Teaching

Creating Makers, Not Spaces

Move the desks out of the way, pull up a piece of rug, and invent something using the engineering process and leftover parts. Just like anything else, the Internet provides a plethora of ideas to define and design “makerspaces.” Other names include fablabs, hackerspaces, and design labs. In our school, our students devise problems when

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Helping Students Become a Better Version of Themselves

As a family and consumer science teacher at the middle school level, the Lead2Feed Student Leadership Program lessons seem to blend seamlessly into my curriculum. Some of the major units of family and consumer science are interpersonal relationships, leadership, community connections, resource management, and global citizenship. The Lead2Feed lessons connect to each of these units on multiple

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Differentiation: Closing the Gap between Frustration and Success

Teaching and learning in diverse ways. As middle school teachers, we are well aware of the many ways in which our student populations vary. From physical appearances and stages of development to prior experiences and ethnicities, students’ compositions highlight the importance of getting to know our students in order to create learning experiences that reflect

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Making Meaning with Films

Films can—and should—be more than time-killers in your classroom. We all know the stereotypical image of the teacher who, tired of direct instruction, dims the lights, turns on the DVD player, and sits quietly while students stare at the screen. The problem here is not that students are watching a film in class—it’s that the

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Do Teachers Remain Neutral or Share their Beliefs with Students?

Politics, Racism, Religious, Classism, Sexual Orientation: Do Teachers Remain Neutral or Share their Beliefs with Students? I struggle to respect the opinions of those who believe the earth is only 6,000 years old and dismiss evolution as having no factual basis. I am sad for the irrational nature of their thinking and the missed opportunities

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