Student Voice/Choice…with Standards

Google 20% or Passion Projects…Genius Hour…whatever you call it…the premise is the same.  Allowing students to research and learn about things they choose.  It’s difficult for teachers to “give-up” instructional time; however, I’m convinced a teacher can accomplish both.  Standards and student choice.

As I was looking at some things preparing for the upcoming school year, I ran into this simple article.  Might not be a new concept to all, but it’s a refresher course with a simple twist.

How can you incorporate student voice and choice?  How can you increase student buy-in?  I think this is a great way to do both without compromising standards.

Looking forward to beginning a new year of learning, teaching, and growing.  Try this option to learn more about your students as you begin the school year.

Standards Aligned Genius Hour

 

 

VTS

I’m done after this.  But trust me, you’ll like this.  Check out the video that shows VTS with CCSS.

Visual Thinking

“Caption”less?

Quick cool idea!

What’s Going On in This Picture?

My brain is going crazy with the possibilities…especially since writing and research seems to be such a tough area on TCAP.  Let me know if you use this and how!!!

 

DBQ (plus curriculum compacting)

Bet you don’t know what THAT means.  Neither did I.  I was doing some digging online, looking for resources to help teachers learn more about Curriculum Compacting because the 5th grade teachers at Cason Lane and I are planning to get together this week to collaborate.  I ran into this website, and I really liked what she had to say about curriculum compacting.  So I decided to continue to explore her webpage.

Then I saw the DBQ.  I scrolled through the document because I had never heard of it.  It stands for Document Based Question.  Okay.  The concept isn’t new.  Got it.  But listen to this!!  The assignment was about comparing and contrasting.  The students were given a brief description of an event at the mall.  Several “witnesses” had comments.  The students had to compare and contrast all the statements to decide what REALLY happened at the mall and write a thesis.  How cool is that!!

DBQ_Mall

Since I also mentioned compacting…here’s some good information about it and Carolyn Coil’s website.

Curriculum Compacting

CCSS Units with TEXT Suggestions!!!

The other day, Sheri Arnette told me about a website.  I happened upon it this morning and was amazed at the possibilities it offered.  I haven’t had an opportunity to dig deeply, but from my surface skim, this could give you a plethora of ideas!!  I like how it gives suggested texts, but I LOVE how it breaks the modules into a scaffold approach.

The way I stumbled onto it was through a resource page from another county in the state.  It had some items worth exploring.

Sullivan County

EngageNY is the website Sheri shared with me.  It is found here.

Enjoy!

 

Adventures Beyond the Classroom Walls

How would your students like to sit beside the Amazon River and learn about the layers of the rainforest?  Integrating content helps engage and motivate!  Connections are made that are natural and relevance seems to peek out of every corner.  Learning sticks when it’s enjoyable.  It’s inviting.

Recently at Scales, the third grade team took on a project that their students will never forget.  Explaining it would sell it short.  I’ll let the video tell you the rest of the story.

Step outside of the box.  You might find YOU like it just as much as the kids do.

Which Comes First?

Learning or thinking?

While doing some prep work for tomorrow’s appointments, I began searching good ole Google.  (How did I survive all those years?  I LOVE having answers at my fingertips.)  I had questions and wanted to see what the world had to answer them.

Then, I found her (actually she is using HIS work).  An article that defines “reflection.”  It’s long.  It’s scholarly.  So I’ll differentiate.  I’ll pull out some phrases that are AWESOME, and I’ll provide the link.  You can choose your route. (Isn’t choice nice?  How often do you give your students a choice?)  Hopefully these pieces will spark your interest enough to dig into the article called, “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking” by Carol Rodgers.  Here are some highlights:

