Numbered Heads Together, Random Spinner

Excellence in Education: Numbered Heads Together 

This is an oldie, but goodie from Spencer Kagan, a cooperative learning guru. I had great success using it for anything from unit reviews to the most complex, higher-order questions.

How to:

1. Students are placed in groups of 4. Assign each of the 4 a number (1-4).
2. You, as the teacher, pose a question. Of course, it helps for students to be  able to see the question as well as hear it.
3. Students individually think and write down their answers. Answers can be written on a their desks (using white board markers), individual white boards or on paper.
4. Provide the students with a set amount of time to answer the question individually and provide them with a countdown as time is about to expire.
5. After time is called, the group discusses the answer and works towards a consensus answer.
6. Each member of the group should be able to answer the question for the entire group.
7. Randomly call a number (1-4) and that student reports the answer to the entire class. Again, depending on the type of question, you could use this as a competition between groups by keeping score or by having all of the randomly called numbers write their answer on a small whiteboard. For example, after giving groups time to answer, tell them to erase their answers. Randomly call on a number and have all students who were that number write down the correct answer on their whiteboard. Then have them display their answers to you. It’s also great to ask follow-up questions too.  

Why it works?

1. Each student is accountable, but the team approach eliminates fear
2. It provides opportunities for students to talk and listen, making learning visible
3. Appropriate grouping means stronger students can support struggling students without feeling “slowed” by them

Ideas for the Classroom: Random Name Picker

You know I’m a big fan of cold-calling as a means of questioning and formative assessment. Russel Tarr—he of classtools.net and many other great things—has created a spinning wheel for random name selection.

To create your own wheel, go to http://www.classtools.net/random-name-picker/ -> Edit/Save

After editing the names, click <Save this list as currently shown>

You’ll be prompted to save it using a password so you can have access to it in the future.

It can be embedded into a website and is accessible from ipads and iphones too.

Administrative Notes

I enjoyed our meeting on Friday. The responses to “Why do you teach?” varied greatly yet the underlying theme was always about helping our students. I promised the share with you the questions that I occasionally ask the students when I observe (or sometimes I’ll ask at lunch, on the bus ramp, etc.):

1. Why are you doing this?
2. What will it help you do?
3. How does it fit into what you’ve previously done?
4. How do you know you've met the objective/learned what the teacher wanted you to learn? How do you know you've done good work? What does quality work look like?
5. Did this activity make you think? Did you have an opportunity to be creative for this activity or assignment? Are you being challenged?
6. What do you do in this class if you need help? Are you comfortable asking questions?

 Please complete the professional development choice form by Friday

Let’s make greeting our students at the door and accurate attendance a goal of ours this year.

Positive Referral Link: http://goo.gl/s0KXRB

Work Order Request Form: http://goo.gl/H7hFwK

Tweet of the Week:

What I’m Reading

Teachers, Remember We Are a Work In Progress

World’s Most Famous Teacher Blasts School Reform (other great tidbits in Q-n-A format)

15 Examples of Student-Centered Teaching

Remind, My Goals

Cougar Communication

A special edition of Cougar Communication! I know you’ve been waiting all summer for this.

Ideas for the Classroom

I’ve plugged this seemingly a thousand times, but I’ve got to plug it one more time. Remind—they’ve dropped the 101—is a great tool that enables you to send mass texts/emails to parents and students in your class without them ever seeing your cell phone number. Truthfully, you don’t even need a cell phone to use it. 

Here’s why I love Remind:

• It takes less than 3 minutes to set up an account.
• They’ve added a new feature that enables you to text small groups (at least 3) students or their parents. For example, if 5 students have until tomorrow to take a test, you can select just those 5 to send emails or texts to.
• To send a text takes only as long as it takes you to type your message.
• Totally free!

Administrative Notes

Our admin supervisory meeting on Friday will be in Mr. Wright’s classroom. A couple of things to think about: 1) What is student engagement? 2) What are 3 goals that you are going to set for yourself this year.

Speaking of goals, here’s a link to mine (not my official Standard 7 Goal)

Some Useful Links

Strengthening Student Engagement: What Do Students Want

How Do We Know When Students Are Engaged?

Building a Better Teacher

Check out what this student produced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-itvkb7kMc  

End of Year Ideas

Ideas for the Classroom: End of Year Ideas

With SOL tests wrapping up and AP tests in the rear-view mirror, this often becomes my favorite time of year as I see students imagining, creating, collaborating and exploring in their classes. With the restraints of standardization lifted, I love seeing lessons that remind us of why we entered education (it ain’t so students can do well on a multiple choice test).   

