“Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money but you can never get more time.” This popular quotation strikes a chord with most teachers. The school bell rings every 45 to 50 minutes. It keeps our day, our students, and our work always on the move. Thus, the most common conversation in…
DetailsThe Well-Crafted, Well-Taught Lesson gets even better! What’s new? Explicit Direct Instruction: The Power of the Well-Crafted, Well-Taught Lesson was published in 2009, and since then authors John Hollingsworth and Dr. Silvia Ybarra have forged a path through the Common Core State Standards, visited hundreds more classrooms, and fine-tuned their EDI strategies. Now they are…
Details
What makes one teacher’s class a joy and another’s a torture? Were some people simply born to teach? As we remember our favorite teachers, I think we remember a je ne sais quoi, an indefinable quality, about them most. When we ask the world what makes a teacher great, the word “passionate” comes up every time.…
Details
How does a human being learn? That question has intrigued and stumped educators for thousands of years. We all know we learn, but how does it happen? If we knew that, then we could maximize our learning, right? The problem is there are so many theories of learning. To make sense of this, we can…
Details
Accelerate Students by Pre-teaching Next Year’s Standards! Now is the time to reserve your preferred dates! For Students: Preparation for next year All materials provided Highly interactive engagement during lessons Students gain confidence For Teachers: Academy training provided Frequent interactive coaching and debriefing during Academy READY TO TEACH (EDI) Lessons provided Academy training transferable to…
Details
Don’t Just Teach Math, Use Math The Common Core State Standards are specific in their mandate to have students apply math to “real-world” situations. But what does that look like in the K-8 classroom? One way for teachers to make math really come alive in the classroom is to connect math with what happens in…
Details
Establishing an “Academic Time” at Home Do you have homework tonight? As an educator and a parent, I can remember fighting the constant battle with my stepchildren. I would ask, “Do you have homework?” and the reply was always one of the following: “No.” “I finished it at school.” “Oops. I left it on the…
Details
Is it just for signing your name? There are two very outspoken sides to this debate. One would argue that cursive is antiquated and with the rise of technology and word processing, students’ time would be better spent learning to type rather than learning to write in cursive. The other side would argue that in…
Details
Is spelling still relevant in the 21st century classroom? We think so! Although in the real world (where we are hoping most of our students end up!) most writing is now done on computers with spell check, there are still a few important reasons for students to learn to spell. One, a person has to…
Details
STEAM is the latest push to create students who are scientifically and technologically literate and able to solve real-world problems. This is a fantastic goal that we here at DataWORKS wholeheartedly endorse. Unfortunately, the jargon that underlies many STEAM lessons and programs suggests that projects, programs, and methods boil down to very little teaching. STEAMing…
Details