Catlin Tucker

JUNE 16, 2024

Understanding that not all students express or communicate their understanding in the same way is crucial. By offering meaningful choices, we can ensure that every student has the opportunity to successfully apply and communicate their learning, accommodating their unique strengths and preferences.

History 382

History Art Physical Education Essay 382

Edsurge

JUNE 4, 2025

English learners often face challenges in understanding lessons, participating in discussions and completing assignments , which can lead to lower achievement and increased feelings of isolation. Elianis It has helped me communicate better with my classmates when working on a project. an EB student.

English 120

English Language Languages Assignments 120

Catlin Tucker

OCTOBER 14, 2020

As I said in an earlier blog about using the principles of Universal Design for Learning to guide the design of blended and online learning experiences, this choice allows students to select a strategy for communicating their ideas that is comfortable for them. This makes the workflow more manageable for teachers.

Learning 546

Learning Assignments Universal Design Feedback 546

Catlin Tucker

APRIL 10, 2018

For the last two years, I have published several blogs detailing my journey away from traditional grading and assessment practices. I do not believe grades should happen to students. goals they have for the grading period and describe their action plan for achieving these goals. The purpose of this shift was three-fold.

Students 420

Students Grades Achievement Evaluation 420

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

When a public school system in the San Francisco Bay Area explored replacing traditional grading practices with a form of “standards-based grading system” meant to eliminate bias, it sparked widespread opposition from parents. This school system is hardly alone in drawing controversy over changes to grading systems.

Grades 215

Grades Assignments Schools Testing 215

Catlin Tucker

JANUARY 28, 2020

I want students to understand that their grades are a reflection of their skills, and they are capable of improving those skills at any time. I want students to complete assignments because they are meaningful, interesting, and rewarding, not because they are worth points. First, I was not going to take grading home anymore.

Blended Learning 343

Blended Learning Feedback Learning Communication 343

Catlin Tucker

OCTOBER 24, 2020

As I support teachers struggling to navigate the demands of the concurrent classroom, I find myself continually returning to the station rotation model as a strategy to design and facilitate learning for this challenging teaching assignment. This where I see the station rotation model being particularly useful for all grade levels.

Attention 546

Attention Blended Learning Activities Feedback 546

Catlin Tucker

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

They may express and communicate what they know or can do in different ways. Instead of assigning all students a single subject or issue to focus on for their argument, you can provide a list of topics and encourage students to select one of interest. Example: Craft a Strong Argument.

Blended Learning 521

Blended Learning Essay Feedback Writing 521

Catlin Tucker

SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

When I volunteer in my children’s elementary classrooms (1st and 3rd grade), I am struck by how frequently the teacher finds time to work directly with small groups of students to offer additional support, review concepts, assess understanding, and practice skills. At the secondary level scenes like this are less frequent.

Blended Learning 420

Blended Learning Middle School Middle School STEM 420

Faculty Focus

OCTOBER 11, 2022

It has been estimated that college students across the globe devote in excess of a billion hours per year to “disposable” assignments (Wiley, 2016). Moving from essential to “renewable” assignments means that the students see the tasks as sufficiently meaningful to be kept and even passed on to others. What a waste!

Assignments 131

Assignments Motivation Science Study 131

Edsurge

JANUARY 24, 2022

Communication from teachers to both students and parents has always been important in K-12 education. But in the tech-dependent era of distance and hybrid learning, clear and consistent communication—about grades, assessments, learning targets and a host of other school-related matters—may now be more important than ever.

Communication 148

Communication Distance Learning Feedback Assignments 148

Ask a Tech Teacher

AUGUST 6, 2021

Are you looking for grading apps, tools, and resources that you can use to collect, calculate, and analyze your student’s grades? Or maybe you are looking for apps that allow students to calculate their own grades, which will save you time and effort. Gradebook and Grading Apps (for teachers).

Grades 158

Grades Exams Assignments English 158

Edsurge

MAY 3, 2024

News outlets have detailed the rollout by the Texas Education Agency of a natural language processing program, a form of artificial intelligence, to score the written portion of standardized tests administered to students in third grade and up. Like many AI-related projects, the idea started as a way to cut the cost of hiring humans.

