Teaching Resources
& Educational Research
Grades 7-12
Books
Actionable Advice From a Cognitive Scientist.
This is a wonderful resource for teaching any grade levels from 7-12. The author approaches teaching from the perspective of a cognitive scientist and gives actionable advice to teachers based on scientific results about how the brain works and how people learn.
The book is filled to the brim with useful content; however, I will only mention two specific points here that resonated with me and will continue to effect my teaching into the future:
2) Memory is the Residue of Thought
What we think about is what we remember, and what we remember affects how we think in the future. Given these results, when I’m planning lessons I always keep in mind what students will be focused on and thinking about. Are they thinking about the target content and skills that I want them to gain or are they thinking about something else?
A go to example of content designers not heeding this advice comes from my time as an ESL teacher in China. A teacher had designed a handout about proper nouns – that is nouns of specific places, people, or things, which are always capitalized – where students simply had to sort a list which contained both regular nouns and proper nouns. The problem with the activity was that the students didn’t need to think about what a proper noun was and when one should be used because in order to complete the worksheet they only needed to look for which nouns had a capital letter versus which ones didn’t. Here the students failed to think about the very thing that the teacher wanted them to think about because of a poorly designed worksheet.
I always try to keep this experience and example in mind when I’m planning lessons and activities. Are the students going to be thinking about what I want them to be thinking about?
Rewards Might Do More Harm Than Good!
This book completely transformed my perspective on learning and teaching! Alfie Kohn reviews a mountain of research on the effects employing behaviourism as a general theory of learning and using operant conditioning to “help” students learn.
Kohn sums up operant conditioning with the simple phrase, “Do this and you’ll get that.” This is the basis of all types of rewards systems, whether it be gold stars in the classroom, points for reading books, or good grades to get you into university; the deal is always the same, do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and behave how I tell you to behave and you’ll get something nice. And if you don’t? A punishment awaits, perhaps even an F!
Applying operant conditioning in the classroom is so ubiqitious that most people, teachers included, can’t even conceive of doing something else. However, Kohn points out, with a multitude of examples pulled from the research literature, that using operant conditioning in the classroom destroys students’ intrinsic motivation to learn, makes students subconscious about always being evaluated and judged, creates a sense of helplessness and complete lack of autonomy in the students, and moreover damages the relationships between students and their teachers.
The message from the book is clear, students are not animals and should not be trained as such. Kohn suggests removing rewards systems from the classroom, trying to shift student focus away from grades and onto learning, and creating a classroom that has students collaborating more often than not and focuses on giving students choice and control over how they work and learn.
These results are particularly relevant to teaching grades 7-8 because students in these grades students still highly prize teacher approval and praise. This makes it very tempting as a teacher to rely heavily on rewards and praise to help control and manage your classroom. However, in taking the easy route as a teacher you may be doing irrevocable damage to your students and specifically to how they view themselves as learners; that is, passive beings with little to no control, autonomy, or choice as to what they learn or when they learn it. They may start to view learning as a means to an end; if I roll over I’ll get the treat! As teachers, we should be aiming to empower and motivate our students to become life-long learners and teachers themselves, but the evidence clearly indicates that we can’t reach this goal with bribes and rewards systems in our classrooms. Operant conditioning needs to go, and I will try my best to avoid using such techniques in my classrooms.
Math & Coding Are Together At Last!
These two resources and the accompanying curriculum correlation document are wonderful tools for teachers wanting to jump into using coding in their classrooms. Both books provide multiple lesson plans and ideas, based on the Ontario Curriculum for grades 1-8, on how to use coding in your mathematics classes; the focus of the books is NOT how to teach coding, but how to use coding to teach math!
Coding provides a “low floor & high ceiling” for students, as it allows even the most computer illiterate and inexperienced students to easily start exploring and having fun. It supports student agency and allows students to learn at their own pace and in a manner that is comfortable for them. Moreover, after students learn the basics, the sky truly becomes the limit as they will be able to easily build off of what they have learned and use their budding coding skills to explore further mathematical ideas. The coding environment encourages students to experiment in a low stakes way and ask many “What if I…?” type questions with instant feedback and another chance to try again.
