Resource File
This is resource file is a collection of developmental materials for first year middle and secondary education teachers built to assist them in shaping their instruction and curricular practice during their first years as professionals. In the first years teaching, it is critical for young teachers to build a sense of personal efficacy in the classroom–these resources might be a helpful place to start!
Start of School Resources
The start of the school year is a critical time for all new teachers. It is the time when you make your first impressions on the students and their parents, and the best time to set the expectations of your classroom for the rest of the year. These resources are all various tips, tools, tricks, and articles for helping teachers get the year started on the best note!
- This article is an interview with a new teacher and her thoughts on the first day as well as the future of education. The article describes her experiences as a first year
- This article emphasizes the importance of establishing expectations within a classroom on the first day, as well as other important aspects to consider before embarking on your first day of school.
- This site gives tips for back to school for teachers. It includes classroom set up, prepping for the first week, classroom management, and working with parents.
- This website offers resources to help teachers stay organized including back to school checklists, decoration ideas, letters to parents, and ideas from real teachers.
- This article from the NEA gives tips for classroom management for new teachers. Many teachers are nervous about going into new classroom and managing student behavior as well as the learning environment, but this article offers four areas to consider to establish an environment that promotes learning while being safe and structured.
Classroom Management Resources
Tips and Strategies for classroom management are always helpful for teachers who may be struggling with a particular classroom environment or specific students. This list includes a few helpful ideas for teachers who may be looking for alternative methods to try in their classroom.
- There is now a website called ClassDojo that teachers can go to for help with classroom management. It was crated by a teacher to help the behavior of his students. The website allows teachers to create avatars of each student and document their behavior, good and bad. Students and parents can view it as well to see how the students are doing and where they could improve on.
- This source provides the reader with different tips to help get a grip on classroom management. There are multiple tips on establishing classroom rules and rewards, and also gives different resources about handling bullying.
- This source provides strategies for classroom management, discussion groups, a list of books, and printouts for teachers to use. The source also gives lesson plans to teach that incorporate strategies for behavior modification and discipline.
- This source provides teachers with everything from the basics of teaching to classroom management. The source includes resources on working with parents, classroom organization, assessment, and behavior management.
- This source provides teachers with various articles, books, links, and questions and answers about classroom management.
Instructional Strategy Resources
A teacher needs to have all different types of tools in their toolbox to effectively reach the diverse learners in their classroom. Students have all different needs, and ways in which they learn so if a teacher can practice effective instructional practice, they can reach each student at all levels.
- This article discusses the fact that students are in the classroom for the majority of their childhood, and how school should not be something that they feel is required of them, but something that they are looking forward to. It should be an experience for them that benefits their growth in a variety of ways, and demonstrates some of the ways to do that.
- This article shows that the best source for instructional strategies is your colleagues. It begins by explaining the single greatest way to prepare is to have a conversation with your colleagues who have taught concepts before. It is a great article which points out other ways communication with teachers helps guide instructional practice in the classroom.
- This article from Winnetka, IL discusses the impact of a new principal of The Skokie School. Her previous experience includes the Peace Corp in Thailand, teaching in the inner city of Phoenix, and working with expelled students assigned to an alternative school. This well traveled educator is a strong believer in John Dewey’s progressive philosophy. She said, ““That is something we forget sometimes and should be in the forefront of our thinking as progressive educators. Education is about tests and, certainly, academics and high standards. But it’s also about fostering our students as good people. That is important to me.” I cannot agree more, we are not just teaching children about subjects, but to be well adjusted and rounded human beings to make a positive impact on our world.
- In Wausau, Wisconsin, middle school students are using iPads for teaching curriculum to students today. An important quote from Science teacher Tera Fieri say devices help them streamline communications with students, give quick feedback on work, and overall help students get excited about learning. However, “The iPad is not a tool, not a teaching strategy. The use of technology has to work as part of a teaching strategy.” Young teachers today need to fully realize that lesson. We have great technology, but one must know how to use it in order to inspire and motivate young people.
- This website provides information on multiple intelligences and how to utilize them in the classroom. There is a fun quiz on the first page that will help determine how you learn best and the “implementation” tab has some great ideas.
Working with Parents/ Families
Parents and families are an important resource for the classroom. Teachers need many tools for encouraging parent involvement, while knowing also how to empathize with parent who may be frustrated with their child’s progress in a particular area of study. Below are a number of resources to aide teachers in talking with parents.
