Group items tagged

Portable Word Wall and other Word Wall ideas to support struggling readers. I have used Word Walls in the past, but I have not used them for individual students. This form of differentiation can be taken with the student to a reading specialist, brought home, or used in the classroom to support instruction.

SPR15 strategy phonics K-3 resource

This article shows that through reflective teaching and coaching, diverse struggling readers can beneficiate from different strategies and will help to close instructional gaps.

I like the ideas presented here, they elaborate on the need for ELL students to have word association and phonetic instruction to further their understanding of content. This is particularly stressed in the elementary grades, however having a teaching coach for ELL learners in the higher grades could assist students that did not have phonetic instruction in the lower grades. One particular item of interest was the comment made that data results from assessment is not analyzed until later in the year and as a result does not benefit the students that took the assessment. Due to this the author stresses the need for collaboration of the teaching team to identify skills and strategies needed and subsequently develop ways to address the skill or strategy needed that will enhance learning.

Week 7 This reading is discussing the use of rewards in teaching and education. It discusses the effects on motivation and if the behavior being rewarded will continue if the reward is removed. Depending on how you interpret this article, you can use rewards in the most effective way to change the targeted behavior or remind yourself that that you can aid students in discovering self motivation by rewarding them with praise.

Teachers often offer rewards for good work, but Willingham speaks of their potential dangers. Rewards must be used with care, only if necessary, for a specific reason, not as a constant. In an attempt to encourage desired behaviors, they could produce the opposite effect if an expected reward is outside of reach. Rewarding a student for the act of producing rather than for producing a quality product, can also lead to lack of motivation and interest in learning. The system can also backfire is the offered incentive is not a desired reward. Though it seems intuitive and effective short term to offer rewards, this article presents some great points for the thoughtful educator in pointing out that rewards can be used effectively, but may also be more trouble than they are worth.

I like the idea presented in the article that grades can be construed as rewards for students. At first I sort of rolled my eyes (internally) at the idea, but the way the article described rewards actually made it meaningful to me. The article says that rewards (when used) should be "Desirable, Certain, and Prompt" to be effective. For grades to motivate students, they should be desirable (i.e. the intrinsic reward of good grades should already be ingrained), the grades need to be Certain (that is, the students need to have clear ideas of what it takes to earn an "A" or "B" etc) and must be Prompt (students tend to fail to see the correlation between effort and grades if they are given feedback on work days or weeks after the assignment is performed). The idea of promptness really stood out to me because contractually, I am required to update grades for students every 2 weeks. I always found that to be woefully inadequate for students to learn from their assessed work. I want students to be able to learn from mistakes they make on their assignments, but often seeing a grade value weeks after the attempt is made is similar to the 'ice cream' example in the article. Having a grade with feedback a day after they make an attempt will make the student feel more 'attached' to that grade and be more likely to fix it. For a graded assignment that was done long ago, students may see it as a more detached product and less likely to care about making corrections.

This document provides a detailed overview of the writing process for teachers of and students in secondary schools (grades 7-12). It provides numerous strategies teachers in all content areas can employ to encourage students to write more frequency and with more fluency. The document is organized in chronological order according to the steps of the writing process (Generating Ideas, Developing and Organizing Ideas, and Revising and Editing). Each of these steps in the writing process is described and accompanied by detailed activities. The explicit guidelines (instructions) for each activity could be easily utilized by a novice teacher, but even a seasoned master teacher can benefit from exploring the strategies posed in this document. To address our identified learning gap (that secondary students struggle to elaborate on initial ideas in their writing), the section on "Adding Content" on p. 104 of this document is especially helpful.

This is a scholarly article on the students perceptions of the climate in the gym and how it enhances their goals in physical education. It is interesting because there are times that we all have bad days, but we can't let that effect the climate of the gym if we want our students to be and feel successful!

This website validated my concerns about science vocabulary for secondary students. It can also provide other resource videos and professional learning resources.

This site supported by the American Federation of Teachers and TES offers free preK-12 lesson plans and resources for many subjects, including physical education and world languages. Resources are rated by teachers and you can search by content area, most popular and more. Teachers can add this to their arsenal of teaching activities and lessons when work on improving their curriculum, particularly those using a data action plan model, such as in our EDTC 615 course.

