December: Focus on the Bright Spots
If you find it hard to focus on the positive, you're not alone. The are real reasons, anchored in our neurology, culture, and emotions, for why it is hard to see bright spots. All brains have 'negativity bias' because the brain perceives negative stimuli faster and more intensely than positive stimuli. This means that if 22 out of 23 students are engaged and interested in the lesson, you will immediately notice and perseverate over the one that is not. You'll keep thinking about the one child, while the other 22 will be fleeting thoughts. It takes purposeful practice and a training of your brain to compete against this bias.
-Adapted from Aguilar's Onward
Attack! Game
Looking to review content before the holiday break or exams? Check out the game Attack! "Attack" is a versatile game that will bring out the competitive spirit in your students as they seek to attack and destroy each others' castles (or snowman, or any other object that represents their team) while answering review questions!
10 ways to increase movement in your classroom
Are your students so excited for the holiday season that they can’t concentrate? We all have those brilliant scholars who can’t sit still for more than a few minutes. Consider adding movement to your lessons! In this article, you will find 10 classroom activities to incorporate movement to help those fidgety students and kinesthetic learners thrive!
Graffiti Walls
Graffiti Boards are a collaborative writing space where students record their comments and questions about a topic. The purpose of this strategy is to help students “hear” each other’s ideas. Some benefits of this strategy include that it can be implemented in 5-10 minutes, it provides a way for introverted students to engage in the conversation, and it creates a record of students’ ideas that can be referred to at a later point. You can use the Graffiti Boards strategy as a preview activity by introducing a new topic and helping students organize any existing knowledge about that topic. You can also use this strategy to prepare for a class discussion or writing assignment about a text by asking students to share their reactions to the text on the Graffiti Board.
EdPuzzle
A great tool to upgrade video use in your classroom!
Interactive: Increase engagement & spark critical thinking with embedded questions.
Learner centered: Prevent skipping and provide instant feedback on student responses.
Data driven: Get instant analytics to help differentiate your teaching and make grading effortless.
Click here for tips on how to implement!
