they will take off with it and amaze you!
Angela Maiers dropped off a bag of tech stuff from AVerMedia for my class. She told my students that they are to research it, learn about it, and teach her about it. There's also a lovely contest with the company that will be an end result.
My students are so excited about this project! We talked about how to go about it, they have divided themselves into diverse research teams based on their strengths and weaknesses, and plan to use their recesses and study halls to research.
The bag of tech includes a document camera, 4 student AVerPens, and 1 teacher AVerPen. There's also directions for the document camera, but no directions for the AVerPens. I haven't really given the kids any help besides showing them the company's website and being a guide in arranging times for the teams to work with the tech.
Today I was totally amazed! Two teams had worked with the tech so far. They'd figured out how to hook up the document camera and how to charge the pens. I challenged the 3 teams working on the project today to really figure out how the AVerPens work. They were getting caught up with trying to use them on the Promethean board we have in the room, so we had to talk about how the Promethean pens work just with the Promethean board.
We talked about how they needed an instruction manual for the pens. I simply directed them to the AVerMedia website and pointed out where the manual might be. They noted right away that on the downloads page there was also a link to software. We had a quick discussion about what software is and they started to connect the dots!
All three groups working on it today were digging into the instruction manual. They got the pens working as a mouse on the computer! I even had a student run up to the second floor to see how far the wireless signal of the pens can reach. The had some hiccups with downloading the software, but I think they'll be ready to go with it tomorrow.
This is kind of a rambling post, but it's just so exciting to see the project evolving in my classroom. The kids want to stay in at recess to work on it. They're in diverse teams (not necessarily with their friends) and are getting along. They know we may not get the "prize" but have a desire to learn/play/explore.
This is a true, real life experience, with reading comprehension! They are reading instructions and following them.
This is a true, real life experience, with writing. The students are recording their findings in a variety of formats. They are summarizing their work and making sure they can tell other groups what they have discovered.
This is true, real life, problems-based learning task.
I can't wait to share more as the project continues and as we record a video/commercial for AVerMedia.
What meaningful projects are you working to engage your students in?
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
It's the little things...
I've been in a kind of a slump the past few weeks. School has been bumming me out. Frustration has been taking over.
I've done two little things in my room that have gotten me a tiny bit out of this slump. They both come down to one little word.
Choice.
1. During our study hall time, it can get loud. I get grouchy. So, I put together a Grooveshark playlist. I asked each of the students to tell me a couple of their favorite (school appropriate) songs and made a list. I now play that in study hall and it's lightened the mood. It's also a lesson in tolerance of everyone's music tastes.
2. My students share about their independent reading with me once a week. For the last three years, the students have turned in a letter written in their notebook in classic Fountas and Pinnell style. Now I have 3 options for the students. They can turn in their letter, record their response on our new Flip cameras from Digital Wish, or blog their response on our classroom blog. I've already had 3+ students blog their responses and two students record their responses on the Flip. I'm especially excited because the two students who recorded their responses on the Flip are students who usually have late letters. I think the writing aspect of it was hindering them.
This week, my burdens and feelings of burnout have been lessened. Choice can be a little thing that can make a big difference.
What are some little things you do in your classroom to encourage choice?
I've done two little things in my room that have gotten me a tiny bit out of this slump. They both come down to one little word.
Choice.
1. During our study hall time, it can get loud. I get grouchy. So, I put together a Grooveshark playlist. I asked each of the students to tell me a couple of their favorite (school appropriate) songs and made a list. I now play that in study hall and it's lightened the mood. It's also a lesson in tolerance of everyone's music tastes.
2. My students share about their independent reading with me once a week. For the last three years, the students have turned in a letter written in their notebook in classic Fountas and Pinnell style. Now I have 3 options for the students. They can turn in their letter, record their response on our new Flip cameras from Digital Wish, or blog their response on our classroom blog. I've already had 3+ students blog their responses and two students record their responses on the Flip. I'm especially excited because the two students who recorded their responses on the Flip are students who usually have late letters. I think the writing aspect of it was hindering them.
This week, my burdens and feelings of burnout have been lessened. Choice can be a little thing that can make a big difference.
What are some little things you do in your classroom to encourage choice?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Why Blog?
Below is from the mouths of my students when thinking about their blogs today. We will start writing on them this week.
Why blog? What should we use it for?
- Share our writing
- Get constructive criticism - improve your writing
- Share writing with relatives
- Comment on other people’s writing - improves their writing
- Turning in assignments - easier for Mrs. Goerend (less paper)
- Share your free writing - get feedback
- Share pictures about what we’re doing
- Get people’s opinion on something for a project.
