Group items tagged

Guideline 1:! Relate grades to the achievement of the district's course/grade level standards. Guideline 2:! Use agreed-on performance standards as the reference points when determining grades. Guideline 3:! Separate achievement from all other dispositions and behaviors. Guideline 4:! Sample student performance. ! Don't score everything & don't include all scores in grades. Guideline 5:! Grade in pencil and maintain records so they can be easily updated. Guideline 6:! To determine grades at the end of the grading period, use professional judgment when considering the body of evidence. Grading must involve more than just crunching numbers. Guideline 7:! Use quality assessments and properly record evidence of achievement. Guideline 8:! Involve students in the assessment and grading processes throughout the learning cycle. No zeros for missing or incomplete work At Middle school: "Student work in the Lesson Practice & Progress Checks portion will be recorded as Missing (M) in the grade book if a student does not turn in an assignment. Middle school students will have until the end of the quarter to complete these practice activities or the Missing (M) will remain. The Missing (M) will factor into the overall average as a zero. However, leaving the Missing (M) in the grade book will communicate that the work has not been turned in. And, because the Lesson Practice & Progress Checks portion of the grade book is weighted just 20% of the overall grade, the Missing (M) for the practice work will not have significant impact on the student's grade." At High School: "A score of zero will not be entered in the grade book. Instead, M or I will be entered to indicate that work is not yet complete. In grades 9-12, students will have five days beyond the assignment due date to complete Lesson Practice and Progress Checks, unless there are extenuating circumstances. An M (Missing) will be entered in the grade book until the work is turned in or until the end of the nine-w

Algebra II Students in High School "The student council has asked the principal to add one more minute between classes, to cut down on the number of students tardy for class. The principal has asked your class to study the matter and make a recommendation. Here are guidelines provided by the principal: 1 - Bus schedules cannot be changed. 2 - Classes must meet at minimum of 210 minutes a week 3 - Homeroom time is required." Benefits: Strong student buy-in! Students are always complaining about time between classes. Teaches data collection, statistics, time management, and poll taking techniques. Pitfalls: Students will come up with illogical arguments. Time!

Fab read. I've only highlighted a few paragraphs... then it goes into concrete ways to improve tech integration using the example of the iPad. ---- "n: Just bringing new technology in your classroom and working it into day-to-day routines isn't enough. The iPads arrived two days before my students, and I quickly made plans to integrate them into our curriculum. Despite my high hopes, the next two months were less than successful. A casual observer would have witnessed a sea of students glued to glistening tablets, but the effects were superficial. The iPads were not helping my students make substantial progress toward self-efficacy, academic achievement, or social-emotional growth. Around the end of September, I took a step back-it was time to evaluate and reflect on what was happening. I asked myself: "What have we been doing so far with this technology?" Students used math apps instead of math card games. They'd made slideshow presentations for isolated units. They'd done some research on the Internet. In short, things were going ... OK. Nothing to write home about. Not what I would consider "worthy" of a $20,000 grant. Clearly it was time for a change. The problem, I began to realize, was my own understanding of how the iPads should be utilized in the classroom. I had seen them as a supplement to my pre-existing curriculum, trying to fit them into the structure of what I'd always done. This was the wrong approach: To truly change how my classroom worked, I needed a technology-based redefinition of my practice."

Fab read. I've only highlighted a few paragraphs... then it goes into concrete ways to improve tech integration using the example of the iPad.

This global collaborative project at http://ciese.org/curriculum/squareproj/ -- Registration closes SEPT 30 Driving questions: Why HERE and not THERE? Presents students with a world map and two animals/insects from different areas (EG Monarch butterfly and Australian stick insect specimens). Pose a challenging question: Why here and not there? Why there and not here? How can we find out? Register class on Square of Life, an Internet-based collaborative project that has students investigate their local environment and share information with students from around the world. Students examine a square yard of local ground and organize what they find into categories they define themselves: living and nonliving, plants and animals. Through close examination, they organize small creatures into groups by shared characteristics, and learn to discriminate between classes of animals, including insects and isopods. Theorize about the role of habitat and niche in insect distribution. Share their findings with Australian students (or students from around the glove) and report their conclusions about Why here and not there? Why there and not here?

Technology is in the forefront of everything we do as collaborators in the classroom. Teachers incorporating the use of technology while lesson planning increases engagement and rigor. Lessons are enhanced and students are focused. Many of the projects we were involved in incorporated technology and we collaborated with others at the school site and across the district. Valuable relationships were formed among the students and the teachers. Teachers not involved with the collaboration process also benefited from this through observing what was taking place in our classrooms. These teachers then requested to be involved in the program. Relationships were built, the use of technology was increased, and a 21st Century classroom was created.

Those students are going to be coming up to the junior and senior high so prepared. Thank you! Knowing that they are coming up to the higher grades with the ability to work with technology and work with each other at the same time is reassuring. Excellent work, guys!

I love how your video focuses on how becoming a 21st C classroom is a process that we (teachers & students) are somewhere along the spectrum.

