Making A Large Group Small

Yup! Another snow day.

I decided to give you a different view than the last snow day post so you didn't think I was just running out of material :)

And as you can see, it's not just a little snow. I absolutely love snow days, but even I'm not happy about this one. We build five days into our schedule and we've hit that mark. At this point it is going to be a looooong June. I've used the day off to the best of my ability. I have chicken masala in the crockpot and ground turkey enchiladas made for tomorrow night. The hub and I are watching the last two episodes of House of Cards. If you haven't seen it you MUST. Now, as you can tell, I am a big political nerd so this is right up my alley. Netflix recently dropped all 156 episodes of West Wing and I've been watching them again. Again.......political nerd.

In my last post, I told you about my big foreign affairs unit, which I will probably delve into over multiple posts. At the launch, the History Alive! materials have you begin with a map activity where the kids get to see and understand that although America had its "freedom" we were completely surrounded by European colonies and they didn't like us all that much. I have gotten to the point, in my career, where I am really getting tired of whole group instruction. This generation is not built for this type of teaching. They are used to individualized consumption of information and when I get up in front of them with blanket statements it is becoming harder for them to interact. I have been experimenting with different forms of small group instruction, like my Leveling Up activity the kids adored. After my mad snow day on The Learning Channel, I watched this video.

I know... It's the same teacher from the Text Talk video. Either she is really great teacher or they just caught her on a great day! After watching this, though, I really started to wonder, why CAN'T I teach small groups? What is really stopping me? Obviously, logistics are stopping me. I do have a paraprofessional in every class but they are assigned to individual students. I love my ladies, but I can't always rely that they can be with me since they are servicing one particular student. I decided I needed to push past the logistics and just give it a try.

I had a day where the kiddos had to take a vocabulary quiz, take a binder check and then I wanted to finish discussing the European claims map. Boring, but the stuff that just needs to get done sometimes. After lunch I have a class that tends to struggle with both academics and attention and I was dreading trying to get all this done with those kiddos. The video popped into my head and instead of eating lunch (which my colleague totally picked on me for) I decided to break my room into two areas of small group instruction. I called one area the Assessment Station. Here they were to independently take the vocabulary quiz and the binder check and then correct them by themselves.

Obviously I used the good construction paper:)

In each plastic cover was a answer key and a marker for grading.

I got the ideas for the answer keys from this blog post I saw on Pinterest. It really allows students to finish their assessments without feeling rushed and allows other kids to continue ahead without wasting time.

The other side of the class I called the Learning Station.

As the sign reads, students could work collaboratively to finish up the questions and then I was able to work with them on understanding the major point of the entire activity. In each case, almost every student got involved in the discussion.

I really enjoyed this experiment and will try it again soon. Most of the kids didn't know what to make of it! It was so different than what they had experienced (except my kids in Read 180.... They got it.). I could tell that some of my kids really missed the anonymity of whole group instruction and resented the fact that they were being called to task..... Good!!! I had many kids, though, tell me they loved it and couldn't wait to try it again. They really enjoyed the more focused approach and the conversation they were able to have as opposed to the lecture they had to listen to. Sometimes, sprinting through lunch and taking a risk pays off......

Do any of you out there have any other suggestions on how to make middle school classes seem smaller and more intimate?

 

Posted with Blogsy

Text Talk and Nonfiction Summary

For those of you keeping count, I'm on the eve of yet another snow day. The Weather Channel is predicting 8 to 12 inches and the number keeps climbing. Don't forget..... spring is on Wednesday!!!!
Last week I had one of those weeks where I'm just so happy I am a teacher. I launched one of my favorite units on the foreign affairs of America under the first five presidents and again, the kids loved it. To better align myself to state standards, last year I started organizing my curriculum thematically as opposed to chronologically and it has really freed me up to accomplish the things kids really need to be successful. To help me organize myself, I first started to to use the History Alive! Series from TCI. I had the old resources from a teachers pack ( they actually don't offer the plans I use in the newest textbook and resources) and they do a great job of organizing these problems by giving students the information and then asking what they would do if the were the president. The unit focuses on Adams and the XYZ Affair, Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, Madison and the War of 1812 and Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine. The activites have the kiddos working in groups to negotiate to make a decision much like the presidents. I would totally share the unit with everyone but I use the History Alive! Reading so that would probably be not so legal. This is my second year doing this unit and I have totally gutted it and reworked it to really make it my own. One of the things I need to do, to make the unit run smoothly, is to have students do the background reading at home. I assign the reading daily and have them do a "quick text map" (i.e. circle the names, highlight the vocabulary and box places). I was really trying to think of the best way to have kids come in the next class and summarize what they have read. If you have taught middle school for any length of time, you know that means that one great and ambitious kids summarizes while twenty five kids space out. My last snow day journeys on the Teaching Channel led me to this.


I loooooved the idea of "Text Talk" and knew that I had to modify it for my age group and as a first time activity at an age where they already feel self conscious. I would have loved for them to sit on the floor because I really do think that the desks sometimes create a wall, but my floors are dirty and my kiddos are too cool for school.
I came up with the "Non Negotiables". I went through the text and found the keywords.

