An Aha Moment, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension.
Aha moments can also be seen inside the brain. WebMD.com describes a scientific study in which researchers found an increased activity in a small part of the right lobe of the brain when the participants reported creative insight during problem solving.…
How can you increase scores on a state test by teaching financial literacy?
That was one of the questions asked by several teachers who were recently trained in M-Cubed: Meaningful Math Management. This resource is used nationwide to teach accountability and personal financial literacy at the same time.…
How do you engage students? How do you teach them to be innovative and creative? You think outside the box as a teacher. Recently, an Algebra I teacher sent me an email sharing an incredible task she created for her students. I was fascinated by her meaningfully application of the concepts she was teaching and asked her if I could share her task.…
Questions, questions, questionsâŚI LOVE them! Why? I love questions from administrators and teachers, because if no one asks a question, then itâs highly unlikely that they will use the information. Tony Robbins says,
âSuccessful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.â…
Fun isnât always educational and education isnât always fun, but when the two come together – it just doesnât get any better.”    -Tom Jackson
âResearch consistently shows that the more time students spend involved in learning activities, the more they learn. That is, there is a strong positive relationship between the amount of time students are actively engaged in learning activities and their achievement.…
Maria Montessori says, âWe cannot create observers by saying âobserve,â but by giving them the power and the means for this observation.â I cannot agree more and that is why Clipboard Cruising is one of the 14 Essential Elements of the Tabor Rotation Framework. Clipboard Cruising, or constant and consistent teacher observation is complimented by two other Essential Elements of Tabor Rotation, Exit Questions and Math Journal Writing.…
âWe donât stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.â    -George Bernard Shaw
The Texas drought may have dried up our pond, but it offered our two youngest children the opportunity to play in the biggest mud puddle theyâd ever seen.…
âI’ve learned there are three things you don’t discuss with people: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin.â    -Linus
Out of all of the Peanuts comic strips and television specials, this one is my favorite. As a child I thought that waiting for the Great Pumpkin was much more fun than waiting for Santa Claus.…
âHow wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world.â    -Anne Frank
Many secondary teachers are fine-tuning the use of small-group instruction in their classrooms. The email below is an incredible exchange with great information. Hope it helps some of you, too.…
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.”    -Colin Powell
Building conceptual understanding for math can be done through almost anything. I’ve witnessed the most powerful understanding of fractions by cooking with my children. When we double or half the recipe it develops fractional understanding at the middle school level.…
