For students with disabilities (SWD), note taking during content area classes can be a puzzling process. Students often are not certain about what specific content to record, how many details to record, and how to write fast enough to keep up with the teacher. Smartpens are an underutilized type of technology that can help students to become…

Building upon the blockbuster success of "Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics," Peter Liljedahl has joined forces with co-author Maegan Giroux to bring the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) framework to life in this new book, "Mathematics Tasks for the Thinking Classroom, Grades K-5." But this book is so much more than…

Collaborative note-taking is a pedagogical technique that asks students to rotate note-taking responsibilities during class meetings in a shared document. Implementing this technique helped me, as an instructor, better leverage my students' strengths and weaknesses in an introductory American government class--though the benefits should extend to…

Summarization. Just when we thought we knew everything about it, the doors to divergent thinking open and summarization--no longer something that students must endure until you get to the "cool" stuff--takes on an exciting new role in student success! In this second edition of "Summarization in Any Subject," Dedra Stafford…

Scientists' writing includes organized data, calculations, sketches and models, inventories and lists, timelines, detailed descriptions, locations, conditions, actions, schedules, information about variables, goals, hypotheses, research, notes, summaries of experiments, and reports to others (Fulton and Campbell 2014). By using scaffolded science…

In this book Bill Hanlon provides examples and recommends highly effective and practical instructional and assessment strategies that classroom teachers can immediately implement and that school administrators can readily observe. These high yield strategies build on accepted practices and directly address the needs of struggling students or…

This article shares the experiences, tips, and passion of an English I teacher who teaches English language learners (ELLs) who have been in U.S. schools for at least one year. She provides information about various teaching strategies that have been effective in her classroom over the past few years. The article addresses student grouping,…

This book provides more than 50 classroom-ready tools that make it easy to implement the nine categories of effective teaching strategies from McREL's bestselling book, "Classroom Instruction That Works" (2012) across grade levels and content areas. By incorporating these tools into your daily practice, you can turn your classroom into a…

The authors are a team of teachers and teacher educators who are deeply interested in helping mathematically-challenged students improve in their learning of mathematics. In Singapore, depending on their performance at the end of a nationwide Year 6 examination, students are channelled into three ability streams for Years 7 to 10: Express (60%),…

This lab exercise exposes students to Evernote, which is a powerful productivity application that has gained significant purchase in professional work environments. In many academic settings the introductory computer applications course has a specific focus on standard productivity applications such as MS Word and MS Excel. While ensuring fluency…

In this article, the author presents one instructional strategy--scribing--tailored to the Tablet PC. He illustrates the role of the scribe during discussion through two classroom examples: (1) generalizing the polygon sum theorem; and (2) proving the third angle theorem. Then he analyzes scribing as an instructional strategy as well as students'…

Jane E. Pollock, coauthor of "Classroom Instruction That Works," expands on the bestseller's feedback strategy in this groundbreaking work. While feedback is not a new concept, what is new is using it the way children use computer apps--to set goals, track their progress, and self-regulate their own learning. With only a slight shift in…

Taking notes from lectures or reading material can be challenging, especially for those who have learning disabilities. An alternative to traditional note-taking is a method called "guided notes," which has been found to improve the accuracy of students' notes, increase the frequency of student responses, and improve students' quiz and test…

A literacy coach collaborates with a new teacher to incorporate structured note-taking and summarizing into a science class. Many students struggle with these skills and require explicit instruction before they are able to work independently. Using the gradual release of responsibility framework, the literacy coach begins by modeling how to choose…

Lab notebooks provide students with authentic science experiences as they become active, practicing scientists. Teachers gain insight into students' understanding of science content and processes, while students create a lasting personal resource. This article provides high school science teachers with guidelines for implementing lab notebooks in…