Teaching Outside the Box
February 2016
Add Rigor with Math Model-Eliciting Activities
Want to add rigor to your math or science lessons? To promote real-life math? To focus on 21st Century skills? MEA problem-solving activities push students to develop a model to solve a problem with recurring criteria. Student teams must balance client needs and constraints in an open-ended problem.
CPalms offers free online MEA lessons for specific grade levels that can easily tie back to topics already used in your classrooms. What a great opportunity to teach outside of the box! CPalms materials can be downloaded at http://www.cpalms.org/Resources/PublicPreviewResourceCollection.aspx?ResourceCollectionId=59.
Your building coordinator can provide you with a copy of "Real Life Applications of Mathematical Concepts" by Scott A. Chamberlin (NAGC's Teaching for High Potential Winter 2016) if you would like more information about MEAs and their value in high ability classrooms.
If you're a believe in Beers and Probst's Fiction Signposts like me, then get ready, because their Nonfiction Signposts are even better. You can learn about the new book by taking the The Importance of Stances in Nonfiction Workshop.
No more asking students to take boring notes when reading nonfiction. Now students will take a stance and question the nonfiction author's purpose because the students have the tools (stances, signposts, and strategies). Reading nonfiction becomes a much more meaningful process for students and thus more engaging. Best of all, students will become independent and self-reliant readers.
Contact me at mstrnat@hse.k12.in.us if your school would be interested in a before or after school 50-minute interactive presentation on Reading Nonfiction & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies.
You Asked for It...One More Economics Workshop
Workshop: Playful Economics
When: Wednesday, March 9th 4:15-5:30 p.m.
Where: Admin Board Room
Facilitator: Kathy Stratton, Franklin Township
Email mstrnat@hse.k12.in.us to sign up
The 15 lessons in the Playful Economics curriculum help teachers introduce economic concepts in a fun, hands-on way using modeling clay. Each lesson provides a brief description of the economic concept(s) covered in the lesson along with teaching tips and ideas for follow-up activities. Playful Economics is one of the most effective and motivating ways to teach economics at the elementary school level.
Engineering Workshops: It's Not Too Late
PictureSTEM units link language arts and math to engineering.
When: Wednesday February 24, 2016
Time: Grade 5 Teachers 4:15-5:15 pm
K-2 Teachers 5:15-6:15 pm
Where: HSE Admin Building Board Room
Facilitator: Dr. Tamara Moore, Purdue professor
Email mstrnat@hse.k12.in.us to sign up
Kathy Collins Workshop Update
February HA Coordinator Meeting
Ask your high ability coordinator for more details about this month's Coordinator Meeting agenda:
- Promotion of Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) for deeper thinking in high ability classrooms
- Strnat workshop on Reading Nonfiction & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies
- Discussion of job expectations and training for high ability coordinators in 2016-2017
- Upcoming engineering and economics workshops