4 Keys to Building Deeper Critical and Creative Thinking in Your Classroom
This blog article describes the keys to achieving a deeper-thinking classroom. These keys are shifting student roles so they produce knowledge rather than recall information; building schemas in each content domain; supporting the skills needed to think critically or creatively; and uncovering what students are thinking using actionable assessments.
Author: Karin Hess
Publication Date: February 2023
Publisher: Aurora Institute
6 Vocabulary Strategies for Student Success
Vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic achievement. It's crucial to know research-based vocabulary strategies that build background knowledge and reading comprehension. This resource shares how to teach vocabulary using arts integration, which can increase student achievement by up to 20% over time.
Publication Date: June 2025
Publisher: Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM
7 Research Trends to Keep an Eye On
Education is never static. The dynamic world and society we live in, diverse students, emerging technologies, and varied learning environments are all contributing factors. Yet, there is always new research constantly emerging. This post cuts through the noise to bring you seven current research frameworks to engage learners.
Author: Cynthia Sosa
Publication Date: April 2025
Publisher: TCEA TechNotes
10 Critical Thinking Skills High Schoolers Should Master
By focusing on these critical thinking skills, teachers can help students learn to analyze complex information, make smart decisions, and tackle real-world challenges head-on. This foundation not only boosts their academic performance but also sets them up to thrive in a world that’s constantly changing. This post explores some engaging activities designed to build critical thinking skills in high schoolers.
Author: Sara Qualls
Publication Date: November 2024
Publisher: TCEA TechNotes
10 Key Policies and Practices for Explicit Instruction with Strong Evidence of Effectiveness from High-Quality Research
This guide provides 10 practices for explicit instruction and includes various scenarios for using each. Incorporating these practices supports all students.
Publication Date: 2021
Publisher: Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk
A Guide to Implementing Cooperative Learning
This guide provides information to implement cooperative learning. It covers recognizing the five core elements of effective cooperative learning, identifying the learning goal, deciding on the form for cooperative learning, determining what is expected for all students, and planning class-wide and individualized supports.
Author: Elizabeth Biggs
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: TIES Center, University of Minnesota
A Review of Teacher Implemented Scaffolding in K-12
This study categorized 41 articles by mode, contingent, and the role of the teacher in scaffolding. Results found hard scaffolds are used primarily to scaffold writing, mainly with high school students. Hard and soft scaffolds are mainly used together to support middle school science learning. Soft scaffolds are primarily used in elementary language arts.
Authors: Sara Dominguez and Vanessa Svihla
Publication Date: July 2023
Publisher: Social Sciences and Humanities Open, ScienceDirect
ADE Short-Term Assistive Technology (AT) Loan Library
The Arizona Department of Education and Northern Arizona University provide short-term assistive technology at no cost to school personnel in order to improve access to assistive technology. The library offers a wide variety of assistive technology devices, equipment, software, and professional development materials.
Publisher: Arizona Department of Education
Artificial Intelligence: The Impact of AI on Education for All Learners
This report explores the multifaceted uses of AI in education and special education, underscoring its
transformative capabilities while addressing the unique challenges of students with disabilities and
other learning needs. Each chapter discusses a different AI topic affecting education, special education, related services, and educational leadership, including the development of future educators, related service personnel, higher education faculty, and researchers.
Publication Date: 2024
Publisher: Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning
Building Vocabulary: Semantic Feature Analysis
It is helpful for students to learn a new word by associating it with other related words. This article explains related words can be words students already know or new words. Semantic feature analysis is an engaging activity that can be used to make associations.
Author: Joan Sedita
Publication Date: April 2024
Publisher: Keys to Literacy
Data-Based Individualization 101 Webinar: Getting Started with Intensive Intervention
This webinar explains the rationale for using intensive intervention, walks participants through the five steps of the Data-Based Individualization (DBI) process, and highlights practical lessons learned from implementation efforts across the country. Links to resources featured in the webinar and other resources to learn more about DBI are included.
Author: Caitlyn Majelka and Cat Merkle
Publication Date: August 2025
Publisher: National Center on Intensive Intervention
Delivering Instruction
This research brief highlights explicit instruction, a combination of modeling with clear explanations and planned examples followed by guided practice and independent practice using several supports to engage students and check for understanding.
Publication Date: August 2021
Publisher: PROGRESS Center at the American Institutes for Research
Differentiated Instruction: Maximizing the Learning of All Students
This module discusses the importance of differentiating three aspects of instruction: content, process or instructional methods, and product or assessment. It explores the student traits of readiness level, interest, and learning preferences that influence learning.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center Vanderbilt University
Disciplinary Literacy: Integrating Literacy Instruction in All Subjects, Grades 6-12
This white paper focuses on what is frequently described as disciplinary literacy or what it is and how it is different from basic reading skills. The focus includes content literacy as general reading skills and strategies with the role that content area teachers can play in helping students develop the literacy skills needed to support content learning.
