Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Thousands of Teacher-reviewed Resources!

Connect with Your Families

Educators are tasked with finding ways to connect with their students and families, and students need a way to connect with each other. In this section, we’re sharing a trio of tools to help you to better connect with your students’ families. 

Grades K-12

Family Engagement Resources

Peruse these resources that will help you form strong partnerships with families that advance social, emotional, and academic development. Resources begin with building a plan to start the school year on positive footing with your students’ families.

Grades K-8

Seesaw

This digital portfolio tool allows students to showcase their work, including videos, text, drawings, and images, and get feedback from teachers and parents. Connect with your students' families as you demonstrate student work and celebrate progress.

Grades K-12

Adobe Spark

Use this robust tool to communicate information to your students’ parents (or have students create projects to share with them). Design attractive graphics, slideshows, flyers, narrated videos (students can add their voice!), and other media projects.

Build Connections Between Your Students

Connections in the classroom build community. Discover tools you can use in your lessons to help students connect with one another. 

Grades 6-12

Mural for Education

Encourage your students to engage in virtual collaboration using this workspace that includes sticky notes, shapes, and connectors to create diagrams and mind maps, drawing tools, and images. Create breakout rooms for student groups to connect.

Grades K-12

IdeaBoardz

Students can connect and work together using the virtual sticky notes available in this simple tool. Create a board and add a title and description to begin. Create boards for learning groups or have students create their own.

Grades 6-12

Miro

Miro offers a mashup of Zoom and a robust interactive whiteboard tool that students (and teachers) can use to collaborate. There are many templates included for creating flow charts and mind maps and planning collaborative activities.

Get Connected with Your Students

Cultivating connections with your students is pivotal in the classroom and during blended (or remote) learning. Try out the tools in this section for some unique ways to connect, offer feedback, and share information.

Grades K-12

EdLight

Connect as you formatively assess! Provide students feedback using rubrics, text, stickers, or by recording an audio message. Follow the three easy steps to create assignments, take a picture of the work, and provide feedback on any device.

Grades 6-12

Along

Get connected using Along, an online tool for doing digital check-ins and reflection activities that include audio, video, or text with students. Share a question with some or all students to encourage making connections and to check on student wellness.

Grades 8-12

Workona

Design a collaborative classroom workspace where you can add notes and descriptions to organize information, check off completed tasks, and create tabs for resources, notes, and assignments. Use this tool as a connection hub for you with your students.

This Week at TeachersFirst

We are excited to announce the kickoff of Across the World Once a Week, a global collaboration for cross-cultural understanding. We also invite you to join us for an upcoming virtual workshop, to check out a related blog post, and to give your input on our weekly poll!