The Gamified Teacher

Back to school season is just around the corner, and students and teachers everywhere are dreading the meet-the-teacher, 2 Truths and a Lie, and syllabus overview routine. If you want to win week 1, ditch the mundane and aspire for inspiration with activities that engage students in the class, culture, and curriculum! Day 1: Names and Norms In my opinion, the very first day should be about two things and two things only: who is everyone and what norms need to be established? These are imperative when it comes to two of the most difficult aspects of teaching, connection and control. For learning names, challenge students to listen to each other with a game that makes it fun to remember.  I like to use the traditional Name Game for first exposure. Then I like to take it to a relatable level with Among Us.  Among Us : This whole class card game gets students chomping at the bit to shout out names and details by engaging them with aspects similar to the popular video game so many of them

 ...and How to Fix Them! Teachers across the nation are confused as to why students have such bad grammar these days. There's a lot of talk about texting, social media, and now, even AI, but what if it all actually came down to something you were doing wrong? Don't freak out! This is actually good news because while we can't control the influence of tech on our students, we can control what and how we teach them. So take a deep breath, be honest with yourself, and get some strategies that work! You Think Reading Will Improve Writing OK, before you hunt me down and feed me to the literary wolves, hear me out. I admit that reading is a great way to improve spelling, vocabulary, and sentence fluency, which certainly do impact a conventions score. However, think about how often students are taught about sentence errors like run-ons, fragments, missing commas, unnecessary commas, etc. Then, think about the many classic texts we ask them to read that are riddled with errors like