Author: Joan Sedita
Publication Date: November 2024
Publisher: Keys to Literacy
Effective Vocabulary Instruction
This article highlights the importance of vocabulary instruction, how vocabulary instruction supports reading comprehension, and characteristics of effective vocabulary instruction.
Author: Joan Sedita
Publication Date: Updated August 2025
Publisher: ONlit.org
Elements of Effective Instruction
This is a framework designed to support educator learning and growth. It outlines five intertwined elements of instructional practice that complement and enhance one another. When integrated into learning experiences, these elements foster student engagement with the ultimate goal of providing just outcomes for every learner.
Publication Date: February 2025
Publisher: Great Schools Partnership
Elements of Effective Teaching
This fact sheet summarizes research on key elements of effective teaching and illustrates how
those elements align with professional practice metrics used in various teacher evaluation tools.
Publication Date: January 2025
Publisher: Institute of Education Sciences
Executive Functions (Part 1): Understanding Why Some Students Struggle
This module explores executive functions and explains why many students struggle with cognitive processes related to learning. It then examines why it's critical for teachers to explicitly teach these students when, where, and how to use effective study strategies to help them succeed academically.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University
Executive Functions (Part 2): Strategies to Improve Students’ Academic Performance
This companion to the Executive Functions (Part 1) module reiterates the importance of teachers providing explicit instruction to students with executive function difficulties on the use of effective strategies. It then overviews a number of these strategies including graphic organizers, note-taking, mnemonics, organizing materials, time management, comprehension strategies, and self-regulation strategies.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University
Exploring Artificial Intelligence Resources: Lesson Plans in AI Teachology and ChatGPT
This webinar teaches how to use Teachology and ChatGPT to generate lesson plans. The webinar reviews how to get started with AI and create new lesson plans and ideas for teaching.
Publication Date: October 2023
Publisher: Instructional Design CSUF
Framework for Teaching
The Framework for Teaching has proven to accelerate teacher growth, improve student outcomes, and create a more rewarding and sustaining professional environment. Explore the 2022 updates in the Framework for Teaching with this interactive, digital resource that transforms the guide into a hands-on online tool to gain a deeper understanding of the domains, components, elements of success, and more.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: The Danielson Group
Frayer Model
The Frayer Model draws on a student’s prior knowledge to build connections among new concepts and creates a visual reference by which students learn to compare attributes and examples as they learn. It can be used across content areas/disciplines, builds students’ critical thinking skills, and can expand their word knowledge. The Frayer Model can be used with the entire class, small groups, or for individual work.
Publisher: AdLit, WETA Washington DC
Habits of Success: Helping Students Develop Essential Skills for Learning, Work, and Life
This report offers guidance for K–12 districts and schools by synthesizing the latest research and knowledge on emerging practices for developing local habits of success frameworks; addressing implementing habits of success and lifelong learning skills; and promoting and assessing habits of success. The report also provides recommendations and next steps to support all students in building strong habits of success.
Author: Eliot Levine
Publication Date: 2021
Publisher: Aurora Institute
High-Leverage Practices
High-leverage practices are 22 essential special education techniques that all teachers of students with disabilities should master for use across a variety of classroom contexts. Six of these practices are referred to as pillar practices—those most essential for educators to implement; and the remaining sixteen are embedded practices—those required to effectively support pillar practices. This interactive alignment tool, developed in collaboration with CEEDAR and the Council for Exceptional Children, identifies which IRIS resources provide information on HLPs.
Publisher: IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University
High-Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities
This revised and updated guide is relevant for general education and special education teachers. It includes four domains of evidence-based practices: Collaboration, Data-Driven Planning, Instruction in Behavior and Academics, and Intensify and Intervene as Needed. Each domain includes descriptions of Pillar Practices and embedded High-Leverage Practices; conveys elementary and secondary examples of practice; provides research updates; and offers relevant resources for more information.
Publication Date: March 2024
Publishers: Council for Exceptional Children and CEEDAR Center
High-Leverage Practices Videos
These videos accompany High-Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities and provide revised and updated information supporting the four domains. The videos provide High-Leverage Practices within each domain and concrete examples to anchor and reinforce both knowledge development and application.
