BloomBoard - A Place for Educators!

As busy educators (wow, that's an understatement), we are always searching for resources.  We spend endless hours searching for strategies, activities, websites, etc.  This takes time, time that we just don't have!  Let me introduce to you a time saver, BloomBoard!  BloomBoard is a place where educators can learn, share, and discuss the best teaching ideas and strategies to solve everyday classroom challenges and improve their practice.  BloomBoard offers easy access to high-quality, personalized content curated by experienced educators.  The BEST part is it's FREE!  As my son always says, "If it's FREE it's for ME"!  

Throughout the month of February, over 20 education bloggers (including myself) will be sharing collections of learning resources on our blogs and writing about how that collection powers our practice.  The collections will either be ones we have curated ourselves around a topic of interest or just a favorite of ours from the new BloomBoard.  You can check the BloomBoard Blog every Monday in February for the week's schedule of bloggers and follow along daily on BloomBoard's Facebook and Twitter pages.

My BloomBoard Collection

One of the collections I curated is "How to Make Cooperative Learning Work in Your Classroom". Recently (well, about five years ago) I was introduced to Kagan Structures!  Kagan Structures are cooperative learning structures that engage ALL students! Cooperative learning is NOT just group work.  Cooperative learning maximizes learning because ALL students participate. One of my favorite cooperative learning structures is Rally Coach. Students work in pairs, Student A and Student B.  The activity (usually a practice paper) is placed in the middle of the pair. Student A explains the process he will take when completing the question or task.  Student B will either agree or disagree and coach where needed.  Roles reverse.  This 'RALLY" will continue until the allotted time expires.  

With the help of Bloomboard, I have been able to create a collection of resources that will help teachers in the area of Cooperative Learning as well as collections that can help with other classroom routines and needs.  


I would now like to introduce the next featured blogger in this campaign.  National Writing Project is a network of sites anchored at colleges and universities and serving teachers across disciplines and at all levels, early childhood through university.  They provide professional development, develop resources, generate research, and act on knowledge to improve the teaching of writing and learning in schools and communities.  The NWP focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing nad learning for all learners.