Classroom management tools are useful for teachers to create an organized, productive, and conducive learning environment. Some reasons why you may find these tools beneficial are:

1. Organization: organize lesson plans, assignments, and resources efficiently
2. Communication: between teachers, students, and parents to foster a collaborative relationship, keep everyone informed
3. Student Engagement: to make learning more interesting and interactive
4. Time Management: schedule reminders, notifications, and more
5. Assessment and Grading: create and grade assignments, quizzes, and exams, and provide quick feedback to students.
6. Behavior Management: set expectations, monitor conduct, and implement positive reinforcement strategies
7. Data Analysis: provide analytics, track student performance, identify areas that need additional attention
8. Remote Learning Support: coordinate virtual classrooms
9. Parental Involvement: allow parents to monitor child’s progress, access grades, and communicate with teachers

Here’s a wide collection of mostly online resources you can check out. Find what works for your classroom environment: (more…)

The Ask a Tech Teacher team has written a great article on behavioral learning in the classroom. You’ll find out:

• What it is
• Keys to unpacking it
• Why it matters in education
• Examples in the classroom
• Techniques for applying it
• Challenges

Behavioral Learning Theory & Its Applications In Class

If you’re an educator or a parent, equipping yourself with knowledge of behavioral learning theory can transform your classroom dynamics and alter how you perceive the process of learning itself. If the entire concept is alien to you at the moment, hold tight as we talk you through the main aspects, and how they can hold relevance in modern teaching environments.

Introduction to Behavioral Learning Theory

Behavioral learning theory can sound complex, but it’s actually quite straightforward. It stipulates that all behaviors are learnt through interactions with the environment.

While biology may play a part, this theory focuses on acquired behavior and how your responses can change over time.

Conditioning is at the center of this theory, and it posits that humans learn by developing associations between their actions and the consequences they experience in real-time.

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What Student Assignments and Projects Are Considered Most Difficult: Myths and Truths

Are you a student who has ever wondered which assignments and projects are the most challenging? We’ve all been there, faced with daunting tasks that seem insurmountable. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the myths and truths surrounding the difficulty of student assignments and projects. By the end, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of these academic challenges, along with expert insights and tips to help you excel.

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Assessment of student work is a crucial aspect of learning. It helps students recognize important lesson goals and teachers gauge  understanding. While multiple choice, short answer, and essays are still proven methods, there are many alternatives teachers can use for their particular student group. Here are some you can look into–and all online:

1. Easy CBM
2. Educreations–video a whiteboard explanation of how students are completing a task (app)
3. Edulastic–formative assessments; work on any devices (app)
4. Flip — record a video question from your desktop; add attachments; students respond from the app with their answer
5. Flubaroo (app)
6. Gimkit–gamified assessment, like Kahoot; freemium
7. Go Formative (app)
8. Google Forms (app)
9. Kahoot–quiz-show-like format (app)
10. Socrative (app)
11. Stick Around–turn questions into puzzles (app)
12. ThatQuiz.org

Add-ons

1. Flubaroo
2. Kaizena–add audio and video notes to submitted assignments; add-on

Badges

1. BloomBoard–badges for teacher PD
2. Credly
3. Open Badges

Class Review

1. Digital Breakouts–review or assessment in a gamelike format; includes mostly history, but other topics; high school
2. Kahoot–with a new team mode
3. Quizlet Live–students join with a code, break into teams, and are quizzed on a Quizlet

Common Core Prep

1. ReadyTest AtoZ--from RAZ Kids, freemium

Flashcards

1. Flippity–make flashcards in Google Spreadsheets
2. GoConqr–flash cards, quizzes, notes, more

Grading

1. Gradescope (from Turnitin)
2. Paperscorer–create quiz in Google Forms, grade it through Paperscorer
3. Planbook–online lesson planning and gradebook

Quizzes/Tests

Peer Review

1. PeerGrade–automate the process

Rubrics

SAT/ACT Online Resources

Warm-up/Exit Tickets

Failure

1. The Crossing–attempts to cross a gorge; some fail; all result in success

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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Let’s start by clearing up a misconception: Rigor isn’t unfriendly. Adding it to your class doesn’t mean you become boring, a techie, or overseer of a fun-free zone. In fact, done right, rigor fills your class with Wow, those epiphanies that bring a smile to student faces and a sense of well-being to their school day. Rigor provides positive experiences, is an emotional high, and engenders a pervasive sense of accomplishment students will carry for years–and use as a template for future events.

