Apps

Next week, my students will start reading Red Scarf Girl: a Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang in our class and studying the Chinese Cultural Revolution in their social studies class. I spent the weekend learning about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and looking for lesson plan ideas. I've searched Google, Pinterest, and Teachers Pay Teachers. I've watched documentaries and read additional texts. I even listened to traditional Chinese music while I did my research. Admittedly, I've gone a bit overboard, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. Plus, Friday is the Chinese New Year, so it feels appropriate.

If you are interested in seeing what I've put together so far for an introduction to the book, you can view my notes through Evernote. Turns out, Evernote is pretty amazing. I am using it for all things student teaching lately. Today, I also learned about 4 additional websites that I will definitely want for my classroom:

Nearpod // Mrs. M introduced me to this one. With Nearpod, teachers can create interactive presentations. Imagine a Powerpoint-type presentation that students can pull up on a tablet and follow in real time as you present. Additionally, students can take notes on the actual presentation and teachers can monitor each student's notes. Using Nearpod, teachers can also have students participate in polls and answer questions embedded within the presentation. Pretty cool, huh? I think I'll use it for my next lesson plan...

Kahoot // This website was recommended by one of the technology specialists at HMS. Kahoot is a game-based classroom response system, used to create quizzes, discussions, surveys, games, etc. that allow student participation and competition through their handheld devices. This looks like it would be great for reviews, and the students I talked to said it is a lot of fun.

Membean // Membean is a vocabulary program that HMS is piloting. For each new vocabulary word, students learn its roots, how to use it in context, pronunciation, and more. Each word also has a video associated with it to enhance long-term memory. Because of this, I especially enjoyed the "plethora" page :)

Touchcast // The technology specialist suggested this website as a tool for our news broadcast project. Touchcast is an app used for making movies, but these aren't just any movies. While you are recording, you can also add writing, pictures, video, and even web browsing to enhance meaning. Our students will be using the news broadcast theme, the teleprompter feature, and the green screen effect to further cater this app for our needs. I played around on became acquainted with this app today in order to be able to help my students use it, and I can't even tell you how cool it is.

I'm not kidding about any of these websites- GO CHECK THEM OUT!!! (I'm talking to you, UTD friends)

My day ended with an assembly on bullying by Jon Pritikin of "Feel the Power." He holds a few Guinness world records for strength, so his presentation includes feats of strength like ripping phone books in half and rolling up a frying pan like it's nothing. It was at this assembly that I again realized that middle school is the place for me. As everyone was chatting and piling onto the bleachers, I couldn't stop smiling as I watched the young friendships, the abundant awkwardness, and the abandon with which the girls were singing along to the Justin Bieber song that was blaring through the loud speakers. People have often questioned my desire to purposefully teach this age group, but I'm in love and there is no place I would rather be.  

Sources:
Teachers Pay Teachers // teacherspayteachers.com
Nearpod // nearpod.com
Kahoot // getkahoot.com
Membean // membean.com
Touchcast // touchcast.com
Jon Pritikin // feelthepower.org

Grading

Graded my first stack of homework. Mrs. M agreed that it was a moment worth documenting :)

This is only a 6th of the assigments; Mrs. M did the rest. The grading took a long time, like ALL DAY. I was super slow at first, but was cruising by the end. The biggest thing I struggled with was assigning the grades- I tend to grade a lot more leniently than harshly and want to make sure I'm doing right by the students. Luckily, Mrs. M has a grading policy that is both fair and forgiving. Want a better grade? Do the assignment over again and show you've learned the material. Grades in her class truly are a reflection of what you know. Everyone said student teaching was going to be exhausting and the hardest thing I'll ever do... Still not sure what they're talking about! One week down, and I don't even care that it's the weekend. Can't wait to get back to work on Monday!

Meetings

Mrs. M and I only stayed on campus first the first half of the day. During those class periods, I realized how much I will be learning by observing how Mrs. M teaches. I would really love to emulate her in my own teaching style. She handles herself with poise, and demonstrates an admirable balance of love and discipline within her classroom. This is the kind of stuff they can't teach you in a text book!

Good news is, I also used this time to get to know the kids names- I thought that might come in handy!

