Raleigh, North Carolina – October 16, 2018 – North Carolina educators now have a powerful and accessible tool for incorporating standards-based instruction into learning with the launch of Total Motivation Math and ELA – North Carolina. National K-12 publisher, Mentoring Minds, developed these innovative resources, aligned 100 percent with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study (NCSCoS), to provide seamless integration of the standards while helping students build critical thinking skills.
Available for grade levels 1-6, this curriculum is delivered in print and online formats, making it easily adaptable for 1:1 classrooms, schools with computer labs or districts with limited access to technology.– North Carolina unpacks and explains all the standards and gives teachers access to proven instructional strategies for planning content-driven lessons, differentiating instruction and creating thinking-centered classrooms. Teachers can choose from hundreds of evidence-based strategies and activities that support learners at all levels, from struggling students to those demonstrating mastery.
“Designed with North Carolina educators in mind, this new addition to the Total Motivation family of rigorous classroom resources offers a powerful and engaging tool for integrating state standards and critical thinking into learning,” said Shad Madsen, CEO, Mentoring Minds. “Total Motivation is a complete package for personalized learning that helps students build the critical thinking skills necessary for success not just in the classroom, but in life.”
Two sections new to the North Carolina edition of the award-winning curriculum, Critical Thinking Traits and Teacher Reflection, provide the opportunity to deepen classroom instruction, providing information on incorporating the 9 Traits of Critical Thinking™ into instruction as well as to reflect on instructional activities, student understanding of the focus unit and impact on future instruction.
Total Motivation ELA – North Carolina flexes to classroom needs, adapting as a supplemental curriculum, intervention resource or even for core instruction. The easy-to-implement lessons and abundant practice opportunities support reading curricula with strong instruction for reading, writing and reasoning skills. It equips teachers to increase rigor and fill gaps in learning. The Teacher Edition units include scoring rubrics or criteria to support teacher evaluation of students’ written responses for constructed-response assessment items and writing prompts. In alignment with NCSCoS, each Student Edition unit begins with an “I will” learning target statement. The new activity pages in the student edition include selected-response items based on grammar, constructed response items and writing prompts for opinion pieces or narrative.
Lindsay Burns, a second-grade teacher at Sedgefield Elementary School in Greensboro, North Carolina, uses the print format of Total Motivation ELA. The flexibility of the lessons allows Burns to implement activities that are most effective for her classroom.
“I used to have to take lots of time finding what I needed … now I can look at the Teacher Edition and know exactly what I need to do,” said Burns.
Each activity in the Teacher Edition of includes suggested time frame and student groupings, while the Student Edition features expanded assessment pages that include a wide range of selected-response and test-formatted items, as well as open-response items, all targeted to the unit’s focus standard. The flexible units in Total Motivation Math – North Carolina can be taught in any order to supplement existing curriculum or fit any scope or sequence. Educators in North Carolina can pick and choose how to implement Total Motivation into the classroom, personalizing the content to fit students’ needs.
For more information on Total Motivation – North Carolina, visit https://www.mentoringminds.com/shop/category/supplemental-curriculum/total-motivation.html
About Mentoring Minds, the Critical Thinking for Life company
Mentoring Minds is a national K-12 publisher with a mission to put critical thinking at the center of the classroom in order to support student achievement and empower educators to teach to higher standards. Mentoring Minds’ award-winning, research-based resources are designed to be flexible for classroom needs, supporting technology integration and standards mastery for Math, ELA, and Science. Mentoring Minds’ commitment to education extends beyond the classroom, as well; the company proudly sponsors groundbreaking administrators across the nation and supports community-based education initiatives through MindShare, an employee-driven grant program. For more information, call 800-585-5258 or visit mentoringminds.com.
