Survey Says...

My students started using a Student Response System in my class a couple weeks ago. We have had a set in our library that was unused last year. I decided to get it out and see what I could do with it this year and our Title 1 Department bought each Title 1 school a set of each classroom. So I dove in and found it to be a very useful tool.

We did a few yes/no questions and then started to text in answers. The students payed more attention to what I was doing. Then came the accountability. They found that they could not look to others for answers. They had to come up with it themselves. He answers became more varied and thoughtful.

We brainstormed a fictional narrative the class was starting to write. The ideas came out about a theme. We learned about different Cinderella stories last week and so that became the theme. The setting was Christmas time in the North Pole. We discussed the events that should happen because of the framework of a Cinderella story. They came up with the framework. They came up with names. They came up with a few events. All ideas came from the students texting in their ideas with the SRS. Another tool in the long list of great tools to use in the classroom.

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It's all about the Teamwork

We just saw the end of year scores from last year. They look great. We are now in reflection mode. What did we do that was with and how did it affect our scores so we can do it again. We will also look at what we think did not work last year and change those so we can make it better. We have some work to do.

Changing our language program will be an interesting part of this reflection. Our greatest jump on the testing was in language, so what we were doing worked well for us and the students. The program is similar toss what we did last year, so we should do as well or better an we did.

The Kagen strategies we used this last year were a big part of our success. When we moved students around in our flexible groupings, we used the Kagen strategy of pairing students with another student with a different level to help both of them improve in their lessons. Having three classes, we split the students into six groups and put two groups in each classroom. With group six being the highest, we paired group six with group three, five with two, and four with one. This gave each class a group of students that first off did not know why they were in that class(highest, lowest) and that made for less chance of teasing or segregation of students. This also helped with the lower students having a partner to help them, if needed. The higher student gets the opportunity to help, learn from the other student, and gets to teach a little. This helps the higher student cement what they have learned by explaining the concept to another student. Both students get to work with another student that is not two levels higher than themselves, but close to the same level as they are. This helps the confidence of both students when they feel successful and one student is not always doing all the work.

Another piece that we felt helped our classes was the partnering up of the students to help each other. In math, we have the students paired up by mixed ability. While doing our opening review problems, the students have "one book, one pencil". One of the students works on the problem while talking through the process they are using. The partner listens and uses the "tip, tip, tell" method of helping. If partner A does not know how to work the problem, partner B gives a tip to help. They can give two tips before they tell partner A how to do the problem. They cannot do it fro partner A but they tell them the process to get it done. Then they switch and partner B becomes partner A and so on until all the problems are completed. This process has been a wonderful way for students to explain what they are doing and help them help each other understand the algorithms and processes of math.

When looking back at what we did the best throughout the whole year to get the best scores from our students, I would have to say that it s all about the teamwork. Our fifth-grade team worked together on every problem, we worked with each child, and we let them know we were united in our teacher, lessons, disciple, expectations, and a friends. While showing the students this, we let them know we expected the same form them. All for one, and one for all.

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Anyone have a Groove I can borrow?

We have been working on the language for a few weeks and we like it. We have had some hard times adjusting to the amoUnt of planning we need to do. With a new program the planning always increases until it becomes more of the plan. Right now we are getting the plans down with all the different parts of the program. They are similar plans to what we have used in the past so it has not been difficult, but it has been time consuming. We have not found our groove yet, and we definitely need a groove.

We have planned our spelling just like we did last year with the words and word sorts. We feel that was a big success. In fact, our scores for last years End of level tests were great. The students were amazing and worked their best and showed us what they knew. We are getting this group ready to do the same. But I digress. So spelling is not too hard. Vocabulary is a little different. We have née lessons and ways to work with vocabulary. We work on Word Squares each week. I love this part of vocabulary. The kids love the Word Squares. The one thing I miss is the cloze stories we used with the previous vocabulary program. The stories were great and they used context clues to put the words into the stories.there are some great hinge about thetas. Program, but I miss that piece from the last program.

Reading is good. We use a basal that has a lot of lessons in it and with the allotted time we have for it, it is hard to fit it together. But the stories are good and the lessons work with the writing to create great opportunities for students to learn. We are working on writing a story and we are talking abut problem and solution in writing while we are discussing problem and solution in the reading we are working on. Writing and reading go hand in hand and fit in with the lessons that are taught in the Readabout program we use on the computers. Readabout discusses problem and solution also and the whole lesson fits together.

We just need to get into a groove so we can feel better about what we are doing. It took a us a few years to figure out the math program we are using, but we are using it well now and the student scores are on the rise. It may take this year, but we will get it. There are many parts to this program that we will fit in throughout the year to see how they fit in and how they will work. We are just out of the comfort zone and it has taken a little longer than we had hoped to get comfortable.

The newest part we will be working on is the computer testing part. This will help us because the Unit tests are very long and involved. We will have to do them in parts during the assessment week. It will be interesting to see what the tests tell us compared to what we teach. That is always the most interesting part of a new program is the testing to see what it tells us. Life goes on and so will the teaching.

Walking a Tightrope Without a Net..book!

I have been doing a lot of reading this summer about using our students netbooks better. I have found a few programs that I want to use. As I was reading Dave Warlick's blog he mentioned using Xmind as a brainstorming program. I was using Freemind but Xmind is so much easier to use. So I will be installing it on the student computers when we start school.

I was searching around on the net and ran into a blog by Brad Flickenger. He talks a lot about using netbooks in the classroom. He has some great ideas about using them in the curriculum, classroom management, and basic netbook stuff in the classroom. It gave me some ideas about having the students sign a netbook contract. We will put together a few rules and consequences for the netbooks. He also mentions that he has the students do a monthly maintenance checklist to keep them clean and orderly. I will be putting one of those together also to keep them running as well as giving the students a sense of ownership for their computer.

