Articles First Weeks of School

My Approach to Virtual Kindergarten

Last spring, when terms like global pandemic, virus, hybrid-, distance-, synchronous-, and asynchronous-learning first became a regular part of educators’ vernacular and most educators across the country were thrown into unfamiliar territory,…
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NOV

12

How Responsive Classroom Practices Can Act as the Glue for a Virtual Classroom

Ever since March 23, 2020, when the school where I work, Steel City Academy, transitioned to virtual learning, I’ve found myself constantly asking what education will look like moving forward. This school…
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28

Taking Risks for Our Students

The excitement of a new school year generally greets me in a place of confident anticipation. Like the edge pieces of a newly begun jigsaw puzzle, cherished September routines provide a familiar…
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22

Using Interactive Modeling to Create Consistency in a Changeable Situation

As they step into the 2020-21 school year, teachers across the country are facing a wholly unique set of challenges brought on by the novel coronavirus, including the question of how best…
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Creating Space for Students to Discuss Social Issues

Along with new structures and strategies teachers are employing in response to the multitude of changes to their teaching environments, the beginning of this school year is defined by the conversations across…
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23

Running on Empty? You Need a “Refill Station”

This spring, many educators and administrators experienced working from home for the first time. We were teaching, leading, and planning in the same spaces where we cook, clean, parent children, care for…
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JAN

01

Goal Setting: An Ongoing Method for Channeling New Energy

Every January 1st, we all receive a chance to start fresh. While many of us set a New Year’s resolution, often we only manage to stick with it for a week or two! What…
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DEC

16

Use Envisioning Language and Goal Setting to Promote Student Reflection

Showing Students What Is Possible The language we use with students every day influences how they see themselves. Our words can shape students’ views of themselves years after our direct influence. Envisioning…
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OCT

21

What to Do When Students Start Testing Limits

The school year is in full swing: hopes and goals have been established, classroom and school expectations are in place, and learning is in high gear. Everything is off to a great…
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Creating a Place for Learning

We all can think of stores that felt inviting and organized, places that created the optimal shopping experience. Classrooms, like stores, can be places where we frequently want to spend our time,…
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05

Preparing Students to Become Independent Learners using Routines & Procedures

It’s the start of a new year! Day one is either right around the corner or has just recently taken place. The beginning of the year is filled with so many fresh…
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03

Setting Goals, Hopes, and Dreams: Connecting Students to the Community

Watching a student show up to school each day excited to learn is one of the great joys of teaching. We give our students that spark when we help them figure out…
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31

Establishing Balance at the Start of the School Year

Summer’s adventures and excursions are dwindling, and your email inbox is filling up with welcome back notifications, professional growth opportunities, new initiatives, and meetings. These clear signs that a new school year…
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10

Relax, Reflect, Recalibrate

It’s the middle of the summer, another school year is successfully in the books, and preparations for the new school year are not quite in full swing. Now — while you’re hopefully…
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MAR

07

Clearing the Way for New Growth

Recently I was in a school conducting observations, and I noticed that all of the classrooms were picture-perfect. The decorations on the walls looked like an advertisement for a teacher store, and…
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DEC

06

Responding to Misbehavior with Empathy

Taking proactive steps to build a strong learning community, with practices like positive teacher language, interactive modeling, and investing students in rules through Hopes and Dreams, does a lot to prevent misbehavior…
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26

What Are Your Hopes?

As we prepare for our upcoming Teachers and Leadership Conferences, we’ve been thinking a lot about hope. Students’ hopes and dreams are, of course, an integral part of the beginning of the…
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JUN

20

This Room Was Made for You and Me

Children need a classroom environment they can understand and trust. They need to understand the routines and to know where to find things, they need uncluttered spaces to do their work, and…
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FEB

08

Teaching Students to Speak Confidently

“As their teachers, we hold in our hearts our own hopes and dreams for [our students]. We want them to engage in academic rigor and to be ideamongers who contribute to classroom…
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AUG

2017

Starting the Year Off with Joy

Each of these practices promotes active teaching over direct teaching: Rather than education being a one-way street in which a teacher lectures, learning becomes a collaboration between teacher and students. And if…
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20

2017

Getting Started with Responsive Classroom

No matter where in the year you are, when you’re feeling ready to start using the Responsive Classroom approach, that’s the right time to begin! But where do you start? “It’s all…
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JAN

2017

Revisiting Classroom Rules

How often do you revisit classroom rules? Most teachers establish rules at the beginning of the year, and many devote time to modeling and practicing rules with students in the first weeks…
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OCT

05

2016

Self-Assessment and Goal Setting Go Hand in Hand

When built into daily schoolwork, goal-focused self-assessment fosters academic achievement by helping students develop lifelong skills.
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29

2015

Our Hopes and Dreams for School

Inviting students to name learning goals (hopes and dreams) right away shows them that school is a safe place, that they’re important members of the classroom, and that they can look forward…
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01

2015

Music Class Rules

I’d been teaching for over 30 years and felt pretty comfortable with the way I managed my music classes. But a few years ago, I took a Responsive Classroom workshop, and it…
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