Teachers


Teaching for Tests: Is it What’s Best for Our Students?

Teacher performance has become an incredibly scrutinized statistic in recent decades. With legislation such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools were supposedly given clear and measurable goals for boosting lagging teacher and student performance. In an analytics driven world, this type of performance review is common and helpful. What many have taken issue with, however, are the tools we use to judge this performance. NCLB has raised the stakes for standardized testing. These tests are what measure a district's performance against its neighbors, and a state’s performance against the other 49 states. Standardized tests are designed to ensure that each…

Are You a “Cool” Teacher?

Scroll to the bottom of this page for a link to the "cool" teacher quiz -- but first, some context:

The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) recently encouraged parents to demand their children be removed from classes taught by teachers who voice support for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community, as reported in the Huffington Post.

IFI is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to "promote marriage, family, life and liberty in the Land of Lincoln" and is opposed to LGBT civil unions, mar…

The Pros and Cons of Merit Based Pay for Teachers

A new study conducted as a joint effort by Harvard, the University of Chicago and UC San Diego has concluded that merit-based pay is an effective way to increase the performance and efficiency of teachers. Merit-based pay, or performance pay, as it is sometimes called, is a somewhat controversial practice that bases a teacher's salary on the success of their students. Merit-based pay …

Josh Hoekstra and the Gamification of Education

Josh Hoekstra, a 39-year-old U.S. history teacher from Rosemont High School in Minneapolis, is revitalizing history education with his Teach with Tournaments method. U.S. history is one of American students’ worst performing subjects, and Josh wanted to give the topic the innovation it needed to inspire greater interest. Harnessing his students' enthusiasm for NCAA’s March Madness tournament, Josh created a passion-driven, competitive learning model that encouraged students to become personally connected with historical figures they st…

Who’s Who at This Year’s #140edu Conference

The #140edu Conference is an exciting and innovative gathering of people from all over the world to discuss the current state of education and the role of technology in revolutionizing the classroom. A focus of the conference is providing a platform for people on Twitter to connect with one another and listen to fascinating speakers, all the while exploring the ways that the Internet and social media are shaping the future.

This year’s conference will take place from July 31 through August 1 in New York City at the 92nd Street YMCA (1395 Lexington Avenue). The event will draw dozens of amazing speakers whom you should defini…

Teaching Through Tragedy: How Teachers and Schools Respond to Crisis

The impact of a tragic event is felt beyond the immediate sphere of those directly connected, and some of the most confused and vulnerable are our students. Young people need guidance during tragedy, and though home is where they turn first, schools must also be responsive. Children spend most of their time among classmates and teachers, so school should be a place of comfort and community, where they feel safe and receive the help they need. Even if a tragic event has not struck your community, you as a teacher should be equipped to deal with emotional fallout. Just because something didn’t happen to someone your students know personally doesn’t mean that they're unaffected.

On July 20…

 

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