"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles

I’ve begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other related “Best” lists.

Also, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources.

Here are this week’s picks:

Leaders, Bring Your Best Self into the New Year is from The Harvard Business Review. I’m adding it to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES ON LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP – SHARE YOUR OWN.

I play for the Miami Dolphins. This is the mental lesson I learned this season is from The NY Times.

Framing ADHD as a strength can lead to better mental health is from Fast Company. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Looking At Our Students Through The Lens Of Assets & Not Deficits.

Google research says successfully forming a lifelong habit comes down to 1 word is from Fast Company. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR HELPING STUDENTS – & US – DEVELOP GOOD HABITS.

The simplest way teens can protect their mental health is from Science Daily. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Helping Teens Learn About The Importance Of Sleep.

     

For the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful.  This post first appeared in 2019.

There are many things in education where research disagrees about whether they are effective or important in student learning, but the value of a positive teacher-student relationships is not one of them.

The research is in universal agreement that it’s a critical element of a successful K-12 classroom (see The Best Resources On The Importance Of Building Positive Relationships With Students).

I’m confident that the vast majority of teachers recognize its importance, whether they have read the research or not.  We all see – everyday – what education researcher Robert Marzano has found:

Positive relationships between teachers and students are among the most commonly cited variables associated with effective instruction. If the relationship is strong, instructional strategies seem to be more effective. Conversely, a weak or negative relationship will mute or even negate the benefits of even the most effective instructional strategies.

No matter how hard we work at it, however, sometimes our once-positive teacher-student relationships “go south” or never get started on the right foot.  It could be totally unrelated to our behavior and, instead, be caused by conditions the student is experiencing outside of school or because of past years’ experiences in school.  Or, perhaps, we may have made an off-hand comment one day that was misinterpreted by a student.  Maybe we were having a bad day and said something that did not demonstrate patience or compassion to a student who needed one or both at the time.

If any of us teachers, or our administrators, need research “back-up” on the importance of repairing our student relationships, we need to look no further than recent research finding the overwhelming effectiveness of a classroom management strategy using a model called “Establish-Maintain-Restore [Relationships].”

Based on sixteen years (so far) of secondary school teaching experience, here are a few strategies I’ve used to successfully “restore” a positive relationship with a student:

Invite A Student To Take A Leadership Position

This is a “tried-and-true” strategy that is used by many teachers – ask the student to take a position of responsibility.  These could range from being the person who catches-up students who have been absent with what he/she missed to passing out folders each day.    This strategy is a variation of what is known is psychology as The Ben Franklin Effect, which you can learn about at The Best Resources For Learning About “Psychological Effects” Useful To Teachers and at Variations On “The Benjamin Franklin Effect.”

Go On “Walk-And-Talks”

“Walk-and-Talks” are a strategy refined by our Principal, Jim Peterson, into an art form.  He has written about it at Guest Post: “Walk & Talks” Are Extremely Effective Way To Connect With Students – Here’s A “How-To” Guide.  In one sense, it’s the simple act of taking a student on a walk during your prep period to check-in with him/her but, once you read his post, you’ll learn it’s much more….

Apologize

Saying “I’m sorry” can go a long way to repairing a relationship, not to mention being an excellent role model for students to see.  Even if I really didn’t do anything wrong, saying something like “John, obviously there’s some tension between us, and I apologize for my contribution to it” can make a difference.  See The Best Resources On The Importance Of Saying “I’m Sorry” for more info.

Being Positive

Every day is a new day, and approaching each one as much as humanly possible with a cheerful smile and attitude when interacting with every student – no matter how negative they have been to you for no matter how many days, weeks or months – has a chance of ultimately winning them over.  And, even if it doesn’t, I always finds that it makes me feel better about myself as a person and as a teacher.

I would say that this strategy has been the most successful one in my teaching life.  Sometimes a student is testing – intentionally or subconsciously – if you will give up on him/her.  See The Best Resources On The Importance Of Building Positive Relationships With Students.

Bring In An Outside Mediator

At times, I’ve asked one of our school’s counselors (we have a great one in Cary Farley) or Phillip Taylor, one of my teacher colleagues who leads a restorative practices program at our school, to mediate a conversation between a student and me in an effort to get a better working relationship.

Call Home

Looking for reasons to make a positive phone call home (see Making Positive Phone Calls Home) in the presence of the student can sometimes work wonders.  A student might be expecting you to share negative comments, and shocking him/her with the exact opposite can result with the student questioning their own perceptions of you.

