Same Sun Here: Education Department Read and its Teaching Implications

Link to Same Sun Here Author Talk:

https://www.smcvt.edu/academics/library/research-by-subject/education/education-department-reads.aspx

Description of Assignment:

The Saint Michael’s College Education Department’s Common Text for the 2017/2018 academic year was the young adult novel Same Sun Here by Silas House & Neela Vaswani. The book is written as an epistolary novel in which the entire novel is an exchange of written letters and pictures between two young adolescent pen pals. Saint Michael’s College then held an author talk with the female author Neela Vaswani on October 10, 2017. The talk began with a Q&A for about forty-five minutes where a combination of students, faculty, and local teachers asked a variety of questions that ranged from the novel’s content, the writing process, and the social implications and impacts of the novel. The talk concluded with Vaswani highlighting some of the key elements of the presentation that she often holds for younger audiences. This powerpoint highlighted areas of friendship, sameness, equality, and acceptance.

Tagged PCs/Mission Statement:

Performance Criterion 3.2: Candidates design learning environments that support collaborative learning marked by positive social interaction.

Performance Criterion 5.1: Candidates engage learners in applying perspectives from varied disciplines in authentic contexts (such as local and global issues).

Saint Michael’s Mission Pillar Tag:

Our graduates are change agents committed to social justice and sustainability.

They provide students with personalized learning opportunities in an environment that promotes cultural responsiveness, critical consciousness, and equity for all. They facilitate projects that engage their students in finding solutions to community-based problems and global issues..

The main focus of implementing this young adult novel into our collegiate level education classes was to serve as a teaching and learning tool for us as future teachers. This novel was a great resource for teachers to target areas such as inclusiveness, discrimination, and a plethora of other social justice issues. As future educators, we want our students to be active and progressive leaders in society. This novel teaches students that no matter where they are from or what their current social, economic, or personal situations may be; you can always find a friend and someone that will value you for who you are. This is an essential mentality to place into the minds of students to foster socially aware adolescents. Students are going to encounter instances of racism, homophobia, sexism, and bullying in their lives; and novels like Same Sun Here are great tools to get the conversation surrounding these issues started. Also, a novel such as this one offers so much room for hands on projects and experiences. Tableau’s, recreation of scenes, mock letter writing, pen pals, and so many other projects can be derived from reading this novel and give all types of learners a chance to express what they have learned from the novel.

Personal Teaching Reflection:

This novel, more specifically, follows the story of a young Indian immigrant girl, Meena, who lives in New York City who writes to her pen pal, a young boy named River, who lives in a small town in Kentucky. Meena frequently has to deal with instances of bullying, paired with the fact that her parents are illegally staying in an apartment in the city with a landlord that wants to sell the room rather than rent it. River also has to deal with the mountaintop removal that is so prevalent in states like Kentucky. Both characters had to deal with some form of social oppression, whether that being institutionalized racism or climate change. Both Meena and River also play active roles in attempting to help out and stand up for what they believe in within their communities. Although I am planning on being a math teacher, I believe that discussing various social issues is an essential role of any adolescent teacher. Although my own bias must be stripped from the discussion, I believe that when it is relevant to discuss social issues with my students, then I will by all means spend some time going over some of these issues to make sure that everyone in my class feels comfortable and accepted.

I was severely bullied throughout middle school and into high school, and I remember just how impactful and important it was to talk about social justice issues in class. Whether these issues include racism, sexism, and/or homophobia just to name a few, students must be able to feel comfortable talking about these issues as well as knowing that these issues exist. For example, after the release of the various sexual assault allegations that have been arising in the media, so many young adolescents must be very confused about what is going on. With the constant access to the news and current events via social media, students are bombarded with these stories. It is my job as a teacher to create socially aware students, and if students are impacted by various social issues, it is important to discuss them to make sure students feel comfortable and safe inside and outside of the classroom. The projects aspect of the teaching experience that I received from this novel is a little more challenging to implement in the physical classroom. However, using both Meena and River as examples of socially involved individuals, I could organize various community service activities that get students involved and giving back to their communities. Meena and River were seemingly unfit friends, and as a teacher I could use them as a basis for discussion of social issues to foster inclusive, socially aware students. I will never forget of the questions that the author Neela Vaswani frequently asks her young adolescent groups. What does it mean to be a friend? The students’ answers were so thoughtful and beautiful, and so young and innocent that it gives us so much hope in a time of such negative news.

