, the touchstone text teaches students about looking for metaphors and symbols across an entire text rather than just a phrase or sentence.
Instructional expert Jim Knight visits first year middle school teacher Aisha Santos to discuss pacing and structure of her lessons.
7th Grade Math Teacher Chris McCloud from the School of the Future in New York gives us a new idea on how to call on students and ensure participation. McCloud tapes 1 playing card on each student desk and has the same set of playing cards in his hand. Throughout a lesson, Chris flips a card to determine which students is going to answer a question. If students cannot answer the question, he does'nt allow them to say "I don't know." Instead, he requires the student to share where they are stuck and flips the next card to see if someone can help the student who is stuck.
Lila Gray instills her own love of poetry in her students by encouraging them to write original works and finding poems that express who they are. Her weekly open mic sessions create a perfect venue for building confidence and helping students find their voice while still hitting core standards and learning lifelong skills.
With a simple list of necessary supplies, science teacher Mrs. Seay gets her class completely involved in the task of identifying and classifying organisms found in local pond water.
Sixth grade math teacher Ana Posada shares a lesson on probability. Students do simulations of dependent and independent events using a goody bag of objects where they can document the differences between them.
Pioneering 5th grade science teacher Connie Prewitt engages her students to learn some challenging life science lessons through a fun and elaborate role-play. Project Earth is a 100% immersive experience where students learn the impact of their decisions on individuals, communities, and the Earth.
Andrea Kowalchik has her students move around the room in pairs while solving proportion problems that are tacked to the walls. This lesson is easy to prepare, fun for students, and gets them working quickly while being active all at the same time.
Percussionist Steven Angel has developed an innovative program that uses rhythm to help struggling students improve their reading fluency and comprehension. Deceptively simple -- a facilitator taps out a basic rhythm while students read aloud -- the method relaxes students, helps them focus, and is effective in after-school intervention programs as well as traditional classrooms.
Amori wants to move her reading up a level so she'll be ready for more difficult material in 6th grade. Rick shows her how certain spellings can help her with pronunciation, an area shes been having trouble with.
By reading a short book aloud, Rick Kleine models for his students how their initial theories of character traits can change over time. Using peer discussion and class participation, the kids are engaged throughout, giving them what Rick hopes will be a life-long love of reading.
While students read silently in class, Rick has time to focus on individual students and their particular reading challenges. He works on vocabulary, comprehension and reading speed, using a variety of methods to help his students improve.
Rick Kleine structures his class with mini lessons, reading aloud, peer discussions and silent reading. He also speaks individually with his students, giving each a focused task for improvement to increase their comprehension and enjoyment, while making them better readers.
By conferring individually with his students, Rick Kleine gives out tasks tailored to their needs and reading goals. Because his students have differing abilities, he keeps track of each of their goals in order to follow up with them each day to monitor their progress.
Debbie Clark's 8th grade science students take several days to complete their Rube Goldberg contraptions. Bringing things from home, they experiment with the parts, design their contraption, and make a blueprint for it before beginning to build. This is a lesson that emphasizes cooperation, teamwork, creativity and design.
Instructional expert Jim Knight visits Michael Covarrubias to observe a lesson on context clues, discuss the classroom management techniques he is using already, and share some ideas to increase student engagement. Michael and Jim discuss emphasizing effort, getting students attention before asking questions, using response cards, and planning back-up activities.
John Orsulak's students work in groups using iodine to test for starch in an array of liquids. Students record and analyze data and conduct the test with their team.
Jen Saul combines think time, partner discussions, and an emphasis on students' personal strategies to build confidence through mental math. Students use and discuss the strategies of "decomposing," "splitting," and "jumps of ten."
7th Grade Math Teacher Chris McCloud from the School of the Future in New York explains how he talks to students about lost class time and how a few minutes each day adds up to a lot of time over a week or a month. He quantifies wasted time doodling or not being focused for 5 minutes in 1 class period to losing 100 minutes in a month, which comes to about 2 full class periods lost in a month.