Like most pre-pandemic high school teachers, I had an admittedly hard time managing cell phones in my classroom. And now students are supposed to sit in front of a computer screen all day and learn?
Granted, most of my assignments were done through Google Classroom anyway, but how do you get teens to focus every single day when they have the WORLD at their fingertips? Continue reading “Using YouTube for Technology-Based Teaching”
Despite no longer teaching, when Gov. Cuomo announced that NYS school buildings would remain closed for the rest of this academic year, it broke my heart. I can’t imagine just leaving my classroom one Friday and then, kind of out of nowhere, not returning. I had months of preparation to deal with my resignation last year, and it was still unbelievably difficult.
While any point during the school year has its highs and lows, I’m a firm believer in these winter months being the most challenging. It’s pitch-black the second you leave the building, Spring Break is so far away, your established routines suddenly feel boring, and school spirit is sucked dry now that Homecoming seems like it was decades ago.
Don’t worry – I’m here to help.
Like the one in the title? Yup…
It always helps to understand why something is the way it is. So many people were taught simply to memorize grammar rules; you use this word here because that’s proper English and that’s that. And when you don’t know the purpose behind a rule, you’re more likely to break it. Why spend time thinking about something you don’t care about?
Continue reading “Six Grammatical Errors Your Probably Making”
About a month ago, really just as a means of coping with my resignation, I published my “Top Teaching Tips” … a post that got more views, shares, and comments than anything else on this blog. Its instant popularity was entirely unexpected and completely floored me.
Continue reading “Teaching Vocabulary in the Least Painful Way Possible”