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Education Tips and Resources
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From our Education Team
Communication Skills in the Classroom:
  • Write your name on the board and have students use their name tags so you can get to know them (optional).
  • Use an enthusiastic, friendly tone of voice.
  • Read the slides and presenter's guide before your presentation, so you have a mental idea of how the slides are organized and don't have to recite.
  • Use the classroom as a stage. Move around to engage and interact with students.
  • Use humour and build a rapport with students.
  • Use gestures and facial expressions to help you explain, emphasize and communicate the material.
  • Interact with and pay attention to your audience. Make eye contact with the students, not with the wall or chalkboard. Make sure the class is with you- if they appear to be lost, take additional time to explain and answer questions.

Principles for Effective Questioning:
Teachers ask questions for many reasons, including to engage, to interest, to challenge, to assess and to promote deep thinking and reasoning. Some common mistakes teachers make when questioning are: asking a question and answering it themselves, oversimplifying the questions and asking too many or too few questions.
  1. Plan questions that encourage thinking and reasoning. Focus on students' reasoning, not their answers, "Why can't you taste when your nose is stuffed?"
  2. Ask questions in ways that include everyone. Use alternative ways of eliciting responses, such as using thumbs instead of hands up (thumbs up if you agree, thumbs down if you disagree).
  3. Give students time to think. Say, "I am going to give you a couple seconds to think about this question. Put on your thinking caps!"
  4. Avoid judging students' responses. Simply collect responses and ask students to explain their thinking, without making comments such as, "That's not quire right..."
  5. Follow up students' responses in ways that encourage deeper thinking. Orient students and connect their thinking in a classroom discussion to come up with an answer together. 'Can someone else explain what Joan said in their own words?" or "Can you see how your strategy is similar to Hannah's?"

Eliciting Participation from Every Student:
Observe the students' body language. Are students looking at the speaker? Are they engaged in other conversations, or are they gazing out of the window? Do you see yawns, shuffling chairs, students whispering or glazed looks? If so, here is a list of teaching techniques to help you get the class back on track.
  • During transition time from one activity to the next, make sure all students show "whole body listening": eye contact, not talking, facing the speaker, calm and still.
  • Praise students for listening and participation. Provide clear and simple instructions, ideally with visual aids.
  • Increase wait time: After asking a question, wait at least 4 seconds. Narrate wait time in order to get students thinking and participating (i.e., "I am waiting for more hands. I want at least 10 hands before we get an answer.")
  • Four corners: Students go to a corner of the room that represents their opinion to a poll or question.
  • Consider your position in the room. Moving away from the front of the classroom can sometimes promote better participation.
  • Have students work in pairs or small groups.
  • Make links to real-life and build off students' prior experience or knowledge.
  • If the same student is participating all the time, ask students to raise one finger if they have answered once, two fingers if they have answered twice, and a fist if they have not yet answered. This will help you track the participation of the students and can guide in choosing the students for participation.

Managing Class Discussions:
  • Having students write down what they know or think before the new content is presented is a good way to facilitate student discussion. This helps the teacher to correct and anticipate misconceptions throughout the lesson in order to successfully lead the students to meaningful learning.
  • Misconceptions lead to learning and teachable moments! If you have students contributing misconceptions to a classroom discussion, acknowledge the idea. If you think it can help you target one of the instructional goals, open it up to the class. Try to problematize it in discussion with the students to come to an understanding of the misconception. Example: Dis anyone find an alternative answer/way of solving the problem? Explain your reasoning.
  • While eliciting students' initial ideas, students may contribute an idea which is off-topic. You can write these ideas in the Parking Lot (a little corner on the board) and say that "This is an interesting idea. For now Im going to put it in the Parking Lot so we can come back to it later". Take a couple minutes at the end of class, or between topics, to discuss the ideas in the Parking Lot.
  • When a student contributes an inappropriate question or comment (such as to intentionally embarrass the teacher, or using language inappropriate for the classroom), you can create a diversion, such as a quick demonstration or a transition into a new topic or activity. Changing the course of topic redirects the students' attention onto something productive and interesting, while also sending the message that inappropriate comments will be ignored.