Back to Back Lessons

Link to Factoring Lesson Plan:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eHpDq7fnNeuuY7pGbp7pVLTsgtAyJXw5q3Kpesfe6zY/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Assessment of Lesson:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C6AQQx2rtbIls8UaaY4Rd6S4khF1Kbs9Pt9iZCsXKT8/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Assessment Rubric:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16IsIsD6unHKqGXP4NnfzXg8jqvgVD3g6LO1uJvdpiNQ/edit?usp=sharing

Description of Assignment:

In my Literacy and Curriculum courses at Saint Michael’s College, each student in the class was assigned the task of designing back to back lessons that focus on just one topic or aspect of an entire mock unit that we are designing for a middle school class. I chose to focus on Algebra 1 in my unit, and for the back to back 20 minute lessons I chose to focus on factoring. There are many different ways and formulas that are used to factor a quadratic equation, but I only had twenty minutes to teach the lesson. I decided to base this lesson as an extenuation from the vocabulary lesson that can be analyzed in the previous blog post. I had students recall what was discussed in the vocabulary lesson, and then I went into a discussion of how to factor in the general form, how it relates to FOILing, and what it means graphically. I had a class with three of my peers who not only participated in the lesson, but they also gave feedback for areas of strengths as well as areas of improvements for future lessons. The lesson was concluded on the second day with an essay-based quiz that had students factor equations and explain their thinking processes.

Tagged PCs/Mission Statement:

Performance Criterion 3.1: Candidates design learning environments that support individual learning marked by active engagement.

Performance Criterion 3.2: Candidates design learning environments that support collaborative learning marked by positive social interaction.

Performance Criterion 6.1: Candidates implement multiple methods of assessment to monitor learner progress to inform instructional practice.

Performance Criterion 7.2: Candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of learners to meet rigorous learning goals.

Saint Michael’s Mission Pillar Tag:

Our graduates are reflective and contemplative practitioners.
They thoughtfully implement curriculum and assessments, drawing from a solid

theoretical base to guide their instruction and leadership decisions. They balance action

with reflection to stay centered and purposeful in active environments, offering a role

model for students.

Prior to our lessons, we made an accommodations matrix as a class. We were asked to pick a group of students with similar educational struggles, and design a lesson that accommodates some of these students’ needs. I chose the students Shelby and Avery who have anxiety. It was the main focus of my lesson to teach the material in a way that made students feel comfortable and calm. I wanted my lesson to be a comfortable space for all students and I did not want any students to feel overwhelmed at any time. To do this, I had to create a confident poise that was also comfortable and relatable for my students. I allowed students to have private reasoning time to formulate hypothesis on their own about their learning. I made sure all students had a chance to volunteer, and often encouraged students to think through their work outloud with a friend, with the teacher, or as a class. Math is often viewed as boring for many students, however it is my goal as a teacher to be able to tap into student’s prior knowledge to encourage them to make conjectures about the math by themselves to foster an investigative classroom environment where students understand where the math comes from and why it matters. I also implemented a variety of assessments such as entrance tasks, exit cards, class/group discussions and presentations, and a summative quiz at the end to ensure that all students have a chance to succeed as well as showing me areas of class-wide confusion so I can adapt and further the learning in future lessons.

Personal Teaching Reflection:

Beginning in my middle school career, my math classes seemed to strip all of the student curiosity and investigation out of the courses to focus on a more fact-based, teacher led lecture. Rather than have students build on their prior knowledge to enhance their understanding as to how all of the material from previous lessons, units, and math courses are interconnected, the facts were just presented to us and we were told to take them at face value. This strips student ownership of their math work from the class and completely disengages students. My goals for these lessons were to promote student inquiry of the math, build on their prior knowledge, and create a comfortable environment where student investigation and hypothesis are encouraged and accepted. After the first lesson, it was clear that some students were not feeling comfortable with the math language and calculations. In turn, I adapted my second lesson to review some of the vocabulary from previous lessons as well as previous math courses (ex] real numbers, factoring, factored form, and the standard form of a quadratic expression). I had students rewrite some of these terms in their vocabulary journals paired with examples and nonexamples to ensure students are beginning to grasp the concepts. I then allowed students to retry some calculations on their own and present their findings to the class if they felt comfortable doing so. Creating a comfortable environment means having poise as a teacher, but it also means feeling able to adapt to student’s needs to ensure students are not overwhelmed with the material. Often times students feel as if they’re bad at math because teachers are trying to rush through the content and they feel left behind. I want my students to be proficient and understand where the math comes from and why it matters rather than have my students become memorizing robots.

