Teacher Education Articles for Teachers - Page 3

During the summer, I enjoy my time off, but can’t help but let my thoughts wander back to the classroom. At the beach, I collect shells and evidence of plants and animals for classification lessons.  At the lake, I wonder about nonpoint pollution from the surrounding land. On mountain hikes, I fi...

The 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournament has gained widespread attention and remarkable viewership from around the world. Hosted this year in South Africa, the popular event has generated a kind of hype that can be comparable to the Super Bowl or World Series, but with an international twist.  FIFA (...

                                           It is no accident that Michael Jackson was granted the title "King of Pop." Like him or not, his music, image, and talent revolutionized modern popular culture, redefined the music video, and roused the public's interest. Because his music spread into ...

Today's kids are wired. The "GenTech" generation with their IM's, iPhones, and iTunes have become increasingly impatient. Text messages, and emails are wonderful forms of communication that give us the opportunity to obtain information at the click of a button, but the content can suffer. The sen...

The American Dream is something we sing about, hear about, read about, and of course . . . dream about. But the American Dream means different things to different people. As students explore the writings of great American authors, politicians, civil rights leaders, and other influential people, t...

Mythology, whether it comes from the Roman Empire, the Greek territory or the Egyptian region, is a part of grade appropriate standards within the language arts framework. As educators, we are required to expose our students to the myths, heroes, gods, goddesses and legends that these mythologica...

We all want the sweeter things in life. That’s why honey is so popular and why it can be found in so many products that we consume. Honey can be found in cough drops, syrups, cereal, and snacks. Honey is a household name. But if it wasn’t for the honey bee, honey wouldn’t be. So these next few le...

One day, while substituting for the high school art teacher, I stumbled upon a box of yearbooks. The yearbooks were out for a reason – obviously the art teacher was responsible for yearbook layout.  As I leafed through the yearbooks of decades passed, I couldn’t help but notice how archaic and cl...

One of my favorite units to teach is one on Shakespeare. It might be because I taught drama classes, but I particularly enjoy watching my students act out the parts in Shakespeare plays, and the opportunity to use my own flair for the dramatic in the classroom. I begin the unit with background in...

Celebrating Earth Day and the environment is a great way to bring students and teachers together, and discuss cause and effect. In my classroom I also use it as a way to challenge students as problem solvers, and to see the world through a new perspective. I start the day by asking them to define...

Cooperative learning is something that gives students ownership over curriculum, and alleviates the workload on the teacher during the actual class period, however, it takes a lot of preparation before the students enter the room. In my classroom, I always make sure to give students a clear set o...

Poetry may be a daunting topic for some students. One way to introduce this topic is through the use of song lyrics. In my class, as in one of the examples below, I have students study songs when analyzing literary devices, such as alliteration, imagery, personification, simile, and metaphor. For...

In a world of rapidly emerging information, people have the ability to access information via technology at an almost instantaneous rate. It is more important than ever for students to learn how to evaluate sources, and how to decide what is valuable, and what is biased. When teaching research sk...

One of the most controversial issues today is healthcare reform. According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system. Private and public funding sources for healt...

When one thinks about Black History Month, a few names may come to mind: Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington Carver, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama, to name a few. All of these people are African Americans who have made significant contrib...