Publisher: CEEDAR Center
High School Early Warning Intervention and Monitoring System Implementation Guide
This guide describes the early warning intervention and monitoring system (EWIMS) as an evidence-based process for identifying, supporting, and monitoring students who show signs that they may not meet key educational milestones for graduating high school. The EWIMS process provides a data-driven decision-making approach to systematically identify students who are showing signs of being off track in school, match these students with appropriate interventions, and monitor their progress within those interventions.
Authors: Jenny Scala, Marie Husby-Slater, Rachel Chamberlain, and Kate McPhee
Publication Date: November 2023
Publisher: American Institutes for Research
How to Engage High School Students in Active Learning
Active learning strategies can help engage high school students, as long as educators are willing to be creative and set a solid example for their students. This blog post offers seven different strategies for engaging high school students in the classroom with which educators can experiment.
Author: Matthew Whalen
Publication Date: October 2023
Publisher: National Society of High School Scholars
Improving Student Engagement—A Practice Guide
This practice guide will offer a practical and working definition of student engagement and a concept map for local analysis and action. It will also offer instruments for assessing both schoolwide and individual student engagement levels, and for selecting target areas for individual and campus engagement improvement.
Authors: Sandy Addis, Ray McNulty, and Thomas Hawkins
Publication Date: February 2024
Publisher: National Dropout Prevention Center
Innovative Education Methods: Transforming Teaching and Learning
Modern teaching methods emphasize interaction, adaptability, and the application of technology to create dynamic and engaging learning environments. This blog explores innovative strategies, methodologies, and actionable techniques that foster effective teaching and learning in a modern educational context.
Author: Michele McCraney
Publication Date: January 2025
Publisher: American College of Education
Integrating High Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities within a PBIS/MTSS Framework
This guide aligns the implementation of high-leverage practices (HLPs) for students with disabilities with the PBIS framework. Integration of HLPs across the full continuum of supports offers a systematic way to meaningfully include support students with disabilities.
Authors: Kelsey Morris, Laura Kern, Kathleen Strickland-Cohen, and Lisa Powers
Publication Date: June 2024
Publishers: Center on PBIS, University of Oregon
Intensive Intervention Practice Guide: Explicit Morphology Instruction to Improve Overall Literacy Skills in Secondary Students
This guide includes information about teaching students about morphemes for the purpose of
improving students’ word recognition and spelling skills. Students need to learn the meaning of
parts of words and be able to read those parts to develop quality word recognition. Morphology instructional activities with examples are included.
Authors: Lauren Hennenfent, Lindy Johnson, Christina Novelli, and Erin Sharkey
Publication Date: Fall 2022
Publisher: Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education
Multi-Tiered System of Supports Within Schools: The What and The How
MTSS offers a reorganization of the school setting and how educators provide instruction and supports to students. This brief explains what MTSS educators can experience with appropriately identifying students with disabilities, proactively using data to support every student, and creating a framework that improves the overall system and meets the needs of individual students.
Authors: Jason Harlacher and TR Bailey
Publication Date: January 2025
Publisher: American Institutes for Research
Myths and Facts Surrounding Assistive Technology Devices and Services
This document is designed to increase understanding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA’s) assistive technology (AT) requirements, dispel common misconceptions regarding AT, and provide examples of the use of AT devices and services for children with disabilities and to highlight the different requirements under Part C and Part B of IDEA.
Publication Date: January 2024
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education
Planning for Instruction
This research brief highlights planning explicit instruction that provides access to the general education curriculum and meets the unique needs of students with disabilities across a variety of outcome areas. It covers setting a meaningful learning target, determining appropriate sequence for instruction, and setting clear objectives for each lesson.
Publication Date: August 2021
Publisher: PROGRESS Center at the American Institutes for Research
Progress Monitoring for MTSS at the Secondary Level
This article is directed to secondary teachers working under the practice of MTSS or the RTI process.
It covers why you should be progress monitoring, what assessments are appropriate for progress monitoring, how these assessments are administered, and when you should progress monitor students.
Author: Sandra Spruell
Publication Date: May 2023
Publisher: Branching Minds
Project-Based Learning for Curriculum Enhancement
Project-Based Learning (PBL) has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing classroom curriculum and student engagement. This blog post breaks down the principles and implementation of PBL and how you can incorporate PBL strategies into your classroom to improve students’ learning experience.
Publication Date: August 2025
Publisher: University of Kansas
Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching is a strategy that asks students and teachers to share the role of teacher by allowing both to lead the discussion about a given reading. This webpage explains reciprocal teaching and provides examples of the four strategies that guide the discussion: predicting, question generating, clarifying, and summarizing.
