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Week 9: This is a great website to connect students to real life math problems. By doing math with real life problems students are problem solving like they would in a word problem, sometimes without even knowing it. This site gives sample lessons and projects to help teachers and parents connect math to the real world. Math covers so many topics that hopefully you can connect to your students that like music, design, weather and so much more.

The different resources on this site that give activities and ideas to introduce real world math situations to students gives an alternative way to teach mathematical concepts. Teaching these math concepts from multiple perspectives increases the chance of student success. By connecting math to the real world, students will become more invested in their learning.

This website provides links to many different websites that provide activities that students can participate in that will help them incorporate real world math problems. The article was sectioned off into four distinct sections including collections of real world math problems, online math activities, math collaboration, and more real world math activities. This is certainly a website that is worth saving and coming back to over a course of the year as there are many valuable resources that can be used.

Implementation Meeting 3 - Chris, Noelle, Elijah, and Angela Citation: Wilson, D. & Conyers, M. (2015, February 12). Put Working Memory to Work in Learning | Edutopia. Retrieved March 21, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/put-working-memory-to-work-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers This article focuses on activating and using the "working memory" of learners. Working Memory, as defined in this context, "...is what you can do with what you know." The authors provide several instructional strategies that encourage teachers to move away rote memorization instruction and move toward active use of knowledge. The strategies range in simplicity from repeating information to researching and peer-teaching. All of the working teachers within our group are seeking to improve student performance on testing, which in general, is more problem-solving based. In some of our data discussions, we have talked about students knowing material, not being able to identify and apply the information to complete certain tasks.

Week 8- Fifteen years later, this article investigates recommendations provided by the National Research Council's seminal report:Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. The article discusses which of these recommendations have been implemented in U.S classrooms over the past 15 years and which strategies have been avoided. The authors then share more recent research studies sharing strategies that may help teachers improve primary-grade reading. Authors: Nell K. Duke and Meghan K. Block

The article provides valuable insight into the impact that vocabulary instruction can have on reading comprehension. It is also noted that because reading instructional has changed over the years this too has contributed to comprehension and vocabulary development. It appears that the approach to reading instruction needs to be revisited to determine which strategies works the most effectively.

I loved this article. My school is currently focusing on Academic Language in our School Improvement Plan, we are also an IB school where students are to use Academic Language more often. I'm glad to see that many of our commonly used words are included in this list. I also love how they go through the examples of how to teach a new word. In middle school I feel these higher level vocabulary words are used more often than in primary ages.

Week 9: The article gives the top 10 evidence based teaching strategies research by Shaun Killian. These 10 strategies gives teachers steps to fine tune lesson plans and SMART goals for your DAP process. Shaun list these practices and gives a brief explanation for each practices. Most teachers care about their students' results, and if you are reading this article, you are undoubtedly one of them. There is no doubt that teachers make a difference to how well their kids do at school. For teaching strategies to be included on this list, they had to: Be supported by hard research, instead of anecdotal case studies or untested theories Have a substantially higher effect on student results than other teaching strategies Be able to be used on a wide range of subjects and in every year level

Response to Intervention's great promise is often undercut by the potential difficulty of implementation. However, evidence based teaching strategies are useful tools for the educator in a system that constantly changes as new theories and standards arise. This article gives an overview of the most effective teaching strategies, of which most can be fairly easily integrated into lessons. Some of the most intriguing strategies, are the ones that do not involve actions to take but an adjustment in teacher focus, such as nurturing metacognition and allowing flexible learning time.This serves as an effective reference and perhaps, reminder of good teaching methods, though a few specific examples would be all the more helpful. In the comments, the author offers a little more clarification about the strategies and their rankings.

This is a Slideshare presentation about color coding by Jugnu Agrawal and Gary Hoag. Research that supports color coding is provided as well as some strategies for different activities from organizational skills, to reading and writing. Teachers can follow some of these strategies to differentiate their lessons and add variety to a "traditional" lesson.

