Interactive Game

Hello Everyone!
I am sharing with you today a lesson that includes a interactive game made on this amazing website called “Kahoot”.  The lesson is trying to fulfill the needs of a first grade level California Standards. “ CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.5

Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types.”

To start the students will recall what they remember of the Three little pigs story. Who are the characters, what do they do, who tells the story, what is the environment like.  

Students will read the story again and define if the details they remember are the correct ones.

Questions will be produced by them. An informational worksheet with matching phrases will be administered.

The “True story of the three little pigs”  will be introduced, and after listening the information will again be brought up questions they will produce like who are the characters, what are they doing, who tells the story, where does it take place. A worksheet with specific information will be filled out about the story.

A video of both stories will be shown, allowing the students to remember and learn even more details about both stories.

The interactive game starts then, the classroom will split up in teams allowing them to answer the questions with the information they have just gathered.

After that the students will select a topic of information about the story (Characters, setting, problem, place, story). They will start creating a presentation in any form they want, a song, a poem, a representation, a presentation etc.  Comparing both stories in the specific area they selected.

Sometime will be given for students to select their answers and work on their products. A draft will be assessed along with the participation of the members of the team.

Before presenting their final products, they will play again individually this time, the questions will be mixed up and the understanding will be shown.

The direct link to the game is:

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/6791c5b2-1a82-43de-b2a9-f1b841cb11c9

Teach for transfer. Madeline Hunter

Hello there!
Today I am about to share a bit about a really interesting book "Teach for Transfer" By Madeline Hunter and hope it spikes you with interest and more.

Hunter(1971) Teach for Transfer. Theory into Practice. Tip Publications. El Segundo,CA. 93pp.

Author:

Madeline Hunter (1916-1994)was a Principal, University Elementary School Lecturer and Professor of Educational Administration and Teacher Education. She created the Instructional Theory into Practice teaching model which was widely used by instructors during 1970s and 1980s. She is the author of twelve books and hundreds of articles about education. Her teaching methods helped to transform classrooms into learning environments and the students knowledge grew faster and stronger. For this book, she spent two years extracting from psychological research the principles of transfer which seemed useful and critical to daily teaching.

Comments on the back cover:

This book is the final book of a series the Author wrote to help teachers understand the theories applied to the classroom directly.

Teaching for transfer should be the end goal of all teaching as it starts with the same reasoning, the ability to transfer previous learning to a new situation is the start of creativity, problem solving and critical thinking.Once the teacher has identified an appropriate educational destination for the student,the knowledge he has over the theories will be the answer as to what route to take to be effective, and efficient.

Highlights:

The author believed that the a huge part of the  job of teachers was decision making, and that each educator makes many decisions each day. All of the decisions a teacher makes could be distributed in  what you are going to teach; what you as the teacher will do to improve and effectively provide that learning; and  when the students learn,  how they will let you know that they've learned it.

In teaching for transfer, Hunter specifies that a past situation or learning can and should be linked to the present one as it encourages the knowledge. It means applying what one has learned in a particular situation to another in a different context.

“If we wish to encourage transfer from association of feelings of the past with the present situation, we should make pairing of the two learnings explicit for the learner.”(p.45)

She shows how learning is increased by repetition, learning new things lays down neural pathways so every time a skill is practiced the knowledge is strengthened. Therefore, if something is learned incorrectly the learner has to change what was wrong or wrongly done by relearning the material or skill correctly.

“Adequate learning usually is not accomplished in one exposure so we may need to return to a concept many times and see it in many differing situations before it is well enough understood to transfer to other situations where it is appropriate.”(p.2)

The book is filled with information and then quick quizzes and questions to make sure the reader is understanding the information. It helps to fully analyze and comprehend the theories and match them appropriately to the classroom moments.

Project based learning

Hello there!
How is your week going? I hope is great!
This week I have to present an idea to improve the creativity of the class with a project based learning plan.

When working with a Kindergarten group. I can think of exposing their thoughts and creativity with a community involvement to then show their parents. The students will be challenged to study, evaluate, discuss and show their simple knowledge of a community member that might have helped them or one that they might want to become in the future.

The learner will know that community members are people in our society that we see each day in our daily lives.  They might be a part of our family, a neighbor, someone who helps us in an emergency or simply connects with us through something as routine as our mail or trash.  The learner will understand that there are many community member careers that they also can try one day.

Starting with brainstorm to notice all the possible community members they could take note of, then labeling and understanding their careers. Reading more about them and writing a few small sentences on their information would come next, since they are small children parents would be of a lot of help. The children will explore their talents and motivations when approaching the member and understanding the way they want to express what they have learned. They will be provided of material and help in an effort for them to push their curiosity and talents so they are able to express in their own way.

At the end the students will use their creativity to present the community member or job they liked the most.