• My purpose is, quite simply, to provide a clear picture of Dewey’s original ideas so that they might serve as we improvise, revise, and create new ways of deriving meaning from experiences-thinking to learn.
• “What (an individual) has learned in the way of knowledge and skill in one situation becomes an instrument of understanding and dealing effectively with the situations which follow.  The process goes on as long as life and learning continue.”
• …other kinds of thinking is stream of consciousness. It is the thinking all of us are involuntarily awash in all the time….This is often the only kind of thinking teachers have time for.
• …moves the learner from a disturbing state of perplexity…to a harmonious state of settledness.  Perplexity is created when an individual encounters a situation whose “full character is not yet determined.”  That is, the meaning of the experience has not yet been fully established.
• An additional source of motivation is curiosity, without which there is little energy for the hard work of reflection.
• The store of one’s wisdom is the result of the extent of one’s reflection.
• Formulating the problem or question itself is half the work.  As Dewey says, “A question well put is half answered.”
• Reflection must include action.
• Dewey knew that merely to think without ever having to express what one thought is an incomplete act….The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated.
• Curiosity about and enthusiasm for that subject matter is essential to good teaching.  Without them a teacher has no energy, no fuel, to carry out reflective inquiry-much less teaching itself.

There is great information in this article.  It helps to define true reflection, its purpose, and the importance of disciplined reflection.  Eye opening.  I hope you’ll take the time to read the article for yourself.

Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining Reflection Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 842-866.

My Mom’s Drawing Book

My mom, Kaylea Mangrum, has self-published 4 books.  She designed a drawing instruction process, called Frog Hops, and applied it to these step-by-step drawing books.  Currently, you can download one of them for free as an iBook in iTunes.  This past year, her book was one of the top downloaded books in the category for the year. Cool!!

WHY do I think this is appropriate for this blog?  When I taught kindergarten, we would use these step-by-step instructions to draw a picture and write about it.  It also helped with visual discrimination when they used the instructions independently in workstations.

Here is a sample page of the free download.  This particular book has more difficult tasks.  Try this book, for free, on the iPad.  Go to iTunes and search for Kaylea Mangrum in iBooks.  The title of the free download is How to Draw Step-by-Step with Special Kids.  (She has done work with the Special Kids Organization in town.  Her time with them inspired her to produce this work.)

Sure I’m proud of my mom.  But I am also a sucker for free things…especially when it can help in my classroom!  Push creativity by asking them to complete the picture with questions such as, “What’s the weather?  I can’t tell by your picture.”

ENJOY!

SCAMPER for a Book Giveaway???

At a recent conference at Vanderbilt, we discussed the strategy called “SCAMPER.”  Each letter represents a way to think more creatively.  Substitute.  Combine.  Adapt.  Modify/Magnify/Minify.  Put to other uses.  Eliminate.  Reverse/Rearrange.  Before releasing this strategy, it will need to be model with the students, then used for independent work.  (Sometimes we forget to set the strategy up for success.  For example, independent learning plans require research skills.  We need to teach those skills before releasing the ILP.)

I recently received an email from Mrs. Davis at Scales.  This week she used SCAMPER and focused on substituting and eliminating.  (Great way for kids to plan a fractured fairy tale for creative writing.)  A student eliminated the brick house and realized that brought a short life for the 3rd pig.  Another student searched his thinking and worked with eliminating the bond between the pigs.

At the conference, a few of us from MCS began with Pinocchio.  Using the words from SCAMPER, we modified Pinocchio.  He was then Pinocchi “ette.”  We substituted lying with bullying.  Cyber bullying to be exact.  Geppetto was NOT trying to help.  He was actually encouraging her actions which happened to be against (combine) Cinderella.  We adapted the end when Pinocchiette realized how wrong it was to bully…etc.  You getting the picture?  The amount of discussion and flexible thinking was extraordinary!

This could be used in all subjects.  Math included!

I found this  neat rubric to accompany this strategy.  It’s found here.

NOW…all MCS employees…how could you use this in your class?  To all MCS teachers that comment, sharing an idea for using SCAMPER, each will be put into a drawing for a copy of “Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire.”  I’ll have the final give-a-way in January when we return.

Happy SCAMPERING.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears! Oh MY!

Assessment ideas.  Strategies. Writing across the curriculum.  Vocabulary tips.  Oh my!!!  My personal interest right now is “STEAM,” and I ordered a book called STEAM Point.  The chapter on assessments gave some  websites with resources.  Immediately I thought “blog”!  Happy exploring!  Personal favorites were using RAFT across the content area for writing, formative assessments strategies, and vocabulary games (like the board game Taboo).  Be sure to check out response logs, too.

Teach21

Formative Assessments