The books provide coding examples in the Scratch and Python coding environments; both of which are high level coding languages with extremely shallow learning curves but steep and limitless achievement curves.
These resources are great for grade 7 and 8 students, as students at this level love to feel empowered and in control of their learning and decisions. Coding gives students the freedom and agency that they crave and helps them to learn and explore more freely and imaginatively.
Culture is key.
“Culture, as the largest human-created system, penetrates so profoundly into all spheres of human life that it alters human cognition, emotion, and behaviour, setting us apart from the next smartest creatures in the animal kingdom. Culture is like the air we breath; we are completely dependent on it. Together with our biology, culture produces us, but we also alter culture continuously. This interactive process is the inescapable force underlying child development.”
– Jin Li
In this timely book, Jin Li captures the idea that culture is a fundamental driving force in the development of children both inside and outside the classroom. She reviews the basic ideas that underlie education, learning, and educational practices in the eastern and western traditions and makes comparisons between the two. As a westerner, this book gave me an inside look at what it might have been like to grow up in east Asia and to experience and understand education from an entirely different point of view.
Gaining a better understanding of how ingrained culture can be in our thoughts, minds, hearts, preconceptions, and interpretations of the world is essential for anyone teaching in the multicultural setting that is the Canadian public school system; especially for those teaching grade 7-8 students, who are particularly sensitive to issues centred around cultural identity and development.
Moreover, this book has made me consider the possibility of trying to create a unique culture of learning in my classrooms, one that brings together the cultural ideas of the east and west, as well as many others in an attempt to transport students into a new world of learning and education. In my classrooms, I will encourage students to be life-long learners and to embrace the eastern idea of having “a heart and mind for wanting to learn (hao-xue-xin, 好 学 心).”
The fact that ALL classrooms aren't thinking classrooms is a scary thought!
Peter Liljedahl gives concrete examples of strategies you can implement in your mathematics classrooms to get your students thinking and discovering mathematics on their own and in collaboration with each other.
The title of the book implies that classrooms where thinking takes place must be intentionally and consciously built, and although we’d like to think that thinking is occurring in all classrooms, that is sadly not the case. Teachers need to make an effort to create thinking classrooms for their students.
Podcasts
No Time to Read the Newest Education Books? No Worries, "Stash" Has Got Your Back!
In this podcast, the host Stanislaw Pstrokonski or “Stash,” reads and reviews the large and growing body of literature on education, learning, cognitive science, anthropology, culture, and more, all in the context of teaching, learning, and educating students.
Given his vast readings on education, learning, and teaching and having worked as a mathematics teacher and tutor himself, Pstrokonski offers up a multitude of useful insights and ideas for any working teacher.
Even for those who may find that they disagree with the host’s position on various ideas, the podcast is still a wonderful resource for discovering new and relevant books and research to help teachers expand their minds and to extend their professional knowledge and competency as an educator.
This podcast is useful for teachers of all grades as Pstrokonski reviews literature and research on how students develop cognitively, how they construct and build knowledge, and how they grow in the context of various cultural norms and conditions.
The host also reviews and brings in literature and sources that are sometimes tangential to education proper, but nonetheless help to give teachers a deeper and broader base of information and resources to help them perfect their craft and better understand their students.
Websites
Fresh, New Activities and Lesson Plans that Target Ontario Curriculum Expectations!
tvoLearn is a wonderful and newly developed resource for teachers, home schoolers, and students alike! The site offers a multitude of resources, activities, and educational content from grades 1-12.
Need to Teach Science, Math, or Physics? Perimeter's Got the Good Stuff!
The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics isn’t just for cutting edge research on how the universe works, but is also a leader in educational outreach and creating fantastic educational content to make difficult subjects and ideas come to life!
On the PI website, teachers can find a mountain of resources to teach a variety of lessons in science, physics, and mathematics. The institute has created targeted and age appropriate STEM content for grades 5 -12. Their freely available content provides lesson plans, activities, worksheets, demonstrations, and original videos. Much of their content is adaptable to both in class and online settings and is a great resource for teachers.
