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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 - Posted by Katie, Bonnie, and Malkie. The author explains the importance of spending 25% of teaching time, teaching the specific phonics skills and the rest of the time engaging students in actually reading and phonics related activities. There are quite a few suggestions for activities.

Week 8: Dave and Kristina This article is found by searching "differentiation" in the MEd Program Diigo. This article is mainly about how teachers need to continue to observed and held accountable for their teaching methods in order to best educate high-ability learners. According to VanTassel Baska (2012), "teacher effectiveness has been shown to be the main determinant of student progress." The author is of the belief that if teachers are continually observed, sometimes in an unannounced situation, that they will continue to teach using complex higher order behaviors and that this is the way that gifted students will learn best. Teachers in our group can use this article to understand the reasoning behind continual professional development and observation. Both of us teach gifted students in our classes and we need to remember that these students need to provide extended activities for these students and that we need to consider if our lessons include the use of higher level skills. Often time as teachers, we tend to focus more on the students that struggle academically but, we need to remember that our gifted students also need extra support as well so that they are able to grow as learners. References VanTassel-Baska, J. (2012). Analyzing Differentiation in the Classroom: Using the COS-R. Gifted Child Today, 35(1), 42-48. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/10.1177/1076217511427431

Study involved head start programs and state funded public preschools from both California and New York. The study consist of a pre and post-test. A curriculum was given to the teachers to assist with planning for group activities in school and a manuel with activities that can be done at home. The curriculum includes counting and numbers, arithmetic operations, geometry, patterns, and reasoning. Data was collected twice during the year, once in the fall then again in the spring. The study found significant differences between the control and the intervention group.

EDTC 615 Spring 2018

Active Growth & Youth Programs (AGYP) is a network of employers, entrepreneurs, institutions, and education/training stakeholders whose purpose is simple: focus on youth so as to build inclusive growth leverage on the continent through Entrepreneurship, Business and its partners.

This article attempts to explain reasons why students' writing suffers, why this has become a crisis in our society, and ideas about activities which teachers can have students complete in order to improve their writing quality. The article explains that most of the writing students are asked does not require them to revisit it or lacks depth. The writing activities suggested by the author, such as having students read aloud their work to peers or having students write rhetorical questions, will not only engage students but also require their careful thought and result in improved final drafts. Kristine and I are considering some of these ideas for our Data Action Plan. WEEK 9

(Week 4: Frances and Claudio) This article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. This presents information on how to improve writing skills of students in an English class as well as discuss the strategies on how to improve writing skills, common errors and mistakes that are made by students and the importance of setting writing goals to accomplish improvements. This article can be very resourceful from a SMART goal prospective because there are some measurable tactics that are identified for student writing improvement through classroom activities and projects that are designed by a teacher. It offers detailed improvement processes that are also measurable to help sort out the errors students acquire in their writing assignments but identify ways to work toward improvement. This article would be an asset to Group#4 because it offers activities that are time bound and give a more realistic approach to identifying the weakness of students through a more energetic process. McBride, S. (2000). "Why Are You so Worried about It?" Struggles and Solutions toward Helping Students Improve as Writers. The English Journal, 89(6), 45-52. doi:10.2307/821262

Many great ideas for activities to differentiate addition and subtraction for elementary students.

(Week 7: Adiatu, Julie, and Heather) This journal article was found by Adiatu on the UMUC Library, and is accessible through the link given above by accessing ERIC. The journal article is based on a study of 132 fourth-graders, and focused on examining the relationship(s) that exists among sustainable attention, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. According to authors Yildiz & Çetinkaya, "Sustainable attention is the type of attention that provides the ability to focus on a task for a long time. It is required to analyze the sentences in reading material and to utilize them actively at different times" ( 2017). The study results showed that students that lacked sustainable attention had poorer reading speed, comprehension, and word recognition. This journal article is useful to teachers because it provides information on useful activities teachers can arrange to increase the attention levels of students. For example, the authors of the journal suggest that teachers record their students' oral readings and play it back for them. This journal article is useful to our group because the teachers' artifacts are based on the reading comprehension and vocabulary gaps of their students, and the authors stress that teachers should strictly monitor the oral reading skills of students that are having reading comprehension difficulties. Reference: Mustafa Yildiz , Ezgi Çetinkaya (2017). The relationship between good readers' attention, reading fluency and reading comprehension. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 5, 366 - 371. doi: 10.13189/ujer.2017.050309., Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2017. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1134476