Fairness 197

Fairness Testing Grades Essay 197

Edsurge

MAY 26, 2021

In his 21 years of teaching, Jesse Stommel says he has never put a grade on a piece of student’s work. What I actually found was I changed my own grading approach significantly in the midst of the pandemic. They offered some variation of pass/fail rather than letter grades, with the objective of cushioning the impact on students’ GPA.

Grades 216

Grades Instructors Evaluation Attention 216

eSchool News

JUNE 30, 2023

They mirror the shortcomings of communication via texting. years of age – 5th or 6th grade. Texting quickly becomes the dominant space for written communication in their lives. Not surprisingly, for many of our eighth-grade students, how they texted was bleeding into how they approached writing in the classroom.

Writing 271

Writing Students Communication Critical Thinking 271

Edsurge

JULY 27, 2023

That has sparked a burst of activity by teachers at schools and colleges to change their assignments to make them harder to game with this new tech — and hopefully more human in the process. For instance, on a recent assignment, some of the homework that came in didn’t sound like typical student work he was used to.

Instructors 148

Instructors Assignments Writing History 148

eSchool News

MARCH 20, 2019

A successful relationship between educators and parents requires this sort of constant communication, whether via phone call, email, or even an in-person conversation. We have a grade-level Facebook page where we post updates and pictures from our classroom. Use social media to share students’ work.

Failure 277

Failure Communication Assignments Study 277

Catlin Tucker

DECEMBER 21, 2019

4 Communicating about Progress. Teachers feel immense pressure to communicate with parents about student progress. I encourage teachers to shift the responsibility of communicating with parents to students. I provided templates to guide their communication to parents. 5 Playlists & Conferencing.

Metacognitive Skills 336

Metacognitive Skills Blended Learning Coaching Feedback 336

eSchool News

JANUARY 30, 2023

ESL students won’t be able to succeed at school or college if they can’t use the language well enough: Their grades and overall subject knowledge will suffer. Writing is essential for professional and long-distance communication. all these require proper writing skills to avoid mistakes and misunderstanding.

Writing 278

Writing Skills Essay Language 278

Catlin Tucker

NOVEMBER 5, 2021

Students may lose points on homework assignments or practice activities because they answered questions incorrectly. Instead of collecting homework or practice activities and grading that work for accuracy, teachers can encourage pairs or small groups of students to spend time assessing their work using an answer key or exemplar and rubric.

Blended Learning 506

Blended Learning Feedback Coaching Achievement 506

Edsurge

MARCH 29, 2021

Effective hybrid learning plans go far beyond moving assignments and lessons online and getting accustomed to video calls. Beyond Video Calls Effective hybrid learning plans go far beyond moving assignments and lessons online and getting accustomed to video calls.

Hybrid Learning 176

Hybrid Learning Grades Mobile Devices Learning 176

Ask a Tech Teacher

JUNE 12, 2023

I’ve collected a long list of resources here : K-HS Digital Citizenship Resources Today, we focus on Kindergarten–1st Grade. _Discuss the potential risks and dangers associated with online communications. Once they’re on the assigned website, don’t click on links outside of it. Where is this ‘digital town’?

Grades 147

Grades Teaching Internet Assignments 147

eSchool News

JULY 14, 2023

My PowerSchool Family, the first release of the My PowerSchool experiences, will be available in the fall, allowing families and educators to share one source of information, including grades, attendance, assignments, calendar, completed and in-progress forms, behavior, and fees, in a seamless experience. “My

Assignments 246

Assignments Grades Special Education Testing 246

eSchool News

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Ninth-grade English was a paradox for me—both the best and worst year for helping me learn to write. Every month, my Advanced English teacher, Mr. Johnson, assigned our class one of the classics of English literature and expected us to demonstrate what we had learned with an accompanying essay.

Writing 291

Writing Failure Essay English 291

eSchool News

OCTOBER 28, 2024

Because the tool can assist with assignments like generating essays from prompts, students quickly integrated these technologies into the classroom. While the use of AI in education remains controversial, it is clear that it is here to stay and, if anything, is rapidly evolving.

