Making time for collaboration, a key element in creating a professional learning community, is a challenge. Not only is the school's master schedule effected, but the schedules of families, community members, and even bus companies, are...

Now that your kids know everything about the world around them, it's time to get them familiar with the importance of connecting and communicating with other people using digital technology. They engage in two different activities that...

Get your class working on the railroad with this detailed and interactive lesson plan. After reading and discussing Ten Mile Day, learners explore division of labor, human capital, and productivity with a hands-on group activity in which...

Distinguishing between and understanding the purpose of landmarks and monuments is the focus a short activity designed to provide all learners with the context of a performance task. Images of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the...

Welcome to the Great Marshmallow Challenge. To conclude a unit study designed to help scholars develop teamwork and collaboration skills, groups are charged with developing a free-standing structure using only one marshmallow,...

Language learners write down the words to a song as they listen to it. They then work in groups to write a love poem using the words and phrases they wrote from the song. As a culminating activity, scholars read their poems to the class.

What's in a word? Scholars look at a sentence written on the board about snacks. They discuss unfamiliar terms and then record the new words by drawing a picture, writing a synonym, writing a translation, or creating a mind map. Pupils...

Looking for some tools to help you incorporate social and emotional learning into your curriculum? Then check out this 79-page kit packed with ideas for developing social-emotional learning competencies. The first section provides...

The second lesson in a series of fourteen, this plan takes the short story basics a step further. Learners complete a quiz about the story from the previous day, discuss the text, learn about Anton Chekhov, and work in groups to begin...

Don't spill the beans ... before the end of the lesson! Learners must predict how long it takes two people working together to fill a glass with beans. A video presents the rate it takes each person independently, and another video...

There's no I in collaboration! Scholars work in small groups to write a Readers Theater script for a scene from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Next, within their small groups, pupils discuss how their scenes communicate the main...

A resume is a key requirement in the job application process. As part of a career unit study for high school freshmen, pairs critique a bad resume, brainstorm as a whole class what should be included in a resume, and then as individuals,...

Introduce your class to literary analysis with a series of activities that has them examine book and movie reviews. Groups then draft their own review of a text, select a digital medium, and craft a presentation.

Charles Schulz' Charlie Brown and Friends, a collection of Peanuts comic strips, provides young readers with an opportunity to engage in full-class discussions, work in groups to examine how Schulz develops his characters, and...

Loans are rarely provided without a cost. Pupils evaluate the high cost of using a payday loan or payday advance through discussion and worksheets, and finally work in groups to develop short public service announcements...

Collaboration and complicity. Class members examine a series of photographs and consider how active participation and passive complicity represented in the photos contributed to the Holocaust. 

Take your class on the ride of their lives! Physical science scholars get an in-depth look at potential and kinetic energies in an amusement park-themed unit. Students research, design, and promote their own amusement parks,...

Take your class' understanding of cells to the next level... or levels! Demonstrate the levels of organization using a variety of engaging methods. The teacher's guide includes the materials you'll need to execute a flower...

Disguises and role playing are the focus of a resource that uses Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Part I, to demonstrate how we all play many parts in our lives; how we all are “merely players.” The many...

Nano-nano! Nanotechnology can seem like it's from another planet! After learning about this tiny technology, collaborative groups experiment with how smaller particles affect chemical reactions. They do this by immersing a whole and a...

In an engaging activity on universal and unalienable rights, learners work in groups to establish a democratic nation and determine what principles they want to protect to ensure a democratic society. They conduct a "rights auction" in...

How do people make decisions in a world where wants are unlimited but resources are not? How do individuals and governments utilize scarce resources (human, natural, and capital) in different economic systems? Introduce your learners to...

Your young economists will be amazed at the effect of compounding interest more frequently in this collaborative task about making sound financial choices. Learners are walked through the calculations of a couple of examples and then...

Poor Joe is all in pieces, and he needs young scholars to learn the Latin words for his body parts so that they can put him back together! Learners work as a class first to perform whole-body reconstruction, and then individually. In...