This page provides advice and information for every step of your teaching career, from student teaching to job interviewing to the pursuit of National Board Certification. There are also social media resources to connect you with other educators and extend your personal learning network. Teaching doesn't have to be an isolating profession--there are thousands of free ways to get connected and stay informed online!
PDFs marked with an asterisk (*) cannot be printed, because they are adapted from The Cornerstone book. If you'd like to view the complete text with all printing rights enabled, you may purchase the eBook. PDFs that aren't marked with an asterisk are web-exclusive content or chapter overviews and CAN be printed for educational use. Please note that the copy/paste function has been disabled on ALL PDFs to prevent unauthorized use.
Cornerstone Cross-Reference
Find even MORE professional development info in The Cornerstone book!
Book-exclusive content includes:
Ch. 26: Making the Most of Every Moment
*Guidelines for giving clear directions: how to get your kids' FULL attention through special signals and 'magic words'
*How to get students actively involved in your instruction and ensure equitable participation
*Teaching kids when and how to use choral response, and when to use individual responses
*How to maintain control during class discussions and instruction (without yelling or repeating yourself)
*Tips for eliciting student responses: when to call on low kids and when to call on high kids
*Handling the children who always want to be called on (and those who never do)
*How to support students' answers and teach them to support one another, as well (instead of groaning and getting impatient)
*Ideas for appropriate replies to wrong answers, off-topic responses, and "I forgot"
*Transition tips for between lessons and lesson components
Ch. 29: Creating a Support System
*Tips for building relationships with non-instructional employees: custodians, secretaries, office staff, and more
*Ideas for gaining adminisrative report: why your behavior in the hallways and in meetings can make or break your relationship with the principal
*3 types of teachers to avoid, and 3 types to surround yourself with
*Finding a mentor vs. finding your own teaching style: how to master your individual teaching style
Ch. 33: The Unwritten Contract
*16 facts you won't discover until you're locked into a teaching position: the real deal on supply reimbursement, class size caps, getting new students, planning time alotments, pay scale freezes, and much more
Ch 34: Timesaving Strategies
*Discover how to be a teacher and still have a personal life!
*It IS possible to work a 40 hour-week: seven pages of tips to help you work efficiently and make the most of your time
Ch 35: Ending the Year on a High Note
*How to keep kids on task when spring fever's in the air: staying on a predictable schedule and mainaining routines
*High-interest lessons for the last week of school
*Deconstructing the room in an orderly, structured way
*Preparing in advance: checklists for a month before school ends through the last day of school
*Creating a smooth transition for the fall: the critical tasks to complete in June
Ch. 36: Avoiding Burn-Out
*8 keys for enjoying and growing with students: how to love your students, your job, and yourself through stressful times.
More Professional Development Resources from The Cornerstone
Join the listserve/message boards!Participate in forum discussions about classroom topics that are relevant to you, post questions to over 400 other group members, download free files, find out about site updates, and more! To join The Cornerstone yGroup, all you have to provide is your email address.
Check out the NEW blog! This is the place to read my latest reflections on classroom life, discover fabulous new resources, and stay updated on education news. You'll also find lots of humorous anecdotes, snarky commentary, and the infamous LOLcats go to skool feature. Join the hundreds of others who subscribe to The Cornerstone Blog through an RSS feed or have new posts emailed directly to you.
Read the book! The Cornerstone book is a 500 page resource guide to help you construct a self-running classroom that frees you to teach. If you like the website, you'll LOVE the book, which explores classroom management techniques more fully. Get access to hundreds more tips and tricks in this amazing manual! Free excerpts and downloads are also available.
Find spiritual encouragment! Teaching can be stressful and exhausting. Whenever you're having trouble staying focused on the big picture and your life's purpose, stop by The Cornerstone Devotions for Teachers for a moment of reflection and rejuvination.
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The tweet updates include educational links and resource sharing which are typically buried between random thoughts about teaching and witty off-topic banter. Click here to view The Cornerstone Twitter feed (AngelaPowell).
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This free PDF publication from NWREL was extremely helpful for me: it's quite lengthy (42 pages) but worth printing, highlighting, and reflecting on.
The National Science Foundation has put together a 117 page guide to inquiry science which you can also download for free here.
Entry 4, Documented Accomplishments, is the one entry that all NB candidates must complete regardless of certification area, and it's also one of the most widely misunderstood. This guide is enormously helpful: I wish there were one for the other entries, too!
Vanessa Levin, who runs a great early childhood site called 'Mrs. Levin's PreK Pages', completed the NBPTS process during the 2006-2007 school year and did assessing for NB during the summer of 2006. She is continually adding to her page about NB as she learns. Enjoy!
Here's another great site from Rose Marlow with mail rings for various certification areas and links to standards for various subject areas in multiple states (especially helpful when studying for the AC, but also a great starting point for planning portfolio entries).
Mrs. Renz has an awesome page with resources for Inquiry Science, which you MUST know how to implement for the EC-Gen portfolio entry 3.
Here are some popular resources- I haven't read them but I wanted to give you an idea of what's available to help you. If you decide to purchase them, please consider doing so through my site by clicking on one of the book photos to access Amazon.com (this is explained in more detail on the home page). A portion of the proceeds will benefit this site at no cost to you.
General Professional Development
Coming soon!
Teacher Humor
Need a laugh, poem, or story to brighten your day or share at an in-service or staff meeting? Visit The Teacher's Lounge! All the classic teacher articles are here, plus some new ones, including 10 Reasons to Become a Teacher, You Might Be A Teacher If..., Only A Teacher, Humorous Quotes, and 1923 Teacher Requirements.
Helpful Blogs
Here's a list of all the education blogs in my Google Reader. These are regularly updated resources from some of the brightest teachers, professional development specialists, policy makers, and education experts in our field.
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