Teacher Hack Expert Blog

The go-to tasks that we as teachers have in our tool box are typically worksheets.  It’s understandable.  They are usually the resource that our textbooks reference, the next thing for our student to do.   They are low prep - in most cases we just need to make copies and distribute them to our students.   Did you know you can take these worksheets and use them to amp up the student engagement in class?  Here’s how I learned just how to make this a reality within my own classroom.  I attended a professional development that was being offered by my school district to meet the required hours needed before the start of the upcoming school year.  To my surprise, this PD experience was one of the most enjoyable learning opportunities I had in the 15 years I’d been in education.   One of the sessions that was most interesting was about game-ifying math worksheets.  It was so fun!  The teacher presenter referenced the book Boredom...

A recent buzz phrase in education is student engagement.  And of course there are many different ways we as teachers can engage our students.  Before we discuss how, let’s first define engagement.   What is engagement?  In the article How teachers can supercharge student engagement in the classroom ,  John Hattie states “too often, engagement is seen in terms of ‘doing’ - are the students doing the work? Are they completing it? Schools are busy places with lots of activities, assignments, and assessments - doing, doing, doing.  But in a lot of ‘doing’ there can be little learning.”  So then, how do we increase student engagement? He goes on to say, “instead, we need to think of engagement as being turned onto the challenge of learning.  Like when playing video games, being clear about what success means, providing feedback to move students from where they are to where they need to be, rewarding the attainment of success with even challenging ...

Have you reached that point where you’re OVER being asked a million times to go to the restroom every class period? Would you rather do without the same kids going and staying gone for longer than they should and missing out on valuable class time? With the back to school season upon us, I’m going to share how using restroom passes paired with the use of a tracking log from my TpT store positively impacts my classroom management system and how I use them in my class. Why Restroom Passes? If classroom management is a top priority for you, which I think it should be because without a well-managed class, it’s nearly impossible for any teaching or learning to take place. Sure, you’ll have those students who are wise enough to know on their own that it’s better for them and their grades to take care of their personal needs before or after your class. How many of these kids do we really have - maybe a handful? On the flip side though, I’m sure you have plenty of students who take advantag...

Depending on where you are in the world, you may be in the back to school mindset as school may resume within a short amount of time for you. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve been reflecting on what all went well and maybe not so well last school year. But before you go down what could be a never ending rabbit hole, there are 3 DON’TS to be mindful of when it comes to back to school teaching strategies. 1. DON’T Try to Make Too Many Changes at One Time Having a growth mindset is critical as a classroom teacher. If you have multiple classes in a day, each one is different, just as each school year is not like any other. Wanting to be better is why we’re great at what we do. But sometimes we can make the mistake of changing too many things at one time. If we do so, we make things a lot harder on ourselves. Teaching is already challenging, and adding too many self-imposed changes will only make it worse. What I suggest is making a t-chart where in one column you list out what...