After lunch, we left HMS for a district wide GT Professional Development Meeting. It was AMAZING. The district invited Lisa Van Gemert from The Mensa Education and Research Foundation to present ideas on how to enhance teaching for GT students. She had such positive energy and was full of great ideas for the classroom. Mensa is an organization for individuals with high IQs, and Mensa for Kids online provides children, parents, and teachers with reading suggestions, lesson plans, TED Connections (TED talks adapted for classroom use), activities, strategies for poetry memorization, educational games, and even Pinterest ideas for the classroom.

In addition to introducing us to all that Mensa has to offer for our students, Lisa also shared a lot of her own tried and tested ideas, as well as additional websites that can be used to enhance lesson plans. A few of my favorites are listed below:

• Slideshare // a website that allows you to upload and share your Powerpoint presentations online.
• Morguefile // a free online photo archive
• Infor.am // online infographic production
• Picmonkey, Photofunia, Big Huge Labs // image editing and manipulation online
• Bitly // a website that allows you to shorten and personalize and link in order to make them reproducible for students.
• Library of Congress Teacher Resources // online lesson plans tied to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) by grade level
• Flipsnack // a way to upload pdf files and make them into digital flip books

After school, I stayed late with Mrs. M and attended a newly formed Book Club with some of the other English teachers from the district. They were discussing The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller and Book Love Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers by Penny Kittle. Both books call for more reading in schools and presented various ways to encourage students to read for pleasure. I can tell this is a priority in this school district, and I will be interested to see how they implement these ideas. In the meantime, I've reserved The Book Whisperer at our local library :)

  

So lots of new information to sort through and overall a great day. Can't wait to go back tomorrow!  

Sources:
Mensa for Kids // mensaforkids.org
Mensa Pinterest // pinterest.com/brightkids
Slideshare // slideshare.net
Morguefile // morguefile.com
Infor.am // Infor.am
Picmonkey // picmonkey.com
Photofunia // photofunia.com
Big Huge Labs // bighugelabs.com
Bitly // bitly.com
Library of Congress Teacher Resources // loc.gov/teachers
Flipsnack // flipsnack.com

Allusion

Day 2 of student teaching is done and I still can't believe this is my life now! I have definitely found the right career for me. Mrs. M and I didn't have anything planned for me to do today, but after I'd seen her give a presentation on poetry for one class, she let me take the reins and teach the other classes later in the day. I introduced the students to several poetry conventions while they took notes on their ipads using Evernote. I quickly found that I need to be paying more attention to timing, that I really need to know my stuff before I get up in front of students, and that I need to do a lot less of the talking! I am used to being the student, so I find myself wanting to share my thoughts and ideas when I should be seeking to help these students cultivate their own.

My favorite part of the lesson had to do with teaching allusion. The students enjoyed my example of how the main character in the book Wonder references "the cheese touch," which is an allusion from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We discusses the following quote from A Christmas Carol as well:  

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail...  

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

This was a perfect example and led to the discovery that many phrases we use today were coined by Shakespeare and, in fact, allude to his great works. 

For the second half of class, Mrs. M introduced a new project the students will be working on in relation to what they are studying in Social Studies. This requires some additional explanation. These GT students are a part of a "Discovery" program. They take GT English and GT Social Studies, and their teachers from both classes work collaboratively to create projects that encompass both subjects. Their Social Studies teacher has them doing an assignment wherein they will be thoroughly researching a country in Africa. Using Smore, the students will work in groups to create an interactive flyer about their country's geography, travel, government, foreign policy, economy, social and ethnic groups, religion, language, country flag, traditional holidays/festivals, traditional clothing, food, history, and notable people. For English, the students will use this information to create a news program wherein they will be writing, recording, and presenting four different topics about their country in both hard news and soft news formats. The kids seem pretty excited about it, and I love the way they connect the different subjects!

Smore looks pretty cool. It's a website where you can make interactive flyers with links and pages for additional information. They are artfully created and easy to share online (and they're printable). I'm very interested to see how they're used within the classroom!

