As a teacher, have you ever felt yours is a somewhat lonely profession? You interact with your students on a daily basis, but it’s not the same as interacting with your peers. When you’re in the thick of planning lessons and grading mountains of homework assignments, quizzes, and exams, you can start feeling very isolated.
The good news is that in today’s web-driven world, you can make online connections with other teachers whether to find resources to help your educational efforts or to commiserate about the daily grind. One great channel for making such online connections is by reading blogs created by teachers for teachers. Below you’ll find a list of 6 of the most popular blogs written by teachers. They all appear in the top 50 blogs as ranked by Teach.com/Teach100. That is to say, they did as of this writing. The list is updated daily according to a range of ever-changing metrics, so it’s a constantly shifting list. Here six blogs I want to recommend to you today:
Larry Ferlazzo: Classroom Q&A
Larry teaches English and Social Studies at the Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. He’s an award-winning teacher who loves sharing about what works in classrooms. He’s already written several books about teaching, including Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, and Building Parent Engagement In Schools. The Classroom Q&A blog was specifically started to answer questions ranging from how to manage the classroom, how to teach English, planning lessons, and all kinds of other issues that come up in the teaching process. The great thing is that whatever question he’s answering in the blog, teachers from anywhere can weigh in with their own thoughts and answers through the comments section of each post. He’s been doing this long enough that now he also posts collections of the best material from the past several years by topic. You can find Q&A Collections about teaching Social Studies, the best ways to begin and end the school year, student motivation, and many others. He also conducts fascinating interviews with educators and authors, and reviews books as well.
Vicki Davis: The Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Vicki’s blog has won more awards than you can imagine – At least a dozen by my count. As a full-time teacher at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, her primary goal is serving students, but as a blogger her primary goal is to help other teachers be the best they can be. She has two books to her credit, including Reinventing Writing and Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. She also hosts a popular Internet podcast called Every Classroom Matters, which airs on the BAM! Radio Network.
Larry Ferlazzo: Websites of the Day
It might seem odd to have one person appear twice on this list, but Larry’s other blog is also totally worth checking out. It’s specifically geared towards teaching ELL (English Language Learners), ESL (English as a Second Language), and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). In addition to pointing you towards great websites, he also does a weekly post containing three or four great resources on classroom instruction. You’ll find some of the most incredible websites, resources, and project ideas on this site.
Bill Ferriter: The Tempered Radical
Bill teaches Language Arts and Social Studies to sixth graders in North Carolina. He was named a Regional Teacher of the Year in the 2005-2006 academic season. He writes about all sorts of interesting topics ranging from the dark side of technology to the importance of teachers coming together in PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). He co-authored Building a Professional Learning Community at Work and also wrote Teaching the iGeneration.
The Jose Vilson
Jose is a force to be reckoned with. He’s a math teacher for a middle school in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, but he does a whole lot more than that. He’s a writer, public speaker, activist, poet, hip-hop enthusiast, and much more. His book, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and the Future of Education is a hard-hitting collection of essays that discuss issues of race, gentrification, and the teaching profession from the eyes of a Black-Latino educator with a mix of research and first-hand experience. His blog does the same as well.
Catlin Tucker: Blended Learning & Technology in the Classroom
Catlin teaches 9th and 10th grade English Language Arts at Windsor High School in Sonoma County, California, where she was named Teacher of the Year in 2010. She published her first book, Blended Learning for Grades 4-12 in 2012 and just came out with her second, Creatively Teach the Common Core Literacy Standards With Technology: Grades 6-12. She loves finding ways to blend classroom and online learning.
Additionally, don’t forget to regularly check Unicheck blog for interesting updates in the field of plagiarism and education.
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