Teaching is one of the most demanding professions and with new standards being implemented every day, it becomes more and more stressful. Teacher burnout is at an all time high as schools facing budget cuts increase the workloads of teachers and expectations continue to grow. However, there is hope, and one of the places to find hope, support, and help is in the teacher blogging community. There are many fantastic teacher blogs out there that seek to help fellow teachers, and share their successes and failures as they continue to grow and adapt to ever changing conditions. These thirty blogs are some of the best teacher blogs on the internet. There are five different categories: Teacher Stories, Teaching Philosophy and Practice, and teaching strategies blogs split into the Elementary, Middle School, and High School levels ensuring that there is something on this list for everyone.
Teacher Stories
1. Ms. Cassidy’s Class features many stories about her class and pictures of them in action. She details the class’ activities, tells stories about their reactions and the tender moments she experiences as a teacher.
Highlight: Practicing Silent E With South Carolina
2. Teach For Us is a network connecting Teach For America teachers with one another and the world for the purpose of sharing the inspiring experiences of teachers in the Teach For America program.
Highlight: Dear Students
3. 2nd Grade Shenanigans is all about the adventures this 2nd grade teacher shares with her class. The blog consists of stories about the kids in the class, the lessons they learn, and the methods by which the teacher engages the young minds in her charge.
Highlight: That’s Amore Pizzeria
4. Teacher Tom is a preschool teacher and his blog deals with the issues he faces with the youngest age group enrolled in school. He talks about how to facilitate everything from learning through play, to conflict resolution with young children.
Highlight: Kids in the House, Discipline and Conflict in Preschool
5. Will Richardson talks about more than just his classroom and their experiences. He also addresses the many challenges facing teachers as they struggle to cope with the demands of an ever evolving technological and cultural landscape.
Highlight: The Three Narratives
6. Happy Hoolagins is a charming blog featuring the adventures of a young classroom. This teacher strives to provide students with an engaging, educational, playful experience and shares the results on the blog.
Highlight: Pretend Play: Animal Hospital
Teaching Philosophy and Practice
7. Curriculum Matters deals specifically with evaluating curriculum options and strategies for building a quality curriculum that serves the purpose of providing students with a well rounded education that also meets regulatory requirements.
Highlight: Busting Up Misconceptions About Formative Assessment
8. A Zone of Proximal Development is written by Dr. Konrad Glogowski whose professional emphasis is on increasing middle school literacy and the professional development of teachers. Dr. Glogowski’s blog examines the results of focusing on developing children’s skills that specifically relate to their development.
Highlight: Downloading Evaluative Knowledge
9. NYC Educator is a critical look at the education system in New York through the eyes of a New York Educator. The blog tackles the issues facing education, including the disingenuous actions of unions and politicians.
Highlight: Who Puts Children First, Always?
10. Flipped Learning is a comprehensive website about an entire philosophy of education focusing on the integration of technology in the classroom to create an engaging, beneficial environment.
Highlight: The Flipped Class as a Way TO the Answers
11. Mind Shift is all about combining things that have been traditionally believed to be separate. For example, combining robotics and poetry; the idea being that the sciences and humanities can walk hand in hand in harmony.
Highlight: How to Stimulate Curiosity
12. Learning is Messy is all about wading through the morass of regulations and expectations to identify what the teacher’s primary responsibility to the student is according to the state, and to help the teacher develop methods that adhere to state standards, while still finding a way to actually teach children valuable skills.
Highlight: Being Transparent When Things Get Messy
Teaching Strategies: Elementary Level
13. The Organized Classroom focuses on providing teachers with tips and strategies for keeping their classroom in order, and providing students with clarity regarding the materials and the way in which they are covered.
Highlight: Homework Motivation
14. 5th Grade Rocks, 5th Grade Rules shares fun and interesting strategies for engaging fifth graders in writing in such a way that it also informs their understanding of other subjects.
