Every year I identify my personal favorite posts, and it’s time for my mid-year selection. You can see my choices for each of the past eight years here. Here are My Favorite Posts In 2015 — So Far: Here are some of my favorite "The Best…" lists from this year (by the way, the total lists I’ve published reached 1,450 this year): The Best Articles (And Blog Posts) Offering Practical Advice & Resources To Teachers In 2015 - So Far All My BAM Radio Shows - Linked With Descriptions The Best Movie/TV Scenes Demonstrating Metacognition - Help Me Find More The Best & Most Useful Free Student Hand-Outs Available Online - Help Me Find More The Best Posts On Reading Strategies & Comprehension - Help Me Find More! The Best Resources About Inductive Learning & Teaching I also wrote quite a few posts for The New York Times on teaching English Language Learners (you can see them all here) that I think are quite useful. By the way, I’ll be writing for a fourth year starting in September and, insanely, I will be going back to doing it weekly instead of monthly. I had several articles published elsewhere, including some excerpts from my latest book on student motivation that were surprisingly popular: Help Your Students Get Into the Learning Flow What Motivates A Student’s Interest in Reading and Writing Creating the Conditions for Student Motivation Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves The real stuff of schooling: How to teach students to apply knowledge Why Viewing Classroom Management as a Mystery Can Be a Good Thing Teachers: What we want everyone to know about working in our high-needs school And here are a few other posts from this blog that I thought were particularly useful: Jigsaw Puzzles As A Language-Learning Activity "Cash" For Good Student Behavior - Without An Exit Strategy - Is Not The Best Classroom Management System Here’s My Chapter On Elements Of A Successful Lesson, Along With Student Hand-Outs THEY Use To Teach All Student Hand-Outs From My New Student Motivation Book Now Online For Free No, The "Cone Of Experience" Is Not "Research-Based" & Yes, Some People Debunking It Have Way Too Much Time On Their Hands Last, but not least, I think this relatively short video of me talking about student motivation is one educators might find helpful:

© 2013 H. Michael Karshis, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Mandela Day is on July 18th. Here’s a description of the day: Nelson Mandela International Day was launched in recognition of Nelson Mandela’s birthday on 18 July, 2009 via unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly. It was inspired by a call Nelson Mandela made a year earlier, for the next generation to take on the burden of leadership in addressing the world’s social injustices when he said that "it is in your hands now". It is more than a celebration of Madiba’s life and legacy. It is a global movement to honour his life’s work and act to change the world for the better. You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About Nelson Mandela.

© 2012 fotografeleen, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio I’ve published quite a few posts and "Best" lists related to teaching writing, and I thought it would be useful to me and to readers to bring them all together: The Best Posts On Writing Instruction The Best Online Tools That Can Help Students Write An Essay The Best Websites For K-12 Writing Instruction/Reinforcement The Best Places Where Students Can Write Online The Best Sites For Grammar Practice Not "The Best," But "A List" Of Mindmapping, Flow Chart Tools, & Graphic Organizers The Best Resources For Researching & Writing Biographies The Best Resources For Learning How To Write Response To Literature Essays The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An "Authentic Audience" The Best Online Interactive Exercises For Writing That Are Not Related To Literary Analysis The Best Online Resources To Teach About Plagiarism The Best Resources For Learning Research & Citation Skills The Best Online Resources For Helping Students Learn To Write Persuasive Essays The Best Spelling Sites The Best Sites For Gaining A Basic Understanding Of Adjectives The "Best" Sites For Helping Students Write Autobiographical Incident Essays The Best Sites To Learn "Feelings" Words The Best Sites For ELL’s To Learn About Punctuation The Best Resources To Help Students Write Research Essays The Best Sites For Learning To Write A Story The Best Writing Advice From Famous Authors The Best Resources On Punctuation The Best Ways To Use Mistakes When Teaching Writing The Best Funny Videos To Help Teach Grammar - Help Me Find More The Best Video Clips On The Benefits Of Writing Well — Help Me Find More

