Group items tagged

“Do use our network to connect to other students and adults who share your passions with whom you can learn.” “Do use our network to help your teachers find experts and other teachers from around the world.” “Do use our network to publish your best work in text and multimedia for a global audience.” “Do use our network to explore your own creativity and passions, to ask questions and seek answers from other teachers online.” “Do use our network to download resources that you can use to remix and republish your own learning online.” “Do use our network to collaborate with others to change the world in meaningful, positive ways.”

Do some students watch the Kanye West dissing Taylor Swift video on YouTube when they should be doing their work? Of course they do. But this experience has shown me that THIS IS THE WAY students should be learning…

If you’re like many teachers, you find IWBs (Interactive Whiteboards) both exciting and intimidating.

In this first of this two-part post, we’ll explore dos and dont’s with your new IWB. In my next post, I’ll give you some basic lesson plan tips I’ve found that have worked and provide links to some amazing IWB resources.

Whyville , What does it take to build a sustainable, green energy community? 8th Graders are showing us how using WhyPower, an interactive learning game within the largest interactive learning world, WhyVille. Here is an interactive game. http://www.poweracrosstexas.org/projects/whypower-interactive-game Energy Game:  WHYPOWER Whyville is a thriving community with its own economy, newspaper, government and much more.  It now has its own power grid!  As part of the WhyCareers program, we are “electrifying” Whyville with a power grid that uses traditional and renewable energy sources.  Students will manage the power grid to select the right mix of coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar and wind energy. They will build homes in Whyville!  They will observe and measure power use in Whyville, and form good energy behaviors and habits. Finally, they will explore the math, science and career topics related to energy.  Just like in real life, success in Whyville is not pre-programmed!  Students skill, initiative, creativity and teamwork determines the rewards they receive and the “virtual money” they earn in WhyPower. Whyville. Run a city using energy reources.

students were challenged to think deeply

I gave the students complete autonomy on how to execute the task, which also increased their excitement about the assignment.

Four Corners and Anticipation Guides:Both of these techniques “activate schema” by asking students to react in some way to a series of controversial statements about a topic they are about to study. In Four Corners, students move around the room to show their degree of agreement or disagreement with various statements — about, for instance, the health risks of tanning, or the purpose of college, or dystopian teen literature. An anticipation guide does the same thing, though generally students simply react in writing to a list of statements on a handout. In this warm-up to a lesson on some of the controversies currently raging over school reform, students can use the statements we provide in either of these ways.

Gallery Walks:A rich way to build background on a topic at the beginning of a unit (or showcase learning at the end), Gallery Walks for this purpose are usually teacher-created collections of images, articles, maps, quotations, graphs and other written and visual texts that can immerse students in information about a broad subject. Students circulate through the gallery, reading, writing and talking about what they see.

Graphic Organizers: