Category: Teaching

How to Isolate Images in PowerPoint

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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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16 Movie Scenes to Teach Irony and Other Literary Elements

Movie clips and scenes that illustrate different literary terms (irony, theme, foreshadowing, satire) using movies students know and love! Includes links to YouTube clips or gifs to put into Powerpoint presentations.

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. …

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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 …

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