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This article guides teachers through the difficult navigation of ferreting out important data versus minutiae when it comes to developing data-driven plans of action to improve student learning and retention. It offers many divers strategies for implementation.

Everyone's favorite math guru shares the top 10 ways you can enhance your students' math learning, test scores, and skills Several years ago, Michael, one of my third graders, wrote this in his journal: "I never used to look forward to math. All we did was add and subtract. This site offers a number of ideas that include how to teach writing in the math classroom.

What are the key comprehension strategies to teach?Studies on good readers have identified a number of comprehension strategies to be highly useful. These strategies range from the simple to the complex.

The purpose of this action research project report was to increase reading comprehension by using cooperative learning. Reading comprehension was a concern for the three teacher researchers at both research sites. There were 51 first and second grade students, 28 elementary teachers, and 51 families of the first and second grade students involved for a total of 184 participants.

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.

One of the instructional gaps I noticed during data analysis, Is a limited amount of re-teaching opportunities that are available to students after a concept is initially taught. When I was a classroom teacher, one of the strategies I used to re-teach was to assign video-based homework assignments that would "walk" students through the concepts that I taught on a given day. I would often attach the video to a Google Form and ask a few multiple-choice or open-ended questions that would allow me to gauge the students' understanding while allowing me collect data.

Week 9: Claire and Melissa This article is accessible though Diigo using the link above This article provides instructional strategies for language arts teachers trying to teach writing to their students. While it is well-known that teaching by example is an effective strategy for writing instruction, this article provides steps for teaching students through mentor texts in a way that mitigates frustration and maintains engagement. Resource: 8 Tips for Teaching with Mentor Texts Edutopia

(Week 8: Maia and Shawntel) This article is accessible through the UMUC library. The focus of this article was to introduce and explain the importance of strategies that motivate and engage students when learning how to solve word problems in algebra classrooms. The author argues that students show more engagement in algebra word problems when they are guided through problems that have real-life problems. The article provided data based on a study where students were given similar problems to solve with real-life and fictional problems. The students trended a preference to the real-life problems while also scoring higher on real-life problems. The authors state, "given a set of word problems covering a variety of application areas, students prefer problems which either generates intrigue or problems to which they can easily relate" (Premadasa and Bhatia, pg 15, 2013). Our group choose this article because of the current situation for the implementation process. The practicing teacher was met with a lot of resistance when introducing the new tactic. This supports our notice and wonder questions that students are not engaged and positive when approaching algebra word problems. The attitude of students directly impacts comprehension of word-problems. Therefore, we used a planning protocol to re-adjust the types of problems that were presented to the students. The practicing teacher found instructional videos that had current and real-life scenarios. Although it is still early in the implementation process, the teacher did notice an attitude change among the students as the proceeded with the material. Premadasa, K., & Bhatia, K. (2013). Real Life Applications in Mathematics: What Do Students Prefer?. International Journal For The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning, 7(2), http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=ef4d2731-303f-462b-ba77-64f1a21bc66e%40sessionmgr101

"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

Blog post: This is a collection of educational resources by high school teacher and prolific blogger and author, Larry Ferlazzo. These resources are organized by subject, such as art, music, science and Web 2.0. Each link takes you to a blog post that describes a resource, activity or lesson and how it can be used in the classroom. Be sure to scroll all the way down the page to see all the many subject matter resources available! Students of EDTC 615 might wish to start their Strategies Search here!

("Week 8" Group Members: Beth and Ruchel) The article explores a study conducted to see the patterns of within-group variability in the emergent literacy skills of preschoolers who are at risk for academic difficulties. The study can be used as a helpful resource to determine the relationships between early patterns of literacy performance and later reading achievement.

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.

SMART Goal: By the end of marking period 3, 80% or higher of students will score a 90% or higher on a representing numbers assessment. This website is offers fun and engaging games to support math development of students grades pre-kindergarten through high school. When selecting a grade level, teachers can view a large list of skills associated with Common Core. Skills are categorized, making it easy for educators to look for desired math practice. In regard to the SMART goal posted above the teacher could select from the series of skills related to representing numbers such as: Counting tens and ones - up to 20, County on ten frames - up to 40, and Counting by tens - up to 100. Students will be motivated by this resource as it is colorful and interactive. A benefit to using this site is that when students are unable to answer a correctly, they are provided with an explanation of how to correctly apply the skill.

