M-Powerment Strategy #3
Standards-Aligned Lessons
M-Powerment Strategy #3 Highlight:
M-3 Standards-Aligned Lessons: Teachers know their curriculum, design relevant, purposeful lessons aligned to state standards, and communicate learning outcomes to students.
Ideas to Consider
Instructional Strategy: Literacy Focus
Train Reading: Profienct readers are selected ahead of time and prepare to read in a particular order. This is another way to model fluency for struggling students.
Radio Reading: This could pair with Train Reading where students are asked to read the text while relaying emotions with different voices, etc. Mrs. Stapleton is an expert at this if you would like to invite her to read to your class.
Popcorn Reading: A student begins the reading and when finished chooses another student to read by calling the new students name.
Looking for more ideas please ask!
Instructional Highlight: 8th Math Pumpkin Carving
Courtesy of Mrs. Fitzsimmons and the Math 8 PLC. Images provided by Mrs. Hildebran.
Instructional Highlight: 7th Math Data Trackers
The 7th grade Math teachers have all their students tracking their progress in a Data Tracker that includes links to Remediation Tools. Students take ownership of their data and are encouraged to understand, individually, what they need to work on to improve.
7th Grade Math Student Data Tracker:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHHTCxxIZ32U-iVPpqHFvpVw0zEIljagGbwBpoEDNX4/edit#gid=0
Remediation Tools:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fk9MMSSX7KlkP3qXASr4HObZ9MvhA9VciFZ9OjQoMC8/edit#gid=0Courtesy of F. Davis
The Superpowers are looking for YOU!
- Standard Aligned Lessons
- High Expectations and Rigor
- Culture of Caring
in your classroom, please let us know so we can come by and check it out!
Picture Courtesy of Quora
APPLE TEACHER PROGRAM
Susie Hudson has completed the Apple Teacher program. If your interested please ask Ms. Hudson or the Media & Tech team for more details or visit the link below.
"Apple Teacher is a new program created exclusively for educators that offers tips, inspiration, news, and learning materials to help you unlock the magic of Apple products in your classroom. Apple developed this program to support and celebrate the work you do every day. Sign up, earn badges by testing your knowledge, then receive an official Apple Teacher logo and share your achievement with the world.
To learn more and sign up, visit our webpage."
If you complete the Apple Teacher Program, Google Educator, or earn any other badges please let the Media & Tech Team know so we can celebrate you!
Picture Courtesy of Edtechnocation
Dr. Anthony Muhammad
A few points from Dr. Muhammad book...
"...four areas of instruction we know practicing teachers must master in order to increase levels of success for all students." (Marzano, 2010):
1. Classroom Management: "Responsive Management is inclusive and student centered, and it incorporates elements of students' culture, home, and community to engage them more deeply in the learning process."
2. Academic Vocabulary: "Responsive academic vocabulary instruction builds on the word knowledge students bring with them to school - the words students 'own'. Many of these come from students' cultureal backgrounds, their homes, and their communities. These words are abstractly connected to academic vocabulary; students have an understanding of these words that is connected to their own usage, not to the specific academic meaning of the words."
3. Academic Literacy: "Using text, fiction, and nonfiction to validate and affirm culture and language."
4. Learning Environment: " The school environment can influence student behavior, so how school spaces are organized (with regular "cemetery rows" of seats versus learning centers, for example) and what they contain (a wide variety of culturally relevant materials as opposed to strictly traditional academic materials, for example) can have a profound impact on student achievement by sending strong messages that encourage students to act in particular ways."
Photo Courtesy of New Frontier 21
MMS Media Tips:
Preparing Lessons that align clearly to standards can seem like a difficult task, but even more time is needed to personalized lessons for students that aligned to standards. Please use the CAVE, Mrs. Stapleton, and Mrs. Long to brainstorm ideas for more personalized learning and to help implement these lessons by using the learning environments in the CAVE.
From Cuz's Desk
I am always available to help a students find a great book to read. Please let me know if I can assist any students in finding their next great read!
MMS Instructional Tips
Relevant, Purposeful Lessons
Students love to ask “why am I learning this” or “when will I ever use this stuff”? These statements have less impact when teachers provide opportunities for students to understand why the learning goal is important and relevant to them personally.
“Communicating the purpose of learning goes beyond posting the essential question or the relevant standard and referring to the objective from time to time. How do students sit through lessons where they learn a skill or concept, such as comparing and contrasting, but still are unable to perform that skill, express what they learned, or identify the relationships between skills and concepts and their lives? When teaching anything new, first ask yourself the purpose for learning the material and make that information visible to your students. Once students see the relationship between what they are learning and their lives, true learning is the most likely outcome.”
Partrick, Jennifer. "Giving Your Lessons The Power Of Purpose".
Learning-Focused: Lessons You Believe In. N.p., 2016. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.
Recommended Reading:
Ch 1 - Establishing Purpose for Yourself and Your Students
Ch 2 - Focusing on Learning Targets, Not Tasks
Ch 3 - Including Both Content and Language Components
Ch 4 - Ensuring that the Purpose Is Relevant
Ch 5 - Inviting Students to Own the Purpose
Ch 6 - Identifying Outcomes Related to the Purpose
Ch 7 - Knowing When a Learning Target Has Been Met
Purchase through Amazon or directly from ASCD:
The Purposeful Classroom: How to Structure Lessons with Learning Goals in Mind was written by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. This 6″ × 9″ book (Stock #112007; ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-1314-5) is available from ASCD for $18.95 (ASCD member) or $24.95 (nonmember). Copyright © 2011 by ASCD. To order a copy, call ASCD at 1-800-933-2723 (in Virginia 1-703-578-9600) and press 2 for the Service Center. Or buy the book from ASCD's Online Store.
From the Help Desk:
You have a backup right...
In technology, as in teaching, it is always good to have a backup plan. There will come a time when something breaks or data is lost. When this happens it hinders us if we do not have a backup.
Our computers, while vastly superior in storage capability to the computers of years past, can not hold everything. And what would happen if your hard drive stopped working? Would all your hard work be gone? What about those family photos from the trip to the beach this summer?
As we begin the 2nd quarter now would be a great time to backup your data. Google Drive provides an easily-accessible, Cloud-based, storage option. Your drive can be accessed anywhere at anytime on numerous different devices.
There is no better time than now to backup your data. I can work some magic but if your hard drive crashes I make no promises your information can be recovered.
Pro tip: If you download the Google Drive app you can access your information from anywhere without needing your computer.