Some areas of focus that I will need to address for my future teaching as well as for my overall unit design for these classes definitely starts with time management. Apart from fostering a comfortable environment for students, I also have had issues with time management. The plans that I had for this lesson included a graphing activity as well as discussion of real-world problems which are both included in my standards (model with mathematics) and my overall unit essential question (what does factoring mean in the real world applications?). However, there was some confusion in the material from the first day as seen in the exit card, so I had to adjust the lesson for the second day. Although my essential question and some of the standards were not fully targeted in my lessons, I believe the review in the second lesson allowed for better mastery of the factoring skills which will better help the students answer the questions more fully in the future. I am never going to get through all of the material that I would like to, but if I want to create an environment that reflects the student's understanding of my essential question and the standards, I need to be able to allow for more time in lessons in which students need a little extra time to persevere in their solving of equations. Throughout the semester in these two courses I have been working on ensuring that students understand the math language, as well as allowing more time for certain aspects of lessons to enhance overall student understanding, and time management. All of these were targeted in these lessons, and I would like to say that I improved in all of these areas. There is still a long way to go, and I cannot wait to see where the rest of my educational career and essentially the rest of my adult life takes me!

Teaching Math Vocabulary

Link to Lesson Video:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MANQK1cwVLDX4VrT2

Link to Vocab Lesson Plan:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gJBph3vQEQ6wK75R56CAQnQKQuLCK1jHR6OhGl-FDIQ/edit

Link to Video of Lesson:

www.youtube.com/  

Description of Assignment:

For my Literacy in Education pre-licensure course, my classmates and I were instructed to create a lesson based on a vocabulary word that is relevant to the overall unit that we have been planning all semester. The unit that I have been planning revolves around factoring quadratic equations, thus the vocabulary term that I chose to use was factoring. The lesson was supposed to be fifteen minutes long and could be about one word, parts of words, or a group of words. Since there are so many ways to factor, I decided to solely present the definition without any further calculations to conserve time and connect a new topic and its definition to topics that were previously discussed in class (ex] factoring is like undoing FOILing).

Tagged PCs/Mission Statement:

Performance Criterion 3.1: Candidates design learning environments that support individual learning marked by active engagement.

Performance Criterion 3.2: Candidates design learning environments that support collaborative learning marked by positive social interaction.

Performance Criterion 6.1: Candidates implement multiple methods of assessment to monitor learner progress to inform instructional practice.

Performance Criterion 7.2: Candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of learners to meet rigorous learning goals.

Saint Michael’s Mission Pillar Tag:

Our graduates are creative and integrative educators.
They are adept at both discipline-based and interdisciplinary teaching methods, using

emerging technologies, social interaction, and imagination to support students’ achievement of rigorous academic standards. Understanding the connection between intellectual and emotional-social growth, they help their students gain self-knowledge and assume responsibility for their own learning.

This lesson was definitely more collaborative than some of my previous teaching episodes. I believe I really tried to draw in on what my students already knew to better steer the lesson to their strengths as well as highlighting their differences. Each student had a different educational background and learning style, so I tried to harness these differences and prepare a lesson that is personalized to what the students already know in order to steer them towards what they need to learn. I also created a learning environment that was collaborative, frequently having discussions as a group, asking for student input, and having students talk amongst themselves. I tried to engage students as often as possible so not only would they not be bored, but they would be more invested in the learning and take responsibility for acquiring new knowledge. Finally, I tried to create a lesson that included various forms of assessment: pre-assessment and formative assessments (exit card).

Personal Teaching Reflection:

Two elements of my teaching that I was trying to improve on in this lesson were time management and saying “um” throughout my teaching. In terms of saying “um”, I have really narrowed down the amount of times that I said it (I only counted four), and this fosters a presentation that displays elements of confidence and ease. Time management is probably my most prominent teaching weakness where I often omit major parts of lessons due to a misjudgement of time use. However, during the planning process I consciously attempted to ensure that I would use all of the time that I have efficiently and effectively. I struggled with the decision of whether or not to implement calculations into my presentation, and determined that there was not sufficient time to delve into the various ways to factor and that solely the theory was enough to get the ball rolling. This proved to be effective, and I am sure that the students know the ideology and the reasoning as to why we factor, which is essential to foster an overall student understanding of the topic. I am sure of this because not only could you see the A-ha moment in the student’s faces, but not one exit card showed any sign of confusion or misunderstanding. Each student clearly conveyed the concept back to me in their own words, using pictures, or through the use of equations and relationship to the FOIL method. Math vocabulary is essential to understanding the “why it matters” of math and relate mathematical topics to each other. Keeping a math vocab notebook with examples is also useful to have a dictionary of math concepts. In the future I will continue working on time management, saying “um”, but also begin working on my overall clarity in relaying concepts. Math is challenging to explain, and in order to ensure that all of my students learn to the best of their ability, I must make sure that I am sufficiently explaining all elements of a mathematical concept, as well as providing a sufficient amount of examples and definitions of important terms.

