Years ago, in the early days of online gradebooks, I taught many students who took a learning strategies class as an elective. In that elective, they learned study skills and […]
Minutes Matter
How to Make Student-Friendly Digital Worksheets
As we continue to shift to blended/distance learning, many of us have discovered how easy it is to take the worksheets we created in Word (designed for the copy machine) […]
Minutes Matter
Easy Assessment Options for Classrooms and Distance Learning
Whether we’re going back to school in person or virtually or some combination of the two, I think we can all agree that our job from the start is two-fold: […]
Minutes Matter
A Simple Tool to Improve Comprehension
We need to help our students dig deeper into the text. We want them to understand–to make connections, to be able to explain what they’ve read, to use this knowledge after they’ve left our classrooms.
Minutes Matter
A Filing System that Works
How many of us have stacks upon stacks on our desks and almost every other flat surface in the classroom? Use this system to get the papers under control so you can get things done.
Minutes Matter
5 Simple Ways to Improve Learning in Every Class
These five easy-to-manage strategies will help your students process their understanding and show them (and you) what they do and don’t know.
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How to Simplify Your Rubric and Get Better Results
Approaching rubrics as an instructional tool (as opposed to an evaluation technique) makes them much more powerful. To maximize the value, we need to simplify the tool.
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20 Things for Students to Do with Informational Text
The most common request I have received this year as a literacy coach is to cover a teacher’s class. Just kidding. That’s the second-most common request. Seriously, the practice […]
Minutes Matter
How to Create Better Worksheets: One Simple Shortcut
Improve the look of your handouts (and eliminate hours of future frustration) with one simple trick.
Minutes Matter
PowerPoint to the Rescue
When teachers ask why I use PowerPoint to create documents, I have a very simple answer: It saves TIME!