This free resource has lesson plans and professional development articles. I found the article on differentiating addition and subtraction lessons using technology very helpful. This resource has many activities and lessons that will assist with improving curriculum.

Week 7: This article by Valerie N. Faulkner that talks about how Common Core has changed how we teach math and would be beneficial to teachers who are trying to get used to the new Common Core curriculum and help build their implementation of language within math instruction.

Week 7: This article by Valerie N. Faulkner that talks about how Common Core has changed how we teach math and would be beneficial to teachers who are trying to get used to the new Common Core curriculum and help build their implementation of language within math instruction.

Week 8:Theresa Horgan presents this journal about the use of graphic organizers in the classroom. She brings in the technological side of graphic organizers. She explains in her article how graphic organizers can be a useful teaching strategy. They are engaging and help students retain information from their learning. This is important because it helps students visualize and organize their thoughts from the lesson. Teachers can use graphic organizers in ALL subjects!

This tool provides teachers with the data needed to track students' progress on solving word problems. IXL gives students different word problems to solve. These problems could be solved in a small-group rotation. This would help students identify the steps and method they are using. Also, students would be able to take their time to solve these problems in their elementary school classroom.

This tool provides pre-k to 12 additional support/practice with math concepts. Teachers are able to assign a skill to practice in class or at home. Teachers are able to access reports by concept and time spent. Down side is the cost of IXL.

I use this website for fluency practice and lesson extensions with my small group math instruction. My first graders enjoy the games.

These segments get to the heart of the conceptual misunderstanding that teachers encounter when attempting to teach simple circuits. It demonstrates some instructional alternatives teachers can use.

This is an excellent design for a student-centered inquiry activity. I'd like to revise my introduction to circuits next year to work more like this.

This paper presents one step in a multi-step process to improve concurrent support of ELLs' academic literacy development. It explains how literacy can close the gap between ELL's and Native English students. It also explains the process to build up literacy in the classroom, explains the 5 components of literacy, and gives evidence that that without literacy, ELLs are less likely to master content.

This resource provides teachers with printable activities that can help students build skills linked to the foundations of reading such as: - Vowels -Word Families -Sight Words -Alphabet -Phonemic Awareness -Syllables Grade Level: PK-2 Most of the resources are available for free, although some of the resources are available for purchase.

I thought this site was interesting for educators. 112 Learners are taking this course and 101 more learners... Review 21st century literacies. Explore free image sites. Create playlists with great video content. Be inspired to create content and contribute to the world. Class recording and slides available to all enrollees Language of Instruction: English Course Description In the 21st century, we are all consumers of digital content.

The article shares a variety of ways to implement Early Literacy Skills into a Pre-K or Kindergarten classroom. The resource provides a number of engaging opportunities for students to choose special times to focus on particular skills in your classroom.

Week 7- Investigates the use of word wall words and relating activities to improve reading fluency. The research also shares the word wall activities that were used as centers in the study. These activities could be easily incorporated into primary classrooms.

Week 8: It's been called the fourth "R" of education: reading, writing, arithmetic and now, aerobics. But the gym class of generation Wii isn't the same one you probably remember from school. "You hear sometimes the old stories ... where you roll the ball out and students just played the game," says Hanna Vaandering, president of the Oregon Education Association.

This website provides teachers with free printable center activities for students in grades K-5. All of the activities are well organized under different categories relating to the five core components of reading: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. All of the resources also provide teachers with detailed instructions on how to play each of the games.

Week 7: We are always looking for new strategies for teaching fitness to our middle school students (the article focuses on students aged 13-19). Focuses not just on their physical ability but also their cognitive abilities. When we discussed this reading we all agreed when the article said " Be aware that many teenagers have a short attention span. Create variety to keep them excited and engaged. Circuits, boot camps, strength training and partner yoga are great choices for teens." We recently did a circuit workout that included all of those things. (Stevenson, 2013)

This website allows physical educators to browse Free Physical Education Resources, Lesson Plans, Activities, Games, Articles, Videos, Blogs. It is an easy way for teachers to find lessons that they may be struggling with. I like to find lessons and change them to make them work for me. The blog is also helpful because it helps teachers relate to one another, that may be struggling with the same things my team does.