It is NOT:

• lots of homework
• lots of projects
• lots of resources
• lots of rules

When those are used to define rigor, the teacher is flailing–thinking quantity is quality. Rigor is not about adding a column of data or remembering the main characters in a Shakespeare novel. It’s seeing how that knowledge connects to life, to circumstances and to daily problems.

Simply put, adding rigor creates an environment where students are:

• expected to learn at high levels
• supported so they can learn at high levels
• cheered on as they demonstrate learning at high levels

It helps students understand how to live life using brain power as the engine. Sure, it will ask them to collect evidence and draw conclusions that may find disagreement among their peers. It will insist they defend a position or adjust it to reflect new information. And it will often move them outside their comfort zone. It will also prepare them to solve the problems they will face in the future.

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How do teaching methods influence understanding? What can you do to make things work better in the classroom with simple fixes? Find the answers here.

How The Classroom Environment Shapes Understanding of Cause and Effect Relationships

Mastering cause-and-effect relationships in research is crucial for a student’s academic future and career. Having this knowledge, it would be easier to deal with assignments, homework, and life issues. But what role does the classroom environment play in this understanding? Read on to find out.

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It’s easy to confuse ‘using technology’ with digital tools. Your school passed iPads out to all classes. Some of your colleagues think having students read in this tablet format means they’re integrating technology into their curriculum. Kudos for a good start, but they need to use the tablets to differentiate for student learning styles, enrich learning materials, and turn students into life-long learners.

That’s harder than it sounds. Technology hasn’t been around long enough to beget standards that work for everyone (not withstanding ISTE’s herculean efforts), the set-in-stone of settled science. Truth, that will never happen. Technology tools populate like bacteria in a culture. Every time you turn around, there’s another favorite tool some teacher swears has turned her students into geniuses and her class into a model of efficiency. After fifteen years of teaching technology, chatting with colleagues, and experimenting, I can assure you there is no magic wand. What there is is a teacher not afraid to try new ways, test them out in a classroom environment, toss what doesn’t work and share the rest. Her/his success doesn’t come without lots of failure and mistakes, widgets that sounded good but were too complicated or non-intuitive for a 21st century classroom.

Which of these nine mistakes do you make? Then, see how to fix them:

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Artificial Intelligence–AI–can greatly assist many mundane education tasks. Tools like Siri, Alexa, ChatGPT, and a plethora of apps seem perfect for handling the repetitive and time-consuming aspects of education that take teachers away from the core of most lessons that require critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Done right, this sort of collaboration between AI and teacher results in a better outcome for everyone.

One task identified by many teachers as well suited to AI assistance is generating quiz content, Our Ask A Tech Teacher crew came up with five great options for using AI in quiz creation and then reasons to pick one of them:

1. QuizGecko
2. Quizlet
3. Qzzr
4. Riddle
5. Playbuzz

The Top 5 AI Quiz Builders For Your Classroom

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Here are the most-read posts for the month of July:

1. Step-by-Step Guide to Edit a Video
2. 3 Fun Tech Classroom Projects for Summer
3. The Influence of Literature on the Formation of the Personalities of Students
4. How to Become a Citizen Scientist
5. Tech Tip #108: Three-click Rule
6. We Landed on the Moon July 20 1969
7. 27 Online Resources About Civics and Government
8. #75: Tessellations in Excel

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