How New Jersey Alternate Route Teachers Demonstrate Leadership and Collaboration

Leadership and collaboration are among the many competencies the New Jersey Department of Education expects teachers at all levels of experience to demonstrate. This expectation calls for teachers to not only play a classroom leadership role in advancing student learning; teachers are also expected to collaborate with colleagues and other education stakeholders to ensure learner growth and to advance the profession. Candidates enrolled in the Rutgers Alternate Route program regularly have opportunities to build capacity in these areas. As new teachers with common needs, candidates quickly form a community and become a great source of support and knowledge for one another. They frequently trade advice and recommend resources for their peers to explore. Below are some of the resources recommended by our most recent cohort of candidates. They include a wealth of helpful websites for instructional content, enrichment and deeper learning, assessment and grading, and industry news. Each has been marked with the appropriate grade level and content areas where applicable.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FROM ALTERNATE ROUTE CANDIDATES. 
For a comprehensive list of candidate contributions, click here.

Instructional Content

Actively Learn - Actively Learn offers texts and videos for ELA, Science, and Social Studies with scaffolded and higher-order questions.

CommonLit (3-12) - CommonLit is a database of literature, including poems, short stories, informational text, and essays.

Facing History (9-12, History) - Facing History has a collection of resources to help teachers support students in becoming thoughtful, responsible citizens.

Mystery Science (K-5, Science) - Mystery Science offers lessons on a variety of topics.  Each lesson begins with a mystery to hook students.

Raz-Kids (K-5) - Raz-Kids is a reading website that delivers hundreds of interactive leveled eBooks spanning 29 levels. Student can listen to, read, and answer comprehension questions about the books.

Science4Us (K-5, Science) - Science4Us offers science resources that also build literacy and math skills for kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade students.

The Art of Ed - The Art of Ed has lesson plans and resources for any grade Art class.

Enrichment & Engagement

ABCya! (K-5) - ABCya is offers numerous educational games across a variety of subjects that can be used to review content.

EdPuzzle - EdPuzzle is a site that couples videos from a wide variety of sources that can be cropped to the length you desire and embed quiz questions that are open ended or multiple choice.

Flocabulary - Flocabulary is a library of music videos related to academic content and current events.

Fluent U -  The website features tons of media in the form of videos, news broadcasts, music, stories, in multiple languages.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

National Geographic (K-12) - The National Geographic website has resources for educators, including lesson plans, maps, and reference resources.

Scholastic Daily Starters (PreK-K, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8) - Scholastic Daily Starters has new questions posted daily that can be printed or projected as a warm-up for students.

Assessment & Grading

Formative – Formative creates quick digital formative assessments that provide instant results.

NoRedInk - NoRedInk helps students become better writers by providing grammar practice and writing prompts that offer timely feedback.

Problem-Attic - Problem Attic is a site where you can construct tests from a large bank of state and standardized test questions.

Socrative – Socrative is a classroom app that support effective engagement and formative assessments.