Take5: Student Talk, Student Assessment, the History of Thanksgiving, and Cookie Monster

This week's Take5 serves up a little of everything, kinda like the Thanksgiving Dinner you are all hopefully about to enjoy later this week. For a main course, we're offering up discussions starters to help reluctant learners explore why school matters and teacher strategies for improving student talk and student assessment. Looking for a side dish to accompany those strategies? Explore the history of Thanksgiving (the history teacher in me couldn't resist). And for dessert, a little time with one of our favorite Sesame Street Characters, Cookie Monster. So Take5 teacher friends and then enjoy your very well earned Thanksgiving break!

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A few of my more reluctant learners this year have voiced the common refrain about school being pointless, and not for them. They are having trouble figuring out why school matters. This blog post, Why Should I Go to School? by Terry Heick and featured in TeachThought offers some different ways of framing and talking about why learning is important for learners, 

The Edutopia piece entitled How to Take Less to Improve Learning shares concrete, ready to use strategies to promote student talk and to limit adult talk in classroom settings. Even if you offer plenty of student talk in your class it has some good reminders about the why behind student centered classrooms and ideas for revamping instruction to serve that purpose.

If you're an educator, chances are you have heard of Caitlyn Tucker.  A teacher turned technology coach, she's an advocate of blended learning. I thought her ideas (featured in a recent Mindshift article about promoting student voice in communication) were spot on. You can read more here.

Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- should watch this video by NPR.  It features the lovable, relatable Cookie Monster learning strategies for self-regulation. It made me smile and it's a great conversation starter (yes, even for middle schoolers like ours) for how we can self-regulate in classroom situations.

What are you reading and exploring lately? We'd love to hear from you!
​-Corey

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You might also like:

• BubbleUp Take5: Gratitude (November 15, 2016)
• Building Community: Mix Chalk with Gratitude (September 13, 2016)