Patriot Pride
Monthly Media & Tech Newsletter October 2016
M-Powerment Strategy for October
M-2 - High Expectations
We have completed M-Class, Dibbles, and all of our other beginning of the year assessments - Way To Go - Now it's time to grow our students! You have goals for each child in your class, have you considered sharing these goals with your children? We all tend to work harder if we have a goal and a deadline, maybe your students will too. Children love to chart their physical growth; growing up we've all marked our heights and dated the marks. Try having your students track their math and reading progress in a similar way. Want your children to graph it themselves? Have Brenda help you with a cool math lesson on graphing and let her come help the students make their graphs!
Okay so what about the R word -RIGOR? That's a buzz word we keep hearing in education lately. If you are like me it just makes you weary - How can I make things harder, my kids can hardly do what I want them to do as it is! Don't worry, rigor does not mean make it harder, or longer, whew!
According to Brian Sztabnik's Edutopia article, A New Definition of Rigor,
"Rigor is the result of work that challenges students' thinking in new and interesting ways. It occurs when they are encouraged toward a sophisticated understanding of fundamental ideas and are driven by curiosity to discover what they don't know."
Feel better now, I did! So we need to find ways of making our lessons interesting and engaging enough to students to want to pursue the topic on their own... okay HOW? You do it all the time, and I know this because when your kids come in to the library they tell me you have been talking about XYZ, and they want a book about it! You have sparked their interest and they are now THINKING and want to know more. This often happens to me accidentally; you know that teachable moment when they get really into something and they want to keep talking about whatever you mentioned. Don't lose them; direct that energy and guide them to the correct resources and give them ten minutes to find out all they can, a few more to share, and then hit them with the big idea they need to remember. Then - here's the part we always forget - write down what made them so excited so you will remember it next time, and share it with your team! Don't have time right then, not sure where to find the answers to their questions, promise to revisit those questions, and reach out to us! We are here to help. We can plan a lesson at a time that works for you, and help your children explore and dig deeper. You all have many great ways of giving kids just enough to make them want more of what you're trying to sell! Once you've piqued their curiosity and they start asking questions, run with it - let them discover more than you had planned - that's rigor!
Shake It Up Baby!
Today’s students are never far from a set of earbuds. Discovery Education has
hundreds of songs for every subject area and a variety of grade levels. The
Discovery Education songs can help you reach learners through song,
movement, and repetition. This provides students with a strong grasp of
concepts, while especially reaching the kinesthetic, linguistic, and musical
learners in your instructional program. For step by step instructions from Discovery Ed. click here.
Tips & Tricks of the Month!
Here is all you need to do:
Go below the video and click on the share arrow (DO NOT COPY FROM THE ADDRESS BAR) and send Brenda the link. She can white list it and open it for them.
Please make sure you have previewed the entire video first, and try to give her at least a day's notice (But she is really nice and will do it on the spot if she sees your email!)
OOPS!
If you find maintaining your website is overwhelming then KISS - Keep It Simple Sister! ;)
Put your BASIC information on there, school hours, your contact info, your lunch time and enhancement schedule for the year, a blurb about yourself, your homework policy... Things that do not change for the most part.
Don't have a lot of time to put in pictures, that is OKAY - Don't! No pics are better than old pics. If you have places where parents follow you like Twitter or S'more, put the links to those on there. The purpose of your site is to disseminate important CURRENT information, not be the cutest site on the internet! If you need any help with your website please come see Brenda or Susie, we will help in any way we can!