PLE Zen Den
Your Guide Toward Becoming a PLE Master
April Zenspiration
Let me know if you need help cultivating your Amplified garden. I'm happy to personalize a unit (here's one for ELA6), build a playlist or anything you need to help your students blossom. If you're interested in more lessons, Amplify has created a website filled with lessons that integrate the tablet. You'll find a link to their teacher materials below.
April Educator Spotlight
Sharlenceia O'Neal/Guilford Science-7
Timothy Ross/Allen SS-7
Strategy Spotlight - Socratic Seminar
There is no better tool to integrate into your developing PLE than a Socratic Seminar. Why:
- Students are empowered by developing the flow of the classroom discussion
- Teachers serve as facilitators
- Students encourage each other in an atmosphere of intellectual engagement and cooperation
- When done thoughtfully, Socratic Seminars allow for differentiation
If you are looking to move beyond the Who, What, When Where Why and How questions and want to encourage divergent thinking in your students, then this strategy is for you.
Students learn to become scholars by learning to ask good questions. Webster defines scholar as, "an intelligent and well-educated person who knows a particular subject very well." By definition, that is you. Are you asking the right questions to motivate your students to live a life of scholarship? If you don't know how then find out during Awesome April. Besides, learning to ask the higher level questions is a great way to prep our students for EOGs.
Be sure to check out our workshops of the month that delves into making students better questioners. I often here from teachers that you'd like our Transforming Learning Sessions to be held during the day. I will continue to offer sessions during planning but you must use the Sign-Up Genius link associated with the course. Please talk to your grade level colleagues and gather a group to train together during a designated time slot. You'll find the link to each course in my April PLEF Schedule emails
Amplify Market Spotlight - Mindomo
Revolutionize the way your students think and develop their own ideas and concepts.
Through mind mapping, teachers can guide students not only to master a great variety of concepts, but to develop essential learning and thinking skills: generating new ideas; synthesizing and structuring information; problem-solving; decision-making; using evidence to support their claims; accurate planning. *Description courtesy of Mindomo*
We will delve into Mindomo during our April Transforming Learning Sessions.
Knowledge Nuggets
- Changes to Student Avatars
- Teachers can now see their students avatars on the Select Student screen
- Student Avatars are now visible in the Discussion tool
- For helpful guides and information, visit our Knowledge Base and our online community for helpful information and to engage with fellow teachers around the country
Is there a workshop you'd like me to repeat? Just ask!
Here's a list of lessons you may have missed:
- Augmented Reality in a PLE
- Blendspace
- Digital Tools to Advance Formative Assessment
- Edmodo Snapshot
- Flipping with PowerPoint
- Infographics as Creative Assessment
- Personalizing with Discovery Education
- Personalizing with EDpuzzle
- Personalizing with Lensoo
- Personalizing with OneDrive
- Reaching EC Students with Read Alouds
- Task Rotations in your Content Area
- Digitizing Choice Boards
- Group Work Strategies
Tamika M. Davis, PLEF
Email: davist@gcsnc.com
Website: http://ple.gcsnc.com
Location: Serving Allen MS & Guilford MS
Phone: (336) 370-3287
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pace.plefs
Twitter: @zenPLEF