Group items tagged

(Week 8: Javon and Kim) I found this article on UMUC in the online Library. Traditionally, classrooms are not assessment-centered focus. Most often students take an assessment after learning specific content, but in an assessment-centered learning environment, the teacher and students have a road map for learning and is more positive. Author and Professor, Steven L. Turner, PhD., raises an article on creating an assessment-centered learning classroom. He does this by presenting PILOT -an acronym for an assessment strategy. PILOT Assessment Strategy P- Preassessment The purpose of Preassessment is to evaluate a student's knowledge about a particular subject that will be taught. Turner suggesting asking a series of questions to gain this information (i.e. "What is the student's current knowledge about this unit", "What students are interested in this topic?" etc.). Preassessment surfaces student thinking and information that helpful for teachers and those designing curriculum and assessments. I-Identify student strengths and areas of need (readiness) Identifying the areas where students are strong enables them to be more engaged in the topic. Students are also able to self-assess to identify where they presently are, become aware of their challenged areas, and what it will take for their progress. L-link differentiated classroom learning experiences to district standards and learning goals Linking the classroom learning experience to standards and benchmark testing have proven to be successful. Curriculum that links with the Common Core Standards - what students in K-12 should learn in language arts and math, strengthens foundational knowledge for students. O-offer multiple in-class assessment opportunities Offering multiple assessment methods allows the student to take control of their learning while putting them in the "driver's seat." Although this step could be time consuming it shows the student that the instructor cares and is conc

An informative and engaging article that provides eight solutions to tackling the achievement gap.  It is well organized and written with clear reasoning for each solution.

I really enjoyed this article. As a new instructor I am constantly looking to engage my adult students. Through my instruction, making that personal connection is so important. Once you make that personal connection I find that students start making a personal connection with their assignments as well. I find having a non-academic conversation at the beginning of class can help the students feel involved classroom citizens.

This article really gives great advice on how teachers can help close the achievement gap by changing small things they do in the classroom. The two things that stuck out to me was allowing more time and progress monitoring. Sometimes time is all a student needs to succeed. When students feel rushed they end up just picking whatever answer they think is right or just something to complete the assignment. Allowing students to return to their unfinished work could really help students concentrate knowing that they don't have to rush to finish an assignment. As far as progress monitoring goes, it helps when the teacher really cares about making sure the students are on the right track and that their parents are aware of the work they have completed or would need to complete to get them on track.

This resource speaks to the importance of giving students the opportunity to experience word problems in a more natural way, such as providing video anchors. This article identifies a video resource that was created by Vanderbilt University titled "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury." These videos present a real life challenge and problem that helps students work through the problem solving process as a class.

This article discusses strategies for helping relate word problems to real life for students. It is suggested to use anchored instruction, linking instruction to assessment and having students answer challenge problems. The implication is that word problems are textual as opposed to contextual and that real-world problem solving occurs in dynamic environments. This could help by presenting word problems in a different manner for students, thereby linking the problem to a real world sccenario.

This is a neat way to organize links to videos and websites and access them in the Cloud. This can act as a bookmarking tool. You can create a Symbaloo for your students that houses links for research, tools for formating, and helpful sites for assignments. This type of site takes the "Google it" mentality out of the equation; you provide the links to where you want to direct students when they engage with the technology. This site could be applicable for any grade level or any discipline. This is a free resource, but you must create an account.

If you use rubrics in your classroom but hate starting from scratch, this is the the place for you! Sign up for free and search by keyword for rubrics in the specific skill or content area you are grading. Then edit and save! You can even put a link to your rubric on the assignment directions, saving paper and trees! This is a link to a rubric I recently created, but you can get to the home page from here.

This looks great - I am always looking for help with rubrics. Check out Kathy Schrok's guide too: http://www.schrockguide.net/assessment-and-rubrics.html

I really like this! I love that you can embed the link to the rubric. This would be very helpful with a WebQuest or Scavenger Hunt lesson. I have used Rubistar before. It is similar, but I think this site offers more options. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

This site provides many links to other sites, for those wanting to know more about multicultural education.

Web 2.0 tool that allows you to add content, links, pictures, etc. to primary sources and other written works. This would be especially useful in a Social Studies class to add biographies and links to background information for primary documents. It would also be a good activity to have the students work together to create a cirriculet on a primary source of the time period being studied. I have found this to be very user-friendly.

This is a collection of instructional strategies that can be used to improve student writing and cooperation and encourage critical thinking. Links to strategies are sorted by teachers' needs: Monitor Progress, Compare and Contrast Ideas, Form Groups, Get Moving!, Work Together, Adapt Content, Share Ideas & Opinions, and Take Notes. Within these categories are several links to various strategies to meet these needs. Each of the links leads to a clear description of how the strategy can be used and multiple examples and clickable resources that can be utilized by teachers immediately. This site has a plethora of interesting activities and tasks for students to encourage better collaboration and thinking. An instructional gap our team recognized that is quite prolific among middle school-aged students is the lack of elaboration or explanation of details in their expository writing pieces. Students can organized paragraphs and essays write clear topic sentences and conclusions, but they struggle supporting their claims with specific details and then explaining how their details relate to the topic.

Good explanation of curriculum mapping with links to additional resources.

If you copy/paste youtube links into a search box, it creates an ad-free/comment-free link that you can save to access a youtube video for your class. It also eliminates the "suggested videos" that pop up at the end of each video.

This site allows you to customize your own map. You can even create a link so others can access the map you have created. You can add physical systems like water, land, and climate. You can also add populations, culture, political, economic, environment, and society information. You can also draw on the map and place markers. This would be very useful for 7th grade World History and Geography. It could actually have a place in any grade. I have not used it yet, but I plan to. I like everything about it so far.

I like to use this dictionary and the dictionary of "student-friendly" definitions. Never think that you have to reinvent the wheel Merriam-Webster already did for you. Look for links to the English-Language Learners Dictionary and the Kids' Dictionary in the m-w.com standard entries for "student-friendly" definitions.

This is a perfect resource for students who have trouble writing notes, need to review, or missed class. Teachers could attach a link for a particular lesson to your class website for students to review before class or before a test.

This site contains information and links to circuit challenges. A good tool for additional research for students or further exploration. This can also be a part of a WebQuest activity or simply used the challenge at the bottom of the page for part of a homework/classwork assignment.

I was highly impressed by this young teacher's blog. He is already teaching like a master teacher. David Leed's blog has a tons of great teaching ideas and links.

Edmodo is also a great site to use for a class homepage. It's a good resources for students and teachers. We have Edline in our county but I think the personalization of this is better.

This resource is appropriate for all grade levels, as it contains a variety of routines that can be applied to a wide range of content. There are routines that address most of the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, so it is easy to find one to fit your needs. I haven't used the resource yet myself, but certainly will in the future. In addition, the Digital Toolkit provides links to dozens of other digital tools and breaks down their uses in education. This is a great place to find other educational technology.

Jared, Loved this site! I especially liked the thinking routine section. I enjoyed how direct and to the point it was. Thanks for sharing.

This looks like a great resource - I will explore it in more detail. I do a lot of group work and am always looking for great ways to help learners organise themselves with this.

This describes a new feature of Diigo which allows you to create outlines of information, including notes, links, images, videos, etc. This could be a great way to help students think about the information they are collecting and to analyze and synthesize the information they are collecting and learning about.

Open Culture defines itself as "The best free cultural & educational media on the Web" [Open Culture. (2013). Home page. Retrieved from www.openculture.com). This site was suggested by one of our students using working on a Diigo account just for world language teachers), but this site seems useful for all subjects, with links to many free videos, K-12 resources, e-books, etc.