Teacher Resources

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Ebsco and other databases available through the Saugus Public Library

Anyone living or working in Massachusetts can sign up for a free BPL eCard. Use databases, millions of eBooks, and audio books.

Teachers if there is an eBook that you can't find. Please email me I might be able to get it for you on one of the "Librarian Only" sites.... [email protected]

Learning Ally offers tens of thousands of audiobooks: These audiobooks are in fiction, non-fiction, and many K-12 textbooks. Audiobooks are a great option for students whose learning strength is audiobooks. For more information contact John Vaporis, or Julie Oliver.

Transparent Language Online provides a fun, engaging, and interactive language-learning environment. More than just a language course, Transparent Language Online contains full courses and dozens of resources, while also providing extensive reference information, vocabulary building, relevant culture learning, and guidance for learning over 110 languages (including English).

Media Literacy From URI

New York City Library Resources For Teachers in Every Subject

Current Curriculum Frameworks

Educator Resources From Harvard Graduate School of Education

Educational Resources On Nearly Every Topic

Bring Your Classroom To Life With PBS Learning Media

History Lesson Plans - Ohio State University

Needed: A New Rehearsal Space for Democracy

General education represents the best and last chance for students to debate broad human problems, yet far too few institutions are giving them the opportunity, argue Andrew Delbanco and Jon Parrish Peede.

Too many students leave college with a blinkered view of the world -- trained in this or that specialty but unprepared to reflect on the meaning and purpose of their own lives, and to participate in an informed and deliberative way in the collective life of our nation and the world.

The Benefits of Teaching Ethical Dilemmas Teaching ethics can not only help students become better decision-makers, but it can also help develop crucial academic and social and emotional competencies.

Ethical decision-making is a crucial part of comprehensive education, but few schools teach ethics, writes Linda Flanagan, advisory board member for the The Ethics Institute at Kent Place School, in a recent KQED Mindshift piece. Introducing ethical dilemmas in the classroom can open up opportunities not only for debate and critical thinking, but also for personal growth, empathy for other viewpoints, and self-reflection.
Effective ethics instruction is about more than distributing a list of moral guidelines; it requires teaching students how to navigate their own moral decision-making. Students learn “to search for and evaluate their assumptions, to excavate the reasons behind those assumptions, to examine without prejudice another’s opinion and to make a thoughtful decision with confidence,” says Jana M. Lone, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Philosophy for Children.

Padlet is an application to create an online bulletin board that you can use to display information for any topic. Easily create an account and build a new board. You can add images, links, videos, and more. Examples Below.

THE LIBRARY IS A CLASSROOM
Often the argument is put forward in the media that physical libraries, and librarians, are irrelevant today because of technology. Working with young people daily, I know how critical human interaction is. Students don’t know what they don’t know. And dependence on the free Web and the new independence that the Web gives student researchers often results in substantial research “holes.” A student’s research improves when he or she poses a question to a human rather than a fictional butler.

Thoughtful research is a training ground for adult life. Good research habits require creativity, training, and much practice; and that research involves careful strategies and materials beyond the free Web. Topical research—merely finding and retelling information in a state, president, or country report— has no relevance in an information-rich landscape. I know how to assist teachers in guiding their students to learn how to ask the questions that will make research a meaningful learning experience.

Designing Web-based instruction and assessment tools that measure students’ use of information technologies, as well as their mastery of content standards is my forte. I have expertise in database searching that my teaching colleagues will never have time to develop. My responsibility is to ensure that students and faculty develop skills of information literacy, so that they know how to access, evaluate, analyze, organize, document, and communicate information in effective and ethical ways.

I am adept at molding the library into an interdisciplinary classroom, whereby students from every academic discipline visit, or makes use of the library’s resources.

Mr. John Vaporis, Library Teacher

Lesson Plans & Primary Sources

Lesson Plans

Ken Burns and his collaborators have been creating historical documentary films for more than forty years. Known for a signature style that brings primary source documents, images, and archival video footage to life on screen, these films present the opportunity to pose thought-provoking questions for students, and introduce new ideas, perspectives, and primary sources. Lesson Plan (46), Video (322), Media Gallery (92), Interactive (1), Image (26), Document (15) for Grades 4-13+

We help educators around the world use technology to solve tough problems in education.

The Writing Center - UNC, Chapel Hill

Lesson Plans - Grades 9-12

Why Study Logic?

Why Study Logic: Teach correct reasoning first, and incorrect reasoning only after correct reasoning is understood. An understanding of correct reasoning will enable students, in most cases, to spot bad reasoning even if they have never formally learned to identify bad reasoning. Note that we cannot say the opposite, that students will learn how to spot good reasoning by having studied examples of bad reasoning. In other words, by learning the rules of good reasoning, a student learns to spot bad reasoning as well, but learning about bad reasoning does not enable him to spot good reasoning.

Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.

Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.

Professional Development Classes From PBS

Ted Talks on nearly every subject in education

Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter In surprising studies, researchers find benefits to setting keyboards aside.

The Myth of Multitasking

What is Padlet?
Padlet is an application to create an online bulletin board that you can use to display information for any topic. Easily create an account and build a new board. You can add images, links, videos, and more.

Have Your Students Use Padlet for an Assignment

Works Cited
"101 Free Tech Tools For Teachers." SimpleK12 Teacher Learning Community | Education Technology - SimpleK12, images.simplek12.com/img/marketing/ebooks/101FreeTechTools.pdf. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.
"B's Book Love : How to Liven Up Your Socratic Seminar." B's Book Love, Teachers Pay Teachers, 2017, bsbooklove.blogspot.com/2017/01/how-to-liven-up-your-socratic-seminar.html. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.
"The Stories Behind the World’s Strangest Flags | Infographic, Flags and History." Pinterest, Pinterest, www.pinterest.com/pin/131871095318343185/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.
"Surprising Reading Facts (Infographic)." Robb Brewer, Robert Brewer, 2017, www.robertbrewer.org/surprising-book-facts-infographic/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.
Valenza, Joyce. "A Field Guide to an Evolving Species." Classroom.com. Classroom Connect, 1 Apr. 2002. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. <http://faumd403.pbworks.com/f/SchoolLibrarianguide.pdf>.