I explained the idea of a "Non Negotiable" with the kids and I explained that in order to summarize the sections they had been working on, the HAD to use these words or the summary was incomplete. These were the Non Negotiables. I would show them the words and then put one minute on the timer. Each group was to discuss the summary with the non negotiables. I then took volunteers to give an oral summary. The volunteer received bonus tickets (the currency I use in my class to bribe children) And their groups also received bonus because they were integral to the process.
This was a success! I heard amazing conversations from my kids on how to find the connections between these lists of singular words. I saw a lot of kids use various annotation techniques to mark up their reading for these words. I will definitely add this as part of my repertoire and I am really excited because it is the perfect lead in to an activity called "Keep It or Junk It".

I had planned on using this activity in my class as soon as it made sense and unwittingly I had created the perfect tie in with the non negotiables. My next step will be to have them create the non negotiables and use the Keep It or Junk It activity to come up with the best list of words.
Do you have any great reading techniques for middle schoolers?

Posted with Blogsy

Edcanvas, PD and the Common Core

First off, I need to send a shout out to the snow gods because I got my snow day.  It was a day later than expected, but I got it and it was major.  We got about a foot of snow.

 It was actually pretty productive as well.  I played with the kiddos, corrected some projects, did some planning, made pizza with the midgets and then in kicked the ADD, but it was a good kick.
Myself and a team of my colleagues attended a Common Core workshop the other day that was supposed to help the non math and ELA teacher navigate how and when to incorporate the CCSS in their classrooms. The workshop was .........eeeehhhhh.  I've been really studying the CCSS for a couple years now and she really didn't teach me anything I didn't know.  I'm not saying that from a place of I know a lot, either.  Everyone at the table felt the same way.  On top of teaching three fabulous 8th grade social studies classes, I am also the department chair for social studies at the middle school and I'm really try to bring the CCSS to my department with ease to initiate understanding.  It is not easy because there doesn't seem to be any real answers out there. In my internet travels, I'm finding that social studies teachers are struggling on what their new role really is.  I don't have any amazing and fabulous answers for my department, yet, but I decided to give them more resources.  I got my weekly email from the fabulous people at the Teaching Channel and my mind started to spin.  Our district is looking for people to propose ideas for outside of school hours professional development.  I decided I wanted to make a PD video list that lasted about one hour and focused solely on the Common Core State Standards and social studies.  I was going to do it on Google Drive but decided to use a new tool I had signed up for instead.  In walks Edcanvas!  Edcanvas allows you to curate connected content, videos, images, websites, Google Documents, etc.and place them onto one page for easy access.  One of the best things about Edcanvas is you can create a class and monitor who is logging in to work and how long they are spending on each activity.  I decided to give it a roll:

I organized everything and added minutes onto the lengths of videos so people could plan and spread out their viewing.  I emailed this to my Assistant Superintendent and she gave me a thumbs up and told me she can't wait to watch the videos.  For the teachers to get their PD hours, I'm creating a learning log on Google Drive and I have set up a class called Professional Development so they can chart their activity.
This is what it looks like for the teacher:

So far, I'm loving Edcanvas!!!  Here is what mine looks like:

 And here is access (you can embed it in a website):


Click here to access the canvas if you are having difficulty viewing it above.

If you are a social studies teacher, or simply a middle school teacher, feel free to browse my canvas above.  I found some great videos on activities and ideas that are pretty amazing. I'm already making a new canvas.....Professional Development Part II: Return of the Common Core!   If you have any great resources, share as well.

Text Mapping Again and Still Loving It!

So, I am throwing caution to the wind and blogging even though I really have tons of other things to do. I'm in a mood because I get to go to a workshop tomorrow on Common Core for the "other" subjects. I'm really excited to see what they offer in the way of suggestions on how us non core subjects can help support the standards. Also, there is a possibility for a big snow storm here in New England so I have snow brain.
I know I have already been working hard to integrate the CCSS and one of my favorite new things is Text Mapping! (Click to see some great resources that some fabulous Pinners have gathered) I recently implemented it for my second and third time and the honeymoon is not over. The kids still love it and I have found different ways to change it up to keep it fresh.

The above is the work of my amazing paraprofessional. Look how great she is at text mapping!!!!

I did this activity with a section of my textbook, which I don't use. After I have the students do all the work of mapping for nonfiction elements, I finish it with a multiple choice or matching worksheet. Students answer the worksheet as normal, but they have to go back to the reading and highlight where they found the answer and number it, using the number of the question from the worksheet. Every time I have done this, I have seen increased understanding of the text and it makes the kids really slow down and dissect the information.
My next step was integrating this activity into articles to help with text complexity. I found a great article on the Battle of Fallen Timbers and created a guiding activity to help them break down the article on their own.

On the above sheet, when it says box over and over, my kiddos know to use a different color marker for the boxes and then they make a key right on this sheet.

Again.... Very successful! It's one of those activities where the kids know they're doing work but they actually enjoy it. Feel free to hustle on over here and download a copy of my nonfiction worksheet. You can download it as a PDF, a Word Document or straight to Google Drive so you can tailor it to meet your needs, age group and subject.    Click here if you would just like a PDF copy:)I have borrowed from sources all over the web to make it so let's keep the sharing going people! If you do download it, leave me a comment below and let me know what you think. Pray for snow my friends...... Pray for snow:)

Posted with Blogsy

Currently March

Vacation was fabulous and I certainly didn't do half of the stuff that I needs to be completed.  Life is good though, because progress reports got moved up a week and that gives me even more time to procrastinate.  I have two blog posts I want to do on Text Mapping and notebook foldables but those are going to have to week till this weekend.  For now, I was able to sneak in five minutes to do my March Currently.  If you want  to know more about it, mosey on over to Oh' Boy Fourth Grade and see what the fabulous Farley is doing?