[ http://www.teachersfirst.com/spectopics/comics.cfm ]Wrap it in the Comics
Looking for a great year-end wrap up? Why not have students or the whole class create a comic-style summary of major concepts or personal learning favorites from the year? Find terrific tools and comic starters in [ http://www.teachersfirst.com/spectopics/comics.cfm ]TeachersFirst's Comics Resources. Even primary grades can help create a comic as a whole class activity. Share the results on your school web page or as summer take-home links or printouts.
The goal of Signed Stories is to increase the literacy of deaf children; however, it is a great resource for all children. After choosing a story, you will see the text, hear the story and see it in sign language. Almost 100 titles are available and can be searched by topic or by browsing all titles. Some stories offer more options than others. Many stories have pause and rewind buttons, so you can replay to see signs again. 10902
In the Classroom:
Use stories on the interactive whiteboard or projector to teach story elements - pause as the story is read to allow students to retell details to the stopping point then make predictions of what will happen next. Help students understand disabilities and adaptations to disabilities through watching the stories being told in sign language. This is also a great resource for students with deaf/hearing impaired parents or students/teachers trying to learn or practice sign language. In sign language classes, consider creating your own signed story videos for children's books and share them on a tool such as TeacherTube [ http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=9419 ]reviewed here.
he use of models, so that kids have a vision of where they’re trying to go.
learning target is not just a new term for goal or objective. It means taking a lesson goal or state framework and putting it in kids’ language and making it transparent to the kids, so you’re saying to students, this is what we’re trying to learn today.
When they leave this room, I really want them to have this clear.”
Why did you choose that model? What is it you want to use it to show? Why are you showing it? It’s about having that level of clarity.
If you can be very specific about what’s working in a piece of work and equally specific about what’s weak, it’s a gift to the student who created it.
afraid to be candid with their students about quality.
It’s important to be honest about it and not pretend that other kids succeeded when they didn’t.
o I gave this assignment yesterday and I got 28 papers back and not a single one worked, so I think I really failed. I didn’t explain something clearly so I’ve got to re-frame it for you and you’ve got to give me another chance;
“Have you shown them models of what really good reflective writing looks like?”
Oh, this is where you want us to get to. OK. Let’s analyze it and figure out why it worked.” I just hadn’t provided them with a good model.