Remote Learning – Staying in Touch With Students

We have just started remote learning and it has been a challenge. One of the challenges has been finding ways to connect with the students that we’ve grown to know over the past school year. Many of them need the social and emotional support that school provides. I find myself

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online learning

How To Win at Online Learning

Teachers! What’s your plan for next school year? Hybrid? Online Learning? Next year is still up in the air for a lot of us. And it could change a couple of times during the school year. However, it does appear that many students will spend the start of the year

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shakespeare online learning

Get Students Interested in Shakespeare

If you’re a high school English teacher, you’re probably teaching Shakespeare. You also know that it can be difficult to get kids interested in reading him before they even start. This happens for a couple of reasons: The word on the street is that Shakespeare is difficult. It will probably

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Teaching Shakespeare to Struggling Readers

Shakespeare presents an exceptional challenge for struggling readers. All the plastic swords and bad student acting will help get students interested in the content. But it won’t be enough for those who find everyday reading a significant challenge. Below I’ve outlines some steps that will help struggling readers get a

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Is Annotating Necessary? Five Reasons Why

For many of our students, annotating is like making their bed. Annotation is something they do because someone in charge tells them to do it, not because it makes sense. After all, if you’re just going to get back into the bed at night, why bother making it at all?

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Fun Life Skills Challenges For Students

We all want our students to develop important skills when they leave school. They should know how to write a good essay. We want them to be able to annotate something they’ve read. They might also develop the ability to take care of themselves physically and emotionally. However, there are

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Staying Positive in the Midst of Digital Learning

Digital learning has been rough on all of us – teachers, parents, and students and it’s difficult to stay positive. It can be very discouraging. We don’t get a lot of feedback from our students. It’s difficult to find much joy in seeing our students solely through the lens of

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Designing Awesome Virtual Learning Experiences

Many teachers have found out that we are doing distance learning for the remainder of the school year. There has also been some talk of doing something similar in the fall in a lot of districts. It’s been hard. Hard on the students, the teachers, and the parents. And for

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Cutting Down On Cheating

In a virtual learning environment, cheating is inevitable. We aren’t around to monitor students’ progress and honesty. There’s a temptation to get wok done as quickly as possible so that they can do something else. Or, to be fair, some students are watching their younger siblings all day and are

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Teaching Shakespeare with Digital Learning

Even though teaching Shakespeare in a digital learning environment is a difficult task, it can be done! Below are some tip for getting set up to teach any Shakespeare play. Which Version of Shakespeare Should You Use? The first thing you have to decide is which version of the play

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Why Poetry is Perfect for Remote Learning

As remote learning has quickly become the new normal for students and teachers, it has been tough to come up with meaningful lessons for ELA students. Will they read the book I assign them, or just pretend to read them? How can I keep the level of rigor where it

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