OBSERVE A COLLEAGUE

January 13, 2013     

I have been a back seat rider in a colleague's quest to become more literate in the wonderful world of One Note.  She swears by its marvelous abilities to capture all aspects of a teacher's life into one compact location.  A drawback so far has been navigating the site.  Once she placed some content on it she presented it to the class I am in in CT.  A fine lesson was presented, and the students enjoyed being able to go to the board (they always do).  But once she ended the video she had linked to the lesson, YouTube offered her other video options. These options were not appropriate to her sixth grade math class in either subject or maturity level.  The Internet strikes again.

She does love all the options that One Note offers and desires to gain more knowledge about the site.  I will continue to watch an learn from her.

Calendar problem

Today, we had shortened periods so I was in a time crunch.  I asked the kids the question "what is the least sum of the dates of all the Wednesdays of a 30 day month?"   At first, some of the students were confused by the question but I showed them my already made flip-chart with a template of calendar.  I told them the month could start on any day of the week and showed them an example.  Most then started to scribble down their work and begin figuring it out.  I did make sure they knew they were supposed to add.   Most students started the week on Wednesday adding "1 + 8 + 15 + 22 + 29 = 75".  I anticipated them doing this so I moved to the next flip chart with these exact dates highlighted on the same pre-made calendar flip-chart (I had duplicated the previous one).  I then asked if they could be lower than (aka "beat") 75.   Some started writing frantically, others I could tell started thinking.  The class was silent as they worked. 

I gave them about 3 minutes and most finished with lower answers. I then had 3 other examples of calendars on my flip chart I had already made.  I then asked them to compare the dates of each of the Wednesdays and a few students realize that adding 4 dates is going to be lower than adding 5 dates.   We then compared the "big" dates, "medium" dates, and "small" dates allowing the students to see the asnwer "3+10+ 17+24 =54" so that the best answer would be a month that didn't start on a Saturday but rather end on a Tuesday thus "avoiding adding to the sum a second large date".  

The flip charts made this tricky problem, not only easier to understand which allowed the students an opportunity to solve but easier to understand why the answer was 54.  It also allowed me to get thru the material much more efficiently, which was important on this shortened day.

Shopping at the Mall Activity

Students used their devices to shop online during a two day activity that involved Shopping in various situations or eating out at restaurants . This went well. There was no short supply of devices. Students shared and were responsible, not spending too much time on one site. They had to record, calculate, and problem solve through 6 varied spending money experiences. We'll do this again next year.

Videos of flipcharts

I watched a few of these videos.   It's worthwhile to look at them, but I would still like to see them used in person so that I can ask questions at the same time.

BYOD video from Lesson 3 Tic-Tac-Toe

I watched the video from a Fairfax, VA school and it looked wonderful.  It's still amazing to me how easy it is to access information with these devices.  (We need to teach students what terminology to use when they do a search, though.  They are struggling with this and it slows down their work.)

All the students were using devices for making flashcards (my ELL students do this, too) taking notes, and doing assignments.  Now, we have to consider that Fairfax is in the Washington, D.C. area so incomes are high and most of the kids had their own devices.  There was a computer cart for those who didn't have their own, but we are having real problems now with not having enough working computers for all.  (Just an idea:  Use the buying power of parents, students, teachers, families to get a deal with a supplier for reasonably-priced devices.  There would be more uniformity among devices and it would ensure that supply would not be the problem it is now.)

 Also, the video showed a student registering her device with a technologist so that the device would be restricted to what the school was using.  This might make it easier to control what students have access to so that they wouldn't be off task so often.

One of my students has an I Pad and she is able to use it for most everything.  I don't know if that might be a good option.

I'd like to hear from others what devices they think would be most useful and for which grade levels.

