[We’re excited to celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week. Check our Twitter and Facebook pages all week as the New Classrooms team shares thanks for the incredible role that teachers play in their students’ lives. Share your own gratitude by using #ThankATeacher.]
I remember how my fourth grade teacher, Mrs.

Teacher collaboration means different things in different schools. Activities include informal classroom observations, co-teaching models, common planning around instruction and curriculum, and data-driven discussions. However it’s defined, the prevalence of these types of collaboration vary widely across the country, according to a recent report from the RAND Corporation. The

[This article originally appeared on EdWeek’s Next Gen Learning in Action blog. It is part four in our series on the teacher’s role in personalized learning in collaboration with Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC). To view the entire series, visit our Teacher’s Role page.] 
What is your most memorable

With a new year comes reflection, resolution, and fresh starts. Looking for strategies to inspire? As you ring in the second “start” of the school year, check out these personalized learning ideas for mixing up your classroom routine, boosting parent engagement, mastering a new technology, and more!
1. New Year, New

This article was originally published on EdWeek’s Next Generation Learning in Action Blog. 
What do you think of when you hear independent learning?
Many people imagine students on laptops. But when integrated with a holistic personalized learning model that includes multiple learning modalities, it can be much more than

This article was originally published on EdWeek’s Next Generation Learning in Action Blog.
Poke your head into any school around the country and you are likely to see students working in small groups. Why do educators see small group collaboration as a model to facilitate learning?
Small groups help

When transitioning to personalized learning models such as Teach to One, one of the biggest shifts for teachers is going from being neighbors to roommates. In traditional classroom models, teachers typically teach their own students in their own classrooms. Now, we’re asking them to knock down their walls–literally and figuratively–and

Anyone who’s tried to master a complicated task—such as preparing the perfect coq a vin to impress your dinner guests—knows there’s a disconnect between instruction and execution. You could have the greatest cookbook in the world, but conquering a difficult new recipe means trying, failing, changing your approach, and trying

There’s nothing typical about teaching and learning in the reimagined classroom.
For students in traditional classrooms across the country (and around the globe), the school day can look very similar. Whether in Calgary, Mexico City, or Washington, DC, students shuffle through hallways towards their next class, where they sit in

Rethinking how students experience skills to increase engagement and accelerate learning
The Relentless March of the Classroom Unit
If you’ve been a student in the last 100 years, you are familiar with the “Unit” as the primary way learning new skills is divided and organized. The Unit—as in “Class, in