- Ask readers for feedback
- Get ideas for specific parts of your writing (introduction, conclusion, etc.)
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Red Group
First, some background:
Our 6th grade is departmentalized, meaning I teach my own students' reading, writing, and spelling. I then teach math to my own class and the two other classes. One of the other 6th grade teachers teaches science, and the other teaches social studies. This is the way it's pretty much been for the three years I've been in the district.
From about the second day of school I could tell that this group of 6th graders as a whole was pretty divided. We have a good amount of students who score low on standardized tests in math and a good amount who score high. There aren't a lot in the middle.
This week the students took MAP tests. The scores again showed quite the gap. There are many above and many below the math norms, but not a lot in the middle. I knew this was coming, so I decided to split the classes more or less by ability so that I can slow things down for the lower achieving students and really make sure they get solid on the essentials.
Now on to the real point of my post....
Today I was working on relabeling the folders where students hand in their assignments. To make it easier, I just labeled the classes red, white, and blue, since those are our school colors. Before I just called them Mrs. Goerend's class, Mrs. _________'s class and Mrs. ________'s class. The kids are used to this change happening because they've been divided by ability for math for the past two years.
One student saw me doing this and said, "The red group is the kids that are bad at math, isn't it?"
"No," I said. " It's actually not."
It was so sad to me to hear that. We all know the teachers who label kids red (low), yellow (medium), and green (high). Or there's plenty of other ways teachers label groups. I just have to label them SOMETHING besides by teacher's name because I have to label the hand-in folders.
When we tell the kids tomorrow what colored class they are in, they are going to know which is the low class (and it's not the red group). Kids aren't oblivious to who is better and who is worse at things. The other two are mixed among higher and medium achieving. I can about guarantee that some kid is going to say in the low class, "We're the kids that are bad at math."
How do you respond to this?
It's such a touchy subject. They just need it taught at a different pace. They may need additional practice. We may work with order of operations with just whole numbers and not decimals, so they don't have to think about two things at once.
Our 6th grade is departmentalized, meaning I teach my own students' reading, writing, and spelling. I then teach math to my own class and the two other classes. One of the other 6th grade teachers teaches science, and the other teaches social studies. This is the way it's pretty much been for the three years I've been in the district.
From about the second day of school I could tell that this group of 6th graders as a whole was pretty divided. We have a good amount of students who score low on standardized tests in math and a good amount who score high. There aren't a lot in the middle.
This week the students took MAP tests. The scores again showed quite the gap. There are many above and many below the math norms, but not a lot in the middle. I knew this was coming, so I decided to split the classes more or less by ability so that I can slow things down for the lower achieving students and really make sure they get solid on the essentials.
Now on to the real point of my post....
Today I was working on relabeling the folders where students hand in their assignments. To make it easier, I just labeled the classes red, white, and blue, since those are our school colors. Before I just called them Mrs. Goerend's class, Mrs. _________'s class and Mrs. ________'s class. The kids are used to this change happening because they've been divided by ability for math for the past two years.
One student saw me doing this and said, "The red group is the kids that are bad at math, isn't it?"
"No," I said. " It's actually not."
It was so sad to me to hear that. We all know the teachers who label kids red (low), yellow (medium), and green (high). Or there's plenty of other ways teachers label groups. I just have to label them SOMETHING besides by teacher's name because I have to label the hand-in folders.
When we tell the kids tomorrow what colored class they are in, they are going to know which is the low class (and it's not the red group). Kids aren't oblivious to who is better and who is worse at things. The other two are mixed among higher and medium achieving. I can about guarantee that some kid is going to say in the low class, "We're the kids that are bad at math."
How do you respond to this?
It's such a touchy subject. They just need it taught at a different pace. They may need additional practice. We may work with order of operations with just whole numbers and not decimals, so they don't have to think about two things at once.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Standards-Base Grading: What I've changed this year
This year, I'm on my second full year of using standards-based grading in math. I've kept a lot of things the same, but am continually tweaking things. For one, I used to give completion points for homework, just 2 points per assignment. But, this year I'm not giving any points for assignments, which purifies the students' grades to just scores for standards. Instead, I am just tallying if the students complete their homework and turn it in. I hope that I can share this completion percentage with parents and students every so often so that they might see a correlation.
I've also added to the requirements of being able to retake a learning target. Students must either have a study session with me or turn in some practice problems they did before they can take a retake. I decided to do this this year because I would have many students in the past that would say, "Oh, I have to take a retake today?" It was obvious to me that students would not prepare for the retake and often make the same mistakes that they did on the original quiz. I guess I am forcing them to study, but they need to do some sort of studying to learn what they were missing the first time around.
