Monday, December 16, 2019
Monday, December 2, 2019
Friday, October 25, 2019
In the Spotlight: 6th Grade SS
How is it possible that Spanish Conquistador, Hernan Cortes, with his roughly 500 men, were able to defeat the entire Aztec empire in a span of a few years?
This week TIS 6th grade Social Studies teachers facilitated a fun and engaging activity using evidence and inferences. The transformed classrooms were made into CSI & FBI headquarters with crime scene caution tape draped across rooms and over doors. Some teachers even played the part by dressing up in detective gear and costume. Students used text evidence in Spanish and Aztec accounts, visual evidence from battle and interaction photos, and even invisible ink messages to help gather clues to crack the case. Cooperative groups discussed and questioned the sources to record their findings. Based on evidence, students independently wrote a theory on what they believe happened and how such a small number of Spanish could overtake the entire Aztec empire.
It is lessons like these that will live in the minds of our students for years to come. The 6th Grade Social Studies department is continuously thinking outside of the box to incorporate concrete lessons and enhance student learning.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Amazon Inspire: Free Teacher Resources
Let's be honest! When we hear "Free Teacher Resources", we can generally equate that with crap. It is usually poorly put together, lacks rigor, contains mistakes, or is not conducive to the high standards of our classrooms. Amazon Inspire is a great site to be able to search for free, quality resources. And who doesn't love Amazon? (If you don't, we can't be friends!) The majority of the material is contributed by educational foundations, state departments of education, and universities. You will find professional development resources, interactive activities, rubrics, digital breakout games, and much more. (Disclaimer: Most of the resources are common core aligned, but can be tweaked for Texas state standards.)
Material is compiled by subject or grade, or you can simply search by typing in the content you are looking for. I am including a couple of resources below to highlight, but this is one that you really need to dive into yourself to use to its full capacity.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Tech Tools for Your Classroom Instruction
How amazing would it be to have a variety of technology tools for your classroom instruction compiled in a single click? Our fantastic tech team has done just that for you!
This list of technology tools has resources for everything from classroom management, annotation tools, digital flyers, vocabulary, video capturing, coding, literacy, photo editing, video conferencing, and SO much more.
Have an awesome lesson, but need a tech extension? Need an interactive vocabulary lesson to check for understanding? Want a new platform for a formative assessment? Check out these tech tools and dig in to something new!
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Cult of Pedagogy: Professional Awesomeness... Seriously!
THE BLOG
The blog consists of three categories to fill your teacher tool belt, your teacher mind, and your teacher heart.The Craft: resources for you to fine-tune your art of teaching.
Go Deep: where you can dig into theory and thinking behind the practices
Teacher Soul: the guts and raw emotions of teaching
THE PODCAST
Seriously, this is my guilty pleasure every day on the way to work! I feel that EVERY. SINGLE. TEACHER. should hear the professional dialogue, meaningful practices, and expert theories brought to you by this cute little podcast.
THE VIDEOS
The wide variety of professional videos demonstrate great teaching practices, share classroom management tips, show some tech tools so they look super easy, and offer up advice for some of your trickiest teaching situations.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Cooperative Learning Strategies
Picture this:
A full classroom with desks in straight rows and all facing the same direction. A teacher standing at the front of the room teaching a lesson. Students sitting at their desk and raising their hand when they want to answer a question. Some students are not quite engaged: one looking out the window, one with their head down, another too shy to answer, and one who doesn't know the answer to any of the questions the teacher is asking.
Wouldn't it be great if ALL of the students were incorporated in the lesson? How awesome would it be if every student was engaged in academic conversation discussing or debating the question at hand? What if we could hold all students accountable to have an answer rather than just the one waving their hand because they are the top student?
Cooperative Learning is the perfect answer to all of these questions! Turning students around and grouping them will allow for safe conversation in a smaller setting. Assigning each of those students in a small group with a letter and/or number will eliminate students having to figure out who their partner is every time they are asked to pair up for a turn and talk. This assignment also gives each student a role within the group that only they are responsible for (time keeper, recorder, facilitator, reporter). Getting kids up and moving with engaging activities helps with the monotony and predictability of the class, keeping them on their toes... literally.
Although there are tons of resources and activities out there, today I want to share with you Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies, as well as Laura Chandler's website. Here you will find a wide variety of ways to make your classroom interactive and, most importantly, engaging. Students will be the ones going home tired at the end of the day!
This article can give you some more insight and almost a "how to" on cooperative learning groups. Of course you can tweak areas to make it your own or to best fit your classroom dynamics.
I will be looking to do a "Part 2" Just in Time training on more cooperative learning strategies in November.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Implementing Thinking Maps Week 4: Tree Map
The Tree Map is a tool for classifying or sorting things and ideas into categories, and for grouping main ideas and details.
To construct a Tree Map, the title (topic or main idea) will be written on a line. A "connection line" will come down from title and connect to individual sub-categories or supporting ideas. Below each sub-category or supporting idea add lines for the specific members of the category or specific details for the supporting ideas.
Some guiding questions for a Tree Map could be:
* How would you group this information?
* Can you sort these objects into groups?
* What are the ideas and details that support your main idea?
* What are the members of this category?
* Do some of the items fit into more than one category?
* Is there another way to categorize these things (according to a different frame of reference)?
Adding a "Frame of Reference" to the Tree Map gives it the final parameters. A few ways to frame could be:
* How do you know what you know about these categories?
* What resources did you use to gather the main idea and supporting details about this topic?
* Is one source better than another for this information?
* Does a certain point of view influence how you have classified this information?
