Student-Centered Learning

Teaching Profession Opinion The Teacher Students Wish They Could Have Every Day
Her name was Ms. L'Engel, and she entered my third grade classroom several times to deliver what felt like magic.
Ariel Sacks, September 29, 2017
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4 min read
Teaching Opinion Why Short Stories May Not Help Struggling Readers
For teachers looking to build students' confidence and love of reading, especially in the case of reluctant and struggling readers, short stories may not be a great place to start.
Ariel Sacks, September 14, 2017
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4 min read
Teaching Opinion School Consortium Proposes a Better Transcript
For well over a century we've recorded the high school experience as a series of courses and grades, showing activity but not necessarily growth and accomplishment. Here is how the Mastery Transcript Consortium is working to change this approach for the better.
Tom Vander Ark, September 14, 2017
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4 min read
Teaching Opinion Three Tips for Planning the First Day
What do you do on the very first day of school and why? Here are my three go-to pieces of advice to kicking off a productive year.
Ariel Sacks, August 31, 2017
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5 min read
Teaching Opinion Content-Centered to Student-Centered: A Taxonomy of Personalized Learning
How do you define and describe personalized learning? As more people use the term, it's important to be clear about what we mean.
Tom Vander Ark, August 2, 2017
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3 min read
Reading & Literacy Opinion Urgent Plea To School Leaders: Budget for Books
In this post, I share some examples of teachers explaining how lack of books impacts their planning, and a checklist and suggestions for administrators who want to build a culture of authentic reading in their schools.
Ariel Sacks, June 12, 2017
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6 min read
Ed-Tech Policy Student-Centered Learning Top of Mind for Ed-Tech Companies
Digital learning providers are trying to figure out how to respond as technology-driven, student-centered learning gathers momentum in K-12 schools.
Michele Molnar, June 6, 2017
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4 min read
Teaching Opinion Noticeable Shifts in the Big Questions on Students' Minds
This year, I revived a poetry station which I haven't used in three years: bibliomancy. In it, students ask a question, and use a special process involving books to write a poem prophesying the future. Reading the questions they ask always gives me pangs of compassion for my students, who are in the throes of adolescence. What caught my attention this year, though, was a new category of questions I had not seen before--questions about humankind in general, and its future.
Ariel Sacks, May 23, 2017
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3 min read
Teaching Opinion Planning a Demo Lesson: Critical Thinking Is Key
In a demo lesson for a teaching position, make sure to create opportunities for students to think critically. This may sound obvious, but it can be difficult to maintain that space when you don't know the students and you're working in such a high pressure situation. For the members of the hiring committee I was on recently, this became a crucial factor in our decision. Here are some suggestions for making sure the students are doing higher order thinking in a demo lesson.
Ariel Sacks, April 28, 2017
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5 min read
Teaching Opinion Five Steps To Revolutionize Whole-Class Novels
In my previous post, I discussed the debate around whether to teach whole class novels. In the field, this conversation can get quite polarized, but we shouldn't be limited to this either/or scenario. As a profession we can do better than a decades old stalemate. I believe we must revolutionize, not drop, the whole class novel. The five strategies below are steps toward that end.
Ariel Sacks, April 5, 2017
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7 min read
Standards & Accountability Opinion What Do We Do About the Whole-Class Novel?
The debate around the use of novels in English classes of all age groups is at least twenty years old, but it remains unresolved, continually bubbling up in blog posts and conversations among a wide range of concerned educators: what do we do about the whole class novel? In this post, I analyze the state of current teaching trends with regard to novels, and offer two propositions for moving the debate forward.
Ariel Sacks, March 15, 2017
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4 min read
Teaching Opinion 18 Tips for Making Blended Learning More Student-Centered
Here are 18 tips from leading schools and providers boosting motivation, engagement, agency and collaboration by adding student-centered learning strategies to their blended learning plan.
Tom Vander Ark, February 22, 2017
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5 min read
Equity & Diversity Opinion How to Talk About Sexism in the Classroom
Educators and others who think about social issues--I can use some help: I got into a conversation with students in English class today about sexism, brought up by a pattern (out of the classroom, but among our students) of MS boys making critical comments about girls' bodies. In the course of an energized, basically positive conversation, some boys brought up that girls can be sexist, too. In a moment that I could have handled better, I argued against this, instead of probing further.
Ariel Sacks, January 24, 2017
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10 min read
Standards & Accountability Opinion Understanding Students With Broken Relationships to Reading
Many of our struggling readers did not grow up with a consistent reading ritual at home; instead, they were exposed to books mostly in school. What was that context like for them?
Ariel Sacks, January 17, 2017
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4 min read
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