I tend to usually just use this blog to reflect upon my experiences in the classroom and share any ideas with anyone that actually reads this. Today I'm going to go in a bit of a different direction for the first part.
I've been inspired of late to try and have more speaking and debating/discussion in my classroom. I found some great ideas through some of the twitter chats that I partake in, this one coming from our Thursday night #sstlap discussions. There were a lot of great ideas thrown out there, but I really liked the something that @MSHistoryTeache said he's used debate styles similar to those on Pardon the Interruption. PTI was one of my favorite sports shows for years, and to be honest, I couldn't believe I hadn't ever thought about using something from the show in my class. My mind has been spinning with ideas since then, having weekly debates, do heads on sticks, good cop/bad cop, the list goes on. In the past I've used 4 corners to get the class up, but it's usually dominated by those that want to talk/argue while the rest can hide and ride their coattails in the discussion. This way, it adds more accountability. I knew I needed to learn a bit more on ways to really get the kids talking, and more importantly preparing to put their words and arguments down to be successful, especially those that don't like to speak or don't really think before they speak (these are middle school students after all). So after doing some research, I found this website. It had some great techniques, rules and different debate themes. As I mentioned, I have used 4 corners and want to use more role play. I really liked the outer/inner circle style as well. It allows for good discussion and gets the rest of the class to actively listen while they take notes on the topic of discussion. I'm introducing the PTI style next week with a Good Cop/Bad Cop on child labor. Will choose debate partners, and the students will have a short amount of time to research and I've found a random name generator classtools.net to help pick who will debate each time so everyone will eventually get a turn. We'll see how it goes, but I know that I'm excited about this. I want my students to be able to learn how to positively express themselves and their opinions. Hopefully this will help.
Secondly, I'm attempting to start a genius hour in my class. We have 15 minutes each day with my homeroom that we've used to read, but we haven't had the kind of choice I'd like with this time, and I want to offer my students a choice in what we do as well. I've tried to gently introduce this and it hasn't really gone over how I'd hoped. I asked them first what they'd like to do with the time if they had a choice and they wrote their answers down on a notecard and I collected them up. My only stipulations were that we weren't going to extend lunch, no naps, and no we couldn't go outside and just hang out, it had to be educational in some way or form. Most answered the question as if this would be something everyone would be doing together. So a lot of responses were either "do my homework" or "play Social Studies jeopardy." While I am excited that so many want to play jeopardy and perhaps they'll learn a little bit along the way, I think many of these answers were focusing on what I maybe wanted to hear rather than what the students actually wanted to do. So I rephrased the question and a only slightly more success. I had one that wants to read more, a couple that want to learn a new language, a couple want to cook. Most still either have no clue or want to do homework. I think on Monday when we have time again I'll show them some posts about genius hour from Joy Kirr's blog. Hopefully this and maybe a quick library trip can spark some more ideas and creativity. We'll see, so far we're off to a rocky start, but we haven't given up yet.
I think I'll wrap it up there, next time I'll talk more about our google form quizzes and the awesomeness of flubaroo (assuming it works in action, rather than just my test run). Please let me know what you think, feel free to leave a comment or find me on twitter @amcrowe5 Thanks for reading
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Semester's End, a quick reflection
So the first semester has come to an end. It was definitely a interesting and sometimes chaotic with all life has thrown at me outside the classroom (in a really great way of course, but twins are no joke, we play straight up man to man defense on them instead of zone). Added to that, we switched up the pacing guides and maps to a more thematic approach, and am teaching 7th grade along with my usual 8th grade. So it was hectic to say the least, scrambling during my morning planning to finish a lesson or completely throw together something, especially for 7th grade since I have it at the end of the day. All in all there have been some really good things and definitely a lot of room for growth which I'll take into next semester.
First the good:
Technology in the classroom - We've had a bunch of really good things happen as far as this goes. We were fortunate to where we've become the guinea pigs for being a potential 1:1 classroom. I'd say we've had laptop access roughly 75% percent of the semester, although the computers stay in my room rather than go home with the kids. We've been able to successfully use both gaggle and google drive for assignments. Google Drive has been great as we've done collaborative work in partners, small groups and even as an entire class. It definitely has put a nice spin on some of the projects we've done and added some engagement to the boring old KWL chart, where now everyone has to be involved and participate.
After a rocky start with our first unit, the thematic units have gone pretty well. The students haven't really struggled too much with the idea that we're bouncing around time periods. It's been a lot easier to come up with our common assessments too which we have to base off of the NCES. Rather than have several standards that we may touch on in a week, we can focus on just 1 or 2 and their clarifying objectives. There is definitely ways to improve and go deeper into some topics next year, but I've been pleased with how they've gone this year so far.
