MIS Navigator
November Edition
Teachers know their curriculum, design relevant, purposeful lessons aligned to state standards, and communicate learning outcomes to students.
- Use the NC standards and unpacking documents when designing lessons
- Use the District pacing guide and instructional support materials when planning
- Write the daily learning target/objective written on the board in student-friendly language
- Collaboratively discuss curriculum in PLCs to ensure Horizontal/Vertical alignment
- Plan units incorporating Backwards Design and M-Powerment Strategies
- Activate prior knowledge in daily lessons
- Post “I Can” statements on assignments and board
- Design technology lessons aligned with SAMR / ISTE Standards
- Provide real-world content application and examples to give meaning to learning
- Study your curriculum objectives to understand how they build on each other and the level of understanding
- Research best practices for teaching the standards
- Align curriculum materials from outside sources (Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, etc.) to local standards
- Incorporate content from standards-aligned digital resources (iCurio, Discovery Education, SchoolNet, Mastery Connect, Study Island, etc.)
- Design remediation based on standards that need additional work, based on individual students
- Spiral warm-ups and assessment questions to review weak standards
Educational Articles
- Knowing Your Learning Target - Educational Leadership
- Learning Targets on Parade - Educational Leadership
- Every Lesson Needs a Storyline - Educational Leadership
- Making Connections: Objectives & Standards - Edutopia
- Start with Higher Order Thinking - Educational Leadership
- 9 Ways to Plan Transformational Lessons: Planning the Best Curriculum Unit Ever - Edutopia
Self-Paced PD on M-3
Instructional Highlight
"I Can" Statements
Why?
Excerpt from: Classroom Instruction That Works by Ceri B. Dean, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Howard Pitler and Bj Stone
Chapter 1. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
Individual "I Can" Statements
No Border Green Chevron Gray Chevron Polka Dots
5th Grade Math & ELA
No Border Green Chevron Gray Chevron Polka Dots
6th Grade Math & ELA
Posters
4th Grade Math & ELA Polka Dots Green Chevron Gray Chevron
5th Grade Math & ELA Polka Dots Green Chevron Gray Chevron
6th Grade Math & ELA Polka Dots Green Chevron Gray Chevron
"Techify It!"
SchoolNet
- Browse North Carolina assessment questions and resources by standard to build CFAs or classroom review activities
- Build entry / exit tickets for quick checks
Discovery Education
- Create units by standards with learning materials, assessments, videos, etc.
- Board Builder curation
- Math, SS, Science Techbooks (Digital Textbooks)
iReady
- Student-driven with lessons and activities for each standard including engaging videos and lessons
- Assign individualized lessons for students specific to their needs
- Teacher Toolbox offers on-level, below-level, and above-level resources aligned with each standard for regular classtime or ER time
Mastery Connect
- Create or utilize pre-made formal assessments
- Data is broken down by standard
- Use in collaboration with a data tracker so students can keep track or their progress and take ownership of their learning
TenMarks / Tenmarks Teach
- Provides lessons, warm ups, and videos for all Math standards for teachers to use to instruct whole or small groups of students which allows for differentiation
- Students can work on a specific standard, but they can also practice in areas of weakness; "amplifiers" help reteach
- Provides a standards tree which vertically aligns all Math standards across grade levels
NewsELA
- Builds and tracks reading comprehension using leveled articles and embedded assessments
- Articles are written in five reading levels
- Adapts to each child's level
- Allows for real-time annotation of articles
- Searchable by informational text standard, grade level, and language
Reading A-Z
- Aligns reading passages, books, and activities to standards and guided reading levels
- Abiliy to sort materials by stadard
- Passages and activities provide clear learning objectives
- New leveled books, lesson plans, and other resources added monthly
ReadWorks
- Focuses on reading comprehenstion
- Aligns articles with grade levels and reading skills
- Contains various novel study units
- Sortable by grade level, reading skill, lexile level, text type, and topic
- Paired Passages and Article of the Day features
- NEW digital component that allows for online reading and assigning of articles to the class; tracks student data
Common Sense Media
MGSD TOP TEN TECH TOOLS FOCUS
Spotlight #1: Discovery Education
SOS Strategies
The next link is to DE's very first 100 SOS Strategies. It is a great document to bookmark because you can click on any of the strategies and it takes you to the strategy's information page in DE. Just make sure you are logged into DE first before you click on the links!
Spotlight #2: Padlet
New comments feature - Click here for a tutorial
"5 Ways to Use Padlet in Your Classroom" from Free Tech for Teachers by Richard Byrne
Padlet as a simple blogging platform:
Padlet walls can be arranged in free-form, grid, or stream layouts. Creating a Padlet page in the stream format could be a good way to create a simple, collaborative blog for students. You could create the page, select "stream" format, and make the page accessible for students to write short posts on. Their posts could include images and videos. If you want to, you can password protect your Padlet pages and moderate messages before they appear on your Padlet page.
Padlet Mini as a bookmarking tool:
Padlet Mini is a Chrome extension that you can use to bookmark websites. When you click the Padlet Mini extension in your browser you will be presented with the option to save to one of your existing walls or create a new Padlet wall. Click here for a video on using Padlet Mini.
Padlet as a KWL chart:
Padlet can be used to create a KWL chart that students can contribute to anonymously (or not anonymously if you want them to sign-in). Create a wall, make it public, and ask students to share what they know and what they want to know about a topic. If you allow anonymous posting you might get contributions from shy students who might not otherwise speak-up in class. Of course, if you allow anonymous commenting you should have a conversation with your students about what an appropriate comment looks like. (You could also turn on moderation and approve all notes before they appear). Padlet works well when projected on an interactive whiteboard.
Padlet for group research and discussion:
A few years ago I showed my special education students a short (18 minutes) video about cultural changes that took place in the US during the 1920's. After the video we discussed what they saw. Then I had students search online for other examples of cultural change in the 1920's. When they found examples they put them onto a Wallwisher (Padlet's previous name) wall that I projected onto a wall in my classroom. The wall started with just text being added to the wall and quickly progressed to YouTube videos being added to the wall. Once every student had added a video to the wall we stopped, watched the videos, and discussed them.
Padlet as a showcase of your students’ work:
If your students are creating digital portfolios, creating slideshows, or producing videos you could use Padlet to display all of your students’ best work on one page. Create the wall, call it something like “my best work this year,” and have your students post links to their works.