One thing Brad talked about was using flash drives in the classrooms. If the students have their own computers, why use a flash drive? I can see a few reasons why we should use flash drives. Taking documents home for use on their computers and going from one computer in the school to the computer lab to complete a reports or to show a presentation. I have not been sold on the Google Docs yet for Elementary School students. I want to use it, but I have parents that do not want (or do not have a computer) email addresses for their children. I want a way for the students to get a Google Docs account, but I am still trying to figure out how to get all the students an account. I was hoping that Google would let me put a class of students into a group so I can manage them. I am hoping that we will get to the point of having parents set up the account for the students. We will see this coming year.

I really like his idea about sending the students a question each morning before school for them to answer in the morning. We have the students do Morning Work (a language question, geography question, analogy question and a math question) and work as partners to complete the questions. Adding a message on our Wiki would be a great addition to the morning work. It could be a starter for Social Studies, a topic in math, language, or even a situation in class. So many ideas. I can't wait.

Wiki-What-ia?

I have been reading a book by Clay Shirky called "Here comes Everybody". He talks about how Social Media have changed our lives and how it keeps on changing. He started telling about the beginning of Wikipedia and how it evolved from Nupedia.

As he was telling the story a thought came to me about school. We could make an encyclopedia on our wiki for the students to add information on. When students complete a report they can add the information to the wiki. When the next year's students start on their report, they can gather information from the school wiki and then add information the found that was not there. They will be required to come up with at least three sources for their report. One could be the wiki, but they would need to find other information to add to the wiki, or find information that will dispute what was already there.

This could be an ever changing and building source. We could use it for all reports we do. We would add more people each year and more information each year. we would have our very own elementary Online Encyclopedia.

That's Entertainment!

My team finished our last major project in our classes. What a project. I have made movies with my class before. I love teaching the movie making process to students. All the ideas, writing, storyboarding, planning, preparing, performing, and best of all, viewing the final product. This is a new way of doing our films. We have done individual films in our rooms and have put together some pretty big productions. With us doing PLC's and seeing how powerful it is we decided to incorporate the while fifth grade into one big film. This gave each student an opportunity to have as big a part as they wanted and to be able to do more with the filming.

We started out picking the subject of our movies. Our Social Studies Curriculum is about the United States and so we went with U.S. History. We had decided weeks ago that we would each do six movies in our rooms. that would give us 18 short films to put together into one big film and we would have a Journey Through History. And so we did. We split the topics into different perspectives of the different groups involved in the topic. When we picked the Revolution, we split it into three topics; British, Hessians, and Americans. All three groups we set during the night before the crossing of the Delaware by George Washington.

We picked the topics and assigned them to our four-person groups in our classes. We wanted to keep the movies down to about 2 minutes and everyone in the group needed to be in the movie. The could use others from the class, but the main characters needed to be from the group. Each group researched about their topic and wrote a short script of the major points to help the audience know what was happening and what people felt a that time. Once they had a story and dialogue, they tackled the storyboard. they were allowed 6-12 boards to tell their story. The hardest part of storyboarding is fitting what needs to happen in the story into something that looks similar to what they want and still being able to film it on the elementary school grounds. It is kinda hard to film a ship scene in a big storm.

After the students filmed their shorts we had them edit their own films. They used their scripts and storyboards to keep themselves on track. We gave them a short overview on how to use iMovie 08 and turned them loose. They worked pretty well with their group and put together a basic edited version of the shorts. The teachers came in next and did a final edit of each film. Thus is where we get to refine the cuts, make sure the sound is loud enough, and they followed the script. Anything that should not be in the film is cut and a final product is produced. When each of the films have been finished, they are exported and combined into one bug film in Final Cut. This is we add in sound effects and colorized the film so it has a consistent look. It was then burned and shown at our Film Festival Night. Parents are invited and popcorn is popped.

Overall the students get real writing and organizing experience as well as getting a final product that they can keep forever. Making movies is a great experience for the students. As a teacher, it makes for a great final test in writing, organization, research, and presentation.

What's on your Mind, Map?

I have decided to start looking for more software that the students cna use on their computers. Software that will help them, will save them, and me, time, and will not be something new to work on, but will take the place of something they are writing already. I used to think that we need to be a "paperless classroom". We would use the computer for everything... but I now see the error in my thinking. We need the students to write.

Students need to learn to communicate with others without a computer. They need to have good, readable, handwriting. Students need to write. The bonus with the computer is that with the amount of technology in the world, they will need to practice using a computer for their information gathering, producing, and presenting. They already know how to use technology, but students need to learning and practice communicating with technology and maneuvrering around the amount of information that is out there. We, as teachers, need to show students what is out there that can help them and how to find what they need. They can assimulate to whatever technology is out there. They have used cellphones, MP3 players, calculators, computers, and other tech toys and have come to play. They have come to be challenged and we are here to give them a challenge.

So back to the software. I found a website called Mind42.com from the Inernational Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology in Singapore, March 2010. It is a Mind Mapping Software to put together a web of ideas. It can be used for mapping anything and everything. It was a great tool to use. It was also beautiful. The only problem is that the user needs to have an email address. I have a problem with that being that I teach Elelmentary School. For security reasons I will not have students use an email address to sign up for a program. So, I started looking and came up with two other downloadable programs. They work in Java, so they will work on all computers. FreeMind is a great alternative. It can be found at FreeMind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page FreeMind is the Mind Map I will go with because of the amount of things the students can put on this Mind Map. The other is a program called VUE from Tufts University. It can be found at Vue.tufts.edu and is great, but a litle harder to use than Free Mind. We will be using this is our writing and Spelling. I am pretty excited to get started with this little program. The students can print out the maps or save them as a pdf file. Sweet.