LES Vocabulary Review

At the January Educator Academy, we had the opportunity to spend the afternoon on Vocabulary and the importance of focusing on Tier 2 and Tier 3 words. (See Bringing Words to Life for more information) It was truly an awesome afternoon and such powerful information was shared amongst the educators. Two educators decided to use what we talked about in the academy and really implement these vocabulary activities in their classrooms. Melissa Warren and Kelly Fischetti from Lakeside invited me to come to their 5th grade classes to see their own take on vocabulary review. Needless to say, it was quite impressive! 

First, the learners and educator brainstormed words that the learners had a hard time remembering the meaning. 

Then each learner was either assigned a word or they chose one that they were going to be the expert. They had to create a name tag with that word on the front and on the back they had to put the definition and other important information. 

They had to go find 10 people who had words that they were unsure of and learn from those experts. 

Here is the data sheet that they used to record their words. (Go here for sheet)

 The math conversations amongst the learners were very rich and impressive!

Kindergarten heard about 5th grade's vocabulary activity and they completed their own set of words. They came and shared their words and definitions with the 5th graders and the 5th graders had to share their words with the kindergarteners trying to make a relationship to one of their words. 

It was so cool to see the 5th graders and kindergarteners working together to learn their vocabulary words! Melissa and Kelly did an awesome job!! 

If you would like more information on vocabulary instruction, please visit the Educator Academy website! https://sites.google.com/a/g.coppellisd.com/educator-academies/vocabulary 

CCE 5th Grade EdCamp

Earlier this year, Nancy Benton and Malachi Ewbank at CCE had the brilliant idea to take the concept of EdCamp for educators and reinvent it for their learners. Each learner chose a topic that interested them and presented it to their friends in a fun and engaging way. I had the opportunity to see the first EdCamp and the topics ranged from sports to cooking. These two educators took it a step further for this past week-long EdCamp. Each of their learners chose a reading topic to do a review lesson on and prepared an experience for their fellow 5th graders. Every morning from 8:15-9:45 this week, learners presented their topics and went to presentations about other reading strategies that they needed to review. 

The QR code for the learners to get the schedule for the day. 

Here is the schedule for their EdCamp. 

This group worked on fiction vs. non-fiction literature. 

Inferencing is always a hot topic to review! 

Learners thinking about the inferencing task posed to them. 

This group was playing song clips for similes and metaphors. This room was definitely not the most quiet but all the learners were very engaged!! 

EdCamp was a success and every learner had a chance to review reading skills that they needed. This model gave ownership to the learners and could work in any subject area! 

What does effective planning look like?

I have had the opportunity to plan with Brooke Sims and Ashley Minton in our math coach meetings this past year. The way these two think about planning and work together to create exemplar experiences for their learners is extraordinary. I asked them a few questions that might give you some ideas for when you are planning for your own learners...

Who are you? (Name, grade, years of experience, subjects you teach, what you love to do, etc)

Ashley Minton - 6th year teaching math/science

• taught 5 years looping 2nd/3rd grades

• first year teaching 5th grade, will loop back down to 4th grade next year
• Outside of school, I love to crossfit and spend time with family and friends.  I have 2 adorable nephews and one sweet niece that I love to visit as often as I can. :)

Brooke Sims

• this is my 5th year teaching
• I taught 3rd grade (self-contained) my first year in my hometown of Burkburnett, Texas
• I was hired at Town Center as the GT Specialist
• I have been looping with 4th/5th grades in math and science for 3 years
• Outside of school, I love to hang out with my husband and my family and soon with my baby girl!
  
  

How long have you two been teaching together?

This is our first year to work together.

When you sit down and start thinking about what you are going to be planning next, what is the first thing that you do? Why?

