Using Playlists to Differentiate Instruction

Listen to my interview with Tracy Enos or read the transcript here. Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:52 — 62.0MB) Subscribe: iTunes | Android | In our never-ending quest to find better ways to differentiate and personalize instruction for students, we have plenty of options. I covered a lot of the basics in my Differentiation Starter Kit. Then last year we learned how math teacher Natalie McCutchen manages a self-paced classroom. Now, Rhode Island teacher Tracy Enos shares her system for customizing instruction to meet the needs of every student. First, consider what we usually do: When planning a typical unit of instruction, teachers map out a series of lessons to deliver, assignments for students to complete, and some kind of final assessment at the end. With playlists, the responsibility for executing the learning plan shifts: Students are given the unit plan, including access to all the lessons (in text or video form), ahead of time. Tracy Enos Book Club Playlist Related: Universal Design for Learning and Brain Based Learning • Blogs, articles, ideas

What is Mindset Every so often a truly groundbreaking idea comes along. This is one. Mindset explains: Why brains and talent don’t bring success How they can stand in the way of it Why praising brains and talent doesn’t foster self-esteem and accomplishment, but jeopardizes them How teaching a simple idea about the brain raises grades and productivity What all great CEOs, parents, teachers, athletes know Mindset is a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement and success—a simple idea that makes all the difference. In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports.

Students Sitting Around Too Much? Try Chat Stations.Cult of Pedagogy You’ve probably heard of — and maybe used — learning stations in your classroom. With stations, teachers set up activities around their rooms, then have students rotate from station to station, performing each task. They are a wonderful way to provide variety and engagement in your classroom. There’s only one real downside to stations — they take a LOT of time to set up. So today I’m proposing a watered-down version of stations that keeps the movement, interactivity and variety while minimizing the prep work. On top of their flexibility as a cooperative learning tool, Chat Stations can also dramatically improve whole-class discussions. Here’s a video demonstrating how Chat Stations work: The more traditional kinds of stations — where students perform more complex or hands-on work — are still the gold standard for student engagement, but Chat Stations can be a great strategy for those times when you haven’t been able to prepare a “real” station.

digitaltoolbox - Literacy in Science Skip to main content Create interactive lessons using any digital content including wikis with our free sister product TES Teach. Get it on the web or iPad! guest Join | Help | Sign In digitaltoolbox Home guest| Join | Help | Sign In Turn off "Getting Started" Loading... Creating accessible materials How to make documents, presentations and online materials accessible. Introduction to alternative formats The University has a legal and moral responsibility under the Equality Act 2010 to provide any of its documents, leaflets, electronic resources etc in an alternative format if requested by a disabled user. Examples of alternative formats are providing a document in large print, Braille, printed on coloured paper, a paper copy of an electronic resource or vice versa or an electronic resource in an alternative way eg: Word document instead of a PDF.The following information explains how to offer this service and what it involves, points to keep in mind are: Word documents A few simple steps to help make your Word documents more accessible. PDFs It is possible to create PDFs that are accessible to most users. Audio CDs Requests for documentation on audio CD are rare, but they can be time consuming. Emails Advice and tips on how to make your emails accessible. PowerPoint presentations

5 Teaching Practices I'm Kicking to the Curb So many of us teach the way we were taught. We may not even realize we’re doing it. And that means certain practices get passed down year after year without question, methods that are such a normal part of the way we do school, we perpetuate them without realizing there are better alternatives. Today I’m going to roll out five of these for your consideration: five teaching practices used every day that are not backed by research. A few caveats before I start: First, I have used every single one of these methods. A.K.A.: Round-Robin Reading, Volunteer Reading What it is: A teacher wants her class to read a text—a short story, a chapter in a textbook—so she has each student take a turn reading out loud while the others follow along silently. Why I did it: I used popcorn reading occasionally as a language arts teacher, when we were doing a whole-class novel, to “get through” the text. What to do instead: Consider where you want students to end up. Learn More: Learn more: A.K.A. Stick around.

