Teaching Sustainable Development Goals

On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by UN world leaders were adopted in an international effort to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Teachers around the world try to bring the SDGs to  classroom. Find more at the world largest lesson…

Go to http://www.teachsdgs.org/ 

Developing Authentic Teaching Materials

5 Top Tips

Teaching materials is a generic term used to describe the resources teachers use to deliver instruction. Teaching materials can support student learning and increase student success. Ideally, the teaching materials will be tailored to the content in which they’re being used, etc. In general, teachers can develop their own materials for  learners to achieve the objectives or to fulfil the learner’s need. In doing this, materials should be adapted to different learners in different settings following some  principles.

Here are 5 top tips you can follow to actively engage your students and help them feel personally connected to their learning:

• Connect what you are teaching to real life: An easy way to help students feel personally connected to what they’re being taught is to talk about how they can apply the material in real life. Choose culturally relevant material connected to their own cultures in texts  to help your students see the connections between what they’re learning inside and outside the classroom.
• Use student´s interests :Find  creative ways to adapt standards-based content to the fun things your students are excited about.Example: let them to integrate their personal hobbies , reading, media,sports,etc.
• Present material in different formats: Every student in your classroom learns differently. So it’s important to recognize that differentiated instruction isn’t just for helping students with special needs—it’s the best way to engage all learners, try to incorporate different activities for multiple intelligencies classes.
• Teach students self-assessment skills: Let students log on a rubric, chart or graph whether they’ve been able to complete a pre-defined problem or task. Viewing an explicit graphical representation of their performance can have a highly motivating effect on students.
• Emphasize the importance of emotion in learning.Focus on creating a positive and stimulating learning environment for students to enhance their learning.

Source & references: 2011,Tomlinson,Material Development in Language Teaching,CUP.

Photo by Jens Kreuter on Unsplash

Authentic Learning through Authentic Content

Teaching close reading  and compelling writing with newspaper columns

A weekly column in  NYT Magazine, offers brief commentary on one line from a book, song, television show and more. The writers who choose and explore the sentences each week show how to identify, analyze and critique compelling writing by making personal connections to a text, luxuriating in the perfection of a word, or dissecting literary devices.In this lesson,there are four ways to use the column to close reading and thoughtful writing across subject areas.Browse below to find more...

A sample lesson from the NYT magazine..

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash