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Todd Finley

@toddfinley.bsky.social

Associate Professor of English Education at East Carolina University.

634 Followers  |  517 Following  |  49 Posts  |  Joined: 20.11.2023  |  2.0705

Latest posts by toddfinley.bsky.social on Bluesky

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8 Questions New Teachers Often Askβ€”Answered An education professor and former teacher tackles issues like classroom management, projecting authority, dealing with parents, cell phone distractions, and more.

8 Questions New Teachers Often Askβ€”Answered
Classroom management, projecting authority, dealing with parents, cell phone distractions, and more... www.edutopia.org/article/comm... #edutopia #teacher

06.09.2025 00:17 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
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Research-Based Tips for Optimal Seating Arrangements The right approach to seating works behind the scenes to keep students focused on learning while minimizing disruptions, research suggests.

Classroom seating decisions are some of the most powerful tools that teachers have to manage a classroom, working quietly behind the scenes to promote prosocial behavior & suppress distractions.

Edutopia’s @youkiterada.bsky.social outlines research-based tips for choosing the best layout.

#EduSky

19.08.2025 15:27 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Summer Reflections - Much Ado About Teaching Brian and I truly count ourselves blessed as we work in the best of both worlds: classroom teachers and consultants for teachers. Once the school year ends, we work with teachers from across the count...

Susan Barber notes an essential tension: "Teachers continually express frustration with the lack of student accountability while doubling down on teacher accountability and a desire to return to a more balanced distribution between the two." #edu #teachers muchadoaboutteaching.com/summer-refle...

28.07.2025 17:54 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Benefits of Anti-Models for Boosting Learning Teachers can explore with students what not to doβ€”like confusing operations in math or using boring word choices in writingβ€”to set students on the right path and boost learning.

❌ Generate rules to guarantee that a class discussion fails.
πŸ™‰ How do you show someone you’re not listening?
🀝 List strategies to sabotage a team project.

@toddfinley.bsky.social explains how prompts like these can sharpen students’ awareness of common errors and boost their confidence.

#EduSky

04.07.2025 01:48 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
1-Minute Read. Teaching Strategies. 8 Scaffolds That’ll Make You Ask, β€˜Why Didn’t I Know This’? By Todd Finley. Illustration of a student sitting at a desk and a teacher standing next to them, with light gray clouds / thought bubbles surrounding both of them. One of the clouds is blue, and the teacher is holding it.

1-Minute Read. Teaching Strategies. 8 Scaffolds That’ll Make You Ask, β€˜Why Didn’t I Know This’? By Todd Finley. Illustration of a student sitting at a desk and a teacher standing next to them, with light gray clouds / thought bubbles surrounding both of them. One of the clouds is blue, and the teacher is holding it.

Are your tried-and-true scaffolding strategies still effective?

If you’re looking for new ways to support students, @toddfinley.bsky.social shares eight lesser-known techniques that will make you ask: Why didn’t I know this?

#EduSky #EdChat

🧡1/10

26.06.2025 00:29 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
1-Minute Read. Collaborative Learning. 16 Variations on Think-Pair-Share to Keep Students Engaged. By Todd Finley. Illustration of students participating in various think-pair-share activities.

1-Minute Read. Collaborative Learning. 16 Variations on Think-Pair-Share to Keep Students Engaged. By Todd Finley. Illustration of students participating in various think-pair-share activities.

Think-Pair-Share has been a classroom mainstay since the 1980s. It helps increase participation, reinforce key concepts, and aid in recall, professor of English education @toddfinley.bsky.social writes.

But even the strongest learning strategies can get boring if they’re overused.

🧡1/9 #EduSky

19.06.2025 00:43 β€” πŸ‘ 15    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Benefits of Anti-Models for Boosting Learning Teachers can explore with students what not to doβ€”like confusing operations in math or using boring word choices in writingβ€”to set students on the right path and boost learning.

The Benefits of Anti-Models for Boosting Learning www.edutopia.org/article/powe... #EDU #teachers

23.06.2025 03:53 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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​From reflection to celebration, these 5 activities help your students look back on the year mindfullyβ€”and look ahead for what comes next! 🀩

Get the printables seen in the video here: edut.to/43ebQ0k

Special thanks to educator @toddfinley.bsky.social for the ideas.

#EduSky #teachers

26.05.2025 22:12 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
19 Highly Engaging End-of-Year Activities
Teachers can help students end the year on a high note with activities that remind them how much they’ve learned in class.

19 Highly Engaging End-of-Year Activities Teachers can help students end the year on a high note with activities that remind them how much they’ve learned in class.

It's that time of year! πŸ₯³πŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«

Whether you teach kindergartners excited about ice cream or HS seniors looking ahead to college or work, educator @toddfinley.bsky.social has 19 creative activities to keep students engaged to the last day.

Here are a few of our faves.

🧡 1/6 #EduSky

18.05.2025 00:04 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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19 Highly Engaging End-of-Year Activities Teachers can help students end the year on a high note with activities that remind them how much they’ve learned in class.

Teachers, with the end of the year fast approaching, @toddfinley.bsky.social has some great ideas on how to keep students engaged and help them reflect on what they've learned: www.edutopia.org/article/19-h... #studentengagement #edusky

07.05.2025 20:35 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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19 Highly Engaging End-of-Year Activities Teachers can help students end the year on a high note with activities that remind them how much they’ve learned in class.

How do you keep students working and learning right up to the end? If you need some inspiration, @toddfinley.bsky.social has *19* great ideas for end-of-year activities. Take a look! πŸ‘€

#EduSky #teachers

06.05.2025 09:13 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Your School House Rock moment......

