Diane Ankenmann's List: teaching strategies & resources

• > Edutopia blogger and MiddleWeb contributor Elena Aguilar has some summer book suggestions at her Edutopia blog — it’s a mix of professional and personal reading ideas. Teaching coach Lisa Dabbs does much the same at her blog Teaching with Soul. Of special interest are summer reading ideas suggested by folks in the new-teachers hashtag group that Lisa facilitates (#ntchat).
• > While you are online, drop by This American Life for their hour on students’ perceptions of middle school life.
• If you missed the launch of TED-Ed recently, visit the special site for educators this summer and browse the first 60+ videos featuring collaborations between teachers and animators. Soak up the ideas and learn how you can ‘flip’ the videos into your own lessons this fall. Maybe think about lessons you could submit?
• Summer may be a great time to review your use of web tools and connected learning sites and plan for the future. Writing for Edutopia, Nicholas Provenzano has suggestions to get you started. For a quick overview of how online resources can make teaching more efficient and effective, read Mary Blow’s Scholastic blog post.
• Summer can be a good time to plan or launch a blog.  At Free Technology for Teachers, Richard Byrne offers a guide to creating a blog or even a website. To see some sample blogs by teachers and school leaders, check out our list of MiddleWeb’s Favorite 4-8 Blogs.

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• importance of providing verbal and written instructions to English Language Learners, and this classroom practice works well for all learners.
• After you give instructions, teachers actually demonstrating them can go a long way towards students understanding of what they are supposed to do
• Providing explicit lessons on the importance of listening is another way to help students improve their skills
• Additionally, only say it once. Not twice. Once. After that, don't get mad if the students need a little training time to believe you mean it.
• visual note-taking is a great activity to build up those listening muscles. Read them a passage, excerpt, etc...then time them as they sketch every detail they recall. When time is up, slowly remind them of the itemized list of details they may or may not have heard. If they sketched it, they get points.
• . Tell students WHAT to listen for before you talk.
   2. Give clear expectations of how to listen
   3. Immediate, meaningful, appropriate follow-up accountability activity.
   4. Be brief!
   5. Integrate authentic listening with ongoing classroom activity
   6. Model good listening to your students
   7. Don't repeat what you say
• If the students are language learners, they will need instructions repeated, as they may not process the first time. If they are asking for re-wording, you need to rethink the vocabulary of your instructions, and scaffold potentially unknown words;

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• Transformi
• ransforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do.
• ransforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do.
• ransforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do.
• ransforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do.
• ransforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do.
• ransforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do.

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