Hastings Public Schools designs Instruction around Marzano's Instructional Framework and the 9 Design Questions and 41 Elements based on the Art and Science of Teaching that formats Lesson Segments Involving Routine Events, Addressing Content, and Enacted on the Spot. Each of the 41 Elements has a Protocol with strategies, teacher evidence, and student evidence to reach the desired effect of each lesson and element. A scale for each element's protocol is provided to rate teacher performance for instruction.The Lessons range from not using to innovating teaching strategies.

Online Resources:

• Resource on Retrieval: https://www.retrievalpractice.org
• America Achieves: http://commoncore.americaachieves.org
• Better Lesson: http://betterlesson.com
  • LearnZillion: http://learnzillion.com
• Literacy Design Collaborative: http://ldc.org
• Whole Brain Teaching Free Website and Registration: http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=135:whole-brain-teachers-of-america&Itemid=105
• Instruction videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse

New!

• A vast collection of online resources brought into one place: www.opened.com (And this is sorted for just Nebraska: resources.opened.com/Nebraska)
• Incredible VETTED Open Education Resources (OER): https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/nebraska#
  • Liberty Missouri OER by course: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aNqv4sMmLF2VMgmQklp6k6WwitdcegdJnbhaRwn-s_g/edit
• https://cnx.org/--More Open Education Resources (OER)
• https://www.oercommons.org/oer--And Even More Open Education Resources (OER)!
• Middle School OER (requires registration)--https://successacademies.org/edinstitute/
  • CK-12: Complete textbooks with activities, videos and more that can be customized to what you want
  • EdReady: Students take a pre-test (in Mathematics--content goes down to 5th grade and into University Calculus, in English it's 11th and 12th grade content), and then lessons and assessments are customized to skill deficits. Can be used for both intervention and enrichment. (After the overview at EdReady, go to Nebraska's site)
  • NROC: Complete courses in Secondary English and Mathematics.
  • Khan Academy: Videos, lessons and activities in a variety of subjects and for entire courses or test prep
  • New America: Website of collections of resources

Growth Mindset: The Stanford Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS – https://www.perts.net) are offering online growth mindset training modules for teachers and encouraging grassroots efforts to spread effective practices.

Online music resources – Oakland, California 4th-grade teacher Cathy Robinson recommends several websites with music that can be used for instructional purposes:

- www.flocabulary.com uses hip-hop to teach concepts K-12;

- http://rock2thecore.com has K-5 music aligned to Common Core math and ELA;

- www.ScratchGarden.com and www.Grammaropolis.com have animations that help students visualize language concepts.

“Stuck on a Concept? Try Music” by Cathy Robinson in Education Update, November 2016 (Vol. 58, #11, p. 8), http://bit.ly/2gba0GI

"Websites to PLC by"

• EDSITEment – www.edsitement.neh.gov has standards-aligned lesson plans, student resources, and close readings in ELA, foreign languages, art and culture, history and social studies.

• Classkick – https://www.classkick.com is a free formative feedback tool to use with high-level student tasks. The teacher uploads the tasks, has students complete them on a device, and can then view each student’s work and provide feedback.

• Newsela – www.newsela.com provides topical informational texts at different Lexile levels, some with quizzes and some in Spanish.

• ReadWorks – www.readworks.org provides informational and literary texts at varying reading levels with question sets, as well as elementary lessons and units on reading comprehension.

• Literacy Design Collaborative – www.ldc.org has teacher-created lessons and modules geared to college and career readiness in ELA, social studies, science, and math, including task templates, rubrics, and student anchor papers.

• Illustrative Mathematics – www.illustrativemathematics.org has math tasks geared to Common Core standards.

Access to radio stations worldwide – Radio Garden provides a map of the world and allows you to zero in on and listen to radio stations all over the planet. Amazing!

http://radio.garden/live/boston-ma/zumix-radio-wzmr/

Online Tools to Scaffold Work for Struggling Readers and Writers

In this Edutopia article, Todd Finley suggests ways to address the challenge of a wide range of achievement levels by differentiating, providing choice, baking assessments into every lesson, and providing scaffolding for reading and writing. Here are some tech tools for the last item:

- Rewordify https://rewordify.com - A text compactor that simplifies and shortens readings;

- Tween Tribune from the Smithsonian http://www.tweentribune.com - Similar to Newsela, adjustable to four Lexile levels, with audio versions for additional support;

- Comprehension Bookmarks http://www.ccsoh.us/Downloads/Reading%20Processes.pdf for readers who are struggling with a complex text;

- For academic writing, here’s a word bank of transitions: http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Transitions.html; an essay structure graphic: http://images.slideplayer.com/18/5709021/slides/slide_8.jpg; and sentence frames http://www.ouhsd.k12.ca.us/wp-content/uploads/docs/migrant_el-17.pdf.