Mrs. M is also involved in a GCISD program called VALOR. Essentially, she is involved in a group of teachers who observe, critique, and assist one another. While she instructs her class, she has other teachers come into her classroom who identify where she is excelling and provide strategies that could improve her effectiveness. I sat in while she received some feedback, and I think this is a great program. This is a way that Mrs. M can make sure she is always learning, growing, and being the best teacher she can for her current students.

I am also getting ready to help Mrs. M start grading student work (!!!). I love her grading philosophy. She is trying out Standards Based Grading (SBG). Here is the gist:

• Grading policies reflect academic achievement ONLY (behaviors are not factored in)
• Formative assessment is used throughout to help teach and prepare students for summative assessments.
• New evidence of mastery of standards replaces old evidence (grades should reflect latest learning)
• Assessment is most effective if done with students rather than TO students
• Grades are extrinsic motivators and can destroy intrinsic motivation. Poor grades have NO motivational value
• Make sure students know from the beginning what they will be graded on
• GIVE FEEDBACK THROUGHOUT
• Students should always be given opportunities to make-up assignments. Zero's are not an option!

2 days down and I've already learned so much! And I'm excited to come back for more :)

Sources:

Smore // smore.com

Character

Today was my first day as a student teacher (!!!) and I am LOVING it! I am at HMS in a 6th grade GT classroom, and I am very impressed with my students. My coordinating teacher, Mrs. M, is the perfect match for me, and I couldn't be happier with my situation! Today, I taught the first half of each class. I introduced myself using a slideshow of pictures and my results from several quizzes showing what characters from The Hobbit, Harry Potter, and Hunger Games my personality most resembles. If I were a LOTR character, I would be a Hobbit. If I were in Harry Potter, I would be Dumbledore (?). Here are my Hunger Games results: 

 

I was pretty happy with my results :) I think they're pretty accurate... expect for Dumbledore. I am flattered, but I don't quite see the resemblance! After I finished introducing myself, I had the students take the Harry Potter quiz for themselves, an activity which they all really enjoyed. When they were finished, we shared different character profiles and talked about whether or not the students thought their results were accurate. To finish, I had the students use their student blogs to write about their quiz results. They included their character profiles on their posts and answered the following questions:

• Which character did you get as a result of the survey?
• Do you agree or disagree with the result? Be sure to explain why or why not. Give examples of how you are the same, or how you are different.
• What are the key character traits for the character that you most resembled?
• Name another character from a book that you've read who has opposite traits. Explain what a meeting between the two characters might be like.
• What is the difference between "Character" and "Character" (person in a novel/play vs. qualities distinct to an individual) as discussed in class? How do you define your own character?

The whole lesson plan went very well and I am amazed at how much I have learned already! I need to keep better track of time, I need to expect less validation, and I am simultaneously under- and overestimating these 6th graders. The best part of the lesson was the technology. Each student had access to a class set of ipads. To give them access to the quizzes, Mrs. M created a QR code, embedded it on my Powerpoint, and then the students scanned it from their ipads. SO COOL. Once the students had determined their character, I called on a handful of them to share their results by linking their iPad screen with the projector screen so the whole class could view and read along with them.

Then, the students used their personal edublogs to show their quiz results and respond to the prompts listed above. As an avid blogger, I am so in love! After I finished my lesson, Mrs. M had a class discussion based on a the weekly online class discussion through a website called Schoology that was due 1/17 (they just finished reading A Christmas Carol):

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) 

 1. Please paraphrase King's statement; what does he mean?
 2. Knowing Martin Luther King, Jr., why did he make this statement?  
3. How does King's statement fit, or not fit, with the topic of ignorance in A Christmas Carol? Make a comparison.  
4. Knowing what you know about MLK, Jr. and what you know about why Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, do you think the two men would have something in common to talk about? Explain.

Last of all, the students continued an introduction to poetry that they started last week. They took notes on their ipads using the Evernote App, which looks pretty amazing, although I don't know much about it yet! Can't wait to see what other Apps and gizmos this class uses to enhance education in the classroom.  

Sources:
Character Quizzes // zimbio.com
Student Blogs // edublogs.org
QR Code Generator // qrstuff.com
Schoology // schoology.com
Evernote // evernote.com