The Blog

If your classroom management routine isn’t working well for you, rethinking  your space may make a huge difference.  And, even if management isn’t an issue for you, it’s good to stop mid-year,  step back and view your space anew as you consider these top five markers of supportive classroom environments:

With just a few intentional shifts, entrance and exit tickets can become powerful tools for real-time instructional decisions. When used well, they help you teach responsively and strategically—without adding more stress to your day. Here are four practical ways to make entrance and exit tickets truly work for both you and your students.

3 Smart Shifts for More Purposeful Peer Dialogue

6 Low-Cost, Low-Stress, Family Events Your Community Will Love

Suspensions are a big problem.This challenging reality underscores why it's crucial for educators and administrators to delve into the complexities of student suspensions and collaborate on effective solutions, especially when the current situation feels overwhelming.

Across the country, schools are making a powerful shift from punitive discipline to restorative practices and the results are transformative. Research shows that schools using restorative approaches see fewer behavioral issues, stronger relationships, and improved school climate. But the true power of this shift lies in what students are learning: how to communicate, resolve conflicts, build empathy, and take ownership of their actions.

The first 30 days of school set the tone for the entire year. While lesson planning and classroom setup are crucial, building strong student relationships might be your most powerful tool for classroom success. Research consistently shows that when students feel connected to their teachers, behavioral issues decrease and engagement soars.

One of the challenges facing educators today is ensuring that all students are active participants in the learning process. We do that through engaging hands-on activities, as well as through thoughtful class discussions. But, what do you do when you call on a student - even one with a hand raised - and you get one of these responses: “I forgot.” “I don’t know.” “Um.” No child learns by opting out! 

Creating effective classroom behavior expectations can feel overwhelming. While most educators understand the importance of solid classroom management, establishing rules that actually work requires a strategic approach. Here are six proven steps to transform your classroom management experience.

Student behavior is one of the most pressing challenges faced by schools and youth-serving organizations today. From preschoolers to high school seniors, behavior concerns can disrupt learning, overwhelm staff, and prevent students from reaching their full potential.

Let’s face it. Recruiting, hiring, on-boarding, and training new teachers is time consuming, expensive, and exhausting. Schools with a high turnover rate struggle to maintain a healthy culture. Additionally, the inconsistency in staff leads to gaps in programming, curriculum, and common language and understanding across the building. Teacher retention should be at the top of our to-do list as educational leaders. To help you achieve this goal, we’ve put together some top tips

I’ve listed four books below that I believe address some of the biggest struggles I’ve seen in the areas of social emotional learning this year. From student apathy to educator burnout, these are great resources for creating positive change!  

Conflict resolution is an important skill to teach students. It’s important to teach children how to communicate effectively, how to problem solve, and how to manage their emotions when they have a disagreement. There are many strategies that can help with this. One strategy is to have students brainstorm a list of conflict resolution steps. This can help them become aware of the options they have when they are dealing with a disagreement.

Employability skills are a set of skills outside of technical or academic competencies that are considered imperative to being a successful employee and team member. In an effort to ensure these skills are integrated into academic settings, the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) has arranged these competencies into four categories: mindsets, work ethic, learning strategies, and social emotional learning.

Employability skills are a set of skills outside of technical or academic competencies that are desired by potential employers and considered imperative to being a successful employee and team member. This set of skills might include things like: communication, teamwork, initiative, problem solving, planning and organizing, self-management, and more. You may have heard them referred to as “soft-skills.”

We are living through an incredible time of physical and emotional disconnection. Despite technological advances created to keep us connected, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. We’ve seen it happening for years as smartphones become the focus at dinners, video games trump family game nights, texting takes the place of phone calls, and emojis replace the use of words.

One of the enormous challenges of being a teacher is dealing with student misbehavior. It affects not only the teacher and the student involved, but the whole class as well. The goal of behavior management is to promote a positive classroom environment conducive to learning for all students. Provided below is a list of behavior management strategies that teachers can use to keep the classroom in order. Classroom management and relationship building Classroom management is of

Classroom management is the process of making sure that lessons run smoothly despite disruptive behavior by students. It is the series of actions that teachers do to create a successful learning environment. For many teachers, it is one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. In fact, some teachers leave the profession because they find it hard to manage classrooms. Professional development aims to help educators by teaching them classroom management strategies.