4 Things You Don't Know About the Jigsaw Method Say “Jigsaw” in some teaching circles and no one will bat an eyelash. It’s one of those techniques that has been with us so long, it is no longer seen as new. When considering methods to share in my collection of instructional strategies, I ignored it for a long time because I assumed most people already knew how to use it. When I finally sat down to review the steps of Jigsaw, I came across a few surprises. Although Jigsaw is typically presented as just one in a number of cooperative learning strategies, its origin story has little to do with academics. Rather than take a crisis management approach to the situation, which they believed would only put a band-aid on the problem, Aronson and his colleagues wanted a solution that was more organic, something built into the structure of students’ everyday learning. For a more thorough understanding of the strategy and its history, read the Jigsaw Classroom’s Jigsaw Basics white paper. Anyway, here’s a video overview of the steps. Jiggy

Psychology for Educators [And More] | Boost learning by understanding human nature Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations This article offers guidance on ways to create Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to make them more accessible to users with disabilities. Because many files are often viewed electronically, governments and industries around the world are implementing policies requiring electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities. For example, the amended Section 508 of the United States Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires Federal agencies to make all of their electronic and information technology accessible. Tip: If you have Microsoft Office 2010 or later, you can use a tool for PowerPoint, Word, and Excel called the Accessibility Checker to check your PowerPoint presentations for any issues that might make it challenging for a user with a disability. In this article Add alternative text to images and objects Provide column headings in tables Give every slide a unique title Use ordinary words in hyperlink text Use simple table structure Learn more Top of Page Learn more

15 Quick Ideas for Using Hip-Hop in Class | ESL Hip Hop If you are reading this post, you are probably an English teacher. I assume you’re a creative, open-minded person who’s ready to take risks and try new things in the classroom. Perhaps that’s the reason why you’ve been following ESLhiphop in the first place. You love the concept of teaching and learning languages with rap music, but you’re still reluctant to give hip-hop a chance. Instead of offering a complete lesson plan this week, I wanted to share a list of 15 activity ideas that you can use with your students right away. 15 Activities with Hip-Hop Dictogloss – Explain to your students that you will dictate some of the lyrics and they will listen without taking any notes. Running Dictation – Print the chorus or a short selection from a verse on paper and put it up on the walls around your room. Screaming Dictation – Very similar to a running dictation. Predicting Gaps – Filling-in-the-blanks is one of the most common and overused music activities, but I like using this variation.

Center for Instructional Supports and Accessible Materials The Center for Instructional Supports and Accessible Materials' (CISAM) role is to assist school personnel in locating large print and braille textbooks, audio and digital textbooks, instructional aids and tools and specialized equipment for students with visual impairments and print disabilities in Ohio. The Ohio Department of Education, Office for Exceptional Children funds the Center for Instructional Supports and Accessible Materials to meet the federal requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) and the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standards (NIMAS). CISAM brochure — outlines the program and who is eligible for these services. IDEA 2004 addressed the timely delivery of print textbooks in specialized formats including braille, large print, audio and digital text to school-age students who have visual impairments or print disabilities. Information on NIMAS and IDEA Additional information on CISAM and NIMAS

Life Beyond Gap-fill? In the 70s and early 80s, when functional syllabuses and communicative language teaching gained prominence in ELT, our profession was a relatively gap-fill-free zone. For controlled and semi-controlled practice, students were usually asked to engage in A-B exchanges, role-plays or any other activity types that included some degree of choice, information / context gap, personalization and unpredictability. Even certain types of contextualized oral drills were considered more mainstream than “Fill in the blanks with…” way back then. If you’ve been teaching for more than twenty years you probably know what I’m talking about. Then Headway came along in the mid 80s, grammar made its humongous comeback and since then it has pervaded every crevice of our profession, for both the right and the wrong reasons, for better and for worse. So what’s the big deal? 1. Numbers 1 and 2, I would argue, are not particularly good examples of rehearsal for real language use. 5. 6. 8. 11. Please remember: 1.

ORC - 3329.01 Adoption and purchase of textbooks or electronic textbooks - filing of price statement. Any publisher of textbooks or electronic textbooks in the United States desiring to offer such textbooks or electronic textbooks for use by pupils in the public schools of Ohio, before such textbooks or electronic textbooks may be adopted and purchased by any school board, must, on or before the first day of January of each year, file in the office of the superintendent of public instruction, a statement that the list wholesale price to school districts in Ohio will be no more than the lowest list wholesale price available to school districts in any other state. No publisher of a textbook shall file a statement under this section unless the publisher complies with all of the following: (A) At the same time as filing the statement, the publisher also files: