Teachers’ Cup of Coffee

What a great blog!

This week we summarize and review an excellent blog written by a teacher.  Just 7 minutes could change your practice in the classroom forever!

Movement and Brain Breaks

How can we incorporate movement and brain breaks into our classroom?  Our guest expert, a middle school physical education teacher, gives us a lot of cool ideas!  And he also discusses just how important these moments are for students' ability to learn.

Student motivation: Round 1 in the battle!

Nothing is more important that having students motivated to learn.  Let's learn from Daniel Pink, one of the world's experts on motivation, and share ideas on what we can do to get students more motivated in our classrooms!

The art of questioning, dive #2

Let's take a look at a recent article which provides many cool ideas for increasing high order thinking in the classroom.  

A collaboration challenge

Let's keep it simple.  A 5-minute collaboration challenge.  Are you up to improving your practice this week?

Through our students' eyes, student interview #1

Sometimes we can learn the most from our students!  This week we interview a 4th grade student in an urban school to hear why she loves her teacher so much.  

Creating a startup culture in the classroom

Millennial workers are pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into working for startup companies.  What can we learn from the culture of these companies to improve how we run our classrooms?  This week we discuss an Edutopia blog with many great ideas!

The art of questioning, dive #1

What types of questions do you ask in the classroom?  And how do these questions either lead to high level learning or deter it?  Starting with the story of Aiden in 7th grade science, we take our first dive into teacher questioning and what it means to learning.  

How do YOU define your job?

Education has taken a beating lately in the public realm.  And it is really unfair to say the least.  But perception starts with us...what can we do to restore pride in our noble profession?

A lot of layups!

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is throw away our plans and just let students practice!