Instructor (1990) articles from November 2000

Instructor (1990) archives from November 2000

Teaching--It's a Life!(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Teachers are, by nature, lifelong learners. If you've ever wanted to study dolphins, crack logic puzzles, learn how to construct an igloo, or stand on a Civil War battlefield, you are able to do it all as a teacher! Artist, poet, actor, book...

A Class of Their Own.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... In August, a group of girls entered a brand-new field. This was not a sporting event, but rather another field of dreams: math, science, and technology. Chicago's only all-girl public school, the Young Women's Leadership Charter School,...

Won't You Be My Neighbor?(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... The Teacher Next Door (TND) program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allows a teacher to purchase a home at a 50 percent discount. Sounds too good to be true? It's not. The initiative is styled to encourage educators to...

Community Innovation Award.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... For the last five years, sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students have been using technology to help their communities while they compete for the Bayer/NSF Award for Community Innovation. Teams of three to four students, with the aid of a...

Space Challenges.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Space Day 2001 Design Challenges lifts off this spring! Teachers, students, and space enthusiasts are encouraged to come together to use problem-solving skills, scientific research, and teamwork to solve difficulties encountered by space...

Brown Center on Education Policy.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... By analyzing national testing data that goes back as far as 1971, researchers at the Brown Center on Education Policy have found that American public schools have made gains in reading and math skills among students ages 9, 13, and 17. For math...

New Jersey.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... New Jersey native Alphonse Dattalo continues his amazing streak that stretches over 28 years of teaching without a single absence.

JOBTRAK.com.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 2000... Teachers are climbing in the public's estimation. According to JOBTRAK.com, 40 percent of college students and recent graduates who responded to a recent Internet poll respect teaching above all other careers. Doctors came in second with 32...

The U.S. Department of Education.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... The U.S. Department of Education has helped to create a National Teacher Recruitment Clearinghouse (www.recruitingteachers.org), an on-line resource to help reduce the teacher shortages across the U.S.

General Accounting Office (GAO).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... From textbook ads to big-money beverage contracts, commercialism in school systems across the country is growing at a rapid rate. According to a 10-month General Accounting Office (GAO) study of the laws in 50 states, many states have very few...

Diplomacy at Work.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... A veteran teacher's advice on a delicate behavior management problem, and more Q: Just last week a colleague severely reprimanded and disciplined one of my students for misbehavior in the hallway. Because of this, the child had to miss a...

A Time for Giving.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Modeling habits of respect and thoughtfulness guides students to follow your example The months of November and December are an ideal time to teach and model the skills related to giving: giving thanks, giving gifts, and giving respect....

Real-life Heroes.(Bibliography)
November 1, 2000... Build social studies skills as you celebrate the lives of heroes sung and unsung SO YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT? Then try... By Judith St. George, illustrated by David Small; Philomel, 2000; 53 pages; $17.99. "There are good things...

Dozens of ways to GROW!
November 1, 2000... Choosing a professional development path that's best for you, getting started, and going for it Snorkeling in the Bahamas. Training to use your district's new computer system. Learning to tap dance--for the first time. Attending a lecture...

MY JOURNEY THROUGH NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... How getting this voluntary academic credential helped expand one teacher's professional and personal horizons As my hand shoots up, I look around the room. It is 1995, and I've just become the first teacher in the state of Arizona to apply...

A Roll of the Dice.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Invent any number of math games combining domino dots, numbers and our 3-D Cube. Little hands have an easier time with the extra-large sized dice created with the XL Cube and Domino Dots dies. Students can practice number recognition, addition,...

Just Hanging Out.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Display holiday cards in the classroom using picture hanger die-cuts. Picture Hangers are perfect for hanging cards as well as other student papers, providing the student work is folded. The unique design holds the card in place without...

DECODING MUL-TI-SYL-LAB-IC WORDS.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... PUT KIDS ON THE ROAD TO READING FLUENCY WITH LESSONS ON SYLLABLE SPELLING PATTERNS When children begin to learn how to read, they are greeted with simple, known words: cat, mom, and like. As they move through the grades, they are soon...

How the Brain Learn Best.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Easy ways to gain optimal learning in the classroom by activating different parts of the brain Over the last 40 years we have learned more about the human brain than in the previous 400 years. Educators and neuroscientists have been trying...

Winter Holiday Festivals.
November 1, 2000... This holiday season, bring winter festivals from around the world into your classroom with fun crafts and learning activities. With this theme unit, your students will learn about Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, the Mexican tradition of...

Details, Details.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... POETRY WORKSHOP Good descriptive writing always includes vivid details that make a scene come alive. But in no genre are such details as important as in poetry, where the writer must make economical use of language. Writing a descriptive...

Characters with COLOR.
November 1, 2000... Mini-lessons and techniques to help young writers create vivid, memorable characters "I was thinner than I had been when I was first arrested. The large iron ring around my waist had grown loose, but not loose enough to fit over the bones...

The Season To Share Super activities that develop sharing skills.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... New Ways to Share A jar of jelly beans is easy to share. Count the jelly beans out one by one. You can share a sandwich in halves or in quarters. A pizza is shared by the slice. But what about things that are harder to share equally, like...

A Pocketful of Gold.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... A bank of golden dollar activities combining history and mathematics Dollar Up-Close Begin your study of the golden dollar with an up-close study of the coin. Divide your students into small groups of two or three. Give each group a...

A World of New Words.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Classroom-tested tips to expand students' vocabulary Guess-the-Meaning Game For this fun vocabulary game, I ask my students to work in pairs and assign each pair a part of speech, such as adjective or noun. Each team studies the...

Surf the Wave of the Future!
November 1, 2000... Internet-based courses are rapidly expanding professional development opportunities for teachers If the very thought of taking a night course after a hard day in the classroom makes your feet hurt, there's good news: Now you can move up...

Go Right to the Source!(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... On-line primary sources enrich social studies lessons and learning Never mind that they can't actually feel the parchment with their own hands. Or that they don't get to stand on the bow of the Mayflower. Children are discovering real...

Brain Pushups.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Mind-bending software develops critical thinking skills I'll never forget the kindergartener who asked me if he could play with the "confuser." Of course, he meant the "computer," but in many ways, he'd hit the nail on the head. While...

The First Thanksgiving.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Travel back in time to Plymouth Rock on-line Send your students back in time to the first Thanksgiving to learn about the Native American role in the origins of the modern holiday. See the reproducible on the next page. Answers: ...

Language Crosses the Line.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Their harsh words hurt, but I learned to see what lay behind my students' anger and frustration "You're stupid, lady!" "What're we gonna learn from you reading out loud?" "Get out of here and take your f--ing books somewhere...