Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 01/12/2013
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a Portal build for an elementary school with links that they'll be using on each module in class. This is a nice, concise way to share links with parents for the year.
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10 Ways for Living Large in Lunch Duty Land
As I look back on the best of last year and am looking month by month, this blog post about Living large in lunch duty land got quite a bit of response. Each time you are around children you have time to make a difference in the life of a child. I have lunch duty next week and instead of being crabby about it, I'm going to challenge myself to live large, interact with students and make a difference. Take a reminder about lunch duty or any duty when you interact with students.
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Timesaving Trick: Making Time for Weekly Lesson Planning | The Art of Ed
I totally agree with Jessica - designate ONE period a week just for lesson planning. Nice post and right on.
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Becoming A Better School Leader Using 'The Pronoun Test' - Edudemic
Nice post about the words we use.. I'm reading a book my friend Angela Maiers recommended about "Why" and this post relating to Dan Pink's book, Drive, relates to it as well. A nice post from Bill Powers over on Edudemic "Another point Mr. Pink made in regards to the WORDS we use is that many times organizations and people focus to much on How something will be completed when we should be focusing more on the WHY we are doing what we do. I can’t think of a better way to explain our purpose and drive as educators. WE should focus on WHY are WE doing this. WHY are WE teaching this concept? WHY is this an important topic to teach OUR students? WHY do WE allow OUR students choice in producing and creating to show learning? WHY did a particular student act out? WHY do we include character education in what WE do? WHY – I could go on and on."
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Rae Pica: A Dress Code for Teachers? Or Anything Goes?
Dress codes are touchy. My school is pretty simple - jeans only on Fridays. Men should have shorter hair. Women should be modest and not show cleavage or wear clothes too tight. I think it is vital to remember, particularly if working with adolescents that being immodest introduces an element into the classroom of sexuality that can be a distraction. While a teacher can't help if he/ she is attractive, he/she can help whether he shows too much skin. This is a hot button, but I do agree with Rae that as teachers, if we want to be treated as professionals, that we should dress as a professional. We each have to define what that means for us, but certainly, if you're dressing like you would for a date or to "look hot" I would question your motives. I had a great conversation with a male friend who is a teacher about this topic and he told me, on the request of anonymity, that he wished I would mention this from time to time. He says that he has felt very uncomfortable when staff members or teachers have nipples hanging out of their shirts or such short skirts that they are flashing and that it isn't professional but also a distraction. While he's happily married, I totally agree with him. If we want to focus on our work, let's be professionals. Be beautiful but be covered. Some may think this crude, but I've heard it before the B3 should never be free: Breasts, Belly and Bottom -- keep them COVERED. ;-) Meanwhile, read this great article on Huffington from my new friend Rae Pica.
