Category Archives: educational trends

6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

Support every student by breaking learning up into chunks and providing a concrete structure for each.

Let’s start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things. Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and then read and discuss as you go. With differentiation, you might give a child an entirely different piece of text to read, or shorten the text or alter it, or modify the writing assignment that follows.

Simply put, scaffolding is what you do first with kids. For those students who are still struggling, you may need to differentiate by modifying an assignment or making accommodations like choosing a more accessible text or assigning an alternative project.

Scaffolding and differentiation do have something in common, though. In order to meet students where they are and appropriately scaffold a lesson or differentiate instruction, you have to know the individual and collective zone of proximal development (ZPD) of your learners. Education researcher Eileen Raymond says, “The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance.”

So let’s get to some scaffolding strategies you may or may not have tried yet. Or perhaps you’ve not used them in some time and need a gentle reminder on how awesome and helpful they can be when it comes to student learning.

1. SHOW AND TELL

2. TAP INTO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

3. GIVE TIME TO TALK

4. PRE-TEACH VOCABULARY

5. USE VISUAL AIDS

6. PAUSE, ASK QUESTIONS, PAUSE, REVIEW

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber?fbclid=IwAR1jV6EadGXWU0iR2BOA6kUtckkQpEqP4DPkYgziyX_MtUjkpVKoYblZ_Hk

8 principles for newly qualified teachers

  1. sell it

2. Emphasize the big picture

3. Acknowledge and correct their misconceptions

4. Give them problems/puzzles to solve

5. Make and honor a contract

6. Develop traditions and let kids remember you

7. Be human

8. teach essential skills with experiential learning activities

Reference: https://flipedu.parenting.com.tw/article/2595?utm_source=Flipedu.Website&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=cp-w2-media-2595-210810

In-Person Learning Reminders from Google Education

  1. Have regular check-ins with students
  2. Encourage students to reflect in journals
  3. Combine of digital tools+ traditional methods = synergy
  4. Foster collaboration with tools like Jamboard
  5. Meet students where they’re at by expanding traditional methods
  6. Organize and distribute rich content through Google Classroom
  7. Establish strong connections with students IRL
  8. Build upon skills students learned outside of the classroom
  9. Focus on what students gained, not what the missed out on
  10. Build relationships with families and guardians
  11. Join a PLC, PLN or community of practice to network, grow, and learn

6 Crucial Questions We All Need to Be Asking Teachers Right Now

Teaching is a stressful job. Rewarding, fulfilling, meaningful, necessary (otherwise we wouldn’t do it) but STRESSFUL. Now add in a pandemic and the stress is next-level. We’ve pivoted to online. Pivoted back to in-person with masks and rows and distancing. Pivoted to a hybrid model of both. Teacher mental health should be everyone’s concern. Want to evaluate our job performance right now? These are the questions we should all be asking teachers right now.

#1 How’s your mental health?

#2 How’s your family?

# 3 Who checks on you?

#4 Are you separating school and home?

#5 Are you getting enough sleep?

#6 How can I support you?

Educators take care of their students’ learning, mental health, environment, and safety while they’re at school. Administration needs to do the exact same thing for teachers. It’s empowering to know that someone has your back, in a meaningful, consistent way, while you are in the thick of the battle.

These questions are great for the public to ask teachers, too. Check on your child’s teacher or your teacher friend, family member, or neighbor.

Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/teacher-crucial-questions