While a bit long (10 pages, including the reference list), this article provides ideas and strategies to help students with learning differences (LD) be more successful in Spanish classrooms. It references recent brain research and also reminds readers that students with LD do not have diminished intellectual capacity. The first part of the article gives background on LD, latter sections give suggestions about things Spanish teachers can do to help their students with LD be more successful in their classes.

(Week 8: Margarita, Erika, Frances) Article originally posted in Diigo. An additional source is here: http://www.academypublication.com/ojs/index.php/tpls/article/view/tpls0502225234/64 This article describes "multi-sensory approaches" and the kind of instructional strategies, informed by brain-based research, that can help students with learning disabilities succeed in learning Spanish or another second language. The article focuses on how to create meaningful inclusion and skill building in Spanish courses through general accommodations, existing resources, and learning strategies. The article also references the relative lack of scholarly research on this topic and how that negatively impacts wider knowledge of ways to help students with learning disabilities learn a foreign language. This article was of interest to our group because the SMART goal is directly tied to improving the performance of special education students in Spanish class. In some schools, special education students are often pulled from language classes to get reading support, so implementing strategies that might keep the students in language class are of interest to the Spanish teachers. While several of the strategies discussed were already known, there were a couple that reinforced practices that have already been implemented as a result of our group's data action plan and at least one new idea that our practicing teacher would like to try. Reference Tolbert, J. B., Killu, K., & Lazarus, B. D. (2015). A framework for supporting students with learning disabilities in Spanish courses: connecting learning characteristics and instructional methods. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 5(2), 225-234. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0502.01

(I tried to edit my previous comment with some corrected info, but the changes wouldn't stick, so I am just reposting again) (Week 8: Margarita, Erika, Frances) The original link for this article was to a standalone PDF link. An additional source is here: http://www.academypublication.com/ojs/index.php/tpls/article/view/tpls0502225234/64 Students with learning disabilities commonly either avoided or have been discouraged from taking World Language classes. This article describes "multi-sensory approaches" and the kind of instructional strategies, informed by brain-based research, that can help students with learning disabilities succeed in learning Spanish or another second language. The article focuses on how to create meaningful inclusion and skill building in Spanish courses through general accommodations, existing resources, and learning strategies. The article also references the relative lack of scholarly research on this topic and how that negatively impacts wider knowledge of ways to help students with learning disabilities learn a foreign language. This article was of interest to our group because the SMART goal is directly tied to improving the performance of special education students in Spanish class. The goal of the world languages department is for every student to learn one of the languages taught, yet that is not always possible since special education students who are not meeting the reading goals are frequently pulled from language classes to get reading support. Implementing strategies and other instructional moves that might keep the students in language class, are of interest to the teachers. While several of the multisensory strategies discussed were already known, there were a couple that reinforced practices that have already been implemented as a result of our gr

Understanding vocabulary, is extremely important for students as they attempt to apply their newly learned concepts to other situations. Daily in the mathematics classroom, I try to be consistent with my co-teachers vocabulary usage to help students become more comfortable with the vocabulary. However, I have noticed that students continue to struggle to decipher problems because they lack the understanding of word choice and the vocabulary used. I believe that I could do more to emphasize vocabulary in each of the classes that I co-teach, by taking it upon myself to develop a way to showcase the vocabulary for the unit for each student. My co-teachers are responsible for developing the daily lessons, therefore I feel that I could assist them by finding some ideas to suggest or materials to put together to share with the students in our classes. The resource I added provides some basic ideas of how to showcase unit vocabulary and spark students memory while they are in or out of the classroom.

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 blog post explains the way to close the achievement gap in a mathematics classroom. The article touches upon stereotypes and ethnic and racial disparities, and other ways for educators to close the gap for their mathematics students.

Wow, what an interesting article! I'd never really considered racial inequality in math instruction before, but after reading the article, something to consider. One of the suggestions was to remove homework from math instruction due to some studetns unstable living situations. This makes sense and I think as teachers we often forget what some of our students are dealing with at home.

I really liked this article and the ideas in it. I try to celebrate the mistakes in my classroom, using them as a lesson within a lesson. I understand the point about homework, however I will continue to give my students homework. We are supposed to be preparing them for college. I don't remember one college class where most of my grade didn't come from work outside of class.