- This article is specifically about how to work with parents who may feel frustrated with something happening in the classroom. It offers situational tips for calming the parent and developing action steps to maintain the best interest of the student.
- This article describes the unique transition parents also have to go through as their children move through their K-12 education. A parent may experience significant anxiety on behalf of their child but these tips can help. This is a great resource for “helicopter” parents who may be struggling with the transition a little bit more than their child.
- This is a CNN article that reviews a recent Anti-Bullying campaign aimed at parents. The creator draws upon his past experiences to create a empathetic display of adults bullying other adults in an attempt to evoke parents to address and repress their child’s urge to bully.
- This article addresses the importance of involving family and community in schools, and also how to get them more involved, why they aren’t previously involved, and the benefits of involving the entire community.
- This article discusses schools new tactics to attempt to get students to attend school more frequently. Schools have begun to offer students large prizes such as cash and cars for showing up to school. They have also done a number of competitions for students who show up. In addition to this, they have asked that parents make their children go to school for at least the first part of the day if they have a mild cold. If students take trips with their families during school, the schools have asked that the families supply the 30-50 dollars of lost funding per day.
Community/Informal Learning/Guest Speaker Resources
Sometimes being in outside resource, or creating an informal learning opportunity is the best way to engage students and help them to make connections to real world situations. These resources can help teachers to find ways to bring in outside help to aide student learning.
- Through informal learning, talking about social issues can become an easier mountain for many students to climb, especially in regard to topics like bullying. If you notice a need in your school, this is website which describes a Challenge day, where students take place in Educational workshops on Bullying.
- This article describes a school in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the Sheriff’s office has announced plans to expand the Drug Abuse and Resistance Education Program to county middle schools starting this year. Six graders will receive ten lessons during the six week program taught during health and PE classes during the Spring. A follow-up instructional class will be taught for 8th graders. The goal of the program is to teach knowledge based effects of drug abuse, build decision making and problem solving skills, and provide alternative to drug use.
- This helpful new letter keeps teachers up to date on the latest and greatest at the Indiana State Museum: a great field trip opportunity for all students where they can engage in cross disciplinary study.
- This article offers tips on how to find appropriate guest speakers for a class and informing them on what they need to know before they come in to your class. Also it discusses methods for building student interest in the speaker up until the day they speak in your class.
- This website is a link to a great guest speaker for an entire school assembly situation. I have personally watched and been a part of a few of his motivational speeches and they are amazing! Bringing him in to a school is one of the best ways to begin to build a community of learners.
Professional Association Resources
Because teaching is inherently a research practice, teachers are always evaluating they ways in which their practices are successful or unsuccessful. These resource are all associations or ways for teachers to continue their professional development to become the best teachers they can be.
- This website offers both publications and workshops for assisting teachers with leadership, research, and policy making. It seeks to advance education to improve student learning and the teaching profession.
- This website offers initiatives for teachers and leaders in education to help prepare them for the challenge of the 21st century through their “Four C” approach of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
- The Association of American Educators is the largest national non-union professional educators organization. This organization works to advance the profession of education by offering a modern approach to teacher representation and education advocacy.
- The National Education Association is the nations largest professional employee organization committed to public education. The NEA offers resources for lesson planning, curriculum design, classroom management and a whole host of other resources to all teachers, administrators, and education professionals
- Each content area typically has its own professional organization. Here I have included the one for science, both nationally and in Indiana. These resources help teachers in content areas by providing them with links to best practices, and additional resources for their particular classrooms.
Lesson Plan Resources
Lesson planning is one of the most important duties of a teacher. The more time a teachers spends planning for instruction, the better the students will be able to handle the lesson. These are great resources for effective lesson planning and planning for instruction for all teachers.
- Sometimes teachers find that the lessons they plan are completely overrun by the agenda of the students who do not want to pay attention. This article offers tips on how to engage students in lesson planning and keeping them on task
- This article offers strategies for effective lesson planning including steps in lesson planning, presenting the lesson, and reflecting on the lesson after it is completed.
- This website includes tips on how to formulate learning objectives in a lesson plan as well as how to determine the measurable outcomes of a particular lesson and objectives in your classroom.
