Best Practices for Schools of Hope

    Today's students need structure, e.g. guide materials. (Many teachers believe most students have always needed/benefited from step-by-step guides.)
  1. High School Hub: English -- Notice the Literature Study Guides
  2. SparkNotes Structure/Activity

    Students need activity and change of pace. Involvement and social learning, again, have long been espoused by good teachers.

  3. Useful Literature Teaching Practices
  4. Debate Central
  5. Using Creative Dramatics
  6. Essential Questions in Teaching & Learning
  7. Famous Trials
  8. High School Hub
  9. ThinkQuest
  10. Collaborative Learning

    Today's students have less quiet time for reflection than any prior generation. Silence is drowned out in their environment, often through their own immersion in cell phones, radios, Walkman players, boom boxes, T.V., etc.

  11. 'Sustained Silent Reading' Helps Develop Independent Readers (and Writers)
  12. Writing To Learn
  13. Reading To Learn
  14. Meditation for Children of All Ages
  15. Personal Mission Statement Builder
  16. Goal Setting & Learning

    Other considerations for contemporary student needs:

  17. Conflict Resolution -- Middle school youngsters have seen in excess of 8,000 killings, a hundred thousand more acts of violence on T.V. The head-banging World Wrestling Federation, killing practice video games like Doom; even preschoolers watch over 20 hours a week of TV and videos, 90% of which contain violence. Students need to learn constuctive ways of handling conflict and the emotions it arouses.
  18. Computers in the Classroom
  19. Homework Helps -- Or does it? Today's students need more support and guidance, and better assignments from teachers.
  20. Habits of Mind -- Developing Mind and Character is what education for HUMAN excellence is about.
  21. Inquiry Based Teaching -- Showing students how to use their minds well
  22. Teaching Tolerance
  23. Integrated Curriculum
  24. Your Thoughts Are Very Powerful
  25. Making Inclusion Work
  26. Learning Strategies
  27. Teaching English Language Learners
  28. The Small Schools Project: Tools & "How To's"
  29. School To Work Transitions
  30. Changing the Questions
  31. Teaching & Learning: A Sustainable Future -- On-line proposal of book I'm working on. Proposes demographic and societal change call for using On-Line Learning, Coaching Clusters, and Service Learning to Educate Teachers and Learners in the 21st Century



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