The Best Teacher Blogs: Four of My Favorites

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In this blog post, I’m sharing my four favorite “best teacher blogs.” Each of these blogs inspires and cultivates me as an educator, and I hope they do the same for you!

In another post, I talk about the need to connect with other teachers and foster your own community. As an introvert, sometimes this is difficult to do. Also, within the past year or so, it has been difficult to foster this community via Zoom. While there are a plethora of ways to connect online, and I highly advocate for that, it is also helpful to just find the best teacher blogs you can follow. 

For me, reading blog posts, articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts, these are some of my favorite ways to be part of a community. Yes, I can reach out and connect, but… reading is my jam. These four best teacher blogs are my “go to” sites for inspiration, wisdom, pedagogy, and even activities!

#1 Cult of Pedagogy

Several years ago, I stumbled across Cult of Pedagogy through, I bet you can guess, Pinterest. (That’s actually how I found nearly every other blog on this list too. The power of Pinterest…) I can’t remember exactly what I was looking for, but it was something related to classroom management. At that point in my teaching career, I needed other ways and ideas for dealing with challenging classroom behaviors. 

Scroll after scroll, click after click, I kept finding the same cheesy stuff. Then, I found Jennifer Gonzalez’s Cult of Pedagogy! It was, and is, a fount of knowledge and practical advice. Even today, I continue to rely on this blog when considering pedagogical decisions and solving problems. 

I also love how this blog is organized. The topics are organized by need: The Craft, Go Deep, and Teacher Soul. I love it. 

Clearly, this blog has taken off as there are now more contributors and writers, which provides even more insight and content for me, and you, to devour! Cult of Pedagogy also has a podcast, so if you like to listen to podcasts, check this one out.

Here are some of my favorites from Cult of Pedagogy: 

• “Repairing Harm: A Better Alternative to Punishment”
  • I don’t want to give anything away from this post. You need to read this yourself. As teachers, we play integral roles in student discipline. As such, it is important to consider how the decisions we make impact not only the misbehaving students but the other students, the culture, in our classroom. And, ultimately, the question we need to ask when making disciplinary decisions: what are the students learning from this consequence. This post presents pedagogical questions and ideas for alternative ways to deal with students’ poor decisions and behaviors.
• “4 Laws of Learning (and How to Follow Them)”
  • The thoroughness of this post is exemplary of every other post on Cult of Pedagogy. This is one of the best teacher blogs to visit when you want to learn. In the Learning Theory category of “Go Deep,” this provides insight into strategies and activities grounded in theory to best support student learning. 
• “No More Easy Button: A Suggested Approach to Post-Pandemic Teaching”
  • After pointing out the many ways we press the easy button in life and teaching, because humans are wired to choose the path of least resistance, Gonzalez suggests we consider what our students really need. Rather than using our time to blame different “reasons” for students’ lack of engagement or learning throughout this past year, we can spend our time considering how we will move forward. In looking at lesson design, inclusivity, and relationships, this post provides much food for thought.

#2 Write on with Miss G

Write on with Miss G essentially the best example of a teacher blog. First, her website is easy to navigate and gets right to the good stuff. Second, her content is engaging and helpful. Third, her TPT store = goals. 

Through Pinterest, of course, I found another of the best teacher blogs: Write on with Miss G in the first few years of my own teaching experience. I was so impressed with her time management! She was a relatively new teacher, too, and she had time to run a blog and create content and products!? Impressed, I devoured her freebies and scoured her blog for advice and solutions. 

For me, it was also exciting to see similar ideas to what I was doing. It felt like confirmation of my own decisions as a teacher. While Miss G is an American Lit and Journalism teacher, according to her bio, much of her content is easily applicable to any subject, high school or middle school especially. Further, every time I visit this blog, I see something new that I haven’t considered. Interesting and approachable strategies and activities that will add that “something else” to engage and excite students. 

I love her advice for how to start off the school year and different ways to learn about and form connections with students. Also, on her Instagram, she shares inspiring experiences of reading with her students through First Chapter Fridays and other strategies. 

My current favorites from Write on with Miss G: 

• “Tips for Facilitating Books Clubs or Literature Circles”
  • Since I began teaching, I’ve used literature circles. However, there are always aspects of the experience I wish I could improve for my students. What else can I do to ensure they really, really read their books? To help all students feel able to complete the challenge? This year, I will again implement lit circles, and I think this post provides answers. As always, the post is thorough and helpful! 
• “Why I don’t review the syllabus on the first day (and what to do instead)”
  • Although this is a post from a few years ago, it is one I’ve revisited a few times. This post gave me the courage to alter course. For the first few years of teaching, I reviewed the syllabus to “get it out of the way.” Not only does that devalue the importance of the syllabus, but it also (as Miss G says) bores the students. The first day is not a day for tears or snores of boredom. It should be a day of learning and connecting! With this common sense and ideas for alternative activities, I decided to challenge “what we’ve always done” to find a better way to start the year. I highly suggest you check out this post. 
• “21 Teaching Strategies & Tools to Try in 2021”
  • I’m not sure how many more times I could say that I love this blog for its practical advice… This is another post I’m going to keep revisiting to try out new strategies. As I’ve said in another post, I love to challenge myself to try new things, and this is definitely part of how I continually foster my love of teaching—however, I don’t try a ton of new things all at once! That’s too overwhelming. Thus, I will bookmark this post and come back whenever I’m ready to check out and add in something new!

#3 Spark Creativity

Spark Creativity is perhaps the most recent of the best teacher blogs I’ve run across. I found this during my search for teacher podcasts. During this past school year, with the challenge of virtual teaching and learning, I knew my students needed more support while reading The Odyssey, so I created a companion podcast. 