Publication Date: 2023
Publisher: AdLit, WETA Washington, DC
Reviewing and Intensifying Instruction
Some students with disabilities will experience difficulties with making progress toward academic and behavioral learning targets. This research brief highlights a process of intensifying instruction through intervention dosage, opportunities to respond, alignment, and transfer.
Publication Date: August 2021
Publisher: PROGRESS Center at the American Institutes for Research
Secondary Reading Instruction (Part 1): Teaching Vocabulary and Comprehension in the Content Areas
This module describes how teachers can incorporate vocabulary and reading comprehension skills instruction into content-area lessons and introduces a variety of effective practices—including the use of graphic organizers—to help students better understand what they read.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University
Secondary Reading Instruction (Part 2): Deepening Middle School Content-Area Learning with Vocabulary and Comprehension Strategies
This module examines some of the reasons that adolescents struggle with content-area text and overviews effective strategies teachers can use to improve the vocabulary and comprehension skills of students with a wide range of abilities and across a variety of subjects.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University
Semantic Mapping to Grow Vocabulary
This post provides details for how to use Semantic Mapping which is a well-researched activity that helps students draw on background knowledge of a topic and see connections between ideas and words related to that topic. It is highly interactive and offers opportunities for rich, collaborative discussion among students.
Author: Joan Sedita
Publication Date: December 2020
Publisher: Keys to Literacy
SRSD: Using Learning Strategies To Enhance Student Learning
By completing this module and the accompanying activities, the learner will be able to describe what a strategy is; understand what strategy instruction is and what its benefits are; list the steps used to implement strategy instruction; and understand how self-regulation improves the use of a strategy.
Publisher: The Iris Center, Vanderbilt University
Strengthening Literacy Routines in Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts
This webinar explores how metacognitive routines can elevate disciplinary literacy and learning in social studies, English Language Arts, and science for all students. Discover practical tools to help students explicitly reflect on their thinking as they build academic confidence and engage more deeply with complex texts, scientific inquiry, and the writing process.
Authors: Alicia Ross, Jenell Krishnan, and Karen Lionberger
Publication Date: June 2025
Publisher: WestEd
Student-Centered Learning: Enhancing Classroom Experiences
This article explains student-centered learning and shares strategies to build student-centered learning environments that not only improve academic outcomes but develop critical thinking skills essential for success beyond school walls.
Author: Nikki Muncey
Publication Date: April 2025
Publisher: SchoolAI
Student Engagement: Why It’s Important and How to Promote It
Student engagement makes teaching more fun, engaging, and rewarding, and it has been shown to have critical impacts on students. This article discusses what student engagement is, why it’s important, and factors that contribute to student engagement.
Author: Essie Sutton
Publication Date: Updated July 2025
Publisher: Branching Minds
Students Experiencing Inattention and Distractibility
This information sheet is designed to help teachers identify inattention and distractibility in school, behaviors that are similar in school and virtual learning environments, behaviors unique to virtual learning environments, what to do, and when to act.
Publication Date: October 2021
Publisher: American Psychological Association
Study Skills Strategies (Part 1): Foundations for Effectively Teaching Study Skills
This module examines the importance of effective study skills strategies and includes information on why some students struggle with those skills and why it's critical for teachers to explicitly teach such strategies.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center Vanderbilt University
Study Skills Strategies (Part 2): Strategies that Improve Students’ Academic Performance
This companion to the Study Skills (Part 1) module reiterates the importance of teachers providing explicit instruction on the use of study skills strategies and overviews several effective strategies: graphic organizers, note-taking, mnemonics, organizing materials, time management, comprehension strategies, and self-regulation strategies.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center Vanderbilt University
Supporting Students with Disabilities at School and Home: A Guide for Teachers to Support Families and Students
This guide highlights 5 key practices for teachers and families to support all students, including students with disabilities, at school and home. For each practice, the guide provides tips for teachers to support students with disabilities during instruction; tips for families that educators can share to support or enhance learning at home; and free-access resources that include strategies shown to be effective by research.
Authors: Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, National Center on Intensive
Intervention, and National Integrated Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Research Network
Publication Date: May 2020
Publisher: University of Oregon
Systematic Screening in Tiered Systems: Lessons Learned at the Middle and High School Level
This model demonstration paper features the experiences of four middle and two high schools in one district that were in the first year of implementing a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). It summarizes the procedures, key findings, and lessons learned regarding conducting systematic screening at middle and high school level.
