Finding Balance as a Teacher

Teachers are asked to do everything. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING. We are asked to create not only meaningful and rewarding learning experiences for all students, but make them all fun and engaging as well. We are asked to prepare students for career readiness, to be more compassionate and understanding than the average human being, to be perfect and never fail, to prepare students to pass standardized tests, and to develop ourselves professionally - doing all these things while still doing the work of living as a person outside of work. Where’s the balance for teachers?

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Empowering students through skillful questioning techniques

One of the most important ways teachers can assess whether their student knows the content they have been teaching, understands the directions they have laid out, or can help to clarify confusion is by asking questions. Asking questions is arguably one of the most used teacher strategies, because, let's face it: questioning is really at the heart of learning. However, not all questions are created equal. There are rules to the questions we ask.

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Three Awesome Alternatives to Kahoot!

We have always loved using Kahoot! to help gamify our curriculum for our students, especially at the end of a unit to help support the review of the content we have taught. We also love using Kahoot! as a way for students to review the content for up and coming history tests.

This year we branched out and tried some different websites to gamify our curriculum. If you have been stuck in a Kahoot rut, fear not, dear teacher friends. We have a list of other delightful websites to try.


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How to Read More Books Throughout the Year

So, you have decided to up your reading game. That is awesome! There is nothing more satisfying than finishing a great book. What if I told you, you could read over 100 books a year, and still have time for more! I promise, with my tried and true strategies you will be cruising through your book stacks in no time.

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The Teaching Distillery