All Blog Posts (29)

Welcome back to the rest of the school year! I hope your time off was well spent with family and friends… and hopefully, some time for yourself.

 

I wanted to share with you a recent article by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who has written much lately on the United States in the global economy. In this Op/Ed piece titled, “Teaching for America” he describes the “hole” America’s education system is…

Continue

Season’s Greetings to you all! As you wind down your classes for the upcoming holidays, I’m sure you are looking forward to well-deserved time with family and friends. The holiday break is also a good time to recharge the batteries and be thinking ways to help your student excel in the second half of the school year. As you know, there are a multitude of great resources on active learning strategies on the Internet. In this month’s blog, I am featuring three websites I recently came across…

Continue

For some time now, Advanced Placement teachers have experienced challenges incorporating active learning strategies in their classes due to the AP test’s broad coverage of content and focus on factual recall. But AP teachers are making inroads to incorporating active learning strategies into their classes and moving students beyond knowledge/comprehension learning to higher levels of thinking. In the 2008-2009 school year, researchers at the University of Washington and its LIFE… Continue

You might have noticed recently a lot of chatter in the media about the national dropout rate. Last spring, President Obama spoke on this subject calling it a crisis that the nation cannot afford to accept or ignore. "Not long ago you could drop out of high school and reasonably expect to find a blue-collar job that would pay the bills and help support your family. That's just not the case anymore." the president said at The America’s Promise Alliance Education event at the U.S. Chamber of… Continue

U.S. immigration has always presented a paradox. America is a nation of immigrants, but from the nation’s early beginnings those who came before have had concerns with those who came after. The degree of these concerns often rises and falls with the political seasons and the state of the economy. We’re experiencing such concerns today and students are interested.



Two Interact units that provide students with solid… Continue

The recent oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has raised many questions about the oil exploration industry—how petroleum is created in the ground, where it’s found, how it’s extracted and transported, how it’s used, and what to do when an accident occurs. One great Interact simulation that addresses all these concerns is BLACK GOLD, written by Jay Farnsworth of Waunakee Intermediate School in Waunakee, Wisconsin. In the first few days of the simulation students explore the… Continue

Welcome Back to School! I hope you had a restful and rewarding summer. We had over a dozen new members sign up for Teacher’s Center and look forward to hearing from you all with your insightful comments and fabulous ideas on using Interact in your classroom.

I will be making blog posts containing interesting items and articles on Active Learning Strategies and invite all of you to review, comment and add to as you like.…

Continue

Does anyone have a suggestion for a simulation for me to use with my 6th grade World Cultures and Geography classes?

My name is Diane Findlay. I wrote Book Mountain Expeditions, Genre Journeys, and Dynamic Decades for Interact. I had the pleasure of visiting my grandson's 8th grade language arts class as they field tested Genre Journeys, which was delightful. But I don't have many opportunities to hear from teachers about their experiences with these products "on the front lines." I'd love to know how you've used them and to improve my writing based on your feedback.