Authors: Rebecca Sherod, Zijie Ma, Kathleen Lynne Lane, Wendy Peia Oakes, and Mark Matthew
Buckman
Publication Date: May 2024
Publisher: Center on PBIS, University of Oregon
Teacher Digital Learning Guide
This guide is designed to provide important resources and recommendations to support teacher implementation of digital learning. Sections in this guide include key considerations, guiding strategies, resources, and reflection questions to help guide thinking and planning in a way that will be specific to each unique situation and the unique needs of students.
Publication Date: January 2021
Publisher: Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education
Teaching Tuesday: Literacy in Content Area Instruction
This article discusses building foundational literacy skills to help students with formation of their self-efficacy in learning in all content areas. Topics include academic language and technology to assist with literacy across content areas.
Publication Date: October 2021
Publisher: Grand Canyon University
Teaching Tuesday: Top Collaborative Learning Strategies
There are a variety of strategies we can use to create an engaging environment of students that are excited about learning. One of the most effective strategies is the use of cooperative learning. This article explains four of the top cooperative learning activities that can be implemented in any grade level or content area, with the right amount of planning and supports.
Author: Alicia Kozimor
Publication Date: September 2022
Publisher: Grand Canyon University
The Comprehensive Guide to Project-Based Learning: Empowering Student Choice through an Effective Teaching Method
By integrating authentic projects into the curriculum, project-based learning fosters active engagement, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. This comprehensive guide explores the principles, benefits, implementation strategies, and evaluation techniques associated with project-based instruction, highlighting its emphasis on student choice and its potential to revolutionize education.
Publication Date: 2025
Publisher: New Tech Network
The Importance of Gathering Evidence of Learning
Teachers can use evidence of learning information to understand how students are thinking and learning, to see if students are or aren’t achieving milestones, and to effectively adjust their pedagogy accordingly. This article details the three key steps to gathering the evidence of learning process.
Publisher: School of Education and Human Sciences, University of Kansas
The UDL Guidelines
This new iteration, UDL Guidelines 3.0, addresses critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of exclusion for learners with and without disabilities. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.
Publication Date: July 2024
Publisher: CAST
The Writing Rope: A Framework for Evidence-Informed Writing Instruction
This comprehensive guide introduces the Writing Rope—a research-informed framework developed to support evidence-informed writing instruction. The article breaks down each of the five strands (critical thinking, syntax, text structure, writing craft, and transcription), offering practical strategies, sample classroom activities, and targeted support for students with learning disabilities. It also includes grade-specific recommendations for both elementary and secondary educators.
Author: Joan Sedita
Publication Date: April 2025
Publisher: Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario
Understanding and Responding to Writing Prompts Guide
This guide is intended to assist with better understanding of four kinds of writing prompts for creative, historical essay, argumentative essay, and literary analysis and what they require students to do. It can be used by instructors as they plan lessons to teach these skills. The information is appropriate for Grades 3–12, but some of the more complex aspects of understanding and responding to writing prompts are only appropriate for students in higher grade levels or those with better developed skills.
Authors: Deborah Reed and Shalini Jasti
Publication Date: May 2023
Publisher: Iowa Reading Research Center
Video Examples of the Prioritized Educator Competencies
These video resources show educator competencies in action. These competencies have the most leverage in transforming classroom practices to be personalized, and student-centered. Footage includes teachers demonstrating key techniques and strategies, experts and peers discussing practice, students reflecting on their experiences.
Publication Date: April 2021
Publisher: KnowledgeWorks Foundation
What Is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Is It Important?
Teaching students to navigate literacy skills that differ by discipline is essential. This article explores disciplinary literacy, the research-proven benefits of teaching it, and how you can bring this to your classroom.
Author: Corey Humphrey
Publication Date: June 2024
Publisher: Carnegie Learning
What Is Inquiry-Based Learning? 6 Benefits to Know
Inquiry-based learning is a teaching method that encourages students to ask questions, explore, and investigate topics. It builds critical thinking and research skills by fostering curiosity and active participation in the learning process. This article explains problem-based, structured, guided, and open-ended inquiry and includes the benefits of inquiry-based teaching and learning.
Publication Date: July 2025
Publisher: Grand Canyon University
What Is Scaffolding in Education and How Is It Applied?
This article explains scaffolding in education as a technique that establishes a firm framework of foundational knowledge before gradually building upon that framework. It describes the instructional scaffolding process and provides six specific strategies.
Publication Date: September 2023
Publisher: Grand Canyon University
Which Study Skills Strategies Can Improve Students’ Academic Performance?
Graphic organizers can help these students more easily process information. More specifically, these tools allow students to organize information, see the relationships between ideas, and more easily understand, remember, and apply information. Examples of the most common graphic organizers and explanations of their purposes are included.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University