Teachers’ Cup of Coffee

Quick and fun classroom meetings

Classroom Meetings, rooted in the work of Cornelius Minor, offer a fast, fun way to connect with students and build real community. No scripts. No circles. Just simple moves that work. In 10 minutes, we unpack a practice that can transform your classroom vibe.

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Check out more on Cornelius Minor and classroom meetings HERE.

Love.

Yep, I said it. Love is a major part of what we do as educators. And the more we lean into this idea, the healthier our jobs become. Shout out to Phillip Done and The Art of Teaching Children for guiding us toward this thinking. 

Email me anytime with thoughts, ideas, or requests: tca19782@gmail.com.

The lego brick

What can a single LEGO brick teach us about teaching and learning?

Turns out, a lot!

I saw the future

AI could change everything in schools. We are all dealing with this possibility. But I recently caught a glimpse of the future in my classroom - just a quick glimpse - and it wasn't all bad!

Social media brains

Students are different, and that is an understatement. But we also know more about how brains work than ever before. Let's apply what we know from brain science—and what we observe social media doing—to enhance student learning in our classrooms.

Shout out to Brian Goodwin for his work on this topic.

3 tricks to deepen learning

This time of year, we can wonder if kids learned anything LAST year...

But the fact is, if we do not teach in a way that leads to deep learning, it's possible they don't remember much.  In this episode, I share 3 tricks we can use in our planning and teaching to ensure that students practice deep learning in our classroom.  Ten minutes could change the learning your students experience this year!

Start with the continuum

In this episode, we discuss the racism continuum and how to teach it to students.  Let's give racism a language and a framework for kids to understand.  

This is episode 2 in our series focused on equipping schools and educators with concrete, anti-racist practices!

A long way to go

Schools have come a long way in how they address bullying.  More work can be done, but progress has definitely been made.  What about racism?  Have schools improved their prevention and elimination of racism?  I would argue, not really.  And thus, this is our opening episode in a series dedicated to equipping schools and educators with concrete ways to implement anti-racist practices.  Come along for the journey!

The power of drawing

Drawing is a powerful way to improve teaching, learning, and assessment.  It seems so simple on the surface, but it actually leads to a lot of brain work and deepening of learning.  In under 10 minutes, we go over the why/how/what of bringing drawing into our classrooms.

Check out this video and consider showing it to your students before you incorporate this new strategy:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/powerful-effects-drawing-learning

Trauma-informed from day 1

In a few weeks, many of us will be responding to students who have experienced trauma.  Let's open our school year using some simple proactive measures to support challenging students right from the jump!