If you are using standards-based grading, how is it going? Have you made any discoveries lately?
I've also added to the requirements of being able to retake a learning target. Students must either have a study session with me or turn in some practice problems they did before they can take a retake. I decided to do this this year because I would have many students in the past that would say, "Oh, I have to take a retake today?" It was obvious to me that students would not prepare for the retake and often make the same mistakes that they did on the original quiz. I guess I am forcing them to study, but they need to do some sort of studying to learn what they were missing the first time around.
If you are using standards-based grading, how is it going? Have you made any discoveries lately?
Friday, September 10, 2010
Reading Aloud to Students
It's amazing what reading aloud to your students will do.
For the past 4 years, I have started the year off reading The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. I teach 6th grade...and the book's reading level is a grade equivalent of 5.1. It's an independent level book for 75% of my students, but I'm still reading it to them.
We're nearing the end, and each day when I have to put it away, they are begging me to continue reading. Kids crave a good story. They will sit and listen. They enjoy it. It makes them think. They discuss the story and make predictions in the lunch line. They want to get caught up with what is happening when they've been absent and miss a day of reading.
I have one copy of the second book in the series, The People of Sparks, in my classroom library. The cover is not connected to the book anymore and held together by tape. I just ordered a second copy from BookMooch.com and am awaiting its arrival.
There's no technology involved in my reading aloud to the students. No flashy screens, cameras, or sound effects are attached to the book. It's just a good story.
No wonder my education professor, Dr. Susan Sherwood, stressed that you should read to your students every day. I'm a believer.
What have you read to your students lately?
For the past 4 years, I have started the year off reading The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. I teach 6th grade...and the book's reading level is a grade equivalent of 5.1. It's an independent level book for 75% of my students, but I'm still reading it to them.
We're nearing the end, and each day when I have to put it away, they are begging me to continue reading. Kids crave a good story. They will sit and listen. They enjoy it. It makes them think. They discuss the story and make predictions in the lunch line. They want to get caught up with what is happening when they've been absent and miss a day of reading.
I have one copy of the second book in the series, The People of Sparks, in my classroom library. The cover is not connected to the book anymore and held together by tape. I just ordered a second copy from BookMooch.com and am awaiting its arrival.
There's no technology involved in my reading aloud to the students. No flashy screens, cameras, or sound effects are attached to the book. It's just a good story.
No wonder my education professor, Dr. Susan Sherwood, stressed that you should read to your students every day. I'm a believer.
What have you read to your students lately?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Classroom Bloggers
I gave my sixth graders a username and password for access to my classroom blog.
I now have two student "jobs" each day. One student is the blogger of the day and the other the photographer of the day.
I gave them 2 guidelines:
1-Take no photos of students' faces. I don't want to have to deal with permission for that yet.
2- Write something acceptable for your parents to read. This makes sense because all of their parents get an email of blog posts delivered to them daily via FeedBurner.
So far, it has been good! The 3 bloggers of the day have come at the end of the day with something to write about. The 2 photographers of the day have had a picture ready to share and a caption to add. It's been fun to see the photographers (and their friends) ponder what to take a picture of. We have even received a couple comments, one of which we have drafted a class response to.
Why am I doing this? Doesn't it take up extra time?
Sure it does! My goal is to teach my students through experience how to appropriately communicate online. Our class blog is a purposeful place for them to do this.
Check out what they are doing on our classroom blog!
Are you doing this in your classroom? If not, why? If yes, what suggestions do you have for how I could make this more purposeful?
I now have two student "jobs" each day. One student is the blogger of the day and the other the photographer of the day.
I gave them 2 guidelines:
1-Take no photos of students' faces. I don't want to have to deal with permission for that yet.
2- Write something acceptable for your parents to read. This makes sense because all of their parents get an email of blog posts delivered to them daily via FeedBurner.
So far, it has been good! The 3 bloggers of the day have come at the end of the day with something to write about. The 2 photographers of the day have had a picture ready to share and a caption to add. It's been fun to see the photographers (and their friends) ponder what to take a picture of. We have even received a couple comments, one of which we have drafted a class response to.
Why am I doing this? Doesn't it take up extra time?
Sure it does! My goal is to teach my students through experience how to appropriately communicate online. Our class blog is a purposeful place for them to do this.
Check out what they are doing on our classroom blog!
Are you doing this in your classroom? If not, why? If yes, what suggestions do you have for how I could make this more purposeful?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)