Digital Teaching and Learning: Fair Contract Use/Letter Home

Links to Mock Contract/Letter to Parents:

Contract:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r8y_w7ZuPItSlMVfhUl8MN2DZsEKdyvSprQXfIOZSzE/edit  

Letter Home to Parents:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sEdLqqqStBDi5nxuweHHtcfS2wdXhj40NVZiolV_dMw/edit

Technology is always changing and innovating, and with these consistent advancements, schools across the country will also have to adapt to foster well-rounded, career/college-ready students. In order to emphasize the importance of making these advancements, and ensuring that students and parents understand the necessity of these changes, our class was split into small groups of up and coming teachers grouped by content areas (I am in the Mathematics/Science content group) and asked to create a scenario where a school is implementing a new, school-wide technology to each student. Our group chose to have each student receive an iPad. We then developed a letter home to parents describing why we were distributing iPads to each student, some concerns that parents may have and addressing them, and, finally, express what exactly the implementation of the iPads will mean for the curriculum. We also created a corresponding student/parent contract in which we expressed some basic concerns and dsitractions that often occur when using iPads. Both of these documents are tagged above.

Mission Statement Applicable to this Assignment:

Our graduates are change agents committed to social justice and sustainability.
They provide students with personalized learning opportunities in an environment that

promotes cultural responsiveness, critical consciousness, and equity for all. They

facilitate projects that engage their students in finding solutions to community-based

problems and global issues.

Tagged PCs:

Performance Criterion 10.1: Candidates are prepared to collaborate with stakeholders (such as learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, or community members) to ensure student learning.

This assignment shows a real-world application of the mission statement listed above. Major, impacting, and frequent technological advancements have become an ever-increasing reality in today’s society. Equipping students with essential technological skills, as well as exposing students to various forms of technology is becoming an important role of schools to foster culturally responsive students who have a critical consciousness as to how to use and apply various technologies throughout their social and educational careers. Also, connecting back to the PC stated above, this assignment also helps us as up and coming teachers to begin to use professional language to communicate with members of the community whether that be the entire student body, or the parents of the students. As an effect of this technology implementation and clear communication as to its goals and aims, students will overall become more well-rounded, critically conscious individuals.

Technology in the classroom has already changed so much since I have left high school. Today, almost every student from kindergarten to high school have some form of technology that accompanies them in every class they are in and aids them in most of their assignments. This brings up some concerns for both teachers and parents. I am worried that it is going to be a challenge to juggle technology with other forms of learning. Many schools are forcing teachers to implement more technology into their classrooms, but to some extents that it is distracting teachers and students from their understanding and learning. Thus, it will be difficult to juggle the curriculum with technology implementation. Thus, collaboration and an open dialogue with other teachers and faculty will be essential to effective instruction. There is also so many useful technological tools to use in classrooms today, finding effective ones for students that genuinely enhance their skills and prepare them for the real-world will be overwhelming and challenging. It is important to remember that technology in the classroom is a tool, but should not overpower the learning.

Connections Between Literacy and Curriculum

https://spark.adobe.com/page/QLlXiKytYmFqP/

https://youtu.be/jQOSv-iXEos

For two of the first major assignments in my Junior Year Education Classes: Curriculum in Middle and High School and Literacy in Education, we had to design presentations using applications that many of us were not familiar with. In Curriculum, my class was asked to design a presentation using the app Explain Everything in which we discuss the education philosophy that matched our education and teaching beliefs. In Literacy, this assignment was to create a presentation using Adobe Spark Page that discusses what literacy means to me as an up and coming teacher, as well as what it means in the technological age.

Performance Criterion 4.1: Candidates accurately communicate central concepts of the discipline.

Performance Criterion 4.2: Candidates accurately address common misconceptions of the discipline.

