Throughout history, when new technologies emerge, educators are often the early adopters. If it can increase learning in a meaningful way, that technology will find a home in the classroom. Where does generative AI fit? Is it a new way of life or nuisance for schools everywhere?
Celebrating Success in the Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement
Four years ago, the IFL along with the LRDC and CUE partnered with the Dallas Independent School District to improve literacy instruction at fourteen of the district’s highest needs schools. As the network enters its fifth year, we look back on teachers’ successes.
Revisiting the Importance of Planning for High-Level Instruction
Check out four of our top ELA articles from the archives! They offer insights into why we advocate to make space for collaboarative instructional planning.
Ptáyela Waúŋspeič’ičhiyapi: Building Cultural Competence and Responsiveness
IFL partner Todd County, South Dakota serves nearly an entirely Indigenous student population. However, their teachers do not reflect that population. To bridge that gap, they are putting their students’ culture at the center of their education.
Teach Test Writing as a Genre
Despite best intentions, test writing sometimes ends up being the formula that students never have to break. In this article, I advocate for teachers to teach test writing as a genre, inviting students to develop knowledge around the features, purpose, and audience of the writing required on standardized tests.
Using Accountable Talk® Features to Think Through the Design of Remote Instruction
Infusing practices from the business of instructional technology with Accountable Talk® features provides a light that can guide the planning of technology-based instruction, helping educators navigate challenges in order to enrich remote learning.
® Accountable Talk is a registered trademark of the University of Pittsburgh.
Increasing Representation by Globalizing School-Based Multicultural Libraries
Students are more engaged when they see themselves in the books they read. IFL partner, Syracuse City Schools, has worked to better represent all their students by expanding their multicultural libraries on a global scale.
Planning for High-Level Comprehension
Comprehension work is critical work when we engage students with a text. Understanding and enacting the steps for planning a high-level comprehension task will help teachers provide students instructional opportunities that set every student up for success.
Making Space for Creativity Using A Mathematics Lesson Routine
Creativity in mathematics abounds at the intersection of belief and practice! When the belief that all learners are doers of mathematics and enter the classroom with valuable lived math experiences intersects with the use of a lesson routine that offers space for students to do the thinking, learners become the creators and authors of the material from which they learn.
Liberating Your Summer Readers
A district’s goal for summer reading should be to help students continue to build their independent reading skills and to foster a love of reading. Students who take up summer reading typically have access to compelling books and choice in what they read (Shin & Krashen, 2008). To achieve a reading program with books that engage students, student voice should be central to summer reading lists.
Questioning the Author: A Powerful Approach to Promote Student Understanding of Complex Texts
Questioning the Author is a discussion-based approach that supports students in studying and understanding complex texts. Comprehension work is an essential piece of any text-based task. If students don’t get the gist of the text or grasp an author’s ideas, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to do deeper analytic and interpretive work. It is especially important for emerging readers and emergent multi-lingual (EML) students to be able to access the big ideas of a text while building their comprehension muscles.
Accountable Talk® Discussions: Solidifying Knowledge and Engaging in Rigorous Thinking Alongside Others in a Collaborative Community
Accountable Talk discussions require teachers and their students to support one another and mutually create a classroom community committed to using and building accurate knowledge and engaging in rigorous thinking. Everyone involved understands and is accountable for respecting each other and the learning community, as a whole. This begins with recognizing and honoring each person’s different lived experiences because every person brings vital knowledge and valuable assets to the learning community. This article provides a general understanding of Accountable Talk discussions and serves as a basis to begin exploring this high-leverage practice.
Moving from Quick Write to Essay: Using Student-Centered Routines to Support Writing
Teachers can use writing routines to support student writers by creating a sort of conversation between the student writer and the text. This article examines how a set of well sequenced student routines allows students to use writing to express what they know in connection with what they learn from the text.