Socratic Seminars are one of my all- time favorite teaching strategies. I love seeing a group of students engage in a collaborative discussion and think deeply about themes, texts, and ideas under their own guidance. This is a skill that is not natural for students, who are used to teacher- led discussion, so I started scaffolding Socratic Seminar to build the skills necessary to make my Seminars successful for all of my students. Seminars not only strengthen students’ ability to engage in dialogue with many differing beliefs, it also requires students to think deeply and critically, using evidence and logic to support their claims. While impromptu whole class discussions are…
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5 Lessons I Learned from a Year of Pandemic Teaching
I’m going to say something that is not being said enough: The pandemic did not create problems in education. It forced us to recognize and stop ignoring the ones that were already there. Before, there was no money to waste on 1:1 technology. Suddenly, students had access to wifi and laptops. Before, students had to sit in a chair for each class from 7-3. Suddenly, we could give independent, asynchronous options. The list goes on. Although this year of teaching has easily been the longest and most exhausting year of my career, I realize that in a lot of ways it has been a blessing, and not just because my…
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My 5 Favorite Classroom Tech Tools
I had to change my teaching to make it engaging for both remote and in- person students. These are the 5 classroom tech tools that I use daily.
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ELA Strategies I Love: Hexagonal Thinking
Have you ever heard of or seen a new teaching strategy from a coworker and said, “I have to try that TOMORROW!”? That was me last week when I heard about Hexagonal Thinking from the Brave New Teaching Podcast. It just SOUNDS cool. I immediately paused my podcast, put down my vacuum ( because who doesn’t listen to podcasts while they’re cleaning? It’s a thing, I swear), and ran to my computer. I googled “Hexagonal Thinking” and found Betsy Potash’s incredibly innovative strategy for critical thinking on her Spark Creativity blog. I was immediately obsessed and worked it into my Hamlet lesson for the next week. Here’s how the Hexagonal…