For educators without a STEM background, the PI content can be extra helpful as it has been developed by experts in STEM and educational outreach. The content is designed to be accessible to everyone including nervous teachers who aren’t confident in teaching STEM subjects to their students.
The Utopia You've Been Looking For!
There is no one stop shop for all things education, but if there was edutopia would be a prime candidate!
If you’re looking for support as a new teacher, edutopia is a must visit website. They provide articles on planning, inclusion, supporting students, maker spaces, project based learning, differentiated learning, classroom management, diversity, assessment, coaching, administration and the list goes on; almost forever. There isn’t much more to say about this site other than you need to see it and explore it. In under 10 minutes, you’ll find something to help you improve your teaching and positively impact your classroom.
To give you a head-start check out the videos section directly from here to find videos about teaching at the elementary level: https://www.edutopia.org/videos
Gamification At Its Best!
Depending on who you talk to, Kahoot! might not cut it in high school anymore, but it is great for the grade 7-8 level. It can be easily used as a quick and fun assessment FOR/AS learning. Students love to play games and take on level appropriate challenges and Kahoot! facilitates both of these. It also contains a mountain of pre-made Kahoots to choose from on nearly every topic you can think of, curriculum relevant or not.
Moreover, Kahoot! is great for distance learning, especially with Whiteboard.fi, which allows teachers to host students in a virtual classroom and provides each student with their own whiteboard to work on. This allows teachers to give students questions to work on solo or in groups while providing the functionality of actually being able to see what each student or group is doing live, and being able to comment and write on their boards as well!
Kahoot! also provides professional development sessions for teachers, where they can get advice from educational experts and learn about new ways to use Kahoot!
Bringing Indigenous Culture into the Classroom the Right Way
Of all the cultural and social changes occurring in Canada, one of the most important is the acceptance and acknowledgement of the historical context and importance of indigenous cultures and peoples in Canada. For centuries, the indigenous peoples of Canada have been ignored, dismissed, and actively suppressed, which has led to generations of Canadian children losing out and never having the chance to be exposed to the rich and multifaceted indigenous cultures of their neighbours.
LESSONS FROM THE EARTH AND BEYOND aims to change that by providing educational resources and lesson plans to teachers across Canada. It provides a veritable treasure trove of educational materials that can be used to help bridge the gap between Canadian students and indigenous cultures. Created by indigenous peoples and their educational partners the lessons and materials come directly from the experts on indigenous experiences, cultural heritage, and ways of knowing and understanding.
This resource is great for grade 7-8 classrooms where students are still developing their sense of empathy and understanding of the world. Exposing students to the richness of indigenous cultures in an inclusive and fundamental way helps to break down barriers and provides students with a new perspective on the world around them.
Coding is Here!
Coding is here, and here to stay. Not just to be used as a means of exposing students to computer coding as a vocation, but also meant to be used to empower students to control and direct their own learning. Coding can be used as a great “low floor, high ceiling” tool to help teach grade 7-8 students about mathematics.
Scratch is a user friendly introductory website, which can teach students the basics of coding. The site includes pre-made coding activities for students, which can help them explore mathematical topics like geometry in interesting and artistic ways.
Google Colaboratory is the next step up from Scratch and allows students to begin using Python, which is a useful and versatile programming language used by real professionals in many fields of scientific study and data analysis. Furthermore, as its namesake suggests, Google Colaboratory is great for collaboration and teaching students how to work together to solve problems.
Steamlabs is also another great resource for coding. They have created a simple neural network program that allows students to build their own neural network giving them an understanding of how AI systems work and how they are used to classify everything from pies, to numbers, cats and dogs and more.
Coding is only going to become more prevalent in our world and teachers would do well for themselves and their students by introducing coding at younger ages and levels. Both of these sites provide the tools and know how for teachers to bring coding into their classrooms, even for teachers that have never coded themselves!
Talks
Every Kid Needs a Champion | Rita Pierson
In this TED talk, Rita Pierson describes the power that relationships can have on student learning and achievement. She states that “kids don’t learn from people they don’t like!” And this rather simple statement encapsulates the essence of what it means to be a teacher. Teachers are not just disseminators of facts, they are friends, guidance counsellors, mentors, and much more besides. The relationship between a student and a teacher can change a student’s entire future.