• We usually look at the 9 weeks as a whole and map out what TEKS we need to cover first.  
• We then group the TEKS into logical categories and  try to come up with a bigger picture.  We ask ourselves:  How is this related to the real-world?  What is the bigger picture that they need to know in 20 years?  What do they need to know in 5 years?  What do they need to know this year? (This is the megaspore idea from Understanding by Design).  
• After we come up with our enduring understandings and essential questions, we focus on developing a real-world performance assessment that includes all of the TEKS and requires open-ended problem-solving, critical thinking, and choice.   
• After we have designed a performance assessment, we look at what learning experiences we could do that would help them gain the knowledge necessary to be successful with the performance assessment.  
  
  

How do you come up with your performance assessments?

• Think about real-world connections
• Try to create something open-ended that allows for natural differentiation
• Incorporate technology, creativity, and choice
• Think about career connections
• Follow the UBD or PBL way of thinking

Do you follow a specific process when planning? What is it?

Same as question about planning above :)  

How do you make sure to differentiate for all your learners?

• We have found that if the performance assessment is open-ended enough, it differentiates itself, and we don’t have to come up with alternative activities.  We just support those that need more support as they work on the project.   
• Another way we differentiate often is using “ports” based on pre-assessments.  The students get back their pre-assessments at the beginning of a unit, and they are responsible for correcting them as they learn new knowledge throughout the unit.  The pre-assessment also helps them know what they need more practice on and helps them be responsible for their learning.   For example, during a fractions unit, there may be a “port” on equivalent fractions, a “port” on simplifying fractions, etc.  If a student has mastered finding equivalent fractions, he/she does not have to visit that “port” or complete those activities.  If they need more practice, they complete the activities in that “port” or visit with the teacher in small group time.
• We do a lot of blended learning so that we are more free to work with small groups and re-teach when necessary.  They are also able to watch the videos as many times as they need.  

 

What are some resources that you like to use when planning?

• Discovery Education
• Defined STEM
• LearnZillion for blended learning videos
• Pinterest for ideas, but then we change everything to make it fit our needs  

What would you say has been the key factor in making your planning sessions successful?

• We work well together!
• We divide up the tasks, and we know that we can depend on one another to be responsible in getting that part done.  
• We do most of our planning in google docs, which makes our lives easier!  
• We do a lot of frontloading with our planning.  We sit and plan for a unit for a longer portion of time at the beginning, then there is not a lot of daily or weekly planning until our next unit.  

I hope this gives you some ideas for how to make your planning just as successful. Feel free to email these awesome educators with questions!

Extraordinary 1st grade Station Procedures

I had the pleasure of visiting Megan Schaum's 1st grade classroom at Valley Ranch. Her station procedures had been noted as pretty amazing and I was told that I needed to go see them... I have to agree, they were pretty incredible! 

To begin, Megan discusses all the stations with her class. She goes station by station to make sure they understand the concept and why they are working on that particular skill. She leaves this chart of rotations on the smart board for the duration of the stations. Usually her learners work on the stations for a week and typically, they will go through the rotations twice in the week (3 stations per day for 4 days).

After discussing the rotations, her learners are free to begin in their designated station groups. 

Here her learners were working on matching time cards.

 

 

There were obviously many different ways to do this! 

This group was working with Tangrams on the iPad. 

At this rotation, learners were working on building shape pictures and then figuring out the amount of each shape needed to complete the picture.

At the teacher table, Megan was working with her learners on shape bingo that she had made. Her questions ranged from "Row B- How many sides are on a trapezoid?" to "Row O- What shape has 6 vertices?" and her learners would mark that answer on their boards. She was constantly monitoring their thinking and providing immediate feedback if they thought differently than the appropriate answer.

During this station, learners were working on the app "30 hands" on the iPads. They would take a picture of a shape or a group of shapes and then they would record themselves talking about the attributes of the shape to make a slideshow. 

Finally, this group was working on their facts which were differentiated by their own skill level. I saw a few working on addition while some others were working on division!

I love seeing anchor charts up in a classroom! What a wonderful way for our learners to refer back to    their prior learning!

With one minute left in the rotation, Megan gave a cue to clean up which prompted all the learners to immediately start the clean up process. After one minute, they needed to be lined up next to their rotation to switch to the next rotation. If they completed the clean up quickly and efficiently, their group would be invited to the dance party at the end of the rotations.