Click here to read this mailing online.
"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
The Power Of Affirmation In The Classroom
The Power of Affirmation at Work is a Harvard Business Review article that has tons of applications to the classroom. It offers lots of ideas on how to use affirmation though, interestingly, the author only describes how managers can use it. In the classroom, teachers can use the same advice and be affirming to students. But the author misses that an affirming culture can be created by providing a framework so that everyone can be more affirming. I described how I did a version of this (borrowing it from another teacher) at I’M USING THIS GREAT NEW VIDEO TO INTRODUCE A CLOSING “APPRECIATION, APOLOGY, AHA!” ACTIVITY. If I was still teaching, I’d take ideas from the HBR article and turn them into sentence-starters that students would use a couple of days each week near the end of the class, like: _______ made a difference for me today by ___________________. Today, I noticed that ____________________ did/helped ____________________. When _______________ did __________________, they made me feel ________________.
But, before I did that, I’d probably take a short excerpt from the article and turn it into a class Read Aloud.
I’m adding this info to The Best Questions To Use For Class Closing Activities — What Are Yours?
     Ed Tech Digest
Ten years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “Ed Tech Digest” post where I share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in checking out all my edtech resources. Here are this week’s choices:
Online Voice Recorder does just that. Vault Game Library has lots of online learning games. Dict 24/7 offers “Free Voice Typing & Dictation in 99+ Languages.” Access television stations from around the world at Globe TV. I’m adding it to THE BEST TOOLS FOR TAKING STUDENTS “AROUND THE WORLD” Headlines is a game that challenges you to fill in the words of headlines for various stories in today’s NY Times. It’s a more challenging version of a defunct game that was great for ELLs called Headline Clues. Circuits Game is an intriguing concept for a game that is, unfortunately, probably too difficult for ELLs. You’re given a word, and have to figure out which words could come before or after it. Rumicat lets you create small circulation email newsletter for free. I’m adding it to The Best Applications For Creating Free Email Newsletters. Kawara is not free but, it, too, is an interesting way to create email newsletters. It will automatically create them from videos you upload to your channel.  This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Ed Policy Issues
Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in seeing all my “Best” lists related to education policy here):
 Sentences Of The Week geralt / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: “It isn’t essential that they need to have three years of instruction about phonics in 128 sessions,” [Mark Seidenberg] offered by way of an example in an interview with Education Week. “There’s opportunity costs, and if you do it too much, it’s going to take away from other things that kids need to learn.” There’s a strong positive relationship between income and gifted identification, which is reversed when looking at special education. More than a third of boys (36%) participated in gambling activity in the past 12 months, according to the report, which draws from a nationally representative sample of 1,017 boys ages 11 to 17 in the United States surveyed in July 2025. See The Best Resources For Using “Reactance” With Students To Help Them Learn About How Corporations Try To Manipulate Them. This recent push for “AI” is yet another grandiose and grotesque experiment on children – one that no one asked for and few want. Looking at the averages for Dimension 2 surveys, they tell us that only around four in ten students feel their teacher knows when something is upsetting them. This statistic is from the UK, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s similar in the U.S. See THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING HOW TO PROMOTE A SENSE OF “BELONGING” AT SCHOOL In fact, private schooling is the most expensive placebo in America. “The movement — that’s the hero.” Most states maintained or slightly increased school funding levels from 2022 to 2023, but more than 10 reduced the percentage of money allocated to high-poverty districts — reversing a decade-long trend, according to an Education Law Center analysis of the most recent data available. They found that the number of teens getting insufficient sleep, defined as seven hours or less a night, rose from 69% in 2007 to 78% in 2023, the most recent year for which data was available. See The Best Resources For Helping Teens Learn About The Importance Of Sleep If you’re a teenager in crisis, you don’t need to seek out dark material; the algorithms study what you linger on and serve you more content like it. Surprising studies show young people are doing better than previous generations in many ways “Power hates being mocked more than it hates being challenged,” he said.
 “10 Ways to Scaffold Instruction for English Learners”10 Ways to Scaffold Instruction for English Learners is the headline of one of my recent Education Week columns. Keep scaffolds for students learning English simple—and temporary. Here are some excerpts:
 More Recent Articles
|