The Performance Criteria tagged above are two of the aims of the assignments that I believe fully encompass the learning goals of the two assignments. In Curriculum, the goal of the semester is to develop an entire unit within our discipline and to teach a lesson that corresponds to our unit. Our research that was then culminated into the Explain Everything podcast, which explained in great detail what our education philosophy is, what it is not (but what others may believe to be true about it), and how we are planning to stay true to our philosophy when planning our unit. Essentially, this presentation was a way for students to build the base of his/her teaching strategies and methods for the rest of their lives. In Literacy, the assignment was designed to understand the fundamentals of what it means to be literate across various medias in the 21st century, and what further implications this will have on our teaching in the future. This project also explicitly asked what were our common misconceptions regarding exactly what literacy means. Essentially, this project allowed students to develop an understanding and a base for the core topics that will be discussed throughout the year.

These assignments were very similar in the sense that a new application was to be explored through research and analysis of the core topics within each of the two classes. Specifically, both projects encouraged students to develop an essential understanding of one aspect of their teaching. In curriculum, this was the methods, techniques, and teaching habits that are unique to each student (and future teacher). In literacy, it was focusing on fostering literate students of the 21st century. Still, the connection may seem to be slightly abstract. However, the Curriculum assignment was an exploration into our physical teaching practices and the “how” behind ensuring that students will be learning, whereas the literacy project was developing an understanding of evidence that the students have learned (essentially developing literacy skills within a teacher’s discipline over time). Thus, Curriculum was moreso the teaching skills to be developed over time based on one’s education philosophy, whereas Literacy was determining how to assess and develop literate students. Curriculum enc-mpasses the teaching skills and practices where Literacy is the language and student skills used to assess the learning.

These skills and central ideas of the two courses which have been discussed above are not a typical kind of projects. These projects did not just allow students to develop an understanding of the content within each of these classes, rather these projects were an exploration of teaching methods, practices, and assessments that will create the base for our teaching in the future. These skills will constantly be expanding, changing, and differing. But, having an open-minded, concrete understanding of the fundamentals of our education philosophy and what it means to foster literate students in the classroom, is essential to become an exceptional teacher.

Semester Refection on WMS Visits and In-Class Learning

It is hard to believe that my sophomore year is already coming to a close. It seems like just yesterday I was walking into my WMS classroom to observe and help tutor the middle schoolers. Now, I have a classroom nickname of “Tiger”, I have made so many lasting relationships with many of the students and faculty in the classroom, and I have learned so much about what it means to be a teacher both in the seminar classroom and through my placement.

In the seminar course itself, I have began exploring my first real teaching experiences and abilities, as well as learning and growing regarding how to be the best teacher that I can be. Within the lessons that I have taught, I have picked up on some strengths and weaknesses that I can build on in the years to come. I often talk a lot and run out of time which means I will have to work on how much content I should include in my lessons in the future, while also working on time management in the classroom. I also learned that I have a hard time relaying concepts to a full classroom, and need to work on slowing down and explaining difficult concepts efficiently, but thoroughly. Some strengths that I have seen in my teaching include creativity and enthusiasm. I am very far from being labeled a “morning person”, but lessons are much more effective and enjoyable for everyone in the class (including me) if I am upbeat and excited about the learning. I also think some of my activities (especially the graph shifting activity with the string and the masking tape, which is an area of my lessons that I am most proud of when I look back on the semester) are very creative and can foster some new, fun, and engaging activities in the future. I learned so much through the content in the course as well. One of the biggest takeaways is that math can actually be very fun, and erasing the stigma that “math is hard” or that “math is boring” in my future classrooms will actually benefit student engagement levels and overall learning. I also learned that teaching from the textbook is not that beneficial for students, but rather explaining where concepts are derived from and how things come about it essential for students to understand the problems they are given. This is something that I was not really taught in my experience (I could have never told my class why a negative times a negative is a positive), but can use in the future to ensure my students are understanding the concepts.

Although a lot of learning was done in the Monday morning class, I also learned a significant amount through my visits to WMS. These students were a lot more rambunctious than any class I had been in in my K-12 career, and I learned a lot from the teacher that I was assigned to as to some ways to refocus students and engage them in their learning. Some examples of these practices include: taking a break when I get frustrated to show students that I am overwhelmed and that they need to focus in on their learning (an extremely effective tactic that my teacher used), taking one day off from a challenging lesson to get students to practice skills such as problem solving and teamwork to refocus the class, and to have a variety of different activities. Having many different kinds of activities that can range from individual Khan Academy work, to investigation activities that involve students walking around the room and finding answers to different problems in teams, to individual problem sets and worksheets; all of these activities can benefit any type of student with any style of learning their mind favors. Finally, I learned how to be a friend and be there for students, as well as putting my foot down at certain times when students were misbehaving. I have not necessarily had a chance to practice this skill, but the teacher that I was placed with did an amazing job at this. Students often think that if they misbehave in class the teacher will not like them. This teacher, however, rewarded students’ good work with great kindness and gratitude that would make any student want to succeed. But, at the same time rather than yelling at misbehaving students, she would encourage them to take a break in the back of the room to refocus on the material. This is an amazing and effective tactic that allows students to take themselves out of the situation that they could be misbehaving in, and allow them to quietly refocus by themselves.