Since I have ambitions to continue building my own podcast, I love looking at Spark Creativity for an example of how to craft a teacher-blog and -podcast. Mostly, this blog is filled with different, practical, and insightful ideas on how to better one’s teaching practice. Rather than come across as preachy, Spark Creativity’s Betsy joins the reader in the journey to improve their own practice and seems to hold out a hand for support throughout that experience. 

Additionally, Spark Creativity pointed out the 40 Hour Teacher Work Week course. Through a conversation this blogger had with its creator, Angela Watson, I knew I needed to learn more about strategically choosing to spend my time better while at work. Without going on too much of a tangent, through this interview between Spark Creativity and Watson, I realized my own need to find better balance between work and life, so I could continue to love teaching. 

I quickly devoured Watson’s book Fewer Things, Better, and then I signed up for the 40 Hours Teacher Work Week course. While I have “completed” the year-long course, I still need to go through and look back over the content. However, the course was worth it in my opinion. 

Spark Creativity’s supportive and thoughtful posts make this one of the best teacher blogs to check out. And, if you like podcasts and free resources, you should check those out too! 

Right now, I’m loving these posts:

• “5 Ways to use Podcasts in ELA” 
  • If you’re looking for another type of text to bring into your classroom, whether ELA or not, podcasts are an excellent way to introduce variety and help students build different skills. While some of your students may choose to listen to podcasts, if they’re like mine, they usually don’t. They’d rather watch videos. Although videos are great, I also think there’s value in developing auditory skills they will likely need in later education and life. Unfortunately, there will still be professors who largely or solely lecture or seemingly endless conference calls. Students need to practice gathering information without the aid of engaging visuals. Am I saying we should bore students with podcasts? No. Choose interesting, relevant-to-them podcasts, but also give them the opportunity to hone skills that videos, books, and articles don’t always cultivate. In this post, Spark Creativity’s Betsy shows how to use podcasts in effective and engaging ways. 
• “Designing a Creative Post-Pandemic Classroom Space”
  • Likely, the title of this post speaks for itself. This post is definitely one I will revisit in the weeks to come. While I’ve written a post about taking time away from work over summer, the space I take ensures I avoid resentment for teaching. However, because I love teaching, I still have moments where I think about the next school year. Although I don’t spend the whole summer stressing and working, when I have moments of inspiration, I will open up a note or doc and type out my thoughts to save them for when I am ready to sit down and really work. For  me, this tends to be sometime in July. Right now, I’ve had questions about what my classroom will look like this next year. Will I be able to have students work in groups? How will I make students feel comfortable working with one another while also teaching them how to stay healthy and safe? How can I allow students the time, space, and support to readjust to a full day of in person school? This blog post will definitely help me in thinking through some of the implications of potential decisions. 
• “Let’s Talk about Plagiarism in a New Way”
  • Rather than sharing strategies to help students avoid plagiarism, this post invites teachers to consider their own participation in the act of copying. Are we providing students with standard questions that almost beg them to plagiarize? As this post says, “If we’re going to assign students to analyze the meaning of color in The Great Gatsby, we can expect them to have access to a thousand other papers on this subject.” As teachers, we can do better in crafting assignments. This post provides alternative strategies that make it much harder for students to plagiarize. 
  • Right now, this is also an important conversation for teachers and students because… apps. Yep. There are now apps that students can use to take pictures of a question and it provides them with the answer. Like me, you’ve likely heard of this before, at least for math, but these apps are evolving and now expand outside of the math realm.

#4 The Daring English Teacher

The Daring English Teacher blog is, as the title suggests, geared toward English teachers, so if you’re not an English teacher, this may not be the most relevant. However, I do think if you teach writing in another subject, this blog is still helpful! Christina, the Daring English Teacher herself, provides great strategies and resources for teaching writing which makes this one of the best teacher blogs. 

Why do I love this blog? Sometimes, we know something isn’t working, but we aren’t sure what to change. I’ve found many answers and ideas on this blog. This blog has lots of great insight into supporting students’ writing, and I’ve found the advice and resources especially helpful for developing the writing of second language learners and struggling writers.

In addition to her blog and TPT store, I love her Instagram. She has these great posts where she shares the paragraph scaffolds she provides to her students. These are essentially paragraph sentence frames to help students learn the how of structuring a paragraph while still allowing students to integrate their own what. These posts remind me of Kate Kinsella strategies as they offer excellent support and scaffold for second language learners. 

My favorites from The Daring English Teacher: 

• “3 Teaching Strategies to Boost Student Writing” 
  • This post shares three practical strategies to better support student writing. After reading, I feel inspired and able to make changes in my writing instruction. These three strategies remind us of what’s actually effective and important when providing students with writing support. 
• “Assigning a Graphic Essay as an Essay Alternative”
  • As I learned at the 2020 NCTE Conference, there are many ways to assess “essay” skills without actually assigning an essay. When we truly consider what essays require of students, it is easy to recognize there are many ways we can support and cultivate these skills without assigning an essay every, single, time. 
  • In this post, The Daring English Teacher, Christina, reviews her favorite alternative: the Graphic Essay. This is definitely a strategy I plan to implement this school year! These ideas and resources make this one of the best teacher blogs.
• “Creating a Student-Centered Classroom: How to Personalize the Classroom for Your Students”
  • Because this next school year will bring on new challenges, I find myself reconsidering how to establish a supportive classroom environment. Undoubtedly, students always bring different and diverse needs, this year especially. As the first time some of them have been in person in over a year, the classroom environment is critical. These strategies relate to the choices we make as teachers with our curriculum, which is an essential way to consider when putting students first.

I hope these best teacher blogs help inspire, guide, and support your on your teaching journey. Obviously, we all have times where we become stuck. We need a little help and a few strategies to engage ourselves in the learning process.

Happy teaching! 🙂