Project for President's Day

This is an explanation of the project my class will be doing for the National Holiday of President's Day.

https://voicethread.com/share/5420655/

Section T2a Exploration - Expressing my understanding of Marzano's COOPERATIVE LEARNING

For my class assignment, I am writing about Marzano’s teaching strategies and how they impact student achievement. Though all nine are effective strategies, I am going to focus on COOPERATIVE LEARNING.

The goal to Marzano’s belief is to get the student from “Getting the right answer” to deeper understanding. In order for a student to learn the information, it must be relevant, useful, and meaningful.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING is one of the most powerful strategies for teachers. Students learn through social interaction by talking, so processing can lead to deeper understandings. Since students will not work in isolation when they enter the working world, students shouldn’t work in isolation in the classroom.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING is not used by every teacher for fear of classroom management and control. Here are some best practices for COOPERATIVE LEARNING:

1) Keep group sizes small – preferably no more than five per group

2) Use groups consistently and systematically – students respond in situations that are well organized and happen on a regular basis

 3) Teach the structures and processes students will follow when working in groups – teach and practice transitions, use clear directions, and explain expected behavior needed by teaching and modeling

 4) Organize groups around a well-structured task – specific rules and understanding need to be used

Technology is a helpful tool for COOPERATIVE LEARNING. For students, Google docs and wikis can be used by multiple people to collaborate on a single project. For teachers, Google forms or blogs can be used to keep track of student’s roles and contributions.

10 Top Classroom Procedures and Routines

Using Twitter for Class

What did you learn from Twitter?

I realized how far behind I am in the tech world. I needed a jump start and I got one. Twitter is a great way to get connected. Having been out of the business teaching area for the last two years, the business ed chat was awesome, made me feel right at home. Finding articles and free downloads from people off of twitter has helped.

Who was the most interesting person or persons that you followed?

I followed Richard Bryne. He has many articles and videos about technology. I watched a video on "Lucidpress" which is a program similar to Google documents.

I followed BrainPop. Our school has a license to use the online program. It has giving me new ideas.

I followed Edudemic. This site has great articles on teaching. I read an article "4 Powerful Sites That Will Improve Your Teaching" which has resources for teachers. 1) Share My Lesson, 2) We Are Teachers, 3) Teacher Pay Teacher, and 4) Better Lessons.

Do you think you'll continue to use Twitter?

I would like to have a phone with access to Twitter. Making time for twitter will be hard to find but once I'm on it, it will be additive. If I had it on my phone, I could use it during downtime while waiting in line or when I have spare time to pass. I will probably use it more professionally than personally.

Favorite Podcasts

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hd-lesson-2-salsa-in-high/id575195416?i=123690269&mt=2 I like to learn more about dancing.

Free Tech for Teachers

This blog is amazing. I am in awe of what is out there. I have been out of the loop on technology too long. I went looking through the video creation resources and found a power point "Video Creation in the Classroom" that describes different areas of a video such as short videos, long videos, sound, etc. Most of the items we worked on in this class are in the power point plus others which tells me there is so much more to look for. I would like to use some of these in my classroom. Projects for a computer application class would be so much fun.

I could to make a blog for posting completed projects for all to see. It would be fun. Great some great feedback on projects from people other than the teacher.

Screencast for Linking Text Boxes in Microsoft Word