Some of the great things I’ve seen in the past two years (some of these I’ve  mentioned in previous Cougar Communications):

·      Create a class book. Each student/pair of students creates a chapter reviewing material from the year. These books could easily be used for next year’s SOL review sessions.

·      Make use of flip cameras and BYOD and have students create skits, chapter/unit reviews, commercials, movie trailers, news clips, etc.

·      Make use of Skype—host an expert, collaborate with another class from around the world, compete versus a class from FHS or LHS.

·      Cumulative assignments. As a history teacher, I tried to take a thematic approach to my teaching (some themes: role of geography, power, economic haves-have nots, etc.), so at the end of each year, students were assigned a theme and created a project highlighting examples of the theme from throughout the year.

·      Socratic seminars, talk shows or other discussions. Have students research a topic (individually or in groups), research it and then let them have at it. Furthermore you can assign students a side or perspective to research. If you’re hosting a talk show the producer and show host must become experts on both sides.

·      Give the students a FedEx Day. Essentially, a FedEx Day is where you allow the students to take an idea of their own and run with it. For more http://goo.gl/zWUCq (a positive to having the SOLs so early, there’s still plenty of time for almost everything)

I know the natural tendency is for us to lighten up after the SOLs, but we can do so much more than pop a movie into the DVD player. Why not stretch our students’ creativity, have them apply all what they’ve learned, and allow them to inspire us?

If you’re doing something special in your class, please remember to invite me. Thanks!

Administrative Notes

Thanks to everyone who has already submitted a positive referral. If you haven’t submitted one for this go-around, please do so. Positive Referral Link: http://goo.gl/cZIXm7

Sunday: Senior Scholarship Banquet, 3pm

Monday: Flip, History 2^nd/4^th SOLs (different lunch schedule), Senior Picnic

Tuesday: Flex, History Make-ups

Wednesday: Science 1^st/3^rd, different lunch schedule

                      Chorus and orchestra concert         

Thursday: Flip, Science 2^nd/4^th, different lunch schedule

Friday: Science Make-ups

Quote of the Week:

Self-discipline means doing what you SHOULD do rather than what you WANT to do.

What I’m Reading

Becoming Invisible in My Classroom 

Many Teachers Face Uncertain Retirements   

An interesting graph on college majors

Scaffolded Instruction and Paired Verbal Fluency

Excellence in Education: Scaffolding Instruction

Scaffolding instruction, coupled with formative assessment, is a powerful instructional strategy. Scaffolding refers to breaking up the learning into chunks and providing the appropriate supports for each step. This past week I saw several teachers using scaffolding in different ways.

• Mr, Kuzma showed students a completed student project before they began working on it. By presenting a model, he could more effectively guide students through the various steps of the process.
• I saw several teachers use think alouds as they read text or contemplated their own posed questions.
• Mr. Konoza pre-teaching vocabulary. By frontloading the vocabulary (as opposed to sending the students into a reading or class without the necessary knowledge) with additional support (examples, analogies, antonyms, synonyms, etc) students were ready to continue in class.
• Ms. Miller’s use of a graphic organizer to teach US History to her self-contained class. By providing the students with the graphic organizer as a starting point, her students were able slowly progress from simple to more difficult.

Each of the examples reduced student confusion, clarified purpose, enabled students to stay on task, and creating student momentum by inspiring learners to want to learn more.

Ideas for the Classroom: Paired Verbal Fluency

1. Students partner up.
2. Students decide who will be A who will be B.
3. Teacher provides a topic for discussion. This could be a review, something they hold an opinion of, etc.
4. A is to talk about the topic for 60 seconds. (You can allow/outlaw use of resources).
5. B is then to talk about the topic for 60 seconds but he/she can NOT repeat what Student A said.
6. Then give the students some time to reflect on their conversation.
7. Student B is then given 30 seconds to add anything left untouched in the conversation.
8. A is then given the final 30 seconds.

This is a great way to maintain high expectations and to formatively assess students. The one-on-one nature is non-threatening and provides students with meaningful feedback.

Administrative Notes

Positive Referral Link: http://goo.gl/cZIXm7

We’ll be looking at how we can best extend flex into May. More to come…

We had our leadership team meeting last Thursday, your department chairs will soon be sharing the information from this meeting.

