Pepper Resource Library Highlight - STEM Builder

What’s the value in the Pepper Resource Library? Having great resources in a convenient, easy to get to place. In a recent conversation about the Resource Library, I used the analogy that I could check out a Harry Potter book from any library, but the one up the street was the most convenient so that’s where I go. Pepper’s Resource Library is just like that. There are great resources all over the Internet, but teachers don’t have time to scour the Web for great resources. The value in Pepper’s Resource Library is that great resources are collected and categorized for educators in an easy to get to location.

We’ve been focusing on Science lately and a great resource available to teachers is STEM Builder. STEM Builder provides thousands digital resources in science, math, technology, and engineering in the form of of online animations, experiments, and videos. STEM Builder is focused on strengthening student vocabulary, conceptual understanding, and problem solving skills. Users can search for information in any of the STEM categories (science, math, technology, and engineering) or search by keyword, grade level, or standard. Teachers can also narrow down their searching by using the links across the top of the page which include: Guided Practice, Videos, Activities, Experiments, Games, Graphing Tools, Modeling, Demos, Virtual Reality, and Science Experiments. 

The site’s vocabulary tools are exceptionally strong with a dynamic visual component that aids users by having mouseovers or clicks to include additional images, labeling, and in some cases, animation. Many words have Spanish translation and some also contain audio. Teachers can use STEM Builder to preview online experiments, create self-paced math lessons, and find instructional videos for content teaching. Practice exercises and games are also available for teachers to use with students for re-teaching, follow-up, and challenge activities.

Be sure to visit and explore STEM Builder in Pepper’s Resource Library. Also, be on the lookout for new Science courses geared around the Next Generation Science Standards. You can see all of our Pepper course offerings on our website.

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Resource Library Highlight: BetterLesson

The Pepper Resource Library is a valuable component of Pepper that contains professional learning tools, curriculum, and open education resources. One of these resources is BetterLesson. Founded by a group of teachers from Atlanta and Boston public schools, BetterLesson strives to help prepare and support teachers by providing high quality lesson plans and curriculum resources. They are focused on collecting and sharing the most innovative content and practices from the highest performing teachers across the country.

They have partnered with educators across the country to run Master Teacher Projects and have created over 16,000 rich lessons, covering Common Core ELA and math, Next Gen Science, and Blended Learning. In addition, their community of teachers has contributed over 1 million resources proven to work in their classrooms. All of this content is completely free of charge and available through BetterLesson in your Pepper Resource Library.

The Master Teacher Project brings together more than 130 brilliant and creative teachers in grades K-12 math and ELA. These talented and hardworking teachers are sharing lessons they teach everyday. And these aren't just the normal lessons - they're lessons that are super accessible and classroom-ready. Teachers using the site can "like" lessons, provide feedback, download resources, and read Master Teachers’ commentary that provides insight for effective lesson implementation. BetterLesson is free, but teachers must create an account in BetterLesson to gain unlimited lesson browsing.

BetterLesson is one of several great resources available through the Pepper Resource Library.

Where is your Pepper Resource Library? You can find the link on the top center of your dashboard:

Then, once you're in the library, you can find BetterLesson here:

Also be sure to check out our Pepper course offerings - including new ELL and Writing courses for K-12.

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Back to School

August and September bring much excitement with “Back to School”. Teachers, parents, and students are all gearing up for the start of a new school year and getting back to routines. For many, “Back to School” night at schools are the first opportunity to make impressions - for students, teachers, and parents. These nights can really set the tone for the upcoming school year. Darri Stephens, Senior Director of Education Content for Common Sense Education, writes of “three tried-and-true tenets for a successful Back-to-School Night”. In her recent article, “Back-to-School Night: The Ultimate Conversation Starter for a Successful School Year”, Stephens encourages teachers to do three things: 

• Be transparent - Have a common language and explain your thinking
• Be direct - Invite parents into the classroom and set expectations for students
• Be consistent - Stay true to your rules and keep parents informed

Back to School Night provides a great opportunity to establish parent partnerships that will ultimately lead to student success throughout the year.

You can get more from Common Sense Education by visiting Graphite in Pepper’s Resource Library. To read more about this awesome resource, you can also check out this recent blog post from July 25, Graphite: Tools for the Digital Classroom.

