Tutor and Teacher Educational Resources

Last week we talked about the pros and cons of competition in schools. If you do decide to implement competitive activities in your classroom, try to pick competitions that include everyone, and keep all of your students engaged. These types of activities can be labelled as ‘healthy competitions.’ Here are 6 examples of healthy school competition ideas you can try out in your classroom:

1. Have students compete in teams

When defining “healthy competition,” we need to highlight the importance of encouraging teamwork. Obviously, team-based school competition is very valuable because it engages kids through an exciting learning environment, while encouraging cooperation. Working toward a common goal as a team could help decrease self-consciousness and anxiety, which is often found in competition settings (and one of the ‘cons’ noted in our aforementioned article about competitions in schools).

An example of team-based competition could be dividing your class in half for a game of Social Studies trivia, or into groups of four to create the catchiest rhyme for a Science unit summary.

2. Give all the students a chance to win

When designing a healthy school competition, it is a good idea to make sure everyone has a significant chance of actually winning the game.

For example, you don’t want a kid getting kicked out of a game if they get the very first question wrong, or miss a shot at the beginning of a hockey game. By including everyone throughout the competition, they are more likely to stay engaged (and excited to participate).

3. Introduce rewards, based on effort

Not every competition has to be standardized across the board. Try having kids enter a competition that is personalized for their individual strengths, as suggested by Edquarter.

This could include students picking their favourite subject, or a specific goal they want to work on. Their progress in the competition can be measured according to the amount of effort they have put into their work. You can be creative and tailor this general idea to the needs of your class, as long as the main idea is to encourage kids to try their best.

4. Have students focus on personal academic goals

If you do want to have students participate in an academic competition, Classroom suggests you should “encourage students to beat their own previous individual scores.” This is a great idea, because instead of stressing over competing against another student for the better grade, students will be competing against no one other than themselves. This way, they can only get better and better!

5. Test out competition based on chance, rather than ability

Math games are a great way to implement this healthy competition idea. For example, grade 3 students learning multiplication can pair up with two dice each. Each round, the two students roll their dice at the same time. Each student multiplies the numbers on their dice together, and whoever has the higher product gets a point. This way, they are still practicing multiplication in a fun game setting without the competition being focused on each student’s speed or math ability. Instead, it is left up to chance. This is a great activity if you have a class of students with a variety of math skills, or if you are a parent looking to play a math game with your child.

Feel free to modify any of these healthy school competition ideas to suit the needs of your classroom or tutoring group. And if you haven’t already checked it out, here’s our last article on the pros and cons of competition in schools.

See related posts on our blog:

How to teach conflict resolution to kids

7 brain games for kids

Should children join a spelling bee contest in Canada? (Part 1: the pros)

Should children join a spelling bee contest in Canada? (Part 2: the cons)

How can we teach social competence to teens?

Kids fight. It’s human nature; we have disagreements all the time, even as adults. But learning how to handle each other’s differences is no doubt an important part of life. Tolerance can keep mankind working as a unit. And let’s face it: we’re social creatures. We need each other, kids need each other, and to meet that need, we have to learn to get along. So, how do you teach conflict resolution to kids? In this article, we’ll discuss some tips for doing so as a tutor, teacher or parent.

Understand where conflict originates, and why it should be discussed in the first place

This point may seem obvious. But there are some good ways of articulating or describing conflict and its need to be resolved. For kids, getting it ‘into their heads’ might take a while. As this article states, “like violence, nonviolence is learned behaviour.”

So, follow-through may be needed, for when the lessons become applicable. When you read resources online for teaching conflict resolution to kids, you’ll see that most of them surround the real experiences kids are going through, or have in their memory. Thus, the subject requires application to be learned.

But for a teacher, tutor or parent, having this ‘talk’ with your students can reduce the amount of time you need to spend as the ‘mediator’ or ‘judge.’ Petty fights among kids can cause them to lose focus on the more important lessons you’re trying to teach, or get the whole class through. You won’t want a bunch of annoyed, disturbed and outright angry kids in a classroom, causing more disruption either.

And, as mentioned above, kids need these skills to survive on their own one day. Helping them act as independent problem solvers is a major goal when teaching conflict resolution.

Develop or use online lesson plans for teaching conflict resolution to kids

Whether paid or free, the Internet is of course, full of open educational resources you can use to develop lessons on conflict resolution with your group of kids.

In addition to ones linked to in the article above, here are some to get you started:

Many Ways to Resolve Conflict

Resolving Conflicts

Teach kids to ask the right questions when resolving conflict

One way or another, parties who are angered by conflict need to find a personal solution. Whether that solution turns into violence and more fighting, or peace and resolution depends on how they handle conflict in the first place.

