Talking roles are discussion jobs that rotate among students in a small discussion group. The roles give quieter students a clear entry point, encourage active listening and build accountability.

Nature journaling not only boosts students’ attention, sense of well-being and joy, but also strengthens their scientific, mathematical and critical-thinking skills. 


Queens high school teacher Amy Matthusen explains ways to center students in creating evaluative criteria to help deepen learning.

I have tackled the challenge of implementing Illustrative Mathematics, the Department of Education’s new mandated algebra curriculum, by embracing the pedagogical practices in “Building Thinking Classrooms," developed by Peter Liljedahl.

Big Apple Award winner and Bronx special education teacher Benjamin Jones encourages his fellow educators to use artificial intelligence software to quickly and simply alter or adjust curriculum to meet the needs of all learners, including students...

Social studies teacher and Big Apple Award fellow Jay Maqsood discusses the merits of concept mapping to help students better retain and synthesize complex information and sets of data points.

As a school counselor, I recommend that classroom teachers do these four things to support students in their social-emotional growth. 


High school teacher Amy Matthusen of East-West School of International Studies in Queens explains how to deepen students' engagement with a play or novel by having them produce a talk show featuring characters from the text.

Strategies such as journaling, reader’s notes and social-emotional prompts can help students make the leap to making inferences from the fiction and non-fiction they read.

As a middle school math teacher, I’ve learned that providing students with spiral reviews — having students revisit concepts throughout the year — created by their peers instills a sense of ownership of the work. It typically makes the problems more...