Blog

All Blogs List

4 Steps to Promote Care in the Classroom

By Phil Kitchel posted 2 days ago
A few years ago, I transitioned from teaching elementary students to being in a middle school setting. I had to overcome many challenges with this move; however, the most difficult task proved to be with discipline. Going ...

Lumio and Canva: A Dream Team

By Phil Kitchel posted 2 days ago
Let’s explore two of my favorite edtech tools, Lumio and Canva EDU, and see how they can be combined to create educational magic. I’ll explain what each tool does first. Canva EDU Back in 2014, when I first started ...
 
Teaching Excellence ClassroomManagement

Teacher Liability Insurance Is Free for KDP Members

By Phil Kitchel posted 8 days ago
Miss Montel was excited about her 4 th -grade class’s visit to the zoo—her first field trip!—and so were her students. She was a little nervous, but she had experienced support from her teaching assistant and two parents. ...

3 Types of Reflection to Enhance and Improve Your Teaching

By Phil Kitchel posted 9 days ago
During your teacher preparation program, you were probably introduced to the term reflection . It’s not a new concept in education; it’s been researched and investigated since the advent of teacher preparation programs (Schön, ...

A Message of Hope

By Phil Kitchel posted 13 days ago
On a Friday afternoon in October 2019, I received a text message from Ramos (pseudonym used in my study), one of my research participants, while waiting at a tire rotation service. The message says: “Dr. Pu, you should check ...

Mothers' and Fathers' Day May Be Different During the Pandemic

By Phil Kitchel posted 15 days ago
For many students, Mothers' and Fathers' Day will be different this year. It’s been estimated that more than 167,000 U.S. children have lost a parent or caregiver to Covid since the beginning of the pandemic. Mothers' ...

Celebrate Your “Why” to Teaching!

By Phil Kitchel posted 16 days ago
4 Strategies to Motivate and Encourage Beginning Teachers Do you ever think about why you decided to teach in the first place? Each day is a new day, and remembering your first motivation to become a teacher ...

Understanding and Empathy for Traumatized Children

By Phil Kitchel posted 17 days ago
Today’s blogger is Erinn Kate Larsen, an Intervention Specialist at a middle school in Ohio. Her article with Shawn DiNarda Watters, “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma-Informed Schools,” appears in the April 2022 issue ...

5 Tips for Maximizing Technology Use in Your Classroom

By Phil Kitchel posted 23 days ago
Technology is a powerful tool for promoting teaching and learning at any grade level. However, like other educational tools, teachers can use technology inappropriately. What questions should teachers ask themselves as they ...

“He did what?!” 6 Tips to Heading Off an Aggressive Meltdown

By Phil Kitchel posted 29 days ago
Bobby walked into my class, a student I will never forget. He had long hair and didn’t look me in the face. He didn’t say hello; he didn’t say good morning; he simply walked in, picked a chair in the shadows at the back ...

Tapping In: Strategies for New Teachers Working With At-Risk Students

By Phil Kitchel posted 04-12-2022
Teaching in an urban setting can offer a diverse range of valuable practices and perspectives, and new teachers who begin working in urban areas are twice as likely to be assigned to high-poverty, low-performing schools as ...

Teaching About January 6 During the Banning of Critical Race Theory

By Phil Kitchel posted 04-08-2022
Today’s bloggers are Carl A. Grant and Paul D. Grant. Their article, “A Failure to Educate: January 6, 2021, and the Banality of Evil,” is in the current issue of The Educational Forum . It is available free for the month ...

5 Strategies to Motivate Boys to Want to Read

By Phil Kitchel posted 03-29-2022
“He’s a boy. He doesn’t like to read.” I cannot count how many times I have heard this statement, or something similar. Research reveals that girls outperform boys on reading achievement tests. For example, the National ...

Staying When the World Tells You to Go

By Raevyn Harris posted 03-28-2022
By Lindsey Acton, KDP Director of New Teacher Member Experience I went to dinner with some friends last night—some who are teachers and some who are not, but all who are supporters of my husband and me, and therefore ...
 
Teaching Excellence FirstYearTeachers

Supporting Anxiety and Secondary Trauma for Teachers

By Phil Kitchel posted 03-22-2022
Teachers, particularly those working in schools in high poverty areas, are often faced with situations that affect job expectations. The COVID-19 pandemic required teachers to plan and prepare instruction quickly to help ...

Can Relationships Work Miracles in a Time of Crisis?

By Phil Kitchel posted 03-15-2022
Relationships bind us as humans. They motivate us to be our best selves and often allow us to see even greater possibilities. Alone we may accomplish what we set out to do, but together we can accomplish even more. But educators ...

Teaching About “Home” Is Culturally Responsive Teaching

By Community Manager posted 03-08-2022
What do you think of when you hear the word “home”? Most people equate “home” with a traditional house on its own plot of land, owned by the occupants: the proverbial American Dream. But “home” has a much broader meaning ...

Fill the STEM Pipeline by Draining the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Black Students in Majority-White Schools

By Community Manager posted 03-07-2022
The science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline is too narrow because it lacks racial diversity. Black workers make up just 9 percent of the STEM workforce, despite making up over 13 percent of the population. ...

Teachers as Activists

By Community Manager posted 03-03-2022
During my career as a high school English teacher in North Carolina, I directed most of my energy toward daily classroom work with students. Like other educators, planning and delivering lessons, assessing student work, attending ...

The Empty Desk: When to Move On After Tragedy

By Community Manager posted 03-01-2022
Several years ago on a Tuesday night, I received a phone call that would forever change the way I teach. My department chair, Mrs. Karnes (names are changed), called to let me know Alexander was killed in a motorcycle accident. ...