Teacher Talk
How to Keep Kids Off Their Phones While Homeschooling
By: Scott Wilson | Sep 2, 2026
The most reliable way to keep kids off their phones while homeschooling is to agree on a spot where the phone goes during schoolwork, out of reach and out of sight. Set a clear return point, keep the work surface phone-free, and switch off notifications before the session starts.
Teachers have been working on this problem for a long time. Now it's your kitchen table.
Eyes down ...
What Frustrates Teachers Most About the IEP Process
By: Mary McLaughlin | Mar 27, 2018
The most frustrating part of the IEP process, for the special education teachers I asked, isn't the paperwork itself. It's the breakdown between the people responsible for it: missing records from a previous district, parents who don't attend, goals nobody can measure, and team members who never show up to ...
How to Talk to Your Kids About Snapchat: 7 Lessons in Responsible Use
By: Jon Konen | Mar 26, 2018
Start with Snapchat's own safety tools: its minimum age is generally 13, though it can be higher in some countries or regions, and its Family Center lets you see who your child talks to without reading the messages. From there, settle on a monitoring routine you can maintain consistently, teach ...
10 Reasons to Have a Teaching Collaboration Partner
By: Jon Konen | Mar 23, 2018
A teaching collaboration partner is a fellow educator you check in with regularly to trade ideas, troubleshoot problems, and push each other's practice forward. The relationship works because both people bring solutions, not just complaints. One Montana elementary principal built this kind of partnership with a colleague 200 miles away, ...
When Special Education Teachers Gets Sick
By: Mary McLaughlin | Mar 23, 2018
During the course of my career, I have been sneezed on, coughed on, vomited on, spit on, pulled on, tugged on, cried on, been in the presence of seizures, copious amounts of blood, and even a heart attack. Insulin pumps don’t scare me, neither do tracheotomies.
What really scares me the ...
Showing Professionalism as a Teacher: Danielson 4f Guide
By: Jon Konen | Feb 20, 2018
Showing professionalism as a teacher comes down to three things Charlotte Danielson's Domain 4f looks at: honesty in every interaction, decisions made on student needs rather than adult convenience, and leadership that reaches past your own classroom. In my experience, those habits count for more when colleagues can see them, ...
The Four Functions of Behavior, Explained for Teachers
By: Blain Hockridge | Feb 20, 2018
The four functions of behavior are attention, escape, access to tangibles, and automatic reinforcement, often remembered by the acronym SEAT. Many behaviors can be understood through these common functional categories. Once you have a sense of what's driving a behavior, you can stop guessing at consequences and start teaching a ...
Growing and Developing Professionally: Danielson Domain 4e
By: Jon Konen | Feb 12, 2018
Growing and developing professionally means taking ownership of your own learning instead of waiting for a district to assign it: reading, reflective practice, peer feedback, and formal coursework all count. In the 2013 Danielson Framework for Teaching, this is Domain 4e, one of several teacher-practice frameworks districts use, and it's ...
Participating in the Professional Community: Danielson 4d
By: Jon Konen | Feb 12, 2018
Participating in the professional community is component 4d of Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching, covering what you do outside your own classroom. In the framework, the component includes relationships with colleagues, a culture of professional inquiry, service to the school, and participation in school and district projects. The rubric you're ...
Teacher Safety in Special Education: What Districts Owe You
By: Mary McLaughlin | Feb 9, 2018
Teacher safety is not only about lockdowns and building security. For teachers working with students who have significant behavioral needs, the daily risk is being bitten, hit, or injured by a child in crisis. The protection that actually holds up is a written safety plan built into the student's IEP. Back ...
Parent Teacher Communication: 6 Questions for Working With Families
By: Jon Konen | Feb 9, 2018
Parent-teacher communication works best when it's frequent, two-way, and started before there's a problem. Make a positive contact early, ask each family how they prefer to be reached, and keep a record. Save phone calls and face-to-face meetings for anything that needs tone, nuance, or a hard conversation. Who are the ...