This type of activities, help students collaborate, think critically and communicate. They can go and ask community members, investigate and learn more about them. Then there are many things they could do to embrace their creativity and present their findings, from dressing up to building something or doing a representation. It would be very motivating and empowering for them to push their knowledge and have the liberty to present in the way they find fits best. There would be some boundaries and vocabulary they have to use so the activity continues to fit with the standards, but still their feelings and thoughts would be able to go through.

Confident of your 21st Century Skills

Technology has become an integral part of our life, everywhere we are, everywhere we see there is always a way a tool has helped or improved.The internet, blogs and smart phones are some examples of tools that we use to grow in our knowledge and understanding.

Using technology like this in the classroom needs more than knowing how to use the tool therefore as teachers we need to understand the importance of everything that could be done with technology in the learning process, and the ideas behind integrating it in a way that concentrates on learning without being a distraction.

Other than what is mentioned before, the Four Cs as in critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity are also a main part of the 21st century needed skills. They intents far more than technology skills put to use in the classroom. This is real world learning that will equip children with the skills to survive in the 21st century in jobs or careers, allowing them to have the power and opportunity to succeed in the future.

300 × 199 - teach.com

Using technology in the classroom is not a simple task, is crucial to understand the various skills that students need to develop in order to use technology in the most effective way. Sometimes it might feel like too much or a bit scary, but in order to become successful teachers we must guide students through the way and keep up with the improvements that are being discovered all over the world.

Students can be exposed to visuals and audio instead of concepts on printed pages. At the same time, they are gradually expected to express their understanding using tech resources in addition to plain text, meaning that multimedia applications are increasingly a part of all classrooms. As teachers we must find ways to incorporate technology into everyday activities, and help students explore and master new ways to communicate what they are learning.

To accomplish all of the mentioned before, we must be capable learners in order to acquire and improve the abilities we need and be able to pass them on to our students. I strongly believe a person must never stop learning, as there are opportunities to learn at every place and moment. I am capable of learning from situations, places, books, coworkers and students, it is just part of staying open and receptive of everything what is going on around and not be afraid to try.

21st Century

The phrase “21st century” is everywhere you see, you can google it and get a thousands results like 21st century skills, 21st century learners and teachers, 21st century education, and more you can see it in all of the major social media pages and several applications suggest they can help you improve it. The question then stands, What is it? Am I a part of it?
The 21st century skills suggest that we should acquire and apply core knowledge and critical-thinking skill into everyday tasks, demonstrate creativity, innovation, and flexibility make decisions and solve problems ethically and collaboratively use technology to gather and analyze information exhibit positive interpersonal relationships and display leadership skills that inspire others to achieve, serve, and work together.
It is important to consider that the 21st century also includes being aware of the digital literacy, which means being knowledgeable in the use of smartphones, tablets, computers, PCs or any other digital device seen as part of the network other that alone.

As a part of everything I must achieve I need the two following questions:

How do you describe yourself as a learner in the 21st Century?

As a learner in my profession the one and most important thing to mention and remember is than a person must never stop learning. Everyone can learn many things every day, at school, at work, at home or any other place, by living simple experiences every day and knowing if we should repeat them or not. As a teacher I know there are different developments in several educative areas every day and I must be ready and eager to keep learning, motivated and in constant improvement of myself so I am able to share and introduce my students to the challenges and competences they need to accomplish.

How do you describe yourself as a teacher in the 21st Century?

As a teacher of the 21st century I consider myself capable of developing lesson plans with personalized objectives and tasks for different learning types. There is no “one size fits all” so is important to create different moments where students can create their own permanent knowledge. To do this, is always important to keep up with the technology and the digital literacy must grow with the group’s objectives; the resources are important and technology always finds the way to keep interested and motivated to the students.

As mentioned before there are different several tasks students must obtain in order to continue and achieve success, they include critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication or the 4C’s for short, I know I must include them every day through the progress of the classroom for their own development.

The 21st Century is now. Almost every day new technologies are being developed and skills need to be improved to keep up with this new world.

Differentiated Plan

Hey there!
So, the month is almost over and we need to take a moment to recap an put together the information learned along the month. In order to do this I will set an activity according to the California Standards including what I understand are differentiated activities.

For a group of first grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.7

Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

To start with I always include a though task that mentions or involves previous knowledge, so the children prepare themselves for the activity and know what to expect. This time since my lesson revolves around Identifying characters in a story and how to describe them I would start with questioning about the word “Character” in a group Participation and Collaboration.This would recover previous knowledge and define the path the activity is about to take.

To follow through and keep motivating the students as well as introducing them to the topic, thus why listening to a story commonly remembered or used(liked) by the group would be the best way to keep the activity going,the story already familiar to them is easy to relate to the information they have to acquire.

For the activity development it is important to start with the mini-lesson using the strategy Think-Pair- Share to set a conversation and participation about what a Character is.

The objective must be set , “Identify the characters in a story” so the task follows the same required path.