And, if it doesn’t, you’ve set-up your relationship with the parent as someone who doesn’t just “have it in” for their child, and they are probably more likely to trust your analysis of challenges in the future.  And, if I have to make that second call, I always lead by asking parents for their advice on how I can turn around my relationship with their child.

Even better than making that second call, of course, is making a home visit (see The Best Resources For Learning About Teacher Home Visits).

Agree On “Signs”

I don’t know about you, but get tired of repeatedly calling out the same student for behavior issues time-after-time — and the student sure gets tired of it, too.

In those situations, I’ll sometimes approach the student and start by saying just that – “I don’t want to keep on calling out your name and I suspect you don’t me to keep doing it, either.”

I’ll go on to explain that, in the past, I’ve worked out a “sign” with students that I can give them instead of saying their name, and that if I give it, they know they’ve gone too far and have to re-focus.  I explain I won’t use the sign when there are minor issues – just when things are “going over the top.”  And I further explain that once we decide on that sign, we can figure out a sign they can give me when they feel I’m bothering them too much – we can try both as an experiment.

Often times students will say that having me put my hand on their desk is a sign I can give them.  The sign they can give me varies – one year a student chose the word “Remember.”

In this situation, all it took to dramatically change our relationship for the better was for him to say “Remember” one time and for me to immediately respecting it and back-off.  I’m not sure if I had ever seen a student’s face with a more shocked look on it.

Give Food

I find that having a cupboard full of graham cracker and small packages of peanut butter and crackers is well-worth the expense.  Being able to check in with students to see if they got to school early enough to eat breakfast and, if not, being able to offer a snack helps students see that we see them more than just a “client.”  In my experience, at least, I’ve never had students take (much) advantage of this kind of food availability. Offering to share a snack when on a “Walk-And-Talk” can add to a positive atmosphere, too.

I’m sure there are other strategies not listed here, and I hope readers will share them in the comments section.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Posts On Classroom Management

A “Good” Class Gone “Bad” . . . and Back to “Good” Again

Have You Ever Taught a Class That Got “Out Of Control”?

Response: Ways to Handle a Class That Has Gotten Out-of-Control

     

It continues to be time for mid-year “Best” lists.

You can see all my previous Online Learning Games “Best” lists (and there are a lot since I’ve doing this since 2007) here. Note that they’re also continually revised and updated.

Here are my picks from the first part of 2025:

Cool History Games is a nice collection of ad-free games students can play with no registration required. They would be easy to play by projecting them on the front classroom whiteboard and have students divided into groups with mini-whiteboards. Then, just keep track of points. Then you’ve got a nice way to end class on a Friday!

I’ve previously posted about many online games that challenge you to put historical events in the correct chronological order. Those can be a lot of fun to play in class, and reinforce memorization of events and dates. The game Ripple, though, challenges players to think. Its instructions shown in the above image tell you how it works. It seems to me it could be projected on a front whiteboard, and then students could play in teams with mini-whiteboards.

Where In The World.. operates like most Geoguesr-type games – you answer the question by clicking on where you think is the correct geographic location, and it will tell you how close you to actual correct answer. The difference here, though, is that the questions ask you about the location of historical events. I’m adding this info to The Best Online Geography Games.

Vault Game Library has lots of online learning games.

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.

14 Exceptionally Fun Math Games for Middle and High School is from Edutopia.

GeoStats Game has lots of pretty original geography games. I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Dataguessr challenges you by asking you a data question (“Which countries have the highest rates of children under 14”) and then you have to put those stated countries in order.

Chartle is a game where you have to guess data about a particular country.  It’s like Dataguessr. I’m adding it to The Best Tools For Comparing Demographics Of Different Countries.

Chronopress is an online game where you have to put historical events in the correct order, like the NY Times Flashback game.

World of Maps shows you data mapped out on a globe and you have to identify what data it is showing.

There seem to be more and more companies trying to move into the education game business though, between Wayground, Kahoot and Blooket, I’m sure there’s a real need for more. The latest is Quizdes, which is sort of like a slimmed down version of Wayground, without lots of Wayground’s positive features. It does use AI to create nice images that go along with each question, which Wayground does not do, so it could come in handy with English Language Learners. I’m adding it to The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”

Mission USA has some new games, though I haven’t explored them enough to determine if they’re good or not.

TyperBuddy lets you practice keyboarding and compete with classmates. I’m adding it to The Best Sites Where Students Can Learn Typing/Keyboarding and to The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”

Teach Quest and ClassMana sort of turn your classes into video games?  I’m not sure I quite get it, or buy it, but it does look interesting.

