Isolating images to create your own clip art is a great way to professionally add interest and aid in comprehension when creating your worksheets. Here, I’ll show to do it in PowerPoint on my MacBook Air. I have no idea if this works the same with Windows, though I would assume it does. Drag an …
Category: Teaching
Apr 25
Be A Co-teacher, Not An Assistant
Feeling like an overpaid teacher’s assistant in your new role as a special education teacher in a co-taught class? It’s not just you; co-teaching is taking the difficult task of teaching to a whole new level. It took me years to come out from the teacher’s assistant shadow even though I’ve always been proficient when …
Apr 11
Talking to General Educators About IEPs
Begin talking to a general educator about a student’s IEP, and you will usually get one of four different responses: 1. complete enthusiasm, 2. some enthusiasm and some confusion, 3. complete confusion, and 4. annoyance and denial. I’m hoping to help with responses 2-4 with this post. The Legal Aspect It’s federal law all students …
Apr 10
16 Movie Scenes to Teach Irony and Other Literary Elements
I love breaking up the monotony of a lesson with a quick video, visual, or audio example of whatever it is we’re doing in class. One of my go-tos is Disney since I have a three-year-old son. But do not let these too-cool-for-school high school students fool you; they love the these classic movie clips. …
Apr 08
4 Ideas for Secondary English Classes When You Have iPad 1:1
I was part of an iPad 1:1 initiative in Maryland back in 2012. I remember in our first training session they kept emphasizing one specific point with the iPads: it’s not about just replacing pen and paper, it’s about creating and learning in ways that aren’t possible with just pens and text books. With that in …