Is there a better way - Please Comment with your suggestions.

While reading some educational blogs this weekend, I came across a teacher discussing various instructional strategies.  He was inspired to write about these strategies because a colleague asked if he had any suggestions for teaching vocabulary to her students.  

I must admit that I can get stuck using the same teaching methods over and over.  It was good to take a look at a list of so many posible ways to spice up my teaching.  For vocabulary lessons and activities, do you notice that most times students are asked to make flash cards so they can match the definition with the word?  Remember the hundreds maybe thousands of flash cards you made for your college foreign language class.  Is there a better way?  Do student really gain an understanding of vocabulary that way?  

I ask you to join me in reviewing a list of teaching strategies.  Then respond to us all with which ones look fun...ones you might try out.  

1) Take a look at these Various Teaching Strategies:

• http://www.beesburg.com/edtools/glossary.html
• http://www.appomattox.k12.va.us/acps/attachments/6_6_12_dan_mulligan_handout.pdf
• http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/presentations/NCEO-LEP-IEP-ASCDGlossary.pdf
• http://www.brainboxx.co.uk/a3_aspects/pages/T&Lactivities_VAK.htm

2) Please comment below...How do you teach vocabulary?

Two Great Resources

You have undoubtedly heard of Khan Academy and its large selection of video tutorials for almost every math and science concept.  This week I was excited to see that another similar site is organizing math training videos in a similar way.  Be sure to check out Mathispower4u, which currently includes just over 1,800 video lessons.





Not teaching math or science and looking for a great place to find good media to use in your classroom? Teacher's Domain includes lesson plans, interactive tools, and audio and video clips from each content area.  You really have to check it out.

Top 100 Educational Tools

We all recognize that today's students are different than the students of 10 or even 5 years ago.  I think of how many things my 6th graders are involved in after school, how many "conversations" they have with classmates from the time they leave school to the next morning and the increase in their desire to have questions answered immediately.  Yet I still see that excellent teaching continues to follow the ideology that if I tell them a fact they will forget it, if I show them a demonstration they will remember, and if I involve them they will gain understand.

With the tools available to us today at ACS, we can be thankful that we can actively involve our students in learning.  As you engage your students, think about how many of the the 4Cs (Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creatively and innovation) you are asking your students to use.  These are the skills our students need to be practicing in our classrooms.

Digitally speaking, here is a list of the top 100 educational tools used in 2011.  How many did you use this past year?

In the comment sections below post which of the top 100 are your favorites.

How Cheatable is your Class?

There is a cool tool I just learned about in the Moodle News Blog I follow: "Measure of Course Cheatablitiy." This tool will help you think about how easy it is for students to cheat in your class.  It is also aligned well with thinking about how well you are creating assessments that use higher order thinking skills.   

I took the eval and scored 56.17 out of 100.  Definitely have room for improvement! 

Here are a couple interactive resources to help you teach about Martin Luther King Jr.

Elementary:
Martin Luther King Jr Book from MightyBooks.com:

MightyBooks Matching Game- Read the story above then match the vocabulary:


Grades 4 - 6:
Martin Luther King Jr's Brainpop video, activity and quiz

Grades 6 - 8:
Mapping Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.: A fact or opinion activity

PowerTeacher Gradebook Update

An upgrade to PowerTeacher GradeBook will now let you see student attendance and tardy totals for each term right within your Gradebook - nice information to have!

If you are ever curious exactly what days a student has been tardy or absent, remember the backpack feature in Powerteacher.

Click on the backpack, then select a student and choose "meeting attendance".  You can then cycle through each student.

*** For MS Staff - Even though we don't report attendance for each class period, it might be nice to know how many times a student is absent from your specific class.  Why not try to take attendance each class period and see how it goes for you. 

Projects That Engage Higher-Level Thinking Skills

How are we doing engaging student in higher-level thinking skills?  I came across this blog post today that I found helpful and encouraging.  Take a couple minutes to reflect on your current classroom activities as you read this blog.