May 30 will be the Senior-Faculty Basketball game. Each class period will meet (just shortened). Again more info will be coming.

Wednesday morning will be our top decile breakfast. Congratulations to these hard-working students who have earned this honor.

With all of the rain forecasted for this week, I’m not even going to post this week’s sports schedule.

Quote of the Week

The process of learning is much more important for our kids to see than the product of our learning.

~George Couros

What I’m Reading

How Anxious Are Kids About Standardized Tests

Ten Thoughts on Grading and Assessment  

Feedback through Reflection Sheets, QuickKey

Excellence in Education

Susan Brookhart, an educator and researcher who focuses on feedback, urges us to involve students into the feedback process. One suggestion she has is to provide students with reflection sheets. The reflection sheets, whether they be a log, a graph, or something else completed by the student, should require the students to reflect on their daily learning success.

By monitoring their own progress, students took more responsibility for their learning and were able to accurately predict their own performance on larger tests. By involving the students in a metacognitive manner, students took greater ownership of their learning and enjoyed the learning process more!

Tech in Education: QuickKey

The founder of QuickKey has reached out to me several times on Twitter and this past weekend, a teacher mentioned it at this past weekend’s edcamp.

Right now it’s only an IOS app, but it’s coming soon for Android and Windows mobile devices.

What’s it do?

1. It turns your phone into a optical scanner to grade quizzes, tests, surveys, etc. up to 30 questions long.
2. It then gives you a data breakdown and the data can be uploaded (I don’t know how well it works with BlackBoard’s gradebook).

How’s it work?

1. Download the app.
2. Download the answer sheet and copy it. No more having to pay for Scantron sheets!
3. Enter the answers into your phone and scan each student’s answer using your phone.

Advantages?

1. Cheap! Actually it’s free. The only cost is the paper we print our answer sheets on.
2. While not as fast as the Scantron machine, it doesn’t break, there are no lines, you can do it at home.
3. It’s great for quick formative assessments and quizzes.

Administrative Stuff

Thank you to all of you who attended prom. It was—by far—the best attended prom by both students AND staff. While your attending helps with supervision, more importantly, the students appreciate seeing you.

We’d really like to say thank you for your participation in last week’s professional development and faculty meetings. It was among our best! As we go forward, please remember that you are the biggest variable in making Kettle Run better.

We’re trying to be more proactive and supportive of your efforts to educate all of our students. We’ve had some great success with some early strategies! Thanks for collaborating and communicating with us and let us know what we can do to support your teaching.

Please be sure to contact any families of students with D’s and Fs’ through a phone call or a personalized email.

Tonight’s #vachat tackles one of the most heated/passionate topics in education: homework. Join us tonight at 8.

Upcoming Kettle Run Events/Schedule

April 7:

Boys Lacrosse vs. Brentsville Home 6/7:30

Girls Lacrosse @ Brentsville 6/7:30

Boys Tennis @ Spotsylvania 4:30

Girls Tennis vs. Spotsylvania Home 4:30

April 8:

FLEX

Girls Soccer @ Fauquier 5:30/7:00

Boys Soccer vs. Fauquier Home 5:30/7:00

Varsity Softball vs. Fauquier Home 6

Varsity Baseball vs. Fauquier Home 6

JV Baseball @ Fauquier 6

April 9:

Varsity Softball vs. Freedom Home 6

Track @ Kettle Run Home

April 10:

FLEX

Career Shadowing Day

CTE Interviews

Girls Lacrosse @ Eastern View 6/7:30

Lacrosse vs. Eastern View Home 5:30/7:00

Girls Soccer @ Spotsylvania 6/7:30

Boys Tennis vs. James Monroe Home 4:30

Girls Tennis @ James Monroe

April 11:

Varsity Baseball @ Culpeper 4:30

JV Baseball vs. Culpeper 6

Varsity Softball @ Culpeper 4:30

Boys Soccer @ Culpeper 6/7:30

Girls Soccer vs/ Culpeper 5:30/7:00.

What I’m Reading

7 Things to Remember About Feedback

What Americans Like About Their Favorite Teachers

Virginia’s New State Superintendent of Instruction : (the Twitter world spoke really highly of his appointment and this article makes him look pretty promising)

Quote of the Week

Feedback to any pupil should be about the particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparisons with other pupils.

~Dylan Wiliam