This week has been a challenging week for keeping my GAME plan going. We have been out of school for two and a half days due to the Blizzard in the Northeast. It makes meeting a goal difficult when you cannot actually go into school to get things done. On top of this, there are still two more storms in the forecast for Friday and Monday of this coming week.
Are you finding the information and resources you need?
I think I am finding everything that I need in order to meet both of my GAME plan goals. As of Friday last week, edmodo was downloaded to the iPads. To get the ball rolling on discussions online, I did have a couple of students post their responses. My students are also working hard on a Language Arts project that asks them to argue who is to blame for the great Chicago fire. One group is creating an iMovie and another group is creating a wiki. I ran into a challenge with getting my students access to wikispaces because they do not have e-mail addresses. I then remembered that you can create a dummy e-mail address through g-mail! For more information on how to do this, click here!
With the blizzard, I was worried about my students not getting a lot of work done, so I actually assigned some homework to them. One activity I assigned was for them to post a response to the newsela article they needed to read and they will need to reply to one-another by Friday. I have noticed that barely half of my students have posted since it was assigned on Monday. I wonder how many of my students actually have been given access by their parents.
For my second goal, I have added a couple of blogs to follow based on suggestions from my Walden classmates. In addition to these, I put out the question to my edmodo communities and found a couple more.
Do you need to modify your action plan?
I do not think I need to modify my action plan at the moment. I think I am progressing fairly well despite the challenges of not being in school.
What have you learned so far?
I have learned to develop a lot of patience in order to meet my goal. There has been many instances of technology not working the way we need it to or we get hit by a Blizzard. I have also learned to trust my colleagues in the education world. So many people are knowledgeable in the world of technology and it is great to learn or read about what suggestions they have for lessons to use.
What new questions have arisen?
Are there other blogs that people read and get good ideas from?
How can I get my students to participate in an online discussion when they do not have computer/ internet access?
I have been focusing a lot on real world experiences with our Language Arts unit, what are some ideas that people have for my upcoming Math unit - Moving from Arithmetic to Algebraic Expressions?
Stacy, It looks like you handled the adverse conditions about as well as could be expected. I did have one thought while reading your blog. Would it be possible as you moved forward in this and became more comfortable to have an emergency plan for each lesson. I was thinking that if there was an adverse weather plan in place it would not throw you off as much. Where I live we seldom have weather issues like you face so I know each situation is different. Just a thought. It does look like you are well on your way to meeting your Game Plan. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I love that idea. This week was actually the first week I had my students use edmodo at home for their response. I feel as though the more it becomes part of their routine, the easier it will become, especially during a snow storm. I feel as though because it was a change in their routine, they were not used to it. Hopefully, in the future it will get easier. - Stacy
DeleteStacy,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you handled the inclement weather situation well. In my experience, however, ensuring that a vast majority of students complete their homework requires a few things. Firstly, I assign it for that night and it is due the next day. I suppose this can be modified for older students (I don't know what grade you teach), but for my middle school students, multiple night's time NEVER seems to work. Also, the homework must be something they are already comfortable doing. Again, I don't know your situation, but if you've only recently introduced Newsela, or if the assignment isn't something they have a lot of comfort with, the chances of them completing the homework are slim. Finally, I do not involve parents in the homework at all. Having homework completion be contingent parent interaction has never yielded good results for me. Let me know if any of these suggestions make sense or if your experience is different.
To your question about incorporating real-world experiences into algebraic expressions, the simplest way might be to use money. "Your parents gave you 20 dollars to get as many loaves of bread as you can. Each loaf costs $2.50. How many can you get?"
I don't know how complex you need to go, but developing some kind of budget project that uses algebraic expressions that students could present using technology might be something to consider.
Keep up the good work!
-Brent
Brent,
DeleteI completely agree with what you say about throwing something new at them. My students have been reading a newsela article each week and responding via pencil and paper. This past week, I threw in edmodo. As it was new to them, I was more lenient on allowing them to get it done throughout the week. My hope is the more I assign it, the easier it will get for them. I also agree with you on trying not to have parents involved. However, as they are sixth graders, they are still at the stage of trying to see what they can get away with, so there are some parents I have to be more in contact with than others. Mainly, I will e-mail back and forth with those parents or ask them to sign their child's agenda. This seems to be helpful in keeping those students responsible.