“Teaching a Class with Big Ability Differences” by Todd Finley in Edutopia, April 13, 2017,

https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-class-big-ability-differences-todd-finley

Best Social Studies Websites

Free Online Tours of 10 Top Museums around the World

Real-World STEM Problem Resources

- National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/challenges.aspx

- Boston Museum of Science Engineering Everywhere: https://eie.org/engineering-everywhere/curriculum-units

- Engineering Is Elementary Curriculum Units: https://eie.org/eie-curriculum/curriculum-units

- eGIF Dream Up the Future: http://teachers.egfi-k12.org

- PBS’s Design Squad: http://pbskids.org/designsquad/

- Teaching Engineering: https://www.teachengineering.org

- Rutgers Today: http://bit.ly/2vEuRWB

Leveled-Reading Text Resources

- New York Times Kids Blog: http://www.nytimes.com/section/learning

- Tween Tribune: http://tweentribune.com/

- Epic Books: https://www.getepic.com/

- Kids Discover: http://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/

- Common Lit: http://www.commonlit.org/

- ReadWorks: http://www.readworks.org/

- Starfall: http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/index/play.htm?f

- Breaking News English: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com

- For the Teachers: http://www.fortheteachers.org/reading_skills/

- ThinkCERCA: http://www.thinkcerca.com/

- NewsELA: https://newsela.com/

- News in Levels: http://www.newsinlevels.com/

- Unite for Literacy: http://www.uniteforliteracy.com/

- Bookbox: https://www.youtube.com/user/bookboxinc

- Center for the Study of Adult Literacy: http://csal.gsu.edu/content/are-you-learner

New! "Best Tech for 2019" (Jennifer Gonzalez)

• Equity Maps http://www.equitymaps.com – This iPad app helps figure out which students participate in class discussions, how often, and for how long. Having entered a seating chart into the computer, the teacher taps each student’s icon as he or she starts talking, and the app keeps track of each student’s contribution time and displays a summary at the end, including a breakdown by gender. The teacher can also tap for periods of silence, pair-shares, small groups, and even “chaos” – when general discussion gives way to many smaller conversations. In addition, the app can audio-record the whole discussion for later review.

• Pro Writing Aid https://prowritingaid.com – This program does a deep dive into the quality of writing. The writer composes within the tool, copies and pastes or uploads the text, and gets a summary report with statistics on strengths and weaknesses, plus suggestions for changes when you hover over highlighted places within the text. Reports include readability (on four different reading scales), the number of times certain words were used, passive voice, overused words, use of clichés, sentence variety, unique words in the piece, average sentence length, the placement of different sentences by length, and adverb frequency. There’s a paid version of this software, but Gonzalez says you can get a lot of mileage from the free version.

• Google Tour Creator https://vr.google.com/tourcreator/ – This new feature in Google Expeditions allows students to create their own tours using imagery from Google Street View and publish them into the Poly 3-D platform https://poly.google.com. These could be used as part of a research project, reflecting after a field trip, a tour of the neighborhood or the school, or a supplement to a creative writing project.

• Great Big Story https://www.greatbigstory.com has short, professionally produced, positively themed videos about people and phenomena around the world – for example, a 12-year-old who took on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, the accidental invention of the best snack food, and America’s oldest female BMX racer. Teachers should preview material because some may not be appropriate for younger students.

• Geoguessr https://geoguessr.com – “This one is my absolute favorite,” says Gonzalez. “This would be a fantastic option for early finishers, lame duck days, or even as a reward for good behavior – it’s that fun.” Players are plunked down somewhere in the world using Google Street View and have to navigate around and figure out where they are. Players get points for how successful they are at pinpointing their location on a map.

• Webjets http://webjets.io – Users create what looks like a bulletin board on which they post items on cards, which can contain an image, an embedded video, a live Google Doc, an attached file, or a table with a variety of elements organized in columns. Students can keep multiple folders on one board, and all cards can be collapsed or expanded. This is a good tool for group projects.

• Yoteach! https://yoteachapp.com – This backchannel tool allows a teacher to set up a free, password-protected “room,” give students the URL, and they can come in and chat, adding pictures or drawings.

• Classroomq https://classroomq.com – Students who need help or have a question can add themselves to an electronic queue and get help in order (and then get checked off by the teacher with one click).