"Automating engagement will make your job easier. It will help you make better use of your limited instructional time, ensure students are continually engaged, and reduce stress. The need for automation is simple. But, automation requires a bit more energy up front to get the payoff later on."
These statements taken from the beginning of Chapter 8 stress the importance of automating engagement in your classroom, but as mentioned, easier said than done. The author offered us strategies in this chapter to help us simplify our engagment processes in our classroom. In these final two chapters Jensen is going to help us put it all together.
Choose two of the topics below to respond to:
1. Rituals- Do you have any rituals in your classroom? Why do you do them and what responses do you get from the students?
2. Leadership and Teamwork- What types of things do you do in your class to foster leadership and teamwork? What works and what doesn't?
3- Curriculum- Are there any units from year to year you find your students really getting into? Do you have any ideas for this school year you want to try to spice up old lesson plans?
4- Technology- I think since we are from mostly Bon Air and Boulevard this comes easy for us....but just for fun, name some favorite tools or sites you use and how integrating technology using that tool enhances your lesson plan or engages your students. It can be a teacher tool or student tool.
In STEM the curriculum and the lessons we choose engage our students. We create hands on activities to make real world connections so the students are naturally excited. We create Oobleck in second grade to study how it is really not a liquid or a solid. We give students magnets and let them test and determine if their hypothesis is correct regarding what is attracted to a magnet. I think the key is to make the curriculum come alive. In fifth grade we started out learning circumference by measuring different sized balls. We then went on to measurement and had students measure how high each ball bounced. This allowed the students to practice these skills where the outcome mattered.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to leadership and teamwork we do many partner and group activities as projects. These require students to work together and be responsible for their role with the team. I do like the idea of naming the roles as jobs in careers. We do a project with fourth graders and build bottle rockets. I like identifying the person who is designing as the engineer. The person who is trying to determine the amount of water in the rocket could identify as the chemical engineer. I think anytime we can connect what we are learning and doing to the world around them we help them to see the connections.
I agree that when we can make it come alive is when it becomes meaningful learning!
DeleteProject-based learning really does make learning memorable for the students! I've had students thank me for doing projects on explorers in Social Studies after they've taken the ISTEP! They said they knew the answer to several questions because of the projects they did! How exciting is that!
DeleteIt's amazing how much learning goes on when we let our students actually get to explore and manipulate things with their hands. I'm excited to get our makerspace up and running for that exact reason.
DeleteWe just finished our Wayside School unit and they were very into it! I think they appreciate it's humor and relatibilty...in a strange way. Ha! I want to work on adding more hands on activities in reading. I use some but, always wanting to add more tangible activities to what is often an intangible concept. I really like Kid Blog! I use it to replace the idea of a reader's notebook. They also have been getting a lot out of ixl in math. I think it's great for review!
ReplyDeleteThey really did enjoy wayside, and I enjoyed incorporating the reader's theater part into it, so thanks for letting me! I love the technology we use in our classrooms, I don't feel like we use it to put our time in but use meaningful sites!
DeleteI like the thought question part of Achieve 3000. It does a good job of giving a written response to the reading. I find, though, that I need to explicitly teach how to write like this. It seems very similar to the written response that they need to do on state testing.
Delete1. Rituals: Yes, I have rituals in my classroom. When the students come in, they write in their planners and get ready for the first subject area - in this year's case, Social Studies. I have an ActivInspire flipchart for the daily planner, which is the day's schedule of events. There are several other rituals throughout each week, and the students appreciate and look forward to them. When I have to be gone, I write out very detailed sub plans, but students usually help out the guest teacher as well. I've found that low-SES students have a difficult time with change, and rituals are one thing that students can count on to never change.
ReplyDelete2. Leadership and Teamwork - I try to foster leadership and teamwork through several classroom jobs, and with cooperative learning moments. I have found that when students get chatty, I can channel this need to talk by giving them a "turn and talk" time to reflect on what we have just learned. By circulating through the groups, I know they are all engaged, and are happy about it!
3. Curriculum - One thing that excites my students every year is in Science, when we make Bouncy Balls out of glue, cornstarch, and borax. They even write up the lab in their notebooks afterward with eagerness! I have essentially ditched my Science textbook in favor of the "You Be the Chemist" challenge. We have lab notebooks, and have some interesting discussions about vocabulary and process. Fifth grade is fun again!
4. Technology - Although I feel quite comfortable about using technology in the classroom, I need to spend a little more time finding appropriate sites for math practice. The kids love to get on Cool Math, but I find that they are choosing topics that are really too easy for them, and not very challenging. Any ideas?
I like my rituals and I like my repetitive schedule. I think you're right it really helps students and subs when things are known and repetitive. I like the bouncy balls. Sounds Fun! I'm glad you ditched your science book and found something your students enjoy.
DeleteYour bouncy ball project sounds awesome. I love when the curriculum excites the students. We too have moved away from the book for our STEM lab. We integrate the standards into lessons we feel will engage our students and create a opportunity for them to use skills to help answer a question or meet a challenge.
ReplyDeleteI feel very good about the curriculum used in reading and math in our classrooms. I feel our students are very engaged-if the teacher is excited the students will be too. We also have set up routines in a very positive way. Our kids are never in a mystery about what is coming.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a mystery about what's coming next! No, not really but doesn't it feel like that sometimes. I'm getting used to the reading series so its working for me along with the writing aspect of it. Math, we're getting there with Kathy Richardson. They're playing, they're learning.
DeleteI love that you said "Our kids are never in a mystery about what is coming." That is so important just to make the kids feel safe and create that in this classroom there are no "bad" surprises. I think routines, procedures, and rituals set that up.
DeleteI have rituals. Like a lot of them for my first graders. They need them and I need my sanity! They come in in the morning and do their lunch count and morning work. Their morning work is sight words. So it's the same work just with new words. Our reading group rotations are the same every day. We do a lap around the playground every day after recess. We have bus spots that we sit at everyday at the end of the day. Rituals just make for a more peaceful day. And let's face it, it's NEVER peaceful!
ReplyDeleteI love our pumpkin we're getting ready to do. We'll talk about the life cycle of a pumpkin, go to guffey acres, fill in a KWL chart and write a non-fiction writing piece.
I had many rituals in my class and one that we had was very similar to one the book suggests. We had a ritual for adult distractions. In my room if we would have an adult come in the room that needed attention. I would have my kids look at me for direction. If it was going to be quick they could chat with their neighbor at a voice level one and I would simply say chat. If it was going to take longer I would say books and they would know to get their browsing box out and read. We modeled and practiced this a lot but it was very helpful when distractions happened in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteMy students always loved the gingerbread man unit. I had so much fun teaching with it because I was able to incorporate so many learning objectives into one unit and the kids were thoroughly engaged. My goal for this year is to help teachers embed more captivating curriculum into what they are teaching.
A favorite teacher tool for me has been other teachers’ blogs. I have found so many engaging lessons and books to use professionally and for read alouds the past few years just by searching blogs online.