Thank you so much for the budget project idea. I absolutely love it and will look around pinterest to see if there are some ideas floating around out there.
-Stacy
Stacy,
ReplyDeleteI like how you tried to continue with your goal this past week even when snow kept you out of school. I saw that only half of your students did the homework assignment. Do they all have internet access at home? Your comment about parents allow internet access reminded me of a few times that my students had said their parents would not allow them on the internet because they were being punished. Since then we have included in our weekly newsletter practice websites that are generally related to our content areas as well as specific websites for the week. We also include notations when homework can be online to try to make sure that students that have internet access at home are able to use it for homework. It has seemed to help because we have not heard since that parents would not allow it. This way parents know for sure their child does need it for homework.
I am not sure how your school day is structured, but I have found that some of my students without internet access at home are able to work on assignments in the morning. My school is a choice school so students are bused in from their home schools throughout the district. This means my students start arriving at 7:15 am and school begins at 8:00 am. Some students have 45 minutes in which they are able to get work done using their Chromebook, complete other assignments, or ask for extra help.
I do not know how deep you teach into algebraic expressions, but when my students were working on it it was right before the holidays when there were a lot of sales going on. They were given a set amount of money they could spend and then found items on any website they wanted to purchase and developed expressions from the costs. We had also recently completed a unit on proportions and percents so they calculated the percent off values and total costs including taxes. My students really enjoyed the lesson. Many times they asked if if was ok to go to specific websites and if they were going to get in trouble with the IT people for not being on educational websites. They were enjoying themselves so much they were not thinking about what they were doing as educational.
Kelly Nellums
Kelly,
DeleteI love the idea of making sure parents are aware that students should have access to internet for educational purposes. I have seen this far too often with my students getting items taken away for punishment and internet being the first to go. I will definitely try to put out a newsletter reminding parents that internet is still okay when being used for educational purposes. As for getting my students on that do not have access, I let the know in advance that if they could not get on, they just needed a parent signature and to complete the assignment on paper. Once they get to school, they could get on and type it into edmodo. This worked with a few of my students. I think since it was the first time that they were asked to do this, many were apprehensive or confused as to the expectations. Once it becomes more routine, it should be less of an issue.
The project that you did with your students sounds exactly what I need! We are just finishing up ratios and proportions and moving into creating expressions. Do you happen to have any worksheets or guidelines that you used that you would be willing to share? My only worry is that our IT people have blocked shopping websites. However, I could always print out websites they they would want to use. Thanks so much for the ideas!
-Stacy
Stacy-
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you made great progress on your GAME Plan despite the blizzard that hit your area. I think the literal blizzard you experienced could also be looked at as a metaphor linked to the interruptions and unplanned events that require us to be flexible when it comes to lesson plans and students!
Your Language Arts project with students arguing who is to blame for the Chicago Fire sounds fascinating. I'm curious what type of instruction you did with them before turning them loose on a variety of final products of their choice? Did they complete argumentative writing first?
One website that I find inspires me to be creative and think outside the box is edutopia.org. It contains great posts about using technology as well as information about other topics relevant to instruction, assessment, and learning.
Betsy,
DeleteYou are correct that we do have to be so flexible as educators. It really does seem like a blizzard on a daily basis trying to keep up with the constant interruptions and unplanned events. They are talking about us getting 8-16" of snow tonight into tomorrow. I have a feeling my students will be out of school again. Unfortunately, I have not developed a routine yet with them for a snow day. Yet another wrench in my plans to keep them learning despite being out of school!
With the Chicago Fire unit, we are reading a non-fiction text through a program called "Plugged In." We discussed what argument writing looks like, but did not go completely in depth yet. My objective was for them to learn how to make a claim and provide support. Overall, very basic, but it is a very new topic to them. As we progress throughout the remainder of the year, I can have them look back on this task to help them improve.
-Stacy
Prior comment was from Betsy Strean.
ReplyDelete