In this article, Nancy Barile, an urban high school teacher, questions whether "grit" can solve all students' problems. She states that when she first began teaching 20 years ago, she realized almost immediately that, as an urban school teacher, she needed to encourage grit in her students. She told "gritty" anecdotes of…

Teaching soft skills (i.e., grit, empathy, collaboration, perseverance, communication, ethics, self-management) is a task that might seem overwhelming to new teachers, but this article offers practical advice from students about how to incorporate the lessons into the classroom.

Laughing with students can help them connect on a deeper level with the teacher and the learning. This article offers the following four strategies to incorporate humor into teaching: (1) Integrate humorous bits to boost engagement; (2) Choose humorous materials; (3) Create interest with humorous web tools and apps; and (4) Teach with silly…

This author has often heard teachers refer to kids as "experts" when it comes to using technology. She has found, however, that, while they may be great at navigating a new app or figuring out how to use the latest gadget, kids are not experts when it comes to properly communicating and ethically handling everything that goes along with…

At times, classroom management and guidance elude even the most seasoned teachers. Yet, students need guidance and practice in self-regulatory skills to assist in the learning that occurs in classrooms. Teachers need both practical and research-based classroom management strategies that benefit the environment and help create a space conducive to…

Using social media in education requires putting some building blocks for success in place. A strong foundation for successful use of social networking in education starts by securing parent/guardian and student agreements. Social networking provides a powerful platform for learning and connecting. Facebook is not just for sharing status updates…

The Most Hopeful Teacher in America--the author never imagined that her name would follow such a title. During her 23 years in education, the author has had the opportunity to share in spreading this hope to many students, thanks to another ripple of hope that started with a teacher's selfless act during her first year of teaching.…

This eighth-grade social studies teacher tells the story of how he began to flip his classroom so that students watched videos at home and had more time for discussion in class. He explains the benefits of this teaching approach, discusses the challenges he encountered, and describes how he solved them.

Mary Mobley teaches English and Michael Chambers teaches world history at Manor New Technology High School, a STEM school, in Manor, Texas. In this article, they talk about how they used "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins to teach their students about forms of government between World War I and World War II, and "Edutopia"…

Alfie Kohn (http://www.alfiekohn.org) writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. "Time" described him as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." He is the author of 12 books, including "The Schools Our Children Deserve, The Case…

Today there is a great deal of interest in and a lot of hype about using video games in schools. Video games are a new silver bullet. Games can create good learning because they teach in powerful ways. The theory behind game-based learning is not really new, but a traditional and well-tested approach to deep and effective learning, often…

This article is for those teachers who are perhaps feeling unprepared or overwhelmed. It invites readers to tap into some wisdom from National Board Certified Teachers and get up-to-speed with these practical tips on topics ranging from working with families to managing your classroom. The following articles are provided: (1) "Connecting with…

This paper presents a conversation with Carol Dweck, the author of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" (Random House, 2006). She serves as the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Science and is the recipient of…

The author's first teaching position was as a 4th and 5th grade teacher at a school in Philadelphia. There, she learned the Quaker value of adding silence and periods of reflection to her teaching to provide a wider range of students with the opportunity to participate in classroom discussions. Later, a focus on silence as a teaching strategy led…

An essential understanding about brain-based education is that most neuroscientists don't teach and most teachers don't do research. It's unrealistic to expect neuroscientists to reveal which classroom strategies will work best. That's not appropriate for neuroscientists, and most don't do that. Many critics could cite this as a weakness, but it's…