Week 9: Eli, Angela, Noelle and Chris This journal article is accessible given above through the UMUC library. The focus of this article discusses how observations can be used as an assessment tool for teachers when dealing with differentiation. The study specifically highlights differentiation in a high level G/T classroom and provides different observation tools that teachers can use to self assess. This article is useful to our team as although not all of us teach high level students, it made us think critically about the observation process of each of our schools. We realized the importance of observations when they are used correctly, where the observer gives constructive criticism in order to improve teaching strategies. Also the differentiation aspect of the article suggests proven strategies to use when contemplating differentiation, which are good examples for us who need more differentiation in our classes. References VanTassel-Baska, J. (2012). Analyzing Differentiation in the Classroom: Using the COS-R. Gifted Child Today, 35(1), 42-48. doi:10.1177/1076217511427431

"The Think-Pair-Share protocol is a simple way for all students to get a chance to think, talk, and learn from others. "

Think-pair-share is a great way to get students talking about information that is being taught. This is a great way to help students think about the topic that is being taught from a peer's point of view. Dimension: Student learning Rating: 2 This would work towards my fellow teammate's SMART goal,"By the end of quarter 1, 60% of students will score a 70% or higher on the Quarter 1 Literacy Assessment. This allows students to talk about what they are understanding about theme and gain new understandings.

SMART GOAL: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. (Heather's goal) Dimension: Impact on Learning Impact: 4 Reason: Think-Pair-Share is a strategy where students have a discussion with a partner to solve a problem or answer a question posed by their teacher. After which, the students individually share their ideas/solutions with the entire class. I believe that this strategy will be useful in Heather's attempt in eliminating the reading comprehension gap in her class because asking varying levels of question encourages students to discuss new ideas that deepen their understanding. This strategy will also give Heather the opportunity to assess student understanding by monitoring their discussions. It also has the bonus factor of stimulating student engagement

I am a special educator at RHHS in Howard County. As a special educator, I have been tasked with teaching Tutorial classes that were created to help students with disabilities receive service hours in various goal areas. Last year, was the first year that I attempted to implement SMART Goals into my classroom. Most students struggle to determine their personal SMART Goal and use it to help them focus on improving specific skills. This year, one of my midyear assignments required students to develop a SMART Goal for the following quarter. Students were asked to read and annotate an article, then discuss what they learned with their peers through a classroom discussion. We are now in Quarter 3 and some students have already achieved their SMART Goals from Q2. I found it interesting that part of this week's assignment was to find articles to help support our data analyzing from Venables by developing SMART Goals based on our macro and micro data. I have never thought of using a SMART Goal to improve my professional practices. I think that this could be a wonderful idea, however, I am nervous to develop a SMART Goal because I do not have control over many of the aspects in the classrooms that I support. For the purpose of this class, I will be creating a SMART Goal that I believe would benefit my students. I will share it with my co-teachers and see what they think. The resource that I provided gives examples of professional and student SMART Goals. I found that no only did students struggle to determine what a SMART Goal should measure, but I am facing that same difficulty. I wanted to provide my peers a reference of some achievable and specific SMART Goals that they could use as a model when creating their own.

WEEK 4, Teacher: Heather - 2nd Grade Teacher SMART Goal: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. SUMMARY: This article offers ideas for effective vocabulary instruction for teachers, including word structure analysis and vocabulary words selection. The article discusses how student knowledge of deciphering vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension can be reinforced, and how instructors can detect the difference between the vocabulary of good and weak readers. The vocabulary exercises are targeted for students in grades 4 through 12, but I believe that it can be used in all classrooms because the article emphasizes the integration of vocabulary instruction in any content area, such as social studies and science. This article also offers teaching strategies on how to enable students to determine word meaning, and how students can effectively use dictionaries.

"At some schools, up to 70 percent of kids are refusing to take the exams". "Thousands of students are opting out of new standardized tests aligned to the Common Core standards, defying the latest attempt by states to improve academic performance".