We all remember teachers that we loved and teachers that inspired us to reach for great things and take on difficult challenges. We treasured our time with those teachers and were sad to move on to the next grade and leave them behind. But many of us still like to reach out once in awhile just to chat and reconnect with the people who had such a great impact on us.
I aspire to be a champion teacher to my students and I feel like this concept is particularly relevant to grades 7-8 teaching because students at this age are generally eager to impress and connect with their teachers; and furthermore, teachers at this level can strongly affect their students futures, as they can help inspire them to take more difficult classes in high school which could have lasting effects, or perhaps just make them feel comfortable and confident in whichever path they choose to take.
Let's Teach for Mastery -- Not Test Scores | Sal Kahn
In this TED talk, Sal Kahn discusses his views on the current state of education and presents a view of what it could be.
Kahn points out that the standard process of education is one which sets students up for long term failure by insisting that all students only learn subjects for a limited amount of time, then regardless of their mastery of the material move on to the next subject. We do not give students enough time to fully master material before they are shoved into the next topic. This leads to learning gaps, which then leads to less acquisition and learning of the next subject, which leads to more learning gaps and so on and so forth.
Kahn argues that we need to shift our mindset in education to focus on mastery learning. Instead of limiting the amount of time that students get to learn a subject, we allow students as much time as they need and focus on them mastering the material before they move on. This will involve students working at their own pace and on their own time, which sounds difficult to facilitate in the modern school system, but becomes much more feasible if one considers taking full advantage of technology in education. With free, online programs like Kahn Academy, students can easily work at their own pace and receive targeted exercises and feedback for their current level of knowledge.
Why you think you're right -- even if you're wrong | Julia Galef
In Julia Galef’s TED talk, she discusses how most of us value defending our own beliefs much more than understanding the world as clearly as we can and trying to determine what is actually true.
Galef defines two distinct mindsets: the soldier mindset and the scout mindset. Individuals with a soldier mindset want to defend their own beliefs and become emotionally agitated when presented with information or ideas that conflict with or contradict what they currently believe. A soldier mindset leads to insecurities around being wrong and having to change your mind; doubling down and defending your position is favourable to having to change your beliefs and understanding of the world.
On the other hand, an individual with a scout mindset wants to see the world as clearly as possible even if this entails having to change their minds or admit ignorance and error. A scout mindset leads to curiosity, openness, and a grounded approach to knowledge, learning, and trying to understand the world. Being wrong isn’t seen as an embarrassment but simply a chance to correct your worldview and learn from your past mistakes.
I think that it is immensely important for teachers to try to inculcate a scout mindset in their students. To try to make students become emotionally invested in truth and in seeing the world as clearly as they possibly can.
The idea of a scout mindset is similar to that of a growth mindset from Carol Dweck, but focuses more on emotional motivations to know the truth and understand the world then to simply point out that we are capable of growing intellectually.
Papers
A Mathematician's Lament | Paul Lockhart
A tour de force, railing against the crime of mathematics education in the modern school house. Lockhart uses colourful analogies and magnificent metaphors to dismantle the modern approach to teaching mathematics, curriculum and all. Any more of a description here would slow you down and have you waste your time reading this instead of Lockhart’s lament, so I will say no more. Enjoy!
Bell Work
Need to start a lesson without a plan? Here are some go to websites with interesting non-standard problems and riddles to help get your students thinking.
This site provides a multitude of interesting, non-standard problems in various subjects to help get your students thinking. This can be used as a go to in a pinch, if you need to supply or fill in for a teacher without a lesson plan or as a more general purpose tool to help turn your students minds on. See if you and your students can generate and agree on creative solutions.
Thanks, Mr. P!
The Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing from the University of Waterloo is a great resource for interesting and non-standard mathematics problems.
The link will take you to a list of past math contests with solutions from CEMC which can be used as bell work or as just a set of extra problems for you and your students!
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
- T.S. Eliot
Contact
rogerwilkinson@hotmail.com