06.05.2025 12:29 β€” πŸ‘ 51203    πŸ” 10798    πŸ’¬ 617    πŸ“Œ 312
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19 Highly Engaging End-of-Year Activities Teachers can help students end the year on a high note with activities that remind them how much they’ve learned in class.

19 Highly Engaging End-of-Year Activities πŸ—“οΈ - Edutopia www.edutopia.org/article/19-h... #edu #teachers #k12

03.05.2025 00:45 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Your Student Finished Earlyβ€”Now What? These extension activities for all grades will help teachers keep fast finishers engaged in meaningful work.'

Classic classroom management challenge: 1 or 2 students finish a task while everyone else is still going.

@toddfinley.bsky.social shares β€œlow-prep and no-prep activities that extend learning beyond busywork and ensure that your class runs smoother than a greased zip line.” πŸ™Œ

#EduSky #teachers

22.03.2025 14:36 β€” πŸ‘ 11    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Walz: "It's so obscene that he would put a mock classroom -- we all know he's never been in one. He wouldn't last for a minute. He's surrounded by people who know nothing about education. They want to make this about bureaucracy and cutting. This is about children."

21.03.2025 01:57 β€” πŸ‘ 24999    πŸ” 5671    πŸ’¬ 375    πŸ“Œ 181
Image of turtles and rabbits working in a classroom.

Image of turtles and rabbits working in a classroom.

New piece for Edutopia! Your Students Finished Earlyβ€”Now What? edutopia.org/article/fast... #teachers #education

21.03.2025 02:57 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Fantastic set of AI resources from @ericcurts.bsky.social. Thanks, Eric! #EDU #AI

17.03.2025 19:06 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Only amateurs study what everyone else does.

The greatest academic skill is asking questions nobody thought to ask.
The truly influential researcher spots gaps where others see nothing.
The most cited papers often begin where the literature is quiet.

02.03.2025 06:00 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Education Disrupted: Teaching and Learning in An AI World | Stefan Bauschard | Substack How will AI change learning and instruction? How can we best prepare students for the AI World? Click to read Education Disrupted: Teaching and Learning in An AI World, by Stefan Bauschard, a Substack...

Want to know the future? #edu #teachers stefanbauschard.substack.com?r=sdb5

03.03.2025 21:10 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Eventually, everything a teacher or student does in the classroom will be tracked by AI and labeled with a number. Word-per-minute, etc. The problem: data has such a ring of objective certainty. Meanings attached to these numbers will be decided on by those who have never taught. Thx, Larry.

03.03.2025 21:09 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Hey everyone -- Moms of Liberty and Dept of Education launched a snitch line portal today to rat out teachers and anyone promoting anything DEI.

FLOOD THE PORTAL

Spam the hell out of it.

Pass it on! It works!

enddei.ed.gov

28.02.2025 03:46 β€” πŸ‘ 7798    πŸ” 4336    πŸ’¬ 741    πŸ“Œ 492
1-Minute Read. Teaching Strategies. 8 Scaffolds That’ll Make You Ask, β€˜Why Didn’t I Know This’? By Todd Finley. Illustration of a student sitting at a desk and a teacher standing next to them, with light gray clouds / thought bubbles surrounding both of them. One of the clouds is blue, and the teacher is holding it.

1-Minute Read. Teaching Strategies. 8 Scaffolds That’ll Make You Ask, β€˜Why Didn’t I Know This’? By Todd Finley. Illustration of a student sitting at a desk and a teacher standing next to them, with light gray clouds / thought bubbles surrounding both of them. One of the clouds is blue, and the teacher is holding it.

Are your tried-and-true scaffolding strategies still effective?

If you’re looking for new ways to support students, @toddfinley.bsky.social shares eight lesser-known techniques that will make you ask: Why didn’t I know this?

#EduSky #EdChat

🧡1/10

19.02.2025 01:25 β€” πŸ‘ 17    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Put your best faculty teaching intro courses in the middle of the day. But not Fridays.

That's the advice that @sarosecav.bsky.social has for institutions who want to do better job retaining students.

#TopHatEngage

07.02.2025 15:33 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1
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Scaffolding Like a Pro: Powerful Ways to Support Learning With options ranging from tried-and-true to lesser known, these strategies for cognitive, metacognitive, and procedural scaffolding will help you set students up for success.

35 lesser-known scaffolding techniques to kickstart the learning process, from @toddfinley.bsky.social πŸ”₯πŸ‘‡

Which scaffolding strategies have you used already? Which would you like to try?

#EduSky #EdChat

06.02.2025 23:54 β€” πŸ‘ 13    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you, Darren!

06.02.2025 03:32 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you, Larry. I really appreciate that!

05.02.2025 03:49 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Scaffolding Like a Pro: Powerful Ways to Support Learning With options ranging from tried-and-true to lesser known, these strategies for cognitive, metacognitive, and procedural scaffolding will help you set students up for success.

New post on #scaffolding for Edutopia. My favorite off-the-beaten-track scaffolds are layered texts, mind movies, and process prompts. www.edutopia.org/article/powe... #edu #education #teacher #learning

05.02.2025 02:22 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
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2123 Agenda 3 ENED/HIED 2123 - AGENDA 3 STARTING ROUTINE GNG Sign Attendance Sheet Troubleshooting Practicum Placements Procedures for Practicum Practicum Dress Code Placement Verification Form (Your field teache...

Just changed the way I do my Google Doc class agendas! This tip makes me so happy! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

29.01.2025 04:47 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

#genius

29.01.2025 03:59 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

@toddfinley is following 17 prominent accounts