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Transform Student Engagement: Writing Academic Rhymes

Transform student engagement: Writing academic rhymes

This is the second post in a series about transforming student engagement. Check out Transform student engagement: Discovering Lyric Lab and sharing with teachers to read about the start of this story. Our First Student Rap Battle: A Practice Run After convincing the 8th grade social studies team to try out the unknown with a rhyme-writing project, we began our test run with our first period homeroom students. For 20 minutes a day, students were given a week to complete raps of their own in groups of three, the freedom to choose any social studies topic from class, and given…

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Transform Student Engagement: Discovering Lyric Lab And Sharing With Teachers

Transform student engagement: Discovering Lyric Lab and sharing with teachers

Discovering Lyric Lab For a teacher, sometimes educating students is a process of letting go. As educators, we spend so much time keeping a firm grip on a student’s path to learning. Working for the past few years with a student base that is 99.6% “economically disadvantaged” and difficult to captivate can, and often does, leave me exhausted at the end of each day. A rigid structure in the classroom worked for me for a time; on paper, my students improved. Test scores were up and I was confident that this made me a successful teacher. But I had lost…

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How To Support Informational Texts In The Classroom

How to support informational texts in the classroom

Informational text, I am certain you have heard those two words a time or two, but what do they mean? Informational text is factual information written to teach the reader about a certain topic, event, or idea. Informational texts have continued to gain steam as valuable resources for education among students of all ages, but where do I find them? You will find them frequently written in the form of news articles, standardized tests, and some newer reading curriculums just to name a few examples. As a veteran teacher, I have found it difficult to locate informational texts my fifth-grade…

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3 Teacher-initiated Strategies For Flocabulary Instruction

3 teacher-initiated strategies for Flocabulary instruction

Flocabulary is a versatile vocabulary platform teachers and students can use in numerous ways. While some approaches may be student-centered, research shows that explicit instruction of vocabulary is an important part of student acquisition. Here are a few ways teachers can initiate, lead, and utilize Flocabulary in the classroom to support students as they master academic terms. Find dedicated time each day or once per week to explicitly teach vocabulary Vocabulary is the biggest predictor of reading comprehension, but sometimes phonics, phonemic awareness, or fluency are bigger priorities for students. To boost reading comprehension teachers can set aside a dedicated…

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5 Ways To Use Flocabulary In The Physical Classroom

5 ways to use Flocabulary in the physical classroom

Over the last year teachers have used more online edtech products than ever before. As you shift back to the physical classroom you might be considering which products will be the most impactful to use, or how you’ll take your new favorite platforms and integrate them into an in-person classroom setting.  We know that vocabulary is the biggest predictor of reading comprehension, and using Flocabulary is a great tool to focus on vocabulary acquisition while also bringing culturally responsive teaching practices into the classroom. Here are a few ways to turbocharge your Flocabulary usage as you shift back to the…

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