Picatle is an online geography game. I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Online Game Leaderboards & Zero Sum Thinking

GeoGPT5 is a GeoGuesser-like game, but you’re competing with an AI chatbot.  I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Banto TV has a bunch of games, some of which would be useful to students, particularly ELLs, that you can set up for play in private online rooms. I’m adding it to The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”

Zep is a new-to-me learning game site that has lots of similarities to the usual suspects – Wayground, Blooket and Kahoot. I first heard about when reading a study that found playing it helped with student motivation (there is similar research available for most of the online gaming platforms). The main difference – at least, as it appears to me – is that its game interface tries to be much more like a video game – and there are many different “maps” (video game formats) to choose from. There’s a free account that lets you create and play games, but just not with as many different video game formats. Personally, when I was in the classroom, I paid for the premium accounts of Wayground (then Quizizz) and Blooket, and that worked out fine for my students.  I still use them with the elementary school students I now tutor weekly.  The free accounts for the others functioned as a periodic change of pace. I’m adding this info to:

The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games

The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”

TVGuessr shows you a short TV clip, and then you have to guess the country from where it originated. I think it could be a fun game to play at the end of a class, with students in small groups and mini-whiteboards. I’m adding this info to:

The Best Online Geography Games

THE BEST TOOLS FOR TAKING STUDENTS “AROUND THE WORLD”

I’ve previously shared How I’m Using AI Art Generation To Teach English To Newcomers, and the Twin Pics game sort of builds on that kind of instructional strategy. First off, it’s free for teachers to create virtual classrooms and free for students to play! In it, students are shown an AI-generated image (teachers can create an already-created one or make a new one) and compete to see who can write a prompt that will create an images closest to the one shown. I’m adding this info to:

THE BEST RESOURCES FOR TEACHING & LEARNING WITH AI ART GENERATION TOOLS

The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games

THE BEST USES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN LEARNING GAMES

THE BEST POSTS ABOUT USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH ELLS

I’m adding these games to The Best Online Geography Games:

Geotripper challenges you to find the best route between two points.

Map Drawn and Bordered and Map Draw Quiz challenges you to draw the states.

Humbo shows you an image of a well-known site, and you then have to select its correct name and location.

Geovera has lots of geography games.

EarthGuessr uses satellite imagery.

WorldGuessr

Bloomberg recently unveiled a new word game called AlphaBots. You’re given a phrase hint for the word, and then shown a chart with the letters for the word mapped out a y axis showing the alphabet (see the image above). It could be a fun game to play in class with teacher-designed clues and charts, along with students working in pairs with mini-whiteboards.  Or even have students create their own. The games on the site itself are too difficult for ELLs, but the concept is great! I’m adding this info to The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom.

Fluxis is a game on the Atlantic’s website. It’s similar to the game that most ELL teachers have had students play – you say a word, and then a student has to come up with a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word. Flux’s twist, though, is that you are given a category that each new word has to be in. This might work with advanced ELLs.

GeoGallery challenges you to identify the geographical location of paintings, and you can play in a virtual “room” with friends (and classmates). You can read more about it here. I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

The New Yorker magazine recently announced a new online word game called Shuffalo. In it, you’re first provided a few letters and then have to make a word out of them.  Once you’ve completed that puzzle, another letter is added to the collection, and you have to make a word out of all of them.  Then, yet another letter is added, and so on. It’s not an easy game. However, it also provides you with the ability to request as many hints as you like, and that’s what makes it great for English Language Learners. Project the game at the front, and then give everyone, or pairs, a mini-whiteboard.  See who can create the first word.  Then, move to the second one.  If students feel stumped, just click “hint” and get a letter.  Add another letter if students still don’t get it. I’m adding this info to The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom.

Hidden Door is a pretty interesting, and free, AI tool. The simplest way to describe it is that it lets you create characters that interact with others inside of classic novels. It seems somewhat similar to another AI site called Playbrary (see “Playbrary” Turns A Thousand Classic Books Into “Choose-Your-Own Adventures”).  Only you can be more pro-active, almost a co-creator, with Hidden Door.

Geowordle has a lot of geography games.  I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Timdle is a game where you have to put historical events into chronological order, sort of like a less well-designed Flashback (a NY Times game).

MapGame is a geography…game.  I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Foodle might have some potential as a learning game for ELLs – you’re presented a dish, and then have to guess the ingredients that went into it.