- This article while about teaching adult literacy actually provides a great fact sheet for effective lesson planning, as well as a whole host of other tools and tips in lesson planning and assessment.
- This is a link to an actual text book with great support for teachers, it offers methods for planning for learning and effective teaching practice with focuses on long-term lesson planning and integrated curriculum.
Diversity/Learning for all students/Special Ed/ELL/ESL Resources
Classrooms are a wonderful place to embrace both diversity and similarity, that being said, teachers need to be prepared for ways in which they can work with students and parents of diverse backgrounds to create a learning environment where all students feel excepted and safe in taking risks in learning.
- This article discusses the merits of the emergent trend of Global Learning as a way to connect students and facilitate education. It gives two examples of where and how this concept has been implemented–specifically in higher education and in middle level learning. I think this would be a unique technique to use in a classroom as it would foster the embrace of diverse learning experiences across cultural and national boundaries.
- This article describes the issues with the current assessments we have in place for ELL students. It elucidates that assessments do not determine if the students have a lack of knowledge or a lack of English proficiency, and assessments aren’t responsive to differences in students’ levels of fluency. This article also offers information on how new technologies, including computer-adaptive assessment, and accommodated virtual performance assessments, can improve ELL students achievement.
- In this article, Flannery describes methods for increasing ELL parent involvement in the classroom. Centered around the idea that teachers, parents, students, and schools represent a team, the article offers different “invitations” for teachers to extend to ELL parents. These creative methods offer teachers unique ways to go beyond just calling or having a translator in the room at a parent teacher conference– although both of those can serve important functions to get in contact with ELL parents.
- This article uses real case studies to document and demonstrate ways in which schools can engage ELL parents as resources in the classroom. The article specifically tackles ELL parent’s views of literacy as well as parent to child and parent to school interactions which will contribute to school success. As a future educator, this article provides specific stories reflecting the views of real ELL parents and engagement strategies which would have been most effective in these two cases and cases like these.
- This article provides information for practicing educators regarding ways to overcome the barriers in place for the parents of ELL students. The article elucidates various obstacles to these parents which all result in parents having few or no opportunities for collaboration with and in their child’s school. The authors then move to describe and recommend specific policy innovations for districts. It is acknowledged that schools may need to introduce these new methods gradually because if implemented too quickly they may fail from lack of appropriate resources to maintain them. As a future educator I would feel comfortable referencing this article because the authors outline (in detail) 10 critical ways to increase parental involvement validated by scholarly research.
Content Area Resources
My content area is Biology, so the links below are specific to science and include resources which will be most helpful in my classroom for preparing students in science.
- This article explains all the ways Bill Gates makes contributions to informal learning in this country. He has made numerous large contributions to Khan Academy, Quest2Learn, and Institute of Play which all help students learn in a very informal environment. It discusses the power of educational video games, which Gates has also aided. Interesting is the effectiveness of sites like Khan Academy, whose videos have started to replace in-class lectures in some cases for more personalized class time.
- This website has worksheets for pretty much every topic you’d have to cover in a basic high school physics course. Worksheets like this might not be the most student focused form of instruction, however they would be a good check for understanding or possibly a test review for students. The website says that all of these resources are free to teachers.
- This website has a bunch of quick physics demos that you could use to quickly introduce a new topic. This demonstrations are also unique because they allow you to have students make predictions before you perform the demonstration based on what they already know. Then you can ask them why what they predicted was correct or incorrect, and then with high school age students, you can get deeper into the science of what is physically going.
- The National Science Digital Library is an amazing resource for all classrooms! It has anything from curriculum planning to resources for bilingual learners to standards. I would definitely say go “poke around” this site for a bit and see what you find to aid your lesson planning!
- This is a great resource for building lessons around Earth and environmental science, and they will come out and do lessons with your students for the day for FREE!
- This last resource is a link to the National Science Library, it is a great resource for directing further student inquiry and even aiding lessons with real world problems and solutions. This website also has links to funding and support for science eduction.
All Posts, ED 327 Curriculum and Instructional Strategies for Middle Level Learners, Resources, Standard #5: Innovative Applications of Content., Standard #6: Assessment, Standard #7: Planning for Instruction., Standard #8: Instructional Strategies., Standard 3: Inquiry, Standard 6: Curriculum, Standard 7: Science in the Community, Standard 8: Assessment
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