​Web Links
On increasing participation
Igniting Passion in Your Students
How to Reduce Boredom in the Classroom (scroll down to "Suggestions for Boosting Relevance")
How to Make Group Work Work!

Teaching and Learning Strategies:
The Effective Learning Triangle
Scaffolding Infographic
Scaffolding Strategies

Assessment and Evaluation
Cycle of Ongoing Evaluation
How to Assess Prior Knowledge of Topic

http://www.edutopia.org/ 
One of the most popular education websites, useful for teachers looking for resources or relevant articles to improve classroom teaching.

http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada 
The Canadian Education Association (CEA) is a bilingual, federally incorporated non-profit-organization that fosters dialogue on educational policy. The CEA's publications includes a magazine, Education Canada, published five times a year. The magazine covers trends in Canadian education and spotlights innovative and successful education practices from schools and educational organizations Canada-wide.

​Documents
​Classroom management tips: ​
Tips_Classroom Management_Edutopia.pdf
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Assessing project-based learning: ​
Edutopia 10 tips assessing project based learning.pdf
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Articles from education journals to help you build a presentation:
Ghrelin.pdf
File Size: 490 kb
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A common classroom investigation is tweaked for student-directed inquiry.pdf
File Size: 118 kb
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Cocaine.pdf
File Size: 373 kb
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How to promote oral language development through science.pdf
File Size: 403 kb
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Language.pdf
File Size: 320 kb
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Quotes from Teachers
  • On managing participation
"I raise my hand while asking a question and my 2nd graders all raise their hand with the answer. Works amazingly well." 

"When teaching a 45 minute class, it works well to do the 3-15 method. Lecture for fifteen minutes than transition to a 15 minute discussion, transition to a fifteen minute demonstration. I find this keeps kids focused."

  • On managing resources
"I have a "Borrow Bag" in my classroom. It's a transparent plastic hanging shoebag with 24 compartments. Each pouch contains some classroom supply such as pencils, pens, scissors, glue sticks, colored pencils, a hole punch, stapler, etc. When a student needs something, they can borrow from the bag by leaving a shoe as collateral. When they return the borrowed item, the shoe is retrieved. Keeps me from losing many classroom items." 

  • On positive management
"When thinking about the upcoming school year, rethink how you post classroom rules, school policies and other disclosure items for students and parents. As much as possible, turn the words so that they express a positive and welcoming climate. Statements such as "students not suited up for PE will be docked 5 points" can easily be rephrased as "students earn 5 points for suiting up in proper PE clothing." If you must list "consequences for not following school rules" they should always be listed AFTER your list of "consequences for FOLLOWING school rules"
​
  • On collaborative learning
“When asking questions & a child gets stuck, give them the option to phone a friend”.

“Break the class into teams to work problems out as a group. Give points for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place team.”

"With any academic subject, once it is done, make a storyboard from the content. Fun, tactile, group activity and easy to observe and grade."

  • On assessing prior knowledge first
"Children are never empty vessels when they come to school. Always let them brainstorm regarding the topic you want them to learn about. Start from the known to the unknown."

Inquiry Based Learning
Try to approach your lessons using the following model
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5 E Model - Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate 
http://teachinquiry.com/index/Introduction.html
CBS_InquiryBased.pdf
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1-1_CDN_EN_Initiate_and_Plan_L1.pdf
File Size: 616 kb
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2-1_ON_EN_Initiate_and_Plan_L2.pdf
File Size: 506 kb
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3-1_ON_EN_Initiate_and_Plan_L3.pdf
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Progression of Learning in the Quebec Science Curriculum
This document from the Quebec Education Program provides information on the knowledge and skills students must acquire for each year of elementary school. At BrainReach elementary, we focus on 4th graders. The section on "Living Things" (p. 11) is especially relevant for our volunteers. 
progression_of_primary_learning_-_quebec_science_2009.pdf
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