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Bloom's Question Stems
Unless you've been living under a rock during your professional career, Bloom's Taxonomy is not new to you. In short, Bloom's is a system used to define different levels of cognitive thinking, learning, and understanding. Although we need all of these categories to help us with understanding concepts, it is the Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation levels that will create higher order thinking in our students. This resource was created for a quick reference of HOT (Higher Order Thinking) questions. Often times we tend to just ask the LOT (Lower Order Thinking) questions, as these are easiest to ask off the top of our head. Hopefully this quick reference will allow you to pull deeper thinking questions into your everyday class activities.
Please know that the categories have varied over the life of Bloom's. The idea has been adapted since it was published in 1956, as a better understanding of how our brains function and how scholars think has evolved. Regardless of what the categories are titled, the HOT questions and activities are where we want our students to show their knowledge. The list of verbs listed above are great for usage while talking in PLCs and creating lesson plans and formative assessments.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Trello: Productivity & List Making At Its Best!
Trello 101 | Getting Started with Trello
One of the greatest features is the collaborative piece to Trello. Whether it's co-workers, a spouse, or friends, Trello boards give everyone a shared perspective. Comments and mentions, due dates, website links, notes, photos/graphs, and data can be added to each individual card as things are being worked on. Personally I feel like this is a great tool to eliminate an overload of emails and meetings.
Check it out and let me know what you think. So far, I am digging it!
One of my biggest OCD tendencies is list making. Yes, that's right... creating never ending lists of all the things that I have to do. Does it make me accomplish them any better or even get them all done? Maybe not, but it does put everything from my head on paper and is a visual reminder.
Trello is an online resource that helps me do this digitally. There is also a convenient app that allows me to view and, most importantly, check off items on my list while on the go.
Let's talk "Boards", "Lists", and "Cards".
A. Through this platform, you can create different boards for the different aspects of your life (work, home, weekend, lesson plan, data, etc).
B. Your can divide up into whatever categories lists you'd like (To Do, In Progress, Done, Later, etc). C. In these lists categories, you create cards for each "to do" item. You can even dive deeper and write out specifics for each item on your cards. Cards can be dragged between lists, edited, or deleted.
D. The Menu area serves as the Mission Control center for your entire board. Change the look of the board, invite collaborators, and
A. Through this platform, you can create different boards for the different aspects of your life (work, home, weekend, lesson plan, data, etc).
B. Your can divide up into whatever categories lists you'd like (To Do, In Progress, Done, Later, etc). C. In these lists categories, you create cards for each "to do" item. You can even dive deeper and write out specifics for each item on your cards. Cards can be dragged between lists, edited, or deleted.
D. The Menu area serves as the Mission Control center for your entire board. Change the look of the board, invite collaborators, and
Check it out and let me know what you think. So far, I am digging it!
JIT: Cooperative Learning Strategies in the Classroom
Learn (or refresh your learning of) various cooperative learning strategies in the classroom. Get your students engaged in learning and having academic conversations.
How to Register:
Log in to Eduphoria! --> Select Workshop --> Select Upcoming Courses --> Scroll down to 10/10/2019 JIT: Cooperative Learning Strategies in the Classroom --> Click the green plus sign to register
Monday, September 9, 2019
Implementing Thinking Maps Week 3: Double Bubble Map
The Double Bubble Map is used for critical thinking and comparing & contrasting two people, places, things, or events. This map is vary similar to a Venn Diagram and you can even superimpose one upon completing a Double Bubble just for students to see the connection.
When using the Double Bubble Map, it is important to keep the points balanced. When contrasting, when there is a point for Item A, there should also be a point for Item B. These points (bubbles) will only touch the Item for which the student is referring.
The similarities of course will be connected to both Item A & Item B showing that that have this in common. These will be the center bubbles.
In order to keep students for concentrating on the physical appearance of the Double Bubble Map, have them start by comparing & contrasting without the bubbles. They can then go in and add them to complete the look. It can also be helpful to have students color coordinate the bubbles for those points that are similar vs. the points that show differences.
Example Double Bubble Maps:
Line Segment and Ray Double Bubble Map
Double Bubble Map Comparing 2 Three Digit Numbers
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Generation Genius: An Online Science Resource
Things to keep in mind...
- Although these are not TEKS driven standards, you could still pick and choose videos, activities, etc that align with your current standards being taught.
- There is a 14-day trial for this resource, however it is a paid subscription. (If you are not one for paid subscriptions, use and absorb as much as you can within that free trial period!)
A few highlighted details:
Differentiated Exit Ticket
Step-by-Step DIY Activity for Extension
Be sure to check this resource out! It can give you a couple ideas or change your world. ;)
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
SMART Exchange
SMART Exchange is a great classroom resource for SMART games, activities, and SMART Notebook created for teachers by teachers. You are able to search by typing in specifics, or simply search by grade level and subject. Don't see something you are looking for, so you created your own? Upload your resource to share with your team or other educators using SMART Exchange.
Need a 5 minute mini PD on how this resource works? Click the link for a PD quick start.
Here are a couple notable activities:
Friday, August 30, 2019
FREE Math Activities
5th Grade Resources
Don't worry 6th Grade... I didn't forget about you!
6th Grade Resources
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Let's be honest! When we hear "Free Teacher Resources", we can generally equate that with crap. It is usually poorly pu... -
One of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE resources is the Instructional Strategies Playlist from Lead4Ward. This is a great tool that encompasses stra... -
How is it possible that Spanish Conquistador, Hernan Cortes, with his roughly 500 men, were able to defeat the entire Aztec empire in a ...