Worldle is an online geography game.  I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Type Together lets you create private rooms where you can compete in…typing.  I’m adding it to The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms” and to The Best Sites Where Students Can Learn Typing/Keyboarding.

abcdkbd offers a lot of preschool learning games.

Wola lets teachers create learning games.

Slate has begun an online word game called “Pears” that may or may offer an idea adaptable to the ELL classroom. First, you’re given six letters and have to create as many words as you can from then. Next, you’re given a two letter combo, and you have to use that combo and the other six letters to create a longer word.

As most teachers know, Padlet is a particularly useful online tool that can be used for many purposes. Now, they’ve created a completely separate AI-powered site called Padlet Arcade. For now, at least, it’s completely free, and students don’t have to register or login to play any of the games. I learned about it from Tony Vincent, and I would recommend signing up for his newsletter. It’s a pretty neat site. If you, as the teacher, sign-up and login (again, for free) you can copy any game that’s there or easily create your own. They’re not very clear about how to do it, but if you copy a game or create your own, and share that link with your students, then you will see the scores of only your students. When students play any game on the site, their scores go to some kind of universal leaderboard. I’ll explain more a little later. When you first want to create a game (again, you also have the option of copy someone else’s), you are sent to “Describe your game” and then you’re given various choices about what you want it to look like (Fill in the blanks, flashcards, multiple choice, etc.).  Once you review it, you submit it and it’s done.  There is no limit on the number of games you can create – for now, at least.

Here’s what ChatGPT says to do if you want to see scores from your own students:

1. Generate a fresh game.

2. Keep it “Secret – Link only.”

3. Share only inside your LMS.

4. Tell students to use:

   • First name + last initial

   • Or student ID number

5. Don’t post the link publicly.

That will effectively give you a class-only leaderboard.

I’m adding this info to:

The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games

The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”

     

For the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful.  This post first appeared in 2019.

What classroom teacher doesn’t hate those so-called benchmark assessments that districts often force us to give to students?

Today, education research Robert Slavin (Editor’s note: He is now deceased) published an excellent post reviewing research on those assessments and providing a thoughtful analysis of why he thinks they are as useless as the studies suggest….

Check out Benchmark Assessments: Weighing the Pig More Often?

I’m adding it to A Collection Of “The Best” Lists On Assessment (this is an older collection that includes lots of good assessment resources that don’t quite fit into the categories of other “Best” lists).

     

A few months ago I began a series called Sentences Of The Week.

Here are my choices for the best ones so far this year:

This is hardly Armageddon for higher education. But the future does kind of suck…

“I be teachin’ YOU? We be teachin’ each other?!”

If I tell you the truth, you may not like me for a week. If I lie to you, you’ll hate me forever.

I ask [my kids at dinner] to tell me two things about their day that happened and one thing that didn’t, and we all guess which was which.

There’s no excuse for assigning inaccessible or boring novels and plays when there are so many books out there that teens would be more likely to enjoy.

Educators cannot solve immigration policy, but they can and do push back against its harm: by showing up for students, telling the truth, and ensuring that belonging is not conditional.

So many people started with the Large Language Model as the solution and worked backwards to define a problem.

“It seems that these curriculums are designed to build knowledge and they don’t develop meaning, and so then why read about the Civil War or about insects?”

“It’s sort of strange to be comparing [Alpha’s] students to students from a wide variety of very challenging circumstances, rather than comparing their students to other students in elite private schools,” Reich said.

One of the key strategies of the civil rights movement was, through nonviolent protests, provoke the racist police so public could see violent reaction on tv, and the Trump administration people obviously know nothing about history & how it’s repeating itself.

Our research shows that clearly stating that you want to learn about your counterpart’s perspective significantly improves how that person evaluates both you and your arguments. 

If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.

“Mobilizing is about getting people to do a thing, and organizing is about getting people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done.” When I was a community organizer, we understand that the most important work was organizing.  See The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change.

When tutoring is outsourced to AI, we rob both groups of students—the learners and the tutors—of experiences that shape their academic and professional futures. See THE BEST RESOURCES ON PEER TUTORS

Like a chef, mastering math is not just about following a recipe or executing techniques correctly; it is about understanding how elements work together so that, when faced with something new, students know how to reason through the problem and build on previous knowledge.

I was really reminded of how incredible it is to watch teachers’ brains process about eleventy billion different inputs at the same time. See The Best Research On How Many Decisions A Teacher Makes Each Day

Researchers found that people who used the punctuation mark [exclamation points] were viewed more positively than people who didn’t and were preferred as collaborators. I always used exclamation points when giving students written positive feedback, or sending emails.

