12 Amazing Ways to Teach During the Crazy Days of Christmas Some teachers are tempted to be babysitters during the holidays when, in fact, you can get some powerful teaching moments in your classroom. Take time to be creative and integrate holiday-themed teaching into your classroom. Please share what you like to do in the comments. 1 - Have a Social media activity relating to topics you're learning Two of my most tweeted things from last week were the Facebook template and Twitter template that you can download and use in Microsoft Word. This is a great alternative for those of you who cannot use the online Fakebook template from Classtools.net. Our AP Literature teacher has had students create a Facebook profile for their term paper author. These spark fun conversations and can be done offline or online. 2 - Make an Interactive Story This is a great time of year to teach students how to create interactive stories using PowerPoint. But you could take this further if you have older students. Share on your blog (like I've done here.) Teach!
Other Resources: STEM The organizations listed below offer web-based educational resources within the Health Science Career Cluster. This list is provided as a resource for community college faculty. It is not exhaustive and inclusion does not constitute endorsement by CORD, the League for Innovation, the States Career Cluster Initiative or the U.S. The Collaborative for Gender Equity in Emerging Technologies The Collaborative for Gender Equity in Emerging Technologies provides resources developed by the Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD) and the Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance (CSSIA) under a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education Project. Teaching the Process of Science Visionlearning is an innovative educational resource designed for students, teachers, parents or anyone interested in learning. Science Education Resource Center (SERC) SERC works to improve education through projects that support educators.
Vocabulary Instruction That Makes a Difference Vocabulary Instruction That Makes a Difference In this Education Week article, Sarah Sparks reports on research indicating that the 10,000-word vocabulary gap between lower-SES and upper-SES children entering school often widens as they move through the grades. Susan Neuman (University of Michigan/Ann Arbor) and Tanya Wright (University of Michigan/East Lansing) have found that lower-income students are less likely to be taught academically challenging words. “Vocabulary is the tip of the iceberg,” says Neuman. “Words reflect concepts and content that students need to know. Neuman and Wright studied kindergarten classrooms and found tremendous variation in the number of words explicitly taught – from two to 20 words a day. Earlier research suggests that students need to hear a new word an average of 28 times to remember it. “Essentially, what we found was a very haphazard approach to vocabulary instruction,” says Neuman. Feb. 6, 2013 (Vol. 32, #20, p. 1, 16), www.edweek.org
Integrating Edtech into lessons An example Classroom201X Ok... maybe not that kind of interview... There are loads of great examples of using new technological tools in the classroom, but I haven’t seen many detailed guides for including them in teaching, I thought that I’d like to share a lesson plan that I created for a lesson using Busbi/Flip cameras. This lesson was to prepare students for an interview for a course of study, but could easily be adapted to suit a job interview context. The Starting Point For this lesson, I took the DFES-produced Skills for Life ESOL materials as a starting point. The Lesson InterviewLessonPlan I’ve provided the plan here, in case you want to follow it (I’ve taken out the students’ names for obvious reasons). We listened to the second part of the recording to see how the questions compared to our predictions. Listening Notes Learners then worked in groups to create lists of Do’s and Dont’s for interviews on Flip Chart paper (again, to be used later). Questions prompts SelfAssessment The Technology The follow-up
Classroom Management Strategies | Classroom Management Strategies Classroom Management Strategies To Deal With Rude Comments & Personal Questions This is a big problem in tough classrooms – rude students making it their mission to offend or embarrass a teacher by asking personal, probing questions. One of the worst things you can do in response to such comments is show that you’re bothered. If you give them an emotional response of any kind you’ll… Continue Reading → Seven Ways to Get Students to Follow Your Instructions i) Make sure you have their full attention before giving instructions Make sure they are looking at you and not fiddling with a pencil, turning around, looking at a book, etc. Continue Reading → 25 classroom management strategies to get silence from a noisy group of students If you struggle to get your students’ attention during lessons I’ve put together a nifty collection of ideas which may help. Continue Reading → Novel ways to get silence from noisy students Wey Hey! Continue Reading → A few novel ways to get student attention
Three Steps for Improving Teacher Questions According to Robert Marzano's book, Classroom Instruction that Works, 80 percent of what is considered instruction involves asking questions. It makes sense then, that if we want to improve our effectiveness at teaching, of course we would start by improving our questions. I have thought a lot about this topic and I would like to share three specific actions that we can take to improve our questions. To begin with, we need to get students talking rather than the teacher talking. Second, prepare the questions when you plan the lesson. And third, scaffold the questions. Step One The first action for improvement in reality is not an action, but a shift in thinking about our own concept of teaching. Step Two The next move is to prepare the questions you want to ask as an integral part of the lesson. Certainly students cannot answer questions or discuss something of which they know nothing. Step Three
What Has Credibility With Google Natives? 40 Things That Have Credibility with Google Natives by Terry Heick Google launched 16 years ago, in 1998. That means your average high school student has never known a world without Google. Being able to Google “things” really was an interesting leap that we now take for granted. Students today–those who “grew up Google”–are now a kind of mash of social media, YouTube, and search engine (though oddly, no one under the age of 30 likes Google+), which has given them a unique view of reality. This matters for teachers, of course, because we need to know what has credibility in their eyes. The themes are simple enough: being rebellious, social, and fun-loving. 40 Things That Have Credibility with Students That Grew Up Google 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. gif animations (especially using iconic gif animations to reflect your response to social events) 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. ask.fm (this one’s weird–I don’t get it) 33. 34. 35. 36.