This article details how to establish mathematics discourse in the classroom. The article details specific steps to model, scaffold, and encourage mathematics discourse between students throughout a math block. Discourse supports collaboration, justification of ideas, and flexibility with mathematical thinking. The article is geared towards elementary students; however, the ideas are universal for all grades.

This article helps teachers create a friendly and safe math community. Students will be able to use math vocabulary to explain their thinking and reasoning when solving a problem.

This resource is the most complete guide that I was able to find in regards to developing SMART Goals as a means to pinpoint areas for professional growth. Many of the articles that I found online were short articles that just listed the definition and provided few examples of SMART Goals or anecdotal information based on the person writing the web page. I thought that this resource was a wonderful document that could be used by school systems to help teachers show growth. Currently, we have and SLO in Howard County, however, it requires us to make a student performance goal. It does not require us to develop as a professional in the process. I think that this is a complete disservice to our students. As a teacher, I believe that I am tasked with continuing to learn for all the year which I choose to stay in this profession. I should never be "comfortable" with my teaching practices and materials. I should always adapt materials to meet the needs of the students have each year and I should continuously be looking for new ways/materials to present information to students. As a math teacher and special educator, I think that Web 2.0 tools are the future of my field, however, most other professionals at my school disagree. They believe that students should learn in the classroom and not be provided with direct instruction of how to use the Web to help them learn a variety of mathematical concepts or ways to improve study methods. I hope to use this resource to develop my own practices and help others grow as well.

As a teacher, it is important to find ways to meet all students needs academically.

Finding multiple ways to meet each child's learning needs can help a child reach their SMART Target learning goal. Through this website, teachers can learn new ideas to use in their classroom.

Week 4: This website provides teachers and students with all different resources to solve word problems. It also can help teachers create posters, showcase methods, come up with lesson plans, and generate practice worksheets. This information can be used in a second grade classroom. This tool can help students understand the steps they need to take in order to solve word problems.

This is a website that lets teacher find lesson plans that link math and the real world. Some lesson plans are free and others you need to pay for. This is great for high school teachers because the lessons have a heavy econ focus and most students like learning about and working with money.

Most teachers believe that students have a fear of word problems, but this article will have you second guessing that. The article will have teachers thinking that word problems should be used from the start of a lesson and not at the very end of a homework assignment. Students normally perform better on word problems then algebraic solving because they have context clues to help them solve the problem.

To sum up this article you can look at the following quote from it; And he warned that the tendency to wait before using word problems could exacerbate gaps for students who struggle with algebra early on, because they may not be exposed to many word problems at all. Students have a fear of word problems because they perceive that they are too hard before they even begin working on them. This combined with the gaps in the vocabulary knowledge are making word problems more difficult for them.

This is an article that explores the strategy of introducing word problems first during math instruction. As a math teacher, I tend to introduce concepts first then build up to applying those concepts to word problems. The strategy of introducing the word problems first acts to help students solve a problem using any method they are comfortable with, without getting bogged down with the math too soon and becoming unwillingly to solve it. This could address the SMART learning goal, by helping us to rethink the way in which students approach word problems.

With Pear Deck, educators are able to upload and create slideshows that allow students to follow along and interact on their electronic device. Within the slideshow educators can ask various question types and get student responses in real time. Educators can also get student feedback during a slideshow.

A 21-page study of Milton Public Schools addressing the achievement gap of special education students.

I find this interesting, considering we never question the tests. Teachers, Schools, Families, and School districts have been trying for years to close achievement gaps, yet the gap remains. I think it is time to stop discussing what we need to do and start looking at standardized tests as inappropriate.

This study suggests that policy makers need to re-examine how they view the educational gaps of students with disabilities, in that they are diverse in the range of disabilities that create these disparaties. Decision making to lessen the gap cannot look at a one size fits all solution when dealing with a heterogeneous sub-group.