Greetings from the Learning Bridges Team!
We want to provide YOU with FREE resources
and focus on special opportunities that might be helpful for your school improvement efforts.
We invite you to print the resources
that you can use in your classroom or school. We also hope you will share the newsletter
with your colleagues so that they might also receive the FREE resources. When it
is possible, we will connect the resources to your
state's content standards - whether those are
research-based instructional strategies/interventions or parent
activities.
We will feature one of the powerful online courses, an instructor, and a teaching
resource - all connected to your state standards and assessments.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
When you try an instructional strategy, share a parent activity with parents, complete
online professional development, or use one of the teaching resources, we hope you
will come back and share your
thoughts with us online. Read what other teachers have said, too!
We invite you to join our team as a Bridge to a New Way of Teaching and Learning!
Greetings from the Learning Bridges Team!
Spring is a time for planting and planning! This month we have new ideas for plantingand an incredible opportunity for planning! LET US INVEST IN YOUR SCHOOL by joining McREL and Learning Bridges in an Institute of EducationSciences (IES) Grant to:
- Evaluate the impact of Learning Bridges on student achievement
- Contribute to the empirical knowledge base on the characteristics of effective professional development
For more information on how you can participate in the IES Grant project at NO COST to your district, click here.
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Featured Online Class - EDCI 606V1 Reading For English Language Learners - Part 1
Reading For English Language Learners - Part 1 (EDCI 606V1)
This four-module class is designed to help mainstream teachers provide more effective reading/language arts instruction for their students who are learning English as a second language. In this series of courses, teachers will examine research and theoretical perspectives on English language learning, see models of effective practice, apply best practice strategies in their classrooms, and reflect on the outcomes.
The first class will focus on students in the silent/receptive stage of language acquisition. Participants will learn characteristics of students in this stage, appropriate learning goals, and instructional strategies.
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FREE Instructional Strategy - Mathematics: Algebra I
Standard: Students determine a solution is complete and move beyond a particular problem by generalizing to other situations.
Deductive reasoning is one of the two basic forms of valid reasoning. While inductive reasoning argues from the particular to the general, deductive reasoning argues from the general to a specific instance. The basic idea is that if something is true of a class of things in general, this truth applies to all legitimate members of that class. The key, then, is to be able to properly identify members of the class. Miscategorizing will result in invalid conclusions.
When students can master valid reasoning skills, they can use them to test their conjectures (or speculations about a solution) to justify their solutions in algebra.
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FREE Parent Activity - Mathematics - Number Sense - Grade 4
Standard: Number Sense: Grade 4 - Students understand the place value of whole numbers and decimals to two decimal places and how whole numbers and decimals relate to simple fractions. Students use the concepts of negative numbers.
There are many opportunities in daily family life where children can experience dividing into equal parts. We've all seen the peanut butter sandwich commercial with two boys. One gets to divide the sandwich; one gets to choose first.
What are other experiences and activities that we can engage children in to understand the concept of a unit and its division into equal parts?
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Featured Instructor - Ann Davis
Hello all, I am Ann Davis, and I received my BA in English/Education and Nutrition and my Masters in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. Later, I completed another Masters in Human and Organizational Development and a PhD in Human and Organizational Systems with a concentration in Transformative Learning for Social Justice at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. I was a middle and high school teacher for 6th through 12th grades for seven years; then a college instructor for six years and coordinator of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Division before becoming a global educator, teacher trainer, professional speaker, author, and entrepreneur both here in the USA and abroad. As a lifelong learner, I have a multitude of talents, expertise and experiences teaching and learning alongside students and adults.
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Featured Teaching Resource - Managing Unmanageable Students
Managing Unmanageable Students
Practical Solutions for Administrators
Elaine K. McEwan
Some special features of the book include:
- Top 10 student behavior problems and how to respond
- 50 things you can do tomorrow to improve student behavior
- Easy-to-use functional behavior assessment plans that work
- Ready-to-use forms to observe and document student behavior
- A library of valuable resources for principals, teachers, and parents
- Proven sample behavior plans
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Discussion Topic - What do YOU think?
High schools everywhere are attempting to keep kids in school long enough to graduate. The students themselves have been blamed, poverty has been blamed, teachers have been blamed, the curriculum has been blamed, families have been blamed, and the list goes on.
TODAY, you have been given the power to do ONE thing in your school that would decrease the DROPOUT RATE in your high school! If you were given that power, what would you do and why do YOU think it would make the most difference?
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