Overall, I am so glad, privileged, and humbled that I was allowed to have these experiences this semester, and I hope to return to WMS or WHS one day to see what these students will achieve in the coming years!

My Final School Visit!

During my final visit to WMS, I was told soon after I had arrived that the students would be taking a field trip to VPR (Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS station headquarters), and I would help accompany the teachers as a chaperone. I was thrilled to get a different kind of experience with the students, and I was also anxious to see how the two combined classes (both the first and second sections of the classes I am normally observing) behave in a real world setting. Upon arrival, the students were brought into the broadcasting room where cooking shows, news segments, and other programs are normally filmed. There was a green screen set up in the room, a teleprompter, and a camera that all of the students took turns at using. The students were also brought into the tech rooms to see switchboards, TV monitors, and other behind the scene operations that occur at television networks.

Overall, the students were very engaged in the trip and asked questions frequently, raised their hands to ask questions instead of shouting out, answered the questions that the VPR employees posed to the students, and were very excited and engaged when analyzing, using, and playing with different types of equipment (cameras, teleprompters, green screen, etc.). The students liked the green screen in particular, and when one of the employees brought out a green towel for the students to use along with the green screen, the students were ecstatic to see that their bodies would disappear when they covered themselves with the green sheet (they then learned why this was occurring). Not only did the students learn a great deal from the experience, the hands on learning also got the students involved and interested in radio and television careers. It was especially nice to witness some of the students who were actually interested in going into the broadcasting field smiling, laughing, and showing an immense deal of intrigue and enthusiasm when they were learning about the station.

Taking students on field trips are inevitable when one wants to aspire to be a teacher. Taking a group as rambunctious as the WMS students could prove to be challenging, but field trips are a really great way to give students a break from typical textbook learning and investigate some opportunities that they can pursue after high school. It allows students to see the benefits of working hard in school to get a career/job that is enjoyable for them. Visiting VPR is especially nice for students because both college and high school graduates can pursue careers at such an institution. Field trips are fun, educational, and provide students with a real-world view into many different jobs within society. Although field trips can be stressful for teachers because they have to keep track of so many kids, ensure that their students behave, and also ensure that students are engaged in the trip as not to be rude to the employees; they are also a great educational tool for all students. I cannot wait to see some of my students in the future get so excited and involved in various field trips!

Strategy Log: Teaching Resources

Strategy or Resource	Description	Use	Link
(R) NEWSELA	Online newspaper with current events; ability to automatically adjust reading levels; built in assessments (quizzes), prompt questions and teacher tracking	Social Studies, English, Civics, current events, History, Sociology	https://newsela.com/
(R) ThingLink	Very similar to NEARPOD in that students can access the presentation on their personal technology. Uses more than just powerpoints, includes venn diagrams, charts, and other visuals which are crucial to student understanding of the material.	History, Art, English, Social Studies.	https://www.thinglink.com/
(R) Nearpod	iPad and iPhone app which allows students to have access to the powerpoint being presented in class, as well as offering interactive activities and assessments throughout the presentation.	History, English, Social Studies.	https://nearpod.com/
(S) Exit Cards	Great strategy to allow students to formulate their learning into their own words, while also allowing the teachers to assess how well students are understanding their learning. Exit cards can also be tailored to a variety of different activities and interests. Formative assessment and instructional reflection.	All subjects.	Can vary from paper cards to electronics.
(R) QR Codes	Helpful link for students to access information in a different way using iPads, different websites, and videos. Students scan a barcode which brings them to an alternative link that is created by the teacher.	Art, Math, Science, English, and History.	http://www.qr-code-generator.com/
(R) JIGSAW	Cooperative learning strategy. Takes complex information, breaks it down amongst a group of people, and at the end of the research all of the groups come together and teach each other.	All subjects.	https://www.jigsaw.org/