Smart Teachers
Smart Teachers is for celebrating the work of powerful educators working to innovate classrooms and provide high-quality learning experiences.
Personalized Learning
How to Build Community Leaders of Today—and Tomorrow—Through Student Genius Hours
By: Jen Schneider. Genius Hour means students use at least one hour of their class time each week to explore their own questions, create projects and share with others. Here's how implementing it in my classroom turned it into a community.
Post-Secondary
Creating Change-Agents: The Intersection of Critical Thinking and Student Agency
By: Jenny Pieratt. As educators, we know that in order to develop the next generation with the skills to innovate and improve our world we can no longer teach students what to think. We must teach them how to think.
SEL & Mindset
Creating a Mindful Classroom Environment
A special ed teacher and yoga instructor shares the importance of being mindful in the classroom and provides strategies to reduce stress for both student and teachers.
Future of Learning
Teaching Students To Ask Questions For 21st Century Success
As educators, we must teach students skills to solve problems we’ve never seen before and won’t see for years. Teaching students to ask questions enables them to gain many of the skills they'll need for success in the 21st Century.
EdTech
4 Tips to Ensure Teachers Use The EdTech You Purchase
By: Andrea Friend and Stacey Ryan. Here are four tips to ensure your newest edtech purchase is something educators can and actually will use in the classroom this year.
SEL & Mindset
Creating Positive Learning Environments for a New School Year
Nothing is more crucial than creating a positive learning environment where respect and all of its verbal disciples are always present. So as we embark on a new school year, let’s review what R.E.S.P.E.C.T. looks like in a successful classroom means.
Place Based Education
Smart Review | Is There PBE In Your Water?
Teacher and parent Andrew Larson takes advantage of his family's vacation to do a fun product review and get in some place-based education practice that could benefit his biology classroom.
EdTech
Parent-Teacher Communication in a Multilingual School District
By: Dr. Melanie Morgan. With the growth of ELL students in the classroom on a steady rise, today’s teachers need to be prepared to communicate with ELL students and their parents. Here are a few options I've found helpful in my own classroom.
EdTech
Smart Review | An Epic! Review From a Teacher and Parent
Whether for classroom or home use (or ideally a combination of both) the Epic! digital library is an excellent place for students, teachers and families to explore and grow a love of reading together.
SEL & Mindset
Design Thinking: Teaching the Importance of Empathy in Business
By: Mary Ruskey and Lori Aument. After learning about Design Thinking, we thought the method would naturally fit into the curriculum for the business course we teach to 10th and 11th graders. Here, we reflect on our results after two years.