Boost Your Teaching: How to Meet Teachers’ Needs with an Early Literacy Collection

When I was a first-grade teacher at a Title I school on the east side of Michigan, I often spent time with the media specialist and librarians at the local public library trying to find a wide range of books to use for interactive read-alouds that also connected to science or social studies content and standards. I would walk away with many engaging recommendations and titles that made my heart sing. Not to mention the incredible relationships I came to foster with those talented and knowledgeable librarians! I tapped into these resources because I knew my classroom library collection wasn’t robust enough, the provided science and social studies curricular resources were not always high quality or were missing, and getting funds to cover the cost of new resources was sometimes a challenge.

How Can Social Studies Inspire Student Inquiry and Civic Engagement?

Significant shifts are reshaping social studies instruction, and they’re here to stay. Have you encountered the transformative framework known as the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies? You’re likely familiar with its impact, even if you don’t recognize the formal name. The C3 Framework serves as a guiding light, ushering in dynamic changes in how we approach social studies education.

Unleashing Inquiry: The Role of Social Studies Frameworks

These shifts in social studies instruction encompass the concept of inquiry, emphasizing skill application through social studies-centered content. They promote the integration and expansion of literacy, mainly through civic media, within the social studies disciplines, culminating in actionable insights. The C3 Framework fosters a culture where students are encouraged to actively inquire about their social studies learning. It challenges them to seek credible evidence to address these inquiries and actively share their findings with others.

Teen Tobacco Realities: Key Insights from 2023 and Effective Strategies for Change

In the latest 2023 data, a concerning reality surfaces: more than 2.1 million teens nationwide are currently using e-cigarettes, with a surprising 1 in 4 engaging in daily vaping, as reported by the FDA (FDA, 2023). In Michigan, around 14 percent of high school students are into electronic vapor products, slightly lower at 13.6 percent in Kent County (YRBSS and MiPHY).

Michigan’s Progress and Persistent Challenges

Although rates of high school students in Michigan who have ever used electronic vapor products decreased from 2019-2021, dropping from 50 percent to 33 percent, tobacco use is still the number one cause of preventable death in Michigan (YRBSS).

MDE’s Promising Practice: Improving Early Literacy Achievement with Ignite Engagement

Our educational world is in a state of restoration and renewal, where the potential for renovation exists. What we decide to do with this opportunity will tremendously impact the lives of our students.

Students Need Authentic Engagement

In an article by Andy Hargreaves, titled “The Future of Learning Lies in Engagement,” he encourages educators to focus on engagement as the right path to rectify learning losses and prioritize well-being. Hargreaves notes, “The best paths forward will be those that increase students’ engagement with their learning, with each other, and with their lives.” (Hargreaves, 2021)

How to Build a Suicide Prevention and Risk Management Program in Your School

It’s that time in Michigan. I’ve heard it lovingly referred to as fake spring. You know, the spring that comes before the third winter, only after which we finally arrive in actual Spring. The glorious time of year when the days get a bit longer and the weather a bit milder. Students (and many educators) can see the finish line and dial it in for that one last push toward the sweet, sweet relief of summer vacation.

Springtime Pressures in Education

Spring time also brings many added pressures for educators and students.

Learn How to Unlock Your Students’ Future, One Passion at a Time

Educational Development Plans (EDPs) are often viewed by students as a boring and useless career interest survey that doesn’t actually help them. For teachers, it’s viewed as “just one more thing” that prevents them from completing their content instruction. For counselors, it’s “just one more thing” that has to fit somehow in-between IEPs, emotional crises, scheduling, and filling in somewhere for a short-handed building. But, it doesn’t have to be this way! We can take EDPs a step further by unlocking all its tools to help students connect their passions to possible future career options.

Substance Abuse in Kent County: What Educators and Parents Need to Know

You might be aware of vaping, but what do you know about dab pens or pressed fentanyl pills? Do you know both are present in our communities and schools? In Kent County between 2021 and 2022, there were close to 200 drug overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 77% of these overdose deaths.

We read about Fentanyl in news headlines from the media, but how much do our students and community currently know about this substance? In our county, Fentanyl accounted for over 90% of overdose deaths between 2021 and 2022. Are you knowledgeable about local prevention resources?

Educators (Like You) Find Benefits in Practicing Social Emotional Learning

“Things are moving too quickly and I can’t keep up.” “I want to connect with friends at the end of the day, but I’m just too tired.”  “I know I need to be more patient with my kids but I’m just so stressed out.” We often talk about social-emotional learning for students, but what about us? What about our social and emotional wellness?

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), social and emotional learning are integral parts of human development. Through this process, we develop healthy identities, learn to manage our emotions, achieve both personal and group goals, demonstrate empathy and care for others, develop and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible decisions in everyday life. It’s lifelong learning, folks. It’s a process, not a destination.

Top 10 Reasons to Learn to Teach Creatively

“Teachers who frequently assign classwork involving creativity are more likely to observe higher-order cognitive skills — problem solving, critical thinking, making connections between subjects — in their students. And when teachers combine creativity with transformative technology use, they see even better outcomes. (Krueger, 2021)

Have you attended the MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) Conference?  MACUL is known for this annual conference, but they actually do so much more such as offering multiple professional learning opportunities throughout the year.

As education professionals, we know that professional learning is required.  The great thing is that not all professional learning needs to be a heavy lift.  Sometimes professional learning can be presented in a way that is creative, freeing, and even, dare we say it…fun?

Strategies to Create an Equitable Learning Environment for English Learners

Integrating digital resources into every day instruction can help close the digital divide, address differentiation needs, and provide multiple ways for English Learners (ELs) to both access and respond to content.  Today’s learners need to develop multi-literacies and use multimodalities to develop language and content together. How can teachers support language development of academic and non-academic language equitably?  

As stated by Rubin, Estrada, and Honigsfeld in the book, “Digital-Age Teaching for English Learners: A Guide to Equitable Learning for All Students,” you can leverage the following eight strategies to support English learners and ALL learners.