12 Things Kids Want from Their Teachers Whether we are a teacher, parent, relative, boss, or community member, each of us has a chance to make a positive and impactful difference in a child’s life. But in order to do this, we must carefully consider this question: What matters most to our children? For 20 years I have been posing this question to my students. The classroom would become immediately silent as the students wrote intensely for longer than they had ever written before. Surprisingly, many of the responses were the same. Here is a list of the 12 Most Important things that came out of these amazing conversations: 1. Wish me good morning, and send me off with a “see ya tomorrow.” 2. When you look at me, let me see happiness in your eyes. 3. Sit and talk with me privately; even if only for a second. 4. Help me dream of things I might be able to do; not just the things I need to do now. 5. Show me how to handle it. 6. Inquire about my weekend, the game I played, the places I go. Click the banner to order! 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
50 Excellent Open Courses on Teaching With Technology The information below is taken from a recent posting on www.onlinecollegesanduniversities.com. It is a listing of 50 free online courses that are offered on a wide variety of instructional technology topics. The courses are free, self-directed, and accessible over the internet. Using technology and creating unique learning environments are two big dreams that all types of teachers have, from elementary educators to distance education teachers to college professors. Technology and Learning Find out why technology is such a draw for educators and how we learn from non-human tools. Blogs, Wikis, New Media for Learning: This course will show you how blogs and other new media are optimal teaching tools. Online Education and Distance Learning If you want to create online learning environments and manage a distance ed course, look here. Creating Open Educational Resource: Learn how to write learning units that enhance self-directed learning. Younger Students Tech Tutorials
<title>Classroom behavior management and behaviour management by Dr. Mac Buy Dr. Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement A while back, I was asked, "What engages students?" Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccuring themes that appeared again and again. 1. "Middle-school students are growing learners who require and want interaction with other people to fully attain their potential." "Teens find it most interesting and exciting when there is a little bit of talking involved. 2. "I believe that when students participate in "learning by doing" it helps them focus more. "We have entered a digital age of video, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and they [have] become more of a daily thing for teens and students. 3. "I believe that it all boils down to relationships. "If you relate the topic to the students' lives, then it makes the concept easier to grasp." 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Go on.
The STEMAZing Project Students Share Characteristics Of Their Favorite Teachers A few weeks ago I had a Twitter dialogue with Reed Gillespie ( @rggillespie ) an AP at Kettle Run High School in Nokesville, VA. and Angela Maiers ( @AngelaMaiers ) who coined the phrase #YouMatter and is an author, educator, and national speaker. Our conversation revolved around a post from Angela titled 12 Things Kids Want from Their Teachers . Twelve simple and free “things” students want and deserve . Don’t we all deserve these? Reed shared his post What Students Want From Their Teachers he wrote after visiting with students at his high school during lunch. Very similar list. This got me to thinking “What do Cherokee students want from their teachers?” The feedback provided by our very bright and amazing students wasn’t eye opening or earth shattering, but does provide their view of what they want and deserve. 1. 2. 3. 4. I enjoyed my conversations with our students.