The Common Core is getting a lot of attention these days. Teachers are feeling the pressure now more than ever to prepare their students for the real world using the standards. Some are feeling overwhelmed while others are tackling this challenge head on. In our May 22 webinar, 5 Things Every Teacher Should Be Doing to Meet the Common Core’s Literacy Standards, Eye On Education’s Senior Editor and former classroom teacher, Lauren Davis, addressed these concerns by talking about 5 shifts that should be happening in every classroom to ensure student success.

In Math Intervention: Building Number Power with Formative Assessments, Differentiation, and Games (Grades 3-5), Jennifer Taylor-Cox emphasizes four main goals for math instructors: they must help students achieve accuracy, efficiency, flexibility, and fluency in solving math problems. This tip explains how and why to teach the concept of multiplying and dividing by ten, and provides a game intended to help students build on his concept.

'Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers, by Heather Wolpert-Gawron, aims to motivate and inspire teachers as the work to engage their students, instruct with rigor, and improve their own experiences. This tip provides 10 simple ways for teachers (and school leaders!) to exercise and reenergize their brains during the summer!

The following guest post was written by Rebekah Stathakis, author of A Good Start: 147 Warm-Up Activities for Spanish Class.

In my last blog post, I shared ways to encourage students to use world languages over the summer. If I expect students to continue using their skills over the summer, it seems only fair that they should be able to expect that I will also spend some time over the summer working on mine.

Schools Where Teachers Lead: What Successful Leaders Do, by John S. Bell, Tony Thacker, and Franklin P. Schargel, provides schools leaders with real-world, on-the-job ideas to improve their own skills and promote shared leadership among their staff. This tip provides four strategies for developing listening abilities, as well as a listening abilities questionnaire that school leaders can distribute to understand how their colleagues perceive their listening skills.

The following blog post was written by Eye On Education's Senior Editor, Lauren Davis.

The Common Core State Standards place an emphasis on process, not just content. We can’t just teach students a bunch of facts; we have to show them how to learn. If we simply fill students’ heads with information, they may forget it days later. But if we teach students how to research, discover, question, and obtain new information on their own...

I may be smarter than you or I know. So challenge me to think, and we'll both know if that's so! The point I’m trying to make is that we, as teachers, often assume too much. Just because a student knows an answer or can memorize a given piece of information, we assume that he understands. This is often not the case. Knowing informational facts and being able to apply that information by thinking critically and using the information to solve problems are two different things.

The following guest post was written by Barbara Blackburn, author of the best seller Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word. Learn more about Barbara Blackburn here.

As you work on aligning your lessons to the Common Core, you may wish to reconsider the questions you ask students. Are they rigorous enough? Will they lead students to a deeper understanding of a text or topic?

Reaching English Language Learners in Every Classroom: Energizers for Teaching and Learning, by Debbie Arechiga, is filled with practical tools, strategies, and real-world vignettes to help you teach reading and writing to a diverse student population. This tip is designed to provide teachers with techniques you can use to flood your students with vocabulary throughout the day to improve student comprehension and literacy skills.

The following blog post was written by Eye On Education's Senior Editor, Lauren Davis.

The Common Core State Standards for grades K–5 indicate that students should write opinion, informative/explanatory, and narrative pieces. The best way to help students learn how to write in these genres is to show them a variety of real-world exemplars, or mentor texts....

Family Reading Night, by Darcy J. Hutchins, Marsha D. Greenfeld, and Joyce E. Epstein, offers clear and practical guidelines to help engage families in student accomplishments by conducting a successful family reading night. This tip provides an activity to prepare your students and their families for summer reading, while wrapping up what they've learned this year!

In Multicultural Partnerships: Involve All Families, the authors stress the importance of involving multicultural families to boost students’ success in school: “Teachers, principals, counselors, and other educators know that good teaching is not enough to ensure student learning and development. They know that they must involve all families in their children’s education.”

We have asked the members of our panel: What strategies has your school used to build relationships with the families of multicultural students?

The following blog post was written by Eye On Education's Senior Editor, Lauren Davis.

Earlier this month, I attended the International Reading Association’s 57th Annual Convention, held this year in Chicago. The event brings together educators and educational publishers from across the country to share best practices and resources. I was accompanied by Eye On Education’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Annamarie Cerreta. We had a great time! Here are some highlights from our trip.

In our monthly E-News, we bring you the latest education news, resources, and classroom ideas from the Eye On Education Blog and other blogs we read. Click below for our favorite educational blog posts from the past month.

The following tip, from Informal Observations On the Go: Feedback, Discussion, and Reflection (3rd Edition), by Sally Zepeda provides school leaders with several helpful guidelines for conducting efficient and effective informal classroom observations.

The following guidelines for informal classroom observations are offered as a starting point for framing this important work.

Informally Observe All Teachers

All teachers can benefit from informal classroom observatin. Refrain, however, from "overobserving" particular teachers...