We now have so many unique teaching styles and strategies for effectively communicating curricular content to your kids, including teacher-centered, student-centered, self-paced, competency-based, and even inquiry-based models among others. Then, there is culturally responsive teaching, which involves shifting instruction and language for kids from different cultures.
When educators can work to simultaneously engage their students’ heads, hearts, and hands in projects—something they could really accelerate with MakerEd tools—they often develop vital SEL skills more quickly while also preparing for future careers. So, what are these key social-emotional skills and what are some of the ways in which educators can teach them?
KidCitizen is an online resource that students can use to watch informative videos and episodes about political events, news, and also history. It helps them become more informed and interested in crucial political happenings as well as helping to spark ideas for how they can share their voices. Keep reading to learn more about using KidCitizen in the classroom.
After it launched, it did not take long for the Do Ink app to generate interest among creative teenagers, who loved using it for creating all sorts of digital artwork. From there, it permeated the education space when many of them introduced it to their teachers. The rest is history as these Do Ink animation and drawing apps quickly grew into tools that kids now use all the time.
The skills kids acquire through hands-on STEM activities can help prepare them to show resilience or emotional intelligence when they face adversity as well as helping them learn to navigate modern-day challenges. Dr. Pam Davis founded pop-up makerspace company, Wellbotics, and learned this early on. Here, she talks SEL, social justice, embodied learning, and more.
With AI tools like ChatGPT expanding in popularity, many teachers are now worried about their potential use as a plagiarism tool. One educator who is keeping an eye on that very issue is Daniel Sabol, a teacher and a librarian who’s passionate about teaching all students to properly use and cite their sources. Here’s his tips for detecting plagiarism with the Turnitin platform.
For Autism Acceptance Month, we are excited to talk about Floreo. The VR lessons in this app can help autistic and neurodiverse students to rehearse before entering new or uncomfortable social situations, prepare for dealing with overstimulating environments, and with navigating unexpected events that occur with lessons from autistic self-advocates and experts in ASD.
Through project-based learning, children get to see concepts in action and build up a bigger variety of vital SEL skills like teamwork and responsibility. Science teacher Jeremy Jorgensen knows all about these benefits. For this new Teacher Talk feature, we discussed how he incorporates PBL activities in the classroom and the skills kids develop from hands-on experiences.
These days, kids gravitate towards the most engaging content and Buncee is an accessible, easy to integrate, and engaging platform for any students or educators to demonstrate their creativity and their content development skills. Even school and district administrators can use Buncee to create or enhance content for web pages or to distribute at community events!
In afterschool programs, educators enjoy more freedom to introduce ideas they might not have time to work into a regular lesson plan. For our newest Teacher Talk, I chatted with Mallory Davis, a curriculum director who works with afterschool programs. We had a wonderful conversation about how to integrate STEAM and SEL and the benefits of afterschool STEM education.
