Category: Learning and Education

contributed by Dr. Kara Stern, SchoolStatus Head of Education Solutions  Recognizing school/home communication’s profound impact on student success and well-being is crucial.  We need to understand school communication as much more than disseminating information—it’s an integral pillar supporting student achievement, as fundamental as curriculum and instruction. Effective school/home communication is essential to an educator’s strategy…

We all eat. But food serves as more than just sustenance. Food is a gateway to understanding culture, history, and identity. In today’s diverse classrooms, educators have an opportunity to foster cultural understanding through discussions about food. While merely exploring the culinary aspects of different cultures may seem enticing, genuine cultural appreciation goes beyond the…

contributed by Dr. Zak Cohen In 2009, President Obama spoke to a group of students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. As someone who had readily and unabashedly admitted to his mistakes as a youth and how these missteps informed the adult he had become, he humbly but stridently impressed upon his audience the…

Dear We Are Teachers, I teach 6th grade in a pretty wealthy district, so we get a lot of springtime requests for letters of recommendation for private schools. I have a child in my class with a long history of disrespect to teachers and peers. This fall, he started an Instagram bullying campaign that caused…

by TeachThought Staff Thinking in the 21st century is just different. That doesn’t mean we’re all suddenly omnipotent cyborgs, nor do we all become mindless social media addicts who spend our cognitive might tapping, swiping, and drooling on our smartphone and tablet screens. But just as the 19th century presented unique challenges to information processing…

In our new series Teacher Salary Stories, We Are Teachers readers share how they’re making it work—or not—on a teacher’s salary. The goal is to take an honest look at teacher pay in the United States—what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change if we want to stem the flow of educators leaving the profession and…

Talking Circles are a traditional discussion and decision-making format originating in First Nations cultures. In this format, individuals sit in a circle, signifying equality, and take turns speaking while holding a ceremonial object. This allows for respectful and inclusive conversation, as everyone can share their thoughts and feelings in a supportive environment. The circle also…

With all the challenges teachers are currently facing, it’s often too easy to lose sight of the good parts of the job—like the incalculable reach most of us end up having on the next generation. Maybe that’s why we got a little teary when we saw TikTok teacher Stephanie Cowman go viral for her creative…

by Terrell Heick More than once, I’ve seen Bloom’s Taxonomy called a ‘fad.’ This can be lumped in with Charlotte Danielson’s DOK framework and Learning Styles, eLearning, Blended Learning, MOOCs, Common Core academic standards, and a few dozen other practices, ideas, and programs–each as a fad. Something that, for a while, is ‘popular.’ And sometimes,…

Teaching: A world where everything is always perfect, where we’re free to speak our minds without hesitation, and where the challenges of the classroom are just minor bumps on an otherwise smooth road … said absolutely no teacher ever. Beneath the surface of meticulously planned lessons and neatly graded assignments lies a reality seldom shared…