The Chalk Blog

After the excitement of the holiday season, the first few months of the year can feel a little “meh,” back to the grind, same-old same-old. Our new course 5245: Educational Innovation with Art Integration can help! The course is all about an approach that reinvigorates teachers and energizes students! You’ll learn strategies any PreK-12th grade content area teacher can use to boost engagement and achievement using visual and media arts, music, theater, and dance/movement. With choices offered throughout, you’ll develop a plan to integrate the arts in a way that meets your students’ unique needs. Read on to learn more and download a sneak peek resource from the course!

Music educators are uniquely positioned to orchestrate connections between student culture and the universal language of music. Quality professional learning is key to making this happen. In our new music-focused course, 5214: Teaching for Equity in the Music Classroom, you will explore strategies to expand students’ musical understanding beyond the Western classical perspective to honor a different approach: one that both affirms the music students are familiar with. 

STEM and STEAM frameworks provide essential skills to future success in the workplace, and as agents of change in the world. “The State of STEM Education Through 25 Stats,” by Ryan Boser links to information to motivate students to explore STEM or STEAM careers. 

What does it really mean for students to be fluent in math? Hint: It’s not just about basic facts! In our new course 5222: Math Fluency Beyond the Facts, you’ll challenge the traditional narrative of fluency. Rather than memorization, regurgitation, and speed, fluency is rooted in conceptual understanding, involving flexible thinking, reasoning, and creativity. 

How can we: 

Preparing Students for the Future 

Happy Holidays! 

Help us fill our walls!

Calling all Artists and Visually Gifted folks: we need your help!

Learners Edge has always been a fun place to work, and never before has that been more represented than in our new space (we moved at the end of October 2018).

We have lots of natural light with colorful accents, complete with a ping pong table, Nerf guns, and currently, a Jenga set. We have couches and several other options of places to meet, work, collaborate, and laugh. We have snacks!- oh, the snacks!- that tide us over when we need a little food break. We have a white board that hosts trivia, fun facts about the staff, and nonsensical polls (Fun fact! We are overwhelmingly a chunky peanut butter group).

Anyone who’s ever worked in a middle school or raised an adolescent, will nod and smile when Lauren Wester says her middle school-age students make her laugh every day. “There isn't a day that goes by without a student saying or doing something that cracks me up,” she claims, adding, “I also feel like they are in this magical in between; their brains are developed enough to understand jokes or sarcasm, but still open to and reliant upon adult help. It feels like I’m truly helping shape them.” 

Ms. Wester teaches 7th grade life science and 9th grade forensic science in a large suburban school district. Her teaching targets range from fun and focused learning to serious life skills that reach beyond the classroom out into the community and global society. 

After completing Learners Edge Course 5080: Making the Shift to STEM Education, teacher Laurel Woodward created this amazing plan of action/implementation plan to address how she will make the shift to STEM education. Check out her STEM goals and her implementation plan to achieve these goals in her exceptional coursework below!