Here we’ll ‘steal’ a chapter from psychologists who use the practice of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). CBT is a method that explores how someone feels, thinks or acts, and the reasons why. It then helps them identify solutions to those problem tendencies, for long term change. When dealing with anger, CBT is a researched, established method for making a difference in someone’s life. To use a colloquial description, think of CBT as a way of ‘retraining’ the brain.

So, why are we bringing this up? Because, conflict resolution requires a way of thinking and looking at a problem that goes beyond the initial feelings of anger. To do this, you have to challenge yourself with questions. And the more people in a situation of conflict that are willing to do this, the better.

For example, see how this site, dedicated to conflict resolution, presents questions for conflicted parties to ask themselves. Questions include even first asking if a person wants to resolve a conflict. And then, it goes deeper to next steps, such as finding a fair, negotiable compromise.

This type of conflict resolution is a trait to be learned, as seen on the aforementioned site’s summary of skills on this issue. For example, asking the kids in your class to focus on the positives, instead of the negatives. For this, they need to first see how conflict can be turned into “creative opportunities.” They also need to dig deep to find out if perhaps, the conflict arose because of unapparent ‘seed’ issues (like, perhaps they are truly angry about something else, or very tired, or ‘hangry’).

In this relationship worksheet for conflict resolution, angry parties learn skills like focusing on a problem, instead of a person. They also learn to communicate better, so they don’t further exacerbate a problem. Our experiences can tell us that most of the time, people aren’t ‘born’ to handle things this way!

Teach kids the right vocabulary for conflict resolution

When teaching conflict resolution skills to kids, you’ll come across a lot of vocabulary surrounding the subject. These one-word lines can be useful memorization aids, to give kids a ‘toolbox’ of ideas to apply when they encounter conflict in the future. You’ll find these on the aforementioned articles we’ve linked to. They include words like “negotiate,” “arbitrate,” “litigate” and “mediate.” Depending on how old the kids are which you are teaching, you may want to start with vocabulary definitions. This can also be a way to ease-in to the topics of asking students to define situations when they could use those strategies.

To conclude: kids can become their own problem solvers, if we teach them how

Finally, as a concluding word, we should mention that our teaching kids of conflict resolution should come with good examples for them to follow. The skills taught above are knowledge-based. But most of this topic involves experience, as we’ve mentioned earlier. And so, while you can teach kids any number of facts, eventually it can come down to what they see and model around them. The good news is that since conflict resolution is a skill, and not a natural-born talent, there is hope for all of us!

We’ll bet that when Disney came out with the movie, The Queen of Katwe (or if you read the book earlier), kids everywhere must have been inspired to pick up the board game of chess as a hobby. And it’s always great to teach kids a topic they’re interested in.

Surely, learning chess has a lot to teach about strategy, life and mental exercise. But there’s another timeless game that’s just as old as chess, with more to give. Ever thought of teaching backgammon math lessons to your pupils?

Below are math ideas you can teach kids by playing backgammon.

Teach the math of dice by playing backgammon

This can be as simple as learning how to add up two numbers. But it can also show how a limited set of numbers can create many possibilities of combinations.

This resource teaches backgammon dice statistics, moves, and odds in great detail.

So, with two dice, you have 36 possibilities of numbers. And that leads us to teaching math probability…

Use backgammon rolls to teach math probabilities

As the above resource states,

Understanding the true probabilities of dice rolls can greatly improve your tactical play, by letting you accurately assess the risk of leaving blots, and the chances of hitting and covering points. It also helps you to play strategically, by telling you how to distribute your pieces around the board in order to make the largest number of potential dice rolls work well for you. Probabilities are the secret of why good players seem to get more ‘lucky’ rolls than beginners.”

You see, math is not useless!

When you roll two dice instead of one when playing backgammon, your mathematical probability changes. As this article also explains so well, calculating probability in backgammon can show kids a strategy for determining possible outcomes. In fact, it’s a great simple way to start teaching math probabilities, or to introduce the application of fractions. They can use this information to make decisions about where to move their checkers on the board, in order to win.

Kids can practice doing math calculations in their head with backgammon

With backgammon, players aren’t allowed to use tools to make calculations – not even a pencil and paper. But as this player mentions in his ode to backgammon math, “odds and percentages” are oh so necessary to becoming a great player. But it’s not as hard as people may at first believe. He notes:

The more you do the math, the easier it becomes.  It’s like any other learned skill.  At first I got frustrated counting pips, and now I can do it much faster and easier…especially after learning some shortcuts…

“I hated calculating match equities, and to do it right used to take me well over 10 minutes some times.  Now, I can pretty much figure out most match equities in a few seconds.”

