4 ways EdTech tools can help you prepare your students for standardized tests
Standardized testing has long been a controversial topic among education enthusiasts. In theory, standardized tests are intended to unbiasedly measure a student’s academic performance in order to predict the student’s learning potential. According to Carole Gallagher’s article on the history of standardized testing, Horace Mann initially suggested the...
How learning analytics can make your teaching more effective
As technology continues to evolve and become an integral part of our everyday lives, it’s only natural that we utilize the technology to improve education as well. One aspect of technology that promises to make this a reality is the use of learning analytics in the classroom to help refine the learning experience for students. We recently completed...
3 Approaches to foster Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the classroom
We see the importance of working together now more than ever. Not surprisingly, this has been a major topic in the educational world as well. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is on a mission to promote Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs, which they define as “the process through which children and adults acquire...
5 Tips for protecting student data
In the age of the internet, tech tools and apps make it easier for teachers to engage their students and introduce new modes of collaboration and learning into their lesson plans. With the use of these edtech tools, student data is collected by both the educators and the companies providing the tech service. This means, as a teacher, you must take the...
Collaborative Challenges
Living in a world where Google seems to answer all of our questions without having to even think about it, it’s often hard for students to understand how the knowledge they’re learning in the classroom can be used to make a greater impact in the world around them. While innovative and creative teachers go to great distances to make the curriculum...
How to create great multiple choice questions in 3 simple steps
Well-crafted multiple choice questions are like a clean window. If the question is articulated clearly and concisely, it allows you to see what the student does and doesn’t know. These fixed choice questions, which also includes checkboxes and true/false options, require students to identify the correct answers from a set of possible options. The...
4 Scaffolding strategies that lead to greater student independence
Every student has their own individual knowledge and experience, and your job as a teacher is to support each one of them in their educational goals by providipng them with the tools and motivation they need to take an active role in their own learning process. Whether it’s teaching Shakespeare for the first time, multiplication, chemistry, calculus, or...
Turning your classroom into a collaborative learning community
No matter what grade level you teach, creating a productive and engaging class environment is important for student success. While it can be difficult to gain the trust and respect of your students, an effective classroom management plan can help promote a collaborative learning community and discourage disruptive behavior will set the tone for the...
Tips to actively engage your language class
In today’s globalized world, speaking multiple languages can be useful in many ways. The problem with becoming multilingual is the arduous task of learning a foreign language in the first place. That being said, it is a language teacher’s job to give students the knowledge and tools to succeed in learning the language. Couple that with a large classroom...
Challenging teacher biases to make your class stronger
As human beings, we naturally form biases in order to organize our experiences more efficiently in our effort to understand and engage with the world around us. In the classroom, these teacher biases lead to expectations of students that are sometimes unfair and unproductive. In a study from Columbia University, Kyunghee Lee affirms that, Many...