Now the opportunities for growth, to use my administrative cliches:
7th grade in general hasn't gone well. Mostly because of what I mentioned earlier where I'm not really able to plan out or be as effective as I'd like to be. I've found some really good ideas, lessons, and projects, but I've thrown some of these in without the kind of proper scaffolding that they need at this level. I think the content is interesting and there are lots of things that I can do for world history, I just need to take some of these lumps to really improve my final product for next year. Luckily the last 3 units will help, as we're going over Economic & Social Change, Governments & Leadership, and lastly War & Conflict. The first and last units are the same as my coinciding 8th grade units, obviously focusing on world views rather than national and state ones. Hopefully some of the tweaks I plan to make along with the content will help my student engagement and overall learning in my classroom.
I've used the technology as a crutch sometimes, which I need to stop and get back to teaching rather than just simply assign a project or assignment and completely sit back and facilitate. There has to be a balance of this, but at the middle school level, they still need me teaching, explaining, guiding them along the stories of history rather than just showing them where to go online and assume that they can all come up with adequate outcomes from the readings or projects I assign or create.
So some fixes for the next 90 days!
First the good:
Technology in the classroom - We've had a bunch of really good things happen as far as this goes. We were fortunate to where we've become the guinea pigs for being a potential 1:1 classroom. I'd say we've had laptop access roughly 75% percent of the semester, although the computers stay in my room rather than go home with the kids. We've been able to successfully use both gaggle and google drive for assignments. Google Drive has been great as we've done collaborative work in partners, small groups and even as an entire class. It definitely has put a nice spin on some of the projects we've done and added some engagement to the boring old KWL chart, where now everyone has to be involved and participate.
After a rocky start with our first unit, the thematic units have gone pretty well. The students haven't really struggled too much with the idea that we're bouncing around time periods. It's been a lot easier to come up with our common assessments too which we have to base off of the NCES. Rather than have several standards that we may touch on in a week, we can focus on just 1 or 2 and their clarifying objectives. There is definitely ways to improve and go deeper into some topics next year, but I've been pleased with how they've gone this year so far.
Now the opportunities for growth, to use my administrative cliches:
7th grade in general hasn't gone well. Mostly because of what I mentioned earlier where I'm not really able to plan out or be as effective as I'd like to be. I've found some really good ideas, lessons, and projects, but I've thrown some of these in without the kind of proper scaffolding that they need at this level. I think the content is interesting and there are lots of things that I can do for world history, I just need to take some of these lumps to really improve my final product for next year. Luckily the last 3 units will help, as we're going over Economic & Social Change, Governments & Leadership, and lastly War & Conflict. The first and last units are the same as my coinciding 8th grade units, obviously focusing on world views rather than national and state ones. Hopefully some of the tweaks I plan to make along with the content will help my student engagement and overall learning in my classroom.
I've used the technology as a crutch sometimes, which I need to stop and get back to teaching rather than just simply assign a project or assignment and completely sit back and facilitate. There has to be a balance of this, but at the middle school level, they still need me teaching, explaining, guiding them along the stories of history rather than just showing them where to go online and assume that they can all come up with adequate outcomes from the readings or projects I assign or create.
So some fixes for the next 90 days!
- I'm going to use my whiteboard more as a place where I and my students to put down ideas to go along with the smart board we have. For much of the year it's just been the place I've kept my learning targets/I Can statements and really has become a wasted space. This way there is more that I can do, more movement for me and the students, etc.
- Students will have to write down the learning targets/I Can statements each day for the week, and I'll have more quick formative assessments to make sure that they students actually are understanding what they are supposed to be learning. I think on Fridays I'll even have a little quiz (not a fan or quizzes but hopefully it'll be easy grades for class if I do this correctly) or something to help review them. It'll help them learn and I can make sure that I'm teaching the standards like I'm supposed to be but doing it in the fashion that I want.
- We did timelines at the beginning of the year and as I've mentioned it was a bit of a disaster. So I took them all down and I think that I'll put up just white paper. Not sure what I want to do with it yet, maybe a place for formative assessments, students to show work, whatever. I got the idea from Dave Burgess and his outstanding Teach Like a Pirate book. I'm sure I can turn it into something fun.
- I need to really work on my transition times, there are times I get stagnant or I take a minute or two too long to do something and I lose the class for that moment and have to bring them back. And when you only have 40 minutes or so, each minute is even more precious. Definitely going to work on my hooks and everything else to get them working and moving along as smoothly as middle schoolers will allow.
