Classroom Techniques: Formative Assessment Idea Number Three We’ve touched on a couple of formative assessment ideas in our blogging thus far, namely using Popsicle™ sticks as an all-student response system during class and using exit tickets to assess student learning. These formative assessment ideas involve all students, while giving teachers the information they need to make adjustments to their teaching. Ideas like these and others have proven to increase student learning. Another formative assessment idea that engages the entire class and provides evidence of student learning is the white board. Small, personal-sized white boards are inexpensive and if each student has them at their desk they can provide answers and information by simply raising them. As technology makes its way into classroom environment, tools such as the iPad™ or iPod™ can act in a similar fashion – providing real-time understand of subject matter. Have you used or seen whiteboards or something similar in action?
FREE -- Teaching Resources and Lesson Plans from the Federal Government FREE Features These features originally appeared on the FREE.ED.gov features blog. The features highlight resources and ideas related to holidays, awareness months, anniversaries and seasonal topics. January February March April May June July August Back to School: 7 Ways to Help Kids Transition Back to the Classroom September October November December About FREE Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) offered a way to find digital teaching and learning resources created and maintained by the federal government and public and private organizations. FREE was conceived in 1997 by a federal working group in response to a memo from the President. Technology has made it increasingly easier to find information from government agencies or with custom search tools, like Kids.gov. FREE Disclaimer The U.S.
Writing Multiple Choice Questions For Higher Order Thinking: Instructional Design and eLearning One of the biggest criticisms of multiple choice questions is that they only test factual knowledge. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can also use multiple choice questions to assess higher-order thinking. Higher Order Thinking in a Nutshell Higher order thinking goes beyond memorizing and recalling facts and data. The concept is based on various learning taxonomies. Because test items must be aligned with learning objectives, you’ll need to include higher-order thinking skills from the start. 1. One of the best ways to promote and assess higher-order thinking is to use scenario-based questions, particularly ones that simulate real work experiences. Before: What symbol does a formula always start with in Excel? After: If you want to total the first ten data cells in column B, which one of the following formulas should you use? Before: What is the first concern of an emergency worker? After: You arrive at the scene of an accident where people are panicked and yelling. 2. 3.
5 Great Ways for Teachers to Collaborate on Twitter I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Twitter is an absolutely fantastic resource for teachers. But it can also be something of a blunt instrument. The daily surge of information, the ever-changing timeline of tweets, the potential to miss entire conversations simply by failing to log in at the right moment… the pitfalls are considerable. The best a teacher can get out of Twitter is truly enriching, meaningful collaboration with other educators – so try these top tips to make sure you manage to achieve just that… 1. It’s not easy to collaborate if you’re not online at the same time. 2. The key to successful long-lasting collaboration is sharing resources, ideas and tools. 3. Even taking the time to share documents or explain how to use tools can be time-consuming in the faced-paced world of Twitter. 4. It’s not easy to stay on top of everything that goes on on Twitter as things move so quickly. 5.
Teaching Fact vs. Opinion at Every Grade As a busy election season always seems to demonstrate, learning how to tell fact vs. opinion is not only a skill that will serve students across the curriculum and on standardized tests, but also throughout their lives. This is especially true in an information-driven world where anyone can disseminate “facts” via tweets, Wikipedia entries or blog posts. With that in mind, here are some of our favorite ways to teach this valuable skill at every grade level. In Grades K–2: Write simple facts and opinions on strips of paper, such as “Ice cream is made of milk and sugar” and “Vanilla ice cream is the best.” Have students sort the strips into two piles, “true for everyone” and “not true for everyone.” In Grades 3–5: Teach students about opinion “trigger words,” such as believe, think feel, always, never and none. In Grades 6–8: Discuss how nonfiction writers bring their own biases and opinions to what they write. In Grades 9–12:
The most important skill for college-bound students | Sia Knight Consulting Share this: Google+ Sia Knight Related posts: Category: College Admissions Assistance, Uncategorized Tag: academic coaching, college application, college coaching, college planning, high school, junior year, middle school, senior year, STNT, testing One comment on “The Most Important Skill To Teach Your College-Bound Student” Jose JR Vazquez on said: Sia,So glad someone said Number #2! Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. * Copy This Password * * Type Or Paste Password Here * You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""><abbr title=""><acronym title=""><b><blockquote cite=""><cite><code><del datetime=""><em><i><q cite=""><strike><strong>
The Four Pillars of Technology Use in the Classroom This past summer, with the help of my brilliant friend, Kristen Swanson, I took my Technology Curriculum to a place I had never imagined it could go. As a computer lab teacher, there has never been an easy to follow, mapped out path for instruction. As such, over the last 5 years I created a scope of skills and concepts across grade levels to guide my teaching and I had begun to map out what kinds of projects I could use to teach these skills. Fast forward to today. This summer, I put together a framework for my curriculum that ties all instruction to four ‘pillars.’ The Four Pillars of Technology in the Classroom Today, my 4th-6th graders and I focused on first understanding the idea of a pillar and what it is, and then we got into the work of unpacking the first pillar, Communicate. After reviewing their class notes and their ‘exit tickets,’ I have no doubt that my students understand how technology allows them to communicate in a variety of ways.
Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform : Shots - Health Blog hide captionTeachers interact differently with students expected to succeed. But they can be trained to change those classroom behaviors. iStockphoto.com Teachers interact differently with students expected to succeed. In my Morning Edition story today, I look at expectations — specifically, how teacher expectations can affect the performance of the children they teach. The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a wonderful experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco. The idea was to figure out what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destined to succeed, so Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up as a different test. "It was a standardized IQ test, Flanagan's Test of General Ability," he says. After the kids took the test, he then chose from every class several children totally at random. But just how do expectations influence IQ? Still, people have tried.
Instructional Pacing: How Do Your Lessons Flow? Pacing a lesson so its nearly seamless takes expertise and practice -- and can be one of the greatest challenges for new teachers. For those more seasoned out there, here's a scenario many of us can relate to from the early days: way too much time for one learning activity, while not enough for another and clunky transitions in between. Also on the teacher plate when it comes to instructional decisions that effect pacing? How best to chunk and scaffold content so it's grade-level appropriate and then deciding on the best instructional mode. So let's take a look at the essentials when it comes to pacing the lesson and the learning: 1. Using a timer on your desk (or try this one) can help create that "were on the clock" feeling. 2. 3. 4. Photocopying can be the bane of the teacher's day. 5. 6. Pair and share creates energy in the room following direct instruction. 7. When that pacing seems off, is it time to switch the mode of delivery? How do you set up lessons so they flow?
25 TED Talks Perfect For Classrooms The 50 Best Sources of Free STEM Education Online 12.05K Views 0 Likes Colleges, universities, and other educational forums in your community can be excellent places to learn more about a variety of STEM topics, but there is also a wealth of educational material available on the web for those who prefer to learn at their own pace or take a more individual approach. 5 Useful Places To Find Online Lesson Plans Whether you’re in need of a little help with a new lesson you’re trying to master or simply looking to find out what other teachers are doing around the world, the internet is a wonderful place to turn. So if you’re searching for online lesson plans, Edudemic has you covered. We’ve been looking into this kinda stuff for literally years upon years and can recommend the following five sources of online lesson plans. Some are free, some aren’t, it’s worth checking each out (and reading our description of course) to see which fits your needs. NOTE: click the title of each site below to view the site. Sometimes our links don’t seem super obvious. Teachers Pay Teachers Probably one of the better known sites, Teachers Pay Teachers is an online marketplace for teachers to buy and sell their lesson plans. Learn Zillion LearnZillion is a site that aggregates lesson plans that focus on common core standards. ThirteenEd Online Better Lesson Share my Lesson
edulicious - FV #31 - Failure and Learning Today's visual is from Indexed. Indexed is a blog by Jessica Hagy where she posts an visual every weekday. Her visuals are always on index cards. Here is hers for today: I'm sure every educator will recognize the importance of failure as a learning aid. I won't get all political about the whole "failure is not an option" thing. Related to the topic of failure, I was reading a letter from F. Don't worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault I like that too. Two things here for teachers: I've always thought that students should try to create their own "Indexed" visuals related to their studies... could be a great assessment deviceThe Letters of Note blog can be a wealth of resources for Language Arts and Social Studies teachers.