Motivation 324

Motivation Essay Learning Beliefs 324

k12 Digest

MAY 28, 2025

Maybe they forget to turn in assignments, have trouble organizing their thoughts, or feel overwhelmed by fast-paced lessons. For many students, developing social awareness, confidence, and communication skills requires structured support. Effective communication is a key aspect of the BIC System.

Skills 144

Skills Schools Learning Students 144

eSchool News

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Eleven years later, as I walk through the halls in a middle school/high school setting, I see students sitting on a tile floor crowded around a device trying to type, communicate, take videos, and record their voices with background noise and distractions often interrupting their progress. The environment. The pedagogy.

Teachers 280

Teachers Students Assignments Communication 280

Faculty Focus

OCTOBER 22, 2023

Grading student work can be the most labor intensive part of the job for most of us. We often feel pulled in multiple directions – with service commitments and research projects on top of teaching responsibilities – so finding time to grade student papers, exams, projects, and in-class work can feel challenging.

Grades 113

Grades Interdisciplinary Evaluation Feedback 113

eSchool News

AUGUST 28, 2023

BOSTON – As part of its human-centered approach to AI in K-12 education, learning technology company HMH today announced new OpenAI-powered integrations within Writable , its award-winning writing practice and assessment solution for grades 3-12. HMH serves more than 50 million students and 4 million educators in 150 countries.

Plagiarism 246

Plagiarism Teachers Feedback Essay 246

eSchool News

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

How to know if a student uses AI to cheat on written assignments? More than that: If students often ask ChatGPT to generate essays or make those essays longer , their writing and communication skills will suffer. Will it have the potential to get a high grade? So, plagiarism checkers don’t see them as copied.

Essay 291

Essay Writing Plagiarism Academic Integrity 291

eSchool News

DECEMBER 19, 2023

This is my first year as a teacher and I’m teaching sixth grade, so both my students and I are new to the school. I teach 12th grade now, but when I was a middle school teacher, I was constantly thinking of ways to reach students. – Physical environment – Consider the systems you will use to communicate your values.

Teachers 317

Teachers Middle School Middle School Failure 317

Faculty Focus

OCTOBER 22, 2023

Grading student work can be the most labor intensive part of the job for most of us. We often feel pulled in multiple directions – with service commitments and research projects on top of teaching responsibilities – so finding time to grade student papers, exams, projects, and in-class work can feel challenging.

Grades 110

Grades Interdisciplinary Evaluation Feedback 110

Faculty Focus

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

As part of the recent rush to comment on ChatGPT, this article is not weighing in on the ongoing ethical debates, nor is it offering a comprehensive how-to guide, but rather simply sharing one professor’s initial use of the AI tool and how it successfully accomplished the learning objectives and expectations for one course assignment.

Assignments 124

Assignments History Art Ethics 124

eSchool News

MARCH 11, 2019

Even though many of the ideas in this article have been created for a language classroom, most of them will work for any subject or grade level. Communication activity. Some teachers use Tic Tac Toe sheets for weekly homework assignments. Here is an example of a sheet used in a 4th grade math class. Play games.

Middle School 279

Middle School Middle School Learning Language 279

Edsurge

JANUARY 19, 2022

Specifically, she felt that emails between professors and students led to inequalities when it came to which students understood material or got clarifications on how to do assignments. So if her goal was to revamp the way professors and students communicate, how does she grade her efforts? “I

Communication 189

Communication Learning Students Culture 189

eSchool News

DECEMBER 25, 2019

Eleven years later, as I walk through the halls in a middle school/high school setting, I see students sitting on a tile floor crowded around a device trying to type, communicate, take videos, and record their voices with background noise and distractions often interrupting their progress. The environment. The pedagogy.

Teachers 240

Teachers Assignments Students Participation 240

Faculty Focus

OCTOBER 29, 2024

The Assignment: Exploring Leadership Through Superheroes In this assignment, students are asked to compare five leadership styles—autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire (sometimes called free-rein style), transactional, and transformational—with the leadership qualities of at least three superheroes.

Assignments 108

Assignments Teaching Ethics Fairness 108