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Teaching in Beta: What We Can Learn from Software Developers
Tell me if this sounds like you: You hear about a new teaching idea and decide you’d like to try it. Then for the next two, three, six months, you put it off, waiting for the day when you can get it...
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The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Teaching Job Mid-Year
First things first: Congratulations on your new teaching job. This is a big deal, an opportunity to make a significant difference for students whose year has been a bit unstable up to this point....
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Avoiding the “Wait ‘Till Your Father Gets Home” Trap
How often do you send students to the office for disciplinary issues? Is calling parents your go-to strategy for every student infraction? Do you rely on the “mean” teacher next door to take over...
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How Your Nonverbals Impact Your Teaching
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of you didn’t get much training in nonverbal communication — the things you do with your voice, your posture, your pacing, your eye contact — while...
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Goal-Setting for Teachers: 8 Paths for Self-Improvement
[Some links in this post are Amazon Affiliate links. If you click these and make a purchase from Amazon, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!]...
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Dogfooding: How Often Do You Do Your Own Assignments?
Here’s a word you may not have heard before: dogfooding. It’s a term that’s been used for years among software developers, and it refers to the act of using your own product as a consumer in order...
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Lessons in Personhood: 10 Ways to Truly Lead in Your Classroom
This month, I was invited to contribute to Cathy Rubin’s blog, The Global Search for Education, on the Huffington Post. Here is the question she posed to twelve bloggers: What are the best ways a...
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Diary of a First-Year Teacher: Setting Goals
I’m thrilled to introduce Shelby Denhof, who will be letting us follow her first year of teaching in a series of written and video diary entries. I’m writing this from my own desk in my own...
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Find Your Marigold: The One Essential Rule for New Teachers
Welcome to your first year of teaching. This year will test you more intensely than just about anything you’ve done up to now. It will deplete all your energy, bring you to tears, and make you...
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This Year, Give the Gift of Pronunciation
Listen to an Extended Version of this Post in a Podcast: Samira Fejzić was used to people saying her name wrong, especially in school. “Through the years, as roll would be called, I would wait...
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The Gut-Level Teacher Reflection
These five questions will help you tap into the wisdom of your body to discover more about how your work impacts you. Sometimes I will be going about my normal day and I’ll notice a negative haze has...
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Has teaching made you miserable? This book may be the cure.
Awakened: Change Your Mindset to Transform Your Teaching by Angela Watson, 240 pages, Due Season Press, July 2011 Buy Now [Most links in this article are Amazon Affiliate links. If you click these...
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Diary of a First-Year Teacher: Balance
in balance” by glasseyes view is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 This is the third installment in a year-long series of written and video diary entries by Shelby Denhof, who is letting us follow her...
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How to Stop Yelling at Your Students
Listen to this post as a podcast: I’ll start right away by admitting I have done my fair share of yelling. As a middle school teacher, I wasn’t too bad—I probably had one good yell per week. As a...
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Building Relationships with Students Through Books
This is the fourth installment in a year-long series of written and video diary entries by Shelby Denhof, who is letting us follow her first year of teaching. To see all entries, click here. Links...
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Are You Sabotaging Your Classroom Management?
If you struggle with classroom management no matter how many different strategies you try, there’s a good chance you might be doing something to get in your own way. In this post I wrote for...
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5 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Unmotivated Students
Listen to this post as a podcast: When I ask teachers what their biggest struggles are, one issue comes up on a regular basis: student motivation. You are able to reach many of your students,...
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So you have a Twitter account. Now what?
Listen to an extended version of this post as a podcast: I hear it all the time: “I have a Twitter account, but I don’t really know how to use it.” I understand this thinking completely. Before I...
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Diary of a First-Year Teacher: Looking Back
This is the final installment in a year-long series of written and video diary entries by Shelby Denhof, who is letting us follow her first year of teaching. To see all entries, click here. I’m...
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What Advice Would You Give a Student Teacher?
This week, I got an email from someone who is just about to start student teaching. Feeling anxious about the semester ahead, she asked if I had any advice. I’m going to share my own thoughts here,...
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