Observing the use of Promethean by a teacher

I presently attend a U.S. government class and a world history class every day to support my three freshmen ELL students who are in the classes.  Luckily, Mr. Butler, who teaches government, used a packaged Promethean lesson on the executive branch.  The presentation included information Mr. Butler had previously taught but it gave the students another opportunity to review for an upcoming test.  The presentation held their interest since it included questions they could answer, after which Mr. Butler would reveal the hidden answers by tapping on the board and students would see if they were correct.  The presentation was simple, short, and, as another tool for the class, worked well as a supplement.

Geoboard Coordinate Plane

I found and used a program called Geoboard last week when teaching the students how to find
slope.  The Geoboard program let me drop and mark two points anywhere on a coordinate plane.
We used this when learning how to find the "rise" and the "run".  I could control what was going
up on the screen and could change directions when students asked, "How would you find slope if it looked like this?"  When they asked, I had them come up and drop two points on the coordinate plane.  We then as a class would talk about it and then find the slope.  I liked the program because it allowed the students to be involved and it allowed me to be flexible when choosing examples.

POD - Problem of the Day

I post a POD (Problem of the Day) on the board every day.  The students come into class, get
their POD sheet out,  and work on the problem as soon as the bell rings.  I use Powerpoint and have been doing this for several years.  As a result, I have tons of POD's already to go.  I think the Powerpoint program is excellent for this because it allows me to create (graphs & pictures) anything that I want the students to do. I can then save and reuse them the following year or copy and change the slide information and make another one similar to it if needed.   The POD usually takes 2-4 minutes to complete.  It can be practicing a concept that we are currently on, reviewing a concept that we covered earlier in the year, or a concept that they had last year but seem to need a little "brush up" on.   Each student has a POD sheet that has a Monday thru Friday box on both sides.  This allows the student to do two weeks worth of POD's on one sheet.  We collect he POD every other Friday for a grade.

promethean flip chart

I downloaded and used a promethean flip chart a few weeks ago when teaching the
students about slope and y-intercept.  After looking at several, I picked a flipped chart
that I thought would fit my needs best.  I choose one that had the definitions and descriptions
on it and example slides that allowed me to write over the chart with a dry erase marker.  Some of the
other charts were too detailed.  The "less detailed" charts let me control the method and work that
I wanted the students to show in order to work out the problem successfully.  I think the lesson
went extremely well.  The flip chart served as a "backdrop" template for me (and the students)
to practice on.

Tic Tac Toe #3 - 3

I did not observe a collegue using a flip chart but talked to 2 of them that did use it and heard all of their problems. I attempted to use one in 1st hour - advanced and with the help of the students we made it through. I don't know how much they got out of it but they were wonderful about instructing me on what I needed to do. I figure my first hour will be my base for successfully doing flip charts.

Tic Tac Toe #3 - 2

I looked at the Promethian activ tips and realize I need a lot of time to go through them multiple times to feel comfortable with what I need to do. I do feel the flip charts will make my life easier i n the long run but it will take a lot of time and work from me to get to that point. My plan is to utulize the flip charts because I feel they will be very beneficial to the students in class and outside of class.

Tic Tac Toe #3 - 1

The first activity I am blogging about is BYOD. We had the students bring a device to Flyer Time to take a survey. The positive is that we only have 14 students in Flyer Time because most of my students did not bring their device. We used the one working computer, at the time, in my room and others shared their devices. I was okay with them sharing for this because it was a simple survey but if we were doing an actual lesson were they had to do work I would not want them sharing the devices because if a kid was using someone else's device and did something bad to it I would not want to be responsible. I think we need strict guidelines when we use devices.

Observation

I observed Carrie Turek's math class as she taught rotational geometry.   She had a video with a man's voice explaining what is rotational geometry and had 5 or 6 specific examples.   I am not sure where she got the lesson or if she made it.  I believe she got it off the internet.  The students seemed like they were on task and learning.   This video allowed her to walk around the room and answer any questions the students had as well as correct those who were not on task or getting a problem incorrect.  The only down-side was that the video continued to play (I guess she could have stopped the video) but then the rest of the class would have had to stop learning for the 1 or 2 that weren't getting it. 

I enjoyed the lesson and need to find out more information from her as to how often as well as where she got the video.