Along with doing calculations in the head, backgammon players also learn memorization skills. As the above author explains, the more you know about how backgammon math works, the easier you can make general estimates on the fly. This is also a math skill, and a life skill for kids to learn. Once they learn principles, they can learn to apply those principles in multiple situations. Isn’t that what math tests are all about?

Backgammon math lessons get more complex as you advance your game

We’ve covered only a few of the math skills used in backgammon. However, backgammon math is so interesting and applicable to math theory, computer scientists have even studied it! And, as this article delves into it, you can see there is more to it, which can turn into advanced math lessons for your students. In life, this game can teach that while ‘luck’ can explain some things, strategy can be applied to improve your odds.

See related posts on our education blog:

• Focused math lesson — Teach students statistics using baseball
• Focused math lesson: Teaching kids math with cars
• Focused math lesson — using bowling to teach math to students
• Focused lesson — teach kids math and meteorology with barometers

See other articles in this series:

• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (1): understanding the fundamentals of media
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (2): the elements of a news story
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (3): learning to write news copy (part 1)
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (3): learning to write news copy (part 2)
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (4): learning to research and identify sources of information
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (5): learning to critique the media and spot ‘fake news’
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (6): tips and resources for fact checking
• Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (7): covering magazines and feature stories

Continuing on with our sequence on how to teach kids to start a newspaper, we’ll cover some production and publishing aspects of the industry. Once students have gone through the other lessons on starting a newspaper, they can begin putting it all together into a publishable format that looks just like a real newspaper!

Teaching kids print production with technological tools for design and layout may crossover into high school projects like the yearbook club or class. By teaching desktop publishing techniques, kids who may not be involved in the school newspaper or yearbook can still get exposed to the process.

When starting a student newspaper, design and layout training with desktop publishing can:

• Give students the chance to understand how speedily newspapers are be produced, which may explain the brevity of their coverage, and the time pressure journalists come under, in the real world of media.
• Build computer software skills that students can use in their future employment.
• Give students an eye for the perfection in graphic design skills, such as alignment, consistency, scale, typography and the impact that sizing elements on a page can have.
• Teach students how to follow conventional norms and ‘rules,’ and understand why these can save time in the workplace. For example, they can learn style guides, templates, font formatting and known efficiencies already used in the print media industry. Perhaps a discussion on cost effectiveness and print budgeting can also be explored with your class when taking on a project like this.
• Engage students in the creative process of layout and design in print media. For example, making decisions about photos and ads to place on a page, as well as other visual cues to help guide a reader according to the design intention.

Resources you’ll need for teaching kids desktop publishing or print media design

You will need access to school computers, and purchased software licenses to create a newspaper the ‘modern’ way. If these are not available, you could use the ‘cut and paste’ method (literally). And, yes, you could also go the fully digital route, by creating a classroom blog or newspaper website. However, since website publishing engages different learned skills, this would start us on another topic, for a future article!

Assuming you can access the computers and software, most likely, your class will be learning how to create a newspaper design and layout using Adobe InDesign. They can also use QuarkXpress, which was the older standard used in publishing.

For some parts of the process, you may need Photoshop, and a PDF creator, if not included in your existing page design software. If the students plan on creating a newspaper logo, Adobe Illustrator may also be required.

The Adobe Education Exchange website

Adobe has an entire website section dedicated to teaching tutorials on each of its products, including InDesign. Find the InDesign tutorials, and filter the age groups or lesson types here:

https://edex.adobe.com/search/global/?category=teach&product=indesign

Here is a resource that lists all Adobe education programs:

https://edex.adobe.com/programs (some of these are meant for adults, while others are for students. Either way, you may find useful teaching resources on this page).

Your school may need to purchase syllabus lessons on the site (depending on contributor licenses), or register for an account.

Here are lessons or ideas to get you started when teaching kids how to start a newspaper:

• Learn Adobe InDesign CC – a course to learn InDesign for publishing, without prerequisite knowledge needed.
• Adobe InDesign Tutorial 1 (Creating a Article) – a ‘first approach’ lesson to help students get the hang of using InDesign for newspaper purposes. It also answers questions about InDesign’s purpose.
• Grid System in Graphic Design – an important lesson needed for any newspaper or magazine project!
• Publishing with InDesign – a lesson for publishing a newspaper into different formats.
• Inspired Magazine – an idea of a project to try at your school, where students run the ‘show’ of their magazine!
• Grade 4 and 5: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign – a great syllabus on the very basics of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop designed for Grades 4 and 5.

And of course there are plenty more you could search for on the site!

