Into the Driver's Seat

"My classes and students started to run together, and I kept looking at the clock. That doesn’t happen to me anymore since I have added projects-based learning to the curriculum."

Via TwoSigmas, Kelsey Munro, Jim Lerman

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of teacher websites and resources on the internet.

It’s a bit like drinking from a firehose.

That’s why, in this post, I’ve compiled some of my favorite teacher websites into a “water fountain” that’s much easier to handle.

Keep reading to see what they are.

Via John Evans

Building relationships with students isn’t always simple, but it’s crucial to the well-being and academic growth of all students.

Part of the reason it’s not, in fact, ’simple’ is because every student is different and there are few universal rules for engaging students. In the same way connecting with colleagues and people in your personal life can be complicated because of different contexts, interests, personalities, and communication patterns, connecting and building relationships with students in the classroom can be equally challenging.

And a distinction should be made here between building a ‘working relationship’ and authentic relationship with students. Because of your position of authority in the classroom, a ‘working relationship’ with a students is a matter of ‘classroom management’ in pursuit of ‘student engagement.’ This approach can be efficient, but the clinical tone leaves a lot on the table for the growth of students.

If you are able to authenticate that ‘working relationship’ with genuine interest and personalization, more human and affectionate terms for that relationship can grow, resulting in the often-elusive ‘student engagement’ while also making your job—and life—easier, and your classroom a more enjoyable place for everyone to be.

Via John Evans, Dean J. Fusto, Jim Lerman

Teachers emotionally support our kids -- but who's supporting our teachers? In this eye-opening talk, educator Sydney Jensen explores how teachers are at risk of "secondary trauma" -- the idea that they absorb the emotional weight of their students' experiences -- and shows how schools can get creative in supporting everyone's mental health and wellness.

Via John Evans, wolfgang gauss

Here is a handy infographic we have been working on for the last couple of days. We compiled 32 educational websites based on the Ultimate EdTech Chart we published a few months ago. We arranged these websites into 8 different categories and for each of these categories we came up with four websites that best represent the selected content area. The categories we have included are : websites for language arts teachers, websites for math teachers, websites for science teachers, websites for physics teachers, websites for history teachers, websites for social studies teachers, websites for arts teachers, and websites for music teachers. You can find links to the websites in this chart.

Via John Evans