Next would be instructed to talk about the characters of the story read before, How are they? What makes them special? What qualities, abilities, “adjectives” can you find for them? How to know they are the characters?

With every group, no matter the age it is important to have visuals around mentioning the progress of the class, some starting questions or the results of the conversation could be written on the board to keep track and continue motivating into the progress of the task.

Individually, they would have to select and describe one of the characters of the story using their knowledge and what aportations they found in the previous collaborations.To help different types of learners and timings the instructor could add specific questionings to answer and with them is understadable the level each student has at that point of the activity.

Different learner question:

1. Why is _____a character in the story?
2. How do you know he/she is? (prove it, describe it)

EL learners

For this learners, I would add the use of dictionaries to look for the words they need at the describing part and different picture cards where the setting of the story could be followed easily.

Special Ed learners
I would have them cooperating in different groups and depending on their needs and the resources available add the story in a video, picture cards or cut and paste work for comprehensive activities.

Assessment plan

As assessment I like to consider many different moments, adding informal ones as observation, the participation, the collaboration opportunities and the products they manage at each stage. Formal ones would include, rubrics to check individual and group work, and the products they add at the end of the lesson as understanding of the objective and tasks.

There are many different ways to include differentiation activities without going too far from the origin and this help the students to go beyond and try their limits for more objectives letting the motivation and interest keep with their objectives.

Group Work

Group patterns to teach writing

Group work can be an effective method to motivate students, encourage active learning, and develop key critical-thinking, communication, and decision-making skills, but it needs careful thinking and planification for it to be effective and fully instructional.

There are many different ways to establish group work, I will mention Two specific group kinds and some other made ups involving Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Heterogeneous grouping:

This kind of group involves students of a very wide range of instructional levels, interests, motivations or abilities. By working together they have the opportunity of exploring their own abilities and understanding the ones of their peers when helping each other through the process of reaching their goals.

Homogeneous grouping

Contrary to the previous groping, this strategy involves setting to work together students with the very same or similar instructional levels, interests or abilities. Within this group different materials can be set for specific topics or abilities, giving the opportunity of grow their own abilities and go beyond the simpler goals.

Garner’s Group Configuration
All this information might seem too complicated or too much to handle around for a group, but this group strategies and more could be set in the same lesson with just a little bit of thought.

Let's pretend we are planning a animals distribution activity, where the students have to know several different animals of different species and how to situate them in their specific habitats.

1. Whole class discussion (Heterogeneous)

With this we include at least intrapersonal, interpersonal, verbal and visual intelligences when the activity works its way to produce at least a small participation form each student. This could happen in oral or written form, and it would produce the global information for the project. It facilitates learning because it allows for everyone to express their previous knowledge plus the understanding they have for the initial information.

2. Small group presentation, where each group has a different habitat to work with. (Homogeneous)

It could be Musical, Verbal, Visual, Kinesthetic or actually any or the intelligences, as in this time we set up the students in small groups with alike intelligences and let them investigate and learn more about a specific group or animal of their choice.

It facilitates learning because as their interest and ability is alike they can work and explore more of their election.

3.  Partner up, set them together. (Heterogeneous)

This time Kinesthetic and Visual intelligences mostly express themselves as for the final product they will set the animals and habitats accordingly with the help of a partner.

By working in groups students are able to get along with others, see another's point of view, and managing one's own emotions help students stay on task and maintain positive peer relationships to achieve group goals. It also turns out that children who have these capabilities are better at paying attention, taking in information, and remembering what they read and hear. 

Rubrics

Hello There!
How is your week going? We are a few weeks away from the summer and I am very happy about it.

For today’s post I am here to “talk” a little bit about Rubrics, they are a great resource for teachers to understand deeply the understanding and progress their students are having on certain activity or topic as they set expectations from the beginning leading them to stronger results.
I did a Rubric trying to include check marks for different types of learners, because I mentioned before I like to plan my activities with at least and task for each type of learner. 

Having said that, if my activity is involving K-1st grade math and the lesson revolves around placing values in their correct places my introduction would include a fun video with a song of numbers to refresh their memories, then a brainstorm of things or places where we could find amounts of. Then a mini lesson explaining how numbers from 0-9 are placed then when the 10 comes the place changes. After that I would have a hands- on activity where they could manipulate and place correctly along with the problem solving task. Then some collaboration time with small teams, individual group and some whole group exposure to the topic, allowing time to process all of what they practiced in their process.

Thus why I can present my rubric which has some specific aspects where the whole lesson plan could be evaluated. 

 

This example of a rubric could easily be adapted and used for different Lessons. I like to have specific aspects and values of what I am evaluating to actually focus on the process my students are experiencing and be able to step in and help them through the activity when is needed or re take the subject and try a different way for them to understand.

A special thanks to RubiStar for making he whole rubric making process easy and fun to understand.