After presenting a teaching strategy workshop in Farmington, NH, I was contacted by Sarah Manter, one of the teachers who attended my program, with a question. During the program, I talked about how some teachers use blow-up beach balls with just a little air in them for their most fidgety students. Sarah asked if I had any ideas to deal with the squeaking noises that her secondary students were making when sitting on the balls.
Using goal setting as a tool in your teaching strategies tool kit is a powerful planning process for empowering and motivating students to take control of their progress and work toward something in which they are invested.
Incorporating visuals into an RTI strategy can help all students learn better. When teachers add visual learning strategies to what they are teaching, student recall improves.
I encourage the use of rubrics because of all the benefits research on their use as teaching strategies indicates. That said, I also encourage the use of quick, one minute, assessments (exit tickets, etc.) on a daily basis.
Is "collecting" information a worthwhile endeavor during valuable classroom time? It seems the answer to that question lies in a teacher's ability to discern exactly what type of curation meets the educational objectives of the lesson. We have to look at the process of implementing technology in education as a value added activity that goes beyond collecting and classifying information under certain themes or topics.