Oct 23, 2020

Veterans Day: Thanking Veterans for Their Service

Veterans Day is coming up on November 11. It’s an opportunity to thank America’s veterans for their service and for students to learn more about veterans and their service. Below are a few ways to celebrate Veterans Day in your classroom.

Oct 16, 2020

3 Ways to Embed Digital Citizenship in Learning

As students become more fluent with technology, their skills must reach beyond merely knowing how to use devices.

Sure it’s important for students to have the basic computer skills they need as well as soft skills, such as collaboration, creativity and inquiry-driven thinking. But even that is not enough; students also need to learn how to become good digital citizens.

Oct 09, 2020

Why Grant Writing is an Important Process for Students and Teachers

I have been an educator for more than 30 years and taught all grades and subjects, including special education. I have worn many “hats” in my career, and each one is associated with a vast amount of paperwork. Yet I advocate for more paperwork and extra hours by adding another “hat”—the grant writer.

Sep 25, 2020

Current State of Creativity

With all of the changes happening to the way students learn, now is an important time for educators to consider how they’re fostering creativity. Check out the infographic below on creativity from Canva.

Sep 18, 2020

5 Reasons Why It's More Important Than Ever to Teach Creativity

On the laundry list of skills and content areas teachers have to cover, creativity doesn’t traditionally get top billing. It’s usually lumped together with other soft skills like communication and collaboration: Great to have, though not as important as reading or long division.

But research is showing that creativity isn’t just great to have. It’s an essential human skill — perhaps even an evolutionary imperative in our technology-driven world.

Sep 11, 2020

Providing Hands-on STEM Learning Experiences for All Students

This blog is the second in a series on the importance of mentoring girls and young women through a compassionate “lean-in” culture of practice. Check out the first post “Mentoring Girls and Young Women Through a Compassionate ‘Lean-In’ Culture of Practice.” This post will provide just-in-time resources to help you model how to provide access and equity to robust science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) resources for ALL students, and how to infuse hands-on STEM learning experiences throughout your subject areas and all K–12 grade-level bands.

Aug 28, 2020

Back to School Funding

Back to school may look a little different this year, but one thing hasn’t changed: teachers are still finding innovative ways to improve student learning and they need funding in order to execute their ideas. To help you fund your classroom dreams this year, we’ve compiled a list of funding opportunities for the classroom:

Aug 14, 2020

Supercharge Student Engagement with Esports

Esports is best defined as competitive video games. Games that can be considered esports require skill and are usually played in teams, though some are also single player. When on a team, esports athletes fill certain roles much like traditional sports. Teams are usually formed by students or a staff member who has an interest in gaming or simply wants to see students working together using gaming Esports is unique because it is an inclusive, coed sport and can be a way for students who cannot physically participate in traditional sports to be a part of a team and community.

Jul 31, 2020

Power Students’ Brains with Water

Students are often fascinated to learn that Earth’s water today is the same water dinosaurs gulped down 65 million years ago. Dinosaurs are extinct but the water they drank and swam in is still here.

Jul 24, 2020

Mentoring Girls and Young Women Through a Compassionate “Lean-In’” Culture of Practice

Do you remember dreaming about your career hopes, dreams, and fears as an elementary or middle school student, and how these thoughts may someday impact whom you may become when you grow up? For some of us, we can recall these memories just like they occurred yesterday. Yet for others—like myself—it has been almost five decades to reconnect the learning dots of the how and why I have landed in my science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) leadership career.

Jul 17, 2020

Our Top 5 Resources in June 2020

Each month we publish blogs and several newsletters full of digital learning, funding, professional growth, social media, and STEM resources. Below are items from our blogs and newsletters that educators turned to the most in June.

Jul 10, 2020

Crowdfunding Versus Grant Writing: What’s the Difference?

As school budgets get tighter, more and more educators are turning to crowdfunding sites, such as DonorsChoose, AdoptAClasroom, and GoFundMe, to raise much needed funds for their classrooms. But what is crowdfunding and how is it different from grant writing?

Jul 03, 2020

My Music Technology Toolbox

Children singing, drums beating, ukuleles strumming, learning rhythms and notes—to an outsider, these may seem like activities that would not require much in the way of technology. In today’s music classroom, however, there are many tech tools that help teachers communicate the art of music making to their students. Most of these tools are easy to learn, visually engaging for students, and can even streamline assessments.

Jun 26, 2020

Using Passion Projects to Teach Tech

In smaller rural schools, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education can face troublesome barriers. In our K–12 district of 730 students, we have many of the common obstacles, including limited funds, no extra faculty, and an already overloaded class schedule. These three join arms to block us from using any of the really cool programs we’d like to. Other institutions sing praises of cutting-edge programs and share their successes. Meanwhile, rural schools are trying to figure out how to educate equally deserving kids in STEM.

Jun 19, 2020

Our Top 5 Resources in May 2020

Each month we publish blogs and several newsletters full of digital learning, funding, professional growth, social media, and STEM resources. Below are items from our blogs and newsletters that educators turned to the most in May.