This is one of the things we need to model for our students (older grades)

"Students analyze and explore poetry through a class blog and podcasting  Questions to Consider How do the "guiding reflection questions" support students' thinking? What skills are students practicing as they create their podcast? How did the class blog contribute to collaboration among students? Scroll down on this page to see the worksheet with reflective questions that they used Common Core Standards ELA.RL.6.4, ELA.RL.6.7, ELA.SL.6.5"

Also see: http://www.relayforlife.org/learn/relayforeveryone/studentrelays/relay-recess "How can your students become superheroes in the fight against cancer? Relay Recess brings Relay For Life to elementary schools nationwide. It provides students, teachers, and administrators the opportunity to become heroes in their own communities. It also brings cancer education and community service to the classroom in a fun and exciting way. It also engages elementary school students in the fight against cancer through fundraising activities that support cancer programs and services in every community. It gives students the chance to get out of the classroom and have fun with entertainment and activities that reinforce what they have learned. Because the program is so flexible, it's different at every school and is an excellent opportunity to showcase unique qualities about your school and your community."

Sending this to the Collaboration Coaches in case your school is looking for an outreach that your students can help organize and get involved in...

"All students and educators participating in the challenge will have their name flown on the Exploration Flight Test-I mission as a member of the virtual crew. This mission will be unmanned and will launch in late 2014. So, kids can be a "virtual explorer." There are 4 challenges, age appropriate, to help design protective radiation protection for astronauts. We need to get students interest in space travel for a variety of reasons. This is a lovely real world project for students to join. "The goal of the Exploration Design Challenge is for students to research and design ways to protect astronauts from space radiation. NASA and Lockheed Martin are developing the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and on to an asteroid or Mars. Protecting astronauts from radiation on these distant travels is an important -- and very real -- problem that needs solving. NASA would like your help!"

The students then created a digital book that included their memoir as well as their personal philosophy that they wrote in World History. Ultimately, the project culminated in an exhibition where the students presented their digital books to an audience of family, friends, peers and community members. Each student individually presented his or her book and read an excerpt of the memoir. For many students it was the first time they had such "high stakes" in a project and they simultaneously had to work on elements of public speaking along with the project development.

Grade/Subject: 9-12 Language Arts Description: Students will research the American Dream, what it means to different people and cultures, how it changes, and how it manifests itself in politics, religion, education or entertainment. In addition, students will define their own American Dreams and explore obstacles and adjustments they might need to make. Benefits: The student will apply pre-reading skills and comprehension strategies, while extending independent reading, and will organize and synthesize information that will be used to plan, create, organize and present an age appropriate media product. Students will also become more aware of the way culture changes across the decades. Possible Pitfalls: Finding an authentic audience could be an issue. However, some front work could solve that problem.

If you don't have clickers, no problem, you can use this free site instead.

I've never used this, but if any of you do, I'd love for you to comment back to share your experience. =)

I used this last year. It also works well for a small assessment during centers or small group, then the student can move to another activity. Students like that it gives immediate feedback.

After you've hooked your students on the PBL with a special entry event, and you've done the initial launch of the PBL with the driving question, you then go into gathering the Need to Know List of questions of the students. First, students need to understand what good questions are. (Bloom's is a good starting point). Then they should ask questions about the content, the skills, and the process required in the PBL.

A way of tracking and sharing student goals. It looks interesting, It was designed for students with IEPs but I can think of uses for this for non-SPED students.

Being a visual learner, this was perfect. I was imagining my year's experience as I listened to your presentation. Yep, so many of us were all locked up at the beginning of the year and have since allowed ourselves to be unlocked to what technology has to offer. I know I'm somewhat unlocked. My lock is still rusty and the inside mechanisms don't move smoothly, but then there's next year for that! Thank you.

Loved the video. It does a great job of showing the journey and how the excitement spreads when collaboration is involved. I'm wondering how we can "free" those still locked in the dungeon.

Superb summary of your/our experiences for this year.

As we become an older country, our greatest stories are sometimes lost when members of the generation before us dies. This four week unit is designed to encourage students to discover the hidden stories of their families and community. During the course of this project, students will interview members of their community and/or family members and develop a newsletter that provides background of the time period of the story and the person telling the story. Additional stories will be shared with the students by downloading clips from the stories that have been shared with members of Story Corps(www.nationaldayoflistening.org), one of the largest oral history projects in the world.

Driving question: How do we describe motion and change in our world scientifically? In the Rube Goldberg Project, students will build a Rube Goldberg Machine (by definition, "of, relating to, or being a contrivance that brings about by complicated means what apparently could have been accomplished simply....") and explain the phyics of motion in that machine. Some examples of rube goldberg devices in the past, in both movies and pop culture, are the device that Pee Wee Herman uses to make breakfast in the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," or the game "Mousetrap." Students will be able to explain and demonstrate the physics of motion (specifically Newtons Three Laws, Velocity, Acceleration, Kinetic and Potential Energy, and Momentum) through running their machine and will be able to calculate the velocity, acceleration, and energy generated by their machines as they run to complete simple tasks. They will have a working knowledge of simple motion equations and how to calculate in real life situations. This project has activities, assessments and resources included Requires a considerable amount of time and materials, but very engaging and student centered

Awesome on authentic learning.