© 2012 Julie Jordan Scott, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio The Key to Rereading is the headline of a new article in The New York Review of Books. As every educator in the United States knows, rereading a text is a hallmark of the close reading strategy emphasized by Common Core Standards. This passage in the article sounds profound, but after rereading it several times, I’m still not sure if it really makes any sense. He suggests that reading something new creates a "lock" in the brain concealing its true meaning that can only be opened by a "key" created by rereading the text. I’ve reread it a number of times, and still can’t figure out what the difference is between that analogy and one of looking at the text as a lock that can only be opened by a key developed by the brain a second time that it is read. What am I missing - if anything? "When we perceive something new for the first time we cannot really perceive it because we lack the appropriate structure that allows us to perceive it. Our brain is like a lock maker that makes a lock whenever a key is deemed interesting enough. But when a key—for example, a new poem, or a new species of animal—is first met, there is no lock yet ready for such a key. Or to be precise, the key is not even a key since it does not open anything yet. It is a potential key. However, the encounter between the brain and this potential key triggers the making of a lock. The next time we meet or perceive the object/key it will open the lock prepared for it in the brain." It’s an elaborate theory and in fact the reader turns out to be the philosopher and psychologist Riccardo Manzotti. Intriguing above all is the reversal of the usual key/lock analogy. The mind is not devising a key to decipher the text, it is disposing itself in such a way as to allow the text to become a key that unlocks sensation and "meaning" in the mind.

© 1970 Pip R. Lagenta, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio Each week, I publish a post containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You might also be interested in The Best Articles (And Blog Posts) Offering Practical Advice & Resources To Teachers In 2015 - So Far. Here are this week’s picks: The top ten learning strategies #AnnualVL2015 @CorwinPress @JamesNottinghm pic.twitter.com/GhToUbwbep — Visible Learning (@VisibleLearning) July 13, 2015 Literacy expert @RegieRoutman shares practical teaching model for new educators. http://t.co/dYKdRqEWVB #newteacher pic.twitter.com/RzQZbYftRB — MiddleWeb (@middleweb) July 9, 2015 Teaching Creativity, A Creativity Complexity Scale &Rubric http://t.co/wDCuperW9C @Larryferlazzo @bradmcurrie @RACzyz pic.twitter.com/UhqiidJWEH — Trevor Bryan (@trevorabryan) July 9, 2015 Cognitive Coaching Tools Can Help Us Guide Rather Than Tell is from The Alabama Best Practices Center.

Are We Investing in History Repeating Itself? is an interesting article about ed tech that appeared today in Bright. Here’s an excerpt: You might also be interested in The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Careful Around Ed Tech. The same article also mentioned a nice site called MathTrain.TV set-up by a California middle school teacher. His students create videos - much more engaging ones, I might add, than what you’ll see at The Khan Academy — teaching math concepts to an authentic audience. Here’s an explanation of the site:

‘The Reading Strategies Book': An Interview With Jennifer Serravallo is the second in my series of author interviews at Education Week Teacher. In it, I interview…Jennifer Serravallo, author of The Reading Strategies Book. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Congress: Bilingualism Is Not a Handicap is an Education Week guest column written by Claude Goldenberg. Here’s an excerpt: I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning The Advantages To Being Bilingual Or Multilingual.

© 2011 CGP Grey, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy In 2015 - So Far): How More Education Could Save A Half-Million American Lives is from NPR. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Showing Students Why They Should Continue Their Academic Career. The graduation rates from every school district* in one map is from The Hechinger Report. Lawmakers Move to Limit Government’s Role in Education is from The New York Times. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On The No Child Left Behind Reauthorization Process. How Standardized Tests Are Scored (Hint: Humans Are Involved) is from NPR. Poverty rates in every U.S. school district, in one map is from The Washington Post. I’m adding it to The Best Places To Learn What Impact A Teacher (& Outside Factors) Have On Student Achievement. Campbell Brown has a new education-focused site: But is it news or advocacy? is from The Washington Post. Why Are Some Teachers Being Evaluated Using the Test Scores of Kids They Didn’t Teach? is from Slate. Gov. Scott Walker savages Wisconsin public education in new budget appeared in The Washington Post. Debate Over Whether Black Kids Are Being Pushed Into Special Ed Heats Up was in TakePart.

I’m not sure if this video will come through on an RSS Reader but, if it doesn’t, you’ll want to come to the blog to watch it. Charlie Rose interviews Ta-Nehisi Coates about his new book, "Between the World and Me." Look for a special guest-written review of the book here soon. I’m adding the video to A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism - Help Me Find More.