As a teacher, you can also participate in discussions with other collaborators on lessons. For example, here is one teacher trying to get feedback on how to teach high school students about InDesign:

https://edex.adobe.com/discussion/5f226f6f55/

Other teaching resources around the web for teaching newspaper print production

Of course, the web is full of ideas and tutorials to help teachers when it comes to design and layout training for print publishing. We’ll list some we found here:

• Back to School Special: 30 Simple Adobe InDesign Tutorials
• An Introduction to Newspaper Design
• Desktop Publishing Projects for High School Students

Have fun while learning about desktop publishing for a student newspaper!

As you can see, the process of designing a layout for a newspaper can be a fun and creative project for kids. It certainly is one of the most visual aspects of teaching how to start a newspaper (apart from photojournalism, perhaps).

The above resources can get you started, and perhaps this can turn into a collaborative effort with a graphic design teacher in the school!

Vocabulary development is an important part of learning. It can open up an understanding of the world that would otherwise be ‘closed’ to our students. Not only that, the more complex vocabulary a student can accumulate, the more they’ll be able to develop reading comprehension. But in today’s world of abbreviated text messages, our students may be lacking in vocabulary acquisition.

So today, we’ll be covering some ideas on how to encourage vocabulary development in young minds.

Method 1: Teach word origins to encourage vocabulary development

The reason word origins may be a good way to encourage vocabulary learning is because they can provide context and meaning to the words. The stories can be remembered more easily than words alone as mere ‘data.’

Word origins can also be fun, since they may sound funny without their backstory. They can also teach some history. And they can show kids how language develops. They may be using the dictionary as an authority on words. But word origin stories can show them that dictionaries are actually a reflection of how societies use language.

And, it can show them that all the slang they use today is rapidly developing the English language thanks to the Internet. In fact, it only took one 16-year-old to randomly use the phrase “on fleek,” which then became part of pop culture language. And this article explains the story of a courtroom that needed interpretation of many new words the boom of the Internet has created. So, imagine what English may sound like in 100, 200, 500 years?

Therefore, this lesson can also expand into etymology. Read more about language etymology, and get a list of word origins here.

Here is a resource on the origins of terms:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-origins

Method 2: Teach kids word morphology to develop vocabulary

Related to our topic above about teaching word origins, you can also teach word morphology. This is when an old word takes on a new form. Or, when you add affixes or suffixes to a word to help it better relate to the context in which you are speaking. How do you turn a word into its past tense form? It’s plural form? Morphology, according to this article,

“Morphology is a critical element of successful vocabulary development and accurate decoding.  …Subsequently, weakness in decoding and vocabulary skills is noted as a potent inhibitor to fully comprehending text.”

That sounds like something to pay attention to!

Here is a video on the meaning of morphology with some examples.

What is one word morphology example causing the world to raise an eyebrow? How about Donald Trump’s use of, “bigly”? According to this article, it’s actually a word!

Can your students identify other word-morphing happening in current events? Can they come up with their own? This can be a fun exercise to get kids using words, and being aware of their so-called ‘correct’ usage (which remember, is only dependent on how we all adapt to those morphologies!)

Method 3: Encourage kids to tell their own stories, so they use vocabulary in more sentences

Whether in written or spoken form, kids telling their own stories can help them use vocabulary, which in turn can help that vocabulary ‘stick.’ If they are telling a story verbally, such as a bedtime story, and they use a word, you can mention synonyms. Like the example in this article, if the child uses the word “buy,” you can introduce the word “purchase.”

This article also explains more reasons to encourage kids to tell their own stories:

4 Benefits of kids telling their own stories

Method 4: Use kids’ novel interests to develop vocabulary

Who says kids have to learn vocabulary ‘by the book’? They can pick up new words in many places, including their current obsessions. This can be part of teaching words as ‘related groups,’ according to this article. Anyone with a kid may notice that they go through ‘phases’ of novel interests. This month it may be insects. Next month it may be Star Wars. The month after it could be dinosaurs or cars.

You can use these opportunities to explore vocabulary with kids at home. Or as teachers, ask kids to do language arts assignments that are based on topics they choose. This can enhance their motivation for the work.

Take our article on the Maker education movement, for instance. If a kid is into electronics and ‘making’ things, they can start their vocabulary learning to name the objects they are working with. Often, those words can have meaning in different contexts later on. There can be crossover of language into different subjects or for different needs.

So let’s take the word “microprocessor.” What does “micro” mean? Remember word morphology above? Ok, so then, what is the opposite of “micro”? It’s “macro”!

Kids may learn to “tinker” with objects in a Maker education space. But then they’ll later be able to use that word when referencing something like “tinkering” with a recipe in the kitchen. And so on.

To conclude: vocabulary learning can be engaging and fun

There’s no need to rely on memorization and spelling bee contests alone for vocabulary enhancement. Use the 4 tips above to help kids get a hold of vocabulary they will enjoy learning. This will help with interactive methods as well, since the students can talk about their words while using them.