Students’ ability to learn depends not just on the quality of their textbooks and teachers, but also on the comfort and safety they feel at school and the strength of their relationships with adults and peers there.
How Stress Hampers Learning
The Bug Chicks present Millipedia — an educational video about centipedes and millipedes that was created by elementary school students.
(Source: sciencefriday.com)
writing prompts: 18 writing prompts about reading
I like the visuals some of these writing prompts will inspire. It’s always fun to express yourself that way. And I like the idea of expressing the written word in mathematical ways too. It reminds students that math is just another language.
via writingprompts:
What lives have you lived as a reader?
Analyze a story using Dan Harmon’s story circles
Make a wanted poster for a fictional character
Make maps, charts, diagrams, digressions, background information, and anecdata…
Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement
A while back, I was asked, “What engages students?” Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccurring themes that appeared again and again. So, from the mouths of babes, here are my students’ answers to the question: “What engages students?”
(More detail on each is provided in the article.)
1. Working with their peers
2. Working with technology
3. Connecting the real world to the work we do/project-based learning
4. Clearly love what you do
5. Get me out of my seat!
6. Bring in visuals
7. Student choice
8. Understand your clients — the kids
9. Mix it up!
10. Be human
BY HEATHER WOLPERT-GAWRON for edutopia.org