Be sure to check out all our Pepper course offerings.

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Pepper Resource Library Highlight

Graphite: Digital Tools for the Classroom

The Pepper Resource Library is a valuable component of Pepper that contains professional learning tools, curriculum, and open education resources. Currently there are 7 categories in the Resource Library: engageNY: Common Core Library, Common Sense Graphite: Digital Tools for the Classroom, Better Lesson: What Works, Stem Builder: Stem Curriculum Resources, Smarter Balanced: Practice Assessments, PARCC Practice Assessments, and Pepper Course Libraries.

Due to the vastness of each of these resources, we’ll look at each one independently. Today we’ll look at Graphite: Digital Tools for the Classroom. Graphite™ is a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from an active community of teachers. Common Sense is the largest, independent nonprofit organization committed to helping kids, teachers, and families manage media and technology in life and learning. They have technology education curriculum being used in more than 55,000 schools across the U.S.

So, what can you find in Graphite? Categories at the top of the page direct you:

Reviews and Ratings  - Reviews of popular tools, apps, and software by teachers and tech experts for educational use.

Top Picks - "Top Picks" are editorially curated lists of the best edtech tools reviewed on Graphite. You can browse through the full library of Top Picks lists by grade, subject, and/or skill.

Common Core Explorer - Find the best digital products for your curriculum by using intuitive filters that quickly guide you through the Common Core State Standards.

Lesson Flows - Created by teachers, these innovative, tech-rich lesson plans combine great digital tools and inspiring teaching practices.

Teacher Center - The Teacher Center provides a professional development hub for teachers and administrators using Graphite. Find resources for integrating technology into the curriculum effectively, as well as advice on how to best use Graphite to find high-quality edtech for the classroom. Check out Lesson Flows to inspire your teaching, join monthly webinars, and find out how to become a Graphite Certified Educator. Whether you’re a newbie or expert, join the growing community of educators with whom you can connect to share best practices.

Boards - Here you can save, organize, and share your favorite Graphite content. Save reviews, Lesson Flows, Top Picks lists, and blog posts to My Desk, then drag and drop content to curate shareable Boards.

Be sure to check out Graphite in Pepper’s Resource Library, as well as other great resources too!

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Using the Resources Within Reach

Your school librarian is a fantastic resource for helping you find just the right books to impact your students' learning in a positive way. He/She spends hours a day doing the work that you don't have time to do! Simply let your librarian know what you're looking for and set up a short appointment to go over what they've found for you. Supplemental materials, like books, can make learning rich and powerful.

Pepper offers many courses that help you utilize resources within your reach. Our ELA101 "ELA101x Resource Library Purposeful Text Selection to Supplement Core Materials" is example of this. Check out a short clip on our YouTube site.

Calling All Science Teachers--Common Core Lesson Plan Round-Up!

When you're thinking through the best ways of engaging your students, communicating and reinforcing concepts, helping them achieve mastery of new ideas and ways of thinking, and just plain getting excited about learning, it can help to have a little inspiration. Seeing what other teachers have done to develop creative, CCSS-aligned lesson plans, or looking through resource libraries to find interesting lesson plans can give your own planning an energy boost.

Here's a round-up of some websites that provide science teachers with CCSS-aligned ideas for the classroom. Look for other subjects/disciplines in future posts!

Check out these FREE SCIENCE LESSONS from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). You can filter your search by grade and content to find what you want more easily!

Who doesn't love cookies? This series of blog posts by science writer Bethany Brookshire is called COOKIE SCIENCE! She takes educators and students step-by-step through applied science, all in the name of finding cookies that taste better. If you're looking for student-friendly science news, don't miss the website, hosted by Society for Science & the Public.

MIT BLOSSOMS is a wonderful website with a focus on videos for classroom use. You can do a very focused search, including by content standard, and locate science video lessons--each of which is a complete resource, with teacher's guide and supporting materials. CLICK HERE to search by education standards!


Got students who are into sports? Then GO HERE to the Connect A Million Minds website to find science-friendly learning activities and games for kids. These would make great additions to lesson-plans.

Engineering and applied science lessons are free and searchable on TeachEngineering.org! You can browse across multiple categories or search by content standard. There are hands-on activities, lessons, and supporting materials!

