Lesson Plans

Learners benefit when teachers intentionally plan their units backward—starting with the desired outcome.

Quick activities that can be used to check for understanding or emphasize key information at the end of a lesson.

We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it's essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it's important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than "always trying something new" is the reason behind why we do what we do.

Many would agree that for inquiry to be alive and well in a classroom that, amongst other things, the teacher needs to be expert at asking strategic questions. With that in mind, if you are a new teacher or perhaps not so new but know that question-asking is an area where you'd like to grow, start tomorrow with these five ideas.

Because of pressure to teach bell-to-bell, many classrooms now start with bell work—short exercises that students complete while the instructor handles attendance and other administrative chores. I’ve collected several creative, practical, and entertaining exercises that can function as bell ringers or sponge activities.

Look through the door of one classroom and you might see the students hunched over, not engaged, even frowning. Look through the door of another classroom, and you might see a room full of lively students, eager, engaged and participating. What is the second teacher doing that the first one isn't? He or she is using creativity in that classroom.

The Claim, Evidence, Reasoning framework is a scaffolded way to teach the scientific method.