A precocious kid who is bored in a gen-ed classroom might need gifted education, but decades of data and research suggest it’s more likely that he and everyone else simply need fewer classmates, so that his teacher can give each student more individualized attention. See The Best Resources For Learning Different Perspectives About “Gifted & Talented” Programs and The Best Resources For Learning About How Class Size Does Matter

As a businessperson-turned-teacher, I can’t emphasize enough that to talk of a “learning recession” in public schools is to beckon to the ideology of the free market and business methods that cannot be sensibly applied to K-12 schooling. See The Best Posts & Articles Explaining Why Schools Should Not Be Run Like Businesses

The problem is not that motivation leads to achievement or that achievement leads to motivation. The research literature increasingly suggests that both processes influence each other continuously.

Taking a broad view, it’s possible to argue that Britain won the American Revolutionary War.

Real critical thinkers do not only question others. They also question themselves. See The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom

Moral elevation… can rewire our brains, and that’s because when we witness someone defying our understanding of what humans are capable of, in turn, it cracks open our own imagination about what we are capable of, and it transcends domains.

Leaders should stop asking “How do I hold people accountable?” and start asking “What’s preventing them from choosing it?” 

The presence of a problem alone, even if there is awareness, is not enough to generate mobilization or reform. Social causes require organization, political opportunities, and compelling narratives in order to succeed.  See The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change

A great irony of this contemporary insecurity about attention is that, compared with the rest of the animal kingdom, the human attention span is really not that impressive.

Each time we focus on learning from failure instead of being consumed by it, we rewire our brains, building pathways that make thoughtful responses more natural than automatic reactions.

Students need explicit instruction in how algorithms shape what they see, how online communities can normalize dehumanization, and how emotions like shame, envy, and humiliation are often being deliberately activated and exploited.

In an era of misinformation, the brain’s urge to resolve questions as soon as possible can lead us towards flawed conclusions unless we actively engage our critical thinking.

“McMahon has played the role,” he writes, “of a friendly grandmother wielding a hatchet.”

Immordino-Yang told me that the ultimate goal of any school assignment is not the finished project itself but the experience of having done it—an experience that A.I. tools are intended to abbreviate or obviate.

As Jones writes, “Fury pulls the mind away from reason (ratio), Arnaud reflected, and losing yourself in anger is like letting a puppeteer take control of your brain as well as your limbs.”

Indeed, given that Sal Khan has tried unsuccessfully for nearly two decades to abstract humans away from human systems—first with human explanation, then with human evaluation, and most recently with human tutoring—it seems unlikely that he is the right person now to pivot edtech towards humanity.

But I talked about in Chain of Ideas what’s known as positive-sum theory, which is the notion that as that other group gains, my group gains.  Check out The Dangers Of “Zero Sum Thinking” In The World, Including In Schools

There will be no “AI” tutor revolution just as there was no MOOC revolution just as there was no personalized learning revolution just as there was no computer-assisted instruction revolution just as there was no teaching machine revolution. 

When we include community and the collective struggle for racial justice in Black history, the work of justice reflects its inclusivity, enabling more people to bring their gifts to the work.  See “Idolizing Just One Person Undermines The Struggle”

The longer the lesson—we looked at a 10-minute versus a 30-minute instructional block, for example—the less students were on task.

While vulnerability takes courage, it is important for leaders and mentors to admit to young people that they were once firmly convinced of something that later seemed like the dumbest thing they ever heard.

Perhaps consuming a few dozen book pages a day should become the new 10,000 daily steps — a basic foundation of activity to maintain cognitive fitness.

Schonfeld said common accommodations students with disabilities need in traditional classroom settings are provided to everyone — a key factor in the learner-centered system’s success. I always say good ELL teaching is better for everyone, and it’s probably safe to say the same for instructional strategies that work for students with learning differences.

Although quality data are sparse, the research that does exist suggests a different narrative—one in which kids are faring better in many ways than those of previous generations.

Dictators, in reality, thrive not on love but on indifference.

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.

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.

One thing I say is when we assume positive intent and give others the benefit of the doubt, we are really giving ourselves the benefit of low blood pressure.

One of the things that we do so frequently with kids is say, “Don’t do this,” but then we don’t tell them what we want them to do. 

It is imperative that we maintain hope even when the harshness of reality may suggest the opposite. —Paulo Freire