For a big-picture look at how real science educators are making CCSS work in their classrooms, check out this Edutopia.org blog post, "Common Core in Action: How Two Science Teachers Are Implementing Common Core." Get tips, ideas, and best practices!

Finally, take a look at the Utah Education Network. They have easy-to-browse, free lesson plans that are aligned to Utah's Core (based on CCSS). CLICK HERE for K-6 science lessons. CLICK HERE for 7-12 science lessons!

Free Video Series--Geometry Instruction for K-8 Teachers!

If you have spare time this summer, take a look at the amazing, in-depth, comprehensive teacher resources from ANNENBERG LEARNER. The mission of the nonprofit organization is "To Advance Excellent Teaching in American Schools." The website is full of fantastic resources for all disciplines, and well worth a closer look.

Included in those resources are a number of in-depth video courses with supporting materials targeted to a variety of grade levels and subject areas. THIS VIDEO SERIES helps frame geometry, not only as a set of skills or objectives for your students to master, but also as a strategic method for problem solving in general. To follow the entire series, you should allow for the better part of a day. Begin with the first session, and then follow along with the prompts to move through the entire series.

Better Parent-Teacher Conferences--Strategies for Being Effective!

Though this set of resources and strategies is specifically geared toward middle school educators, many of the ideas and issues that this blog post discusses can easily be adapted for all grades.

Here, you can find everything from a checklist for productive conferences, to a tutorial video showing good communication techniques, to suggestions from other teachers who have shared their best practices. Start thinking ahead this summer so that you can be ready for the fall!

CLICK HERE to check out this parent-teacher conference resource roundup on Middleweb.com, a website dedicated to all things middle school!

Common Core Resources for Special Education

Calling all special education teachers and administrators!

This wonderful website from the California Department of Education collects tons of great information about special education and Common Core. From webinars to presentations, resources to FAQs, this site can help you find what you need to know about making the transition to Common Core with your special education students.

CLICK HERE to go to the website, and be sure to take a few minutes to see what's offered!

Over 300,000 Teacher-Created, Teacher-Vetted Resources--FREE!

Sharemylesson.com is a website that brings educators together to share their winning classroom and professional development resources with each other.

Intended to inspire and facilitate collaboration among teachers, this site includes an enormous number of Common Core-aligned lesson plans and resources, all of which you can access for free.

Searching can be a little bit of a challenge, but there are a few short, easy-to-follow tutorial videos on the homepage that will help you learn to navigate the site. And it's worth it! The site includes a Common Core hub, with news, information, updates, and forums to help you as prepare for the move to CCSS.

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Common Core: Getting a Handle on Resources, Info, Ideas, and Assessments

There is so much out there right now about Common Core State Standards--from heated debates and misinformation to fantastic new resources to help teachers prepare for the transition. But how do you know where to look for solid information and vetted resources? It can be more than a little overwhelming trying to sort through everything out there, especially if you're a busy teacher with a full schedule already.

Help is here! Check out this great Common Core roundup from Edutopia.org! Whether you're looking to get a handle on the debates about CCSS, or learn more about implementation on the ground in schools, or find out more about how the standards were developed and the research behind them, or even get a better grip on assessments and lesson plans aligned to the Common Core, this website offers tons of organized, useful, curated links. CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Digital Learning Activities and Educational Games -- Free!

As every teacher knows, not all educational games are created equal! Some have genuine value and can serve as wonderful reinforcements for student learning, or can expand student learning beyond the classroom. Yet how do you find educational games and digital learning activities that have been vetted and curated without spending hours of your own time testing them, or paying for memberships?

Check out this fantastic website: Powermylearning.org! It's a free digital learning platform with resources for teachers, students, and parents alike, and was developed by the well-respected national education nonprofit CFY. If you're looking for games, videos, interactives, and other digital resources to incorporate into your Common Core lesson plans for the classroom, then this is the website for you.

Each resource in Math and ELA is aligned directly to a Common Core standard. Plus, there are countless resources for science, social studies, the arts, technology and more. You'll need to create an account to access all the material on the site, but once you do, you'll be able to tap into hundreds of carefully-vetted, free digital resources.