For the journal time (which is a reflection of the previous day’s happenings) Jennifer created a postcard letter to a student. See the picture above-SO CUTE!
Gloria created a comic strip using the ReadWriteThink website.
Linda did her teacher demo-Modernism. She’s a college instructor. We had to work in a group to create a powerpoint to show examples of modernism in art, music, literature.
For our reading, writing, and researching time I read more of Word Nerds.
Now this is an AWESOME book about strategic vocabulary instruction. Not only does it offer strategies for teaching vocabulary, but it also gives you a 5 day plan and 10 day plan that you could follow if you wanted. Another practical PD book that I’m in love with.
One of the discussions that we had today came from the insight of one of the college instructors that is taking part in our NWP. She uses the “just in time” theory for a lot of things. One example she mentioned is research. Instead of teaching them how to do research all at once she gives them the research task, and then addresses questions/problems as they come up for that day. Then the next day she teaches a mini-lesson based on the previous day. Does anyone else use this method for things like this?
We spent time talking about the anthology that will be published at then end of our NWP-our writing. 🙂 Gloria divided us up into 2 groups with each group being responsible for certain tasks related to the anthology. Holy moly. Another assignment. 🙂
Our round table discussion was on GRAMMAR-everyone’s favorite subject. HAHA!
Some of the resources that were mentioned were:
2. Grammar Girl’s books-including The Grammar Devotional
3. Comma Sense book by Richard Lederer
4. Image Grammar by Harry Noden-THIS is the one I ordered and want to try out in my classroom-the “brushstrokes” techniques-it’s based on teaching grammar within their writing
One teacher said she uses the 1st 2 lines of the poem, Jabberwocky, at the beginning of her course to review the parts of speech.
Subject-verb agreement, fragments, and run-on sentences were said to be the things that are the WORST. 🙂
And since we always get off topic eventually during our discussions…. the concept of gaming came up.
In gaming the player has to figure out strategies to move to the next level. They have to master the skills before moving to the next level. They don’t get punished when they stay at the same level and don’t advance, but they do get do overs.
How could this idea be incorporated into education? It sounds like standards based grading to me, and some school districts in the US are trying it out. What are your thoughts?
Some more issues we talked about
i run read teach 