- Lastly, I have this 15 minute block with my homeroom that we're supposed to use for reading and literacy, but I think I'm going to try to use that time for genius hour. I've been really intrigued by what I've read on twitter about it, and I think it's the right group of kids that we could read or do current events a couple days a week and then genius hour the rest of the time. We'll see how it goes, I definitely will be writing about that a bunch I'm sure.
Well that's what I got, hope to make 2nd semester better than the first. Thanks for reading, would love to hear any feedback or ideas to spice things up if you have them.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Rainy day and a sick baby....good combo
Seems like a good day to write, it's incredibly gray and rainy here and little girl has a slight fever and cough, so it's been a fun day so far. We've been fortunate that this is the first real illness and we shudder to think how our son is going to handle it if he gets sick as he's much louder and more dramatic about things. Could make what was going to be an action-packed week even longer.
Our grading period and 6 weeks ends on Thursday and both 7th and 8th grade classes are finishing projects, have to prepare for their unit tests and I have to administer our school's common formative assessments (just a retake thankfully for 7th grade). The projects have been a mixed bag. I think the 8th graders have really enjoyed the Zombie Apocalypse geography project. Here's a link to the project, any and all comments or feedback on it are greatly appreciated https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xwKHEfE7bZRG-F5jheywkW7f1vY37NRK-AymZg552gU/edit#slide=id.p But I've had a lot of students make the connection to choosing locations based on geographic reasons rather than "hey I like Florida so I'm going to Florida." The kids have enjoyed using the scribble maps to track the spread of the zombie virus as well as show their migration route across the country. It's also eye-opening that as I'm introducing this project, how many of my students ask me "is this real?" Their fears were finally put to ease when I asked if they really thought I could break this news before twitter or the national media could. The students are in the final phase where they are writing about how they chose their location, what the geography of their location is like and what are the similarities and differences between their treks and those by the original settlers. I'm excited to see what connections have been made, from tracking the students so far, I've seen very few if any students that don't have a majority of their projects ready to turn in.
My 7th grade empire project has been a mixed bag, It's really hard to gauge because my 7th graders are all over the place. Some are high flyers, some are seat-warmers and the majority float between the two depending on the day and their mood. I've learned the hard way that they need as much structure as possible. I hope as the year goes on I can loosen the reigns but they really seem to be able handle the old-school approach of notes and lectures or articles and questions to answer. I definitely will need to restructure some things for 2nd semester and find more activities that keep them busy, jigsaws and controlled movement, stuff like that.
We'll see how these projects end up and how the week goes. Baby girl is sleeping, so I'm going to take her cue. Go Liverpool and Go Niners!
Thanks for reading
Our grading period and 6 weeks ends on Thursday and both 7th and 8th grade classes are finishing projects, have to prepare for their unit tests and I have to administer our school's common formative assessments (just a retake thankfully for 7th grade). The projects have been a mixed bag. I think the 8th graders have really enjoyed the Zombie Apocalypse geography project. Here's a link to the project, any and all comments or feedback on it are greatly appreciated https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xwKHEfE7bZRG-F5jheywkW7f1vY37NRK-AymZg552gU/edit#slide=id.p But I've had a lot of students make the connection to choosing locations based on geographic reasons rather than "hey I like Florida so I'm going to Florida." The kids have enjoyed using the scribble maps to track the spread of the zombie virus as well as show their migration route across the country. It's also eye-opening that as I'm introducing this project, how many of my students ask me "is this real?" Their fears were finally put to ease when I asked if they really thought I could break this news before twitter or the national media could. The students are in the final phase where they are writing about how they chose their location, what the geography of their location is like and what are the similarities and differences between their treks and those by the original settlers. I'm excited to see what connections have been made, from tracking the students so far, I've seen very few if any students that don't have a majority of their projects ready to turn in.
My 7th grade empire project has been a mixed bag, It's really hard to gauge because my 7th graders are all over the place. Some are high flyers, some are seat-warmers and the majority float between the two depending on the day and their mood. I've learned the hard way that they need as much structure as possible. I hope as the year goes on I can loosen the reigns but they really seem to be able handle the old-school approach of notes and lectures or articles and questions to answer. I definitely will need to restructure some things for 2nd semester and find more activities that keep them busy, jigsaws and controlled movement, stuff like that.
We'll see how these projects end up and how the week goes. Baby girl is sleeping, so I'm going to take her cue. Go Liverpool and Go Niners!
Thanks for reading
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