The following article is a great argument for the importance of informing students on their educational data. It discusses the trend in teachers and administrators having all the numbers and students are the outsiders. The article argues that real gains can not be made unless students are analyzing their data and scores, then using that to set goals.

"When students themselves identify, analyze, and use data from their learning, they become active agents in their own growth. They set personal goals informed by data they understand, and they own those goals. The framework of student-engaged assessment provides a range of opportunities to involve students in using data to improve their learning. "

This website gives great definitions about various math topics at the middle and high school level. I am not a big fan of this page because it does not give good examples for students. However, I think it is a good teacher tool for getting the information to the students and gathering activities to do in the classroom. I will be using this in my WebQuest for students to research characteristics of a cube.

Useful for middle or high school teachers, this kid-friendly, interactive website offers brief activities and narratives related to Greek theatre. I am currently using it to explain how the Oracle at Delphi became Apollo's seer.

Great resource! I have a twitter account for my classroom, but don't actively engage in it as a PLN. These are great guidelines for using it as part of your PLN!

This article presents the main ideas for planning effective and engaging lessons. It is based on backwards design so that the lessons are based on outcomes rather than just the activities. This article is also based on the DAP model that allows for the fact that students develop at their own pace. There is also a review of helpful lesson planning skills in assessment, direct instruction, differentiating instruction and developing objectives.

Front Row is a website and an iOS application designed for K-8 students. The application was originally designed to help close instructional gaps in mathematics. This adaptive learning software allows students to work at their own pace as they earn coins and move up levels in all 5 of the Common Core math domains. Later on Front Row added an ELA component that provides leveed texts and quizzes for students. All of the activities that students do through From Row generate data for parents and teachers. One of the features that Front Row also has is free and paid IBL's (Inquiry Based Lessons) for grades 1-8. I actually created a screencast on how I use IBL's in my own classroom.Check it out here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qot1wzQTd5o

Front Row is a great software that helps teachers fill learning gaps! It is an application that students have their own accounts where they can individualize their learning. They learn at their own pace and are not pressured to stay up to speed as their peers. There is motivation involved in collecting gold coins, and there are videos for students that need extra support on a certain content if they are answering the questions incorrectly.I have used Front Row in my classrooms through blended learning and it has worked great!

This article offers strategies to early childhood educators as they are instructing English Language Learners in language and literacy development. Highlights in this article include instructional strategies, explicit vocabulary activities, exposing students to multiple opportunities to speak with both peers and adults, and encouraging language development inside and outside of the classroom. These strategies are helpful in thinking about guiding my ELL students to improve their oral language skills.

This study investigated the effects of input- and output-based instruction on the development of L2 knowledge of 129 third-semester college students learning English in Iran. I found this to be an interesting study because it addressed both kinds of instruction and acknowledged the ongoing debate about the importance of each method and its role in student learning of a second language. The study recognizes that input-based instruction needs to be more than exposure alone and include instructional intervention in order to be effective, and that output-based instruction involve meaningful output practice activities supported with feedback. Although the study does not claim that output in and of itself leads to L2 development due to the need for teacher feedback, it does suggest that output-based instruction is as effective as or can be even more effective than input-based instruction.

This site provides courses for parents to prepare their children for school. There are lessons on content areas as well as to prepare for independent activities with independence time.

My county uses LearnZillion to help give additional instruction to students. My group was focusing on Counting to 20. This specific lesson provides activities for counting to 20. This helps close the gap by giving support to students that need extra help with counting to 20.