Loving to go Beyond the Bubble

Originally posted on Weebly 12/14/2012
So I have made a major push in the last half decade to integrate primary sources into my class. It is NOT easy and I find one of the hardest things is to create the darned things. I am not a prepackaged textbook kinda gal but when it come to DBQs and primary sources I would much rather spend the time helping my kids dissect them than to spend the time making them . In walks Beyond The Bubble.





Stanford has done an amazing job at working with the National Archives and creating ready made, Common Core aligned primary source material and activities. Their major push is providing small assignments that are extremely easy to execute and focus one one piece of the CCSS (Sourcing, Corroboration, Contextualizing, Close Reading).



Over a couple of days I kind of pounded the kids with basically the same question with just different visuals for three days to really make the point of sourcing. One of the best things about the resource is they provide exemplars for comparison.



I think my kiddos made a valiant first attempt at this process.



Just to commend them again, Stanford University is doing an amazing job of creating programming to immerse our students in the wonderful world of primary sources. I recently tried their program, Reading Like A Historian, and it is outstanding!. It offers students multiple sources on a topic and scaffold the questioning experience try bring students to a higher understanding that there are many sides to a story. It's going to be fun embarking on this primary source, CCSS journey!

Because I love me some Bloom's

Originally posted 11/27/2012 on Weebly



I ordered this wall set from Teachers Pay Teachers http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Revised-Blooms-Taxonomy-Posters-for-Higher-Level-Thinking#tab_ratings_feedback and I am a little taken back at how much the kiddos love them. The posters put each level of the taxonomy in student friendly terms and used the visual representation of bars on a cellphone to explain their higher order thinking. 
I put the posters up with black construction paper for the bars right before parent teacher conferences (you know..... To seem all smart and stuff). I had planned on explaining them in a couple of days when it tied in with a lesson, but my favorite class noticed right away and wanted me to explain it to them. All my classes totally understood the concept and really seemed to get jazzed about it. Since then, every new lesson is accompanied by a kid asking, "Hey, how many bars are we using?" I know it won't last but it sure feels good while it does.

Presidential Smartphone

Originally posted 11/18/2012 on Weebly

So I was all excited to culminate my project in a really creative way that engage students and synthesizd the information. After spending days rolling it around in my head and creating it, I was all ready to launch it in the class until I noticed something. They were learning... like really learning .... and they were really engaged. They were playing iCivics and they understood fundraising and the Electoral College... Like better than any adult American I've met in a long time. After talking to some of my fabulous and colleagues and my my lifelong PLC (my hubby). I decided to get rid of the project because time was limited and I would rather not rush and give the extra time to game play.... Yeah! Game Play!!!
I'm going to use the template later(maybe with George Washington or Alexander Hamilton) but I still thought I would share it. The idea was that the students were to synthesize their knowledge of various aspects of the election process and various vocabulary terms by creating and explaining the contents of a Presidential candidate's smartphone. 

They had to include three text messaging conversations.



They had to enter five events/reminders into the candidate's iCalendar.



They had to tell me five apps a candidate woul have on their phone and why? They could use existing apps as long as they told me why it would be useful to a candidate. They had to create one app on their own, from scratch.



For extension, they had to tell me five songs the candidate would have on their playlist and explain their significance.






To do all this the kids would use their Google Docs accounts and add text boxes over my existing templates.
I'm sorry I wasn't able to implement this at the time but I do think I made the right choice. I can't wait till I can use it! Here is the link to the Google presentation the kids would use as a template. Give me a shout out if you use it!

Or check it out here, for FREE, on Teachers Pay Teachers!!!

Can we have another election? Please?

Originally posted 11/7/2012 on Weebly

In all honesty, much like that girl in Youtube whose parents listen to too much NPR

 I'm done with the election too. I'm also very happy my baby midget is too young to understand because she listens to about10 hours of NPR a week. This is the drawback of having parents who are nerds. The perk? We will have the capacity to understand and criticize your homework.

In all honesty, I had an absolutely fabulous election unit. We went totally digital for four days and the kids ate up the electoral college and spit it out. We started with three election BrainPops on the election and the kiddos had to take the quizzes that went along with them. I got to try out our new Google/Brainpop sign in which allowed the students to download their quiz scores to a spreadsheet for me. One word....amazing. Thanks to my buddies at Brainpop for letting me know about this feature because I have won some love from my colleagues for this one. It's great because it downloads it all to the same spreadsheet all year; it just opens a new tab for each new quiz.....genius.
When the kiddos were done with their quizzes they got to go to my second favorite resource on the web. ICivics was launched in collaboration with Sandra Day O'Connor over two years ago and I try to find every which way to integrate it into my curriculum. It is true gaming in the classroom that leads to understanding, immersion and engagement. The kids played "Win the White House" and I will never again have to waste time trying to explain the Electoral College.

The game has the kids experience the primaries, picking a running mate and picking pet causes all before they hit the trail. Once they start they have to fundraise in order to poll states, make appearances and make commercials. I knew they were going to enjoy it but they looooooved it! About 25% of the kids told me they were going home and playing after school. They totally understood the 270 rule and how you had to strategically win states to win the election. My favorite thing I overheard a kid saying to another kid was,"Man, I did not know how much money it actually takes to be President." Weeks later my most basic of reader can easily tell me the president needs 270 votes to win and was able to take part today in some critical analysis of the current electoral college map.
Once they were done with the game they had two final videos to watch on Youtube about why we vote on Tuesday. Although I had created this totally fun and interactive activity for them to complete at the end of the unit, I just didn't want to stop them from playing iCivics so I dropped the project and had the kids complete a learning log for each activity.

 

I had really wanted to spiral this up to a higher level of Bloom's but they were so captivated by the game and learning and retaining more than I think I could have accomplished on my own, I just didn't want to stop that train.

Gaming in the classroom.... Definitely a new passion.

Edtech Nirvana

Originally posted 11/7/2012 on Weebly

So I had wanted to do a post on my classroom success with textmapping (thank you gods of Pinterest!) but before that happened I was contacted by Brainpop! I was one of the early teachers to use their Mixer quiz maker and they wanted to mention me in their blog. Being ever the overachiever I responded, "Of course... But let me be a total geek and explain how it was used as a culminating activity and while I'm at it let me tell you how I aligned the lesson to the Common Core Standards."
Well, much like I was surprised when hubby wanted a second date, Brainpop emailed back and asked me to detail the whole kit and caboodle as a Guest Blogger. Guest Pinner, Guest Blogger.... I am the dorkiest Guest at the party. The last post is what is going to be going live on the Brainop Educators blog on Wednesday. 

When it comes to textmapping, my kiddos loooooooved it! The really enjoyed being able to box and circle in color and my students with organizational and reading difficulties really enjoyed the sense of success as they accomplished the pre reading activities. Click here!


I incorporated the old multiple choice worksheet from the reading (although I do think the multiple choice questions were a little thought provoking). Students not only had to answer the questions but they had to highlight the information in the text to support their answer. I've never had better grades on that activity. Thank you CCSS:)
I will definitely be doing the textmapping again (I think to launch my intro lesson for the Stock Market Game).