Highlight: Show, Don’t Tell
15. Polkadotted Teacher shares strategies about keeping things fun and interesting despite the added stress of high impact tests on both the teacher and student. The blog especially seeks to remind teachers that regardless of how important these tests have become within the current system, these are still young children.
Highlight: How Did I Survive?
16. Little Literacy Learners is all about bolstering literacy in elementary school aged children, teaching them in a way that is fun and interesting with the goal of fostering a love of reading.
Highlight: Saint Patrick’s Day Literacy Activities
17. Schroeder Page is all about having fun with science, and finding ways to communicate complex scientific truths in a way that is easily understood. The blog focuses on active learning strategies such as raising butterflies and using them as a real life example of the life cycle.
Highlight: Down in Schroeder Hive
18. Reflections on Teaching focuses not just on teaching strategies, but on strategies for getting by during the hard times of the year when you, and your students, are sick or have allergies or spring fever.
Highlight: Idealism vs. The Probable
Teaching Strategies: Middle School Level
19. Middle School: Day by Day From a Teacher’s Point of View isn’t always a happy blog. The blogger focuses on the considerable difficulties faced by middle school teachers in addition to her successes. This is very much a “day in the life” blog that also talks about successful strategies, and how to cope when it seems like nothing you do matters.
Highlight: Effects of the 7th Grade Restructure
20. Confessions of a Middle School English Teacher shares strategies on everything from grading and assessment, to optimal seating chart manipulation.
Highlight: Seating Chart
21. The Jose Vilson seeks to find an alternate, more effective way of doing things as a teacher. He seeks not to meet the standards, and not even to exceed the standards, but instead to transcend the standards, and he wants to help his readers do it too.
Highlight: For Students, No Success Goes Unpunished
22. Lessons From the Middle is all about finding ways to teach students about engaging in life. From encouraging them to start a blog, to finding unique and interesting ways to teach pre-teens that actions have consequences, this blog is about teaching middle school, and teaching life.
Highlight: Light Up Your World
23. Life in Middle School is a blog written by a teacher who has taught nearly every class in every grade in middle school. She brings a broad perspective and her path has been consistently changed throughout her career, from being involuntarily transferred to a new school, then back again, and constant shifting between subjects, she brings a perspective to the table that is valuable to new and experienced teachers alike.
Highlight: The View From My Front Door
24. Surviving Sixth Grade is very much a blog about survival. Sixth grade can be one of the most challenging, and most rewarding grades to teach and this blog focuses on overcoming the challenges to achieve a fulfilling experience for yourself and your students.
Highlight: Spark Student Motivation Saturday
Teaching Strategies: High School Level
25. The Nerdy Teacher talks about how to mentor students while adhering to the standards set forth by the common core, and also deals with the impact of digital innovations on the classroom environment.
Highlight: Professional Learning in the Digital Age
26. Walking to School deals with the pressures faced by teachers and students in the school setting. From the difficulties that arise when forced to choose between aiming for good test scores, or igniting the passion of students for certain subjects, to musings about how highly student behavior should be regulated, this blog tackles many of the tough issues facing modern teachers,
Highlight: Be Nice, Work Hard
27. Math Teacher Mambo is written by a math and computer science teacher and shares strategies for classroom engagement and AP recruiting.
Highlight: Active Recruiting
28. An Urban Teacher’s Education deals with issues such as the effect of high attrition rates within the teaching profession, particularly in urban schools, and how to overcome burnout from both a teaching and administrative perspective. The blog also shares lessons learned through experiences that are particularly useful for those teachers working in an urban setting.
Highlight: Life Lessons From 2012
29. Adventures With the Lower Level focuses on sharing strategies with fellow teachers on various issues such as developing student lab skills and assessment strategies. The blog also recounts the author’s experience starting a robotics team at the school.
Highlight: This Year’s Great Grading Experience
30. Teach Forever is the blog of a teacher that loves teaching and knows that this is the only thing he wants to do with his life. The blog is optimistic, and features the author’s musings on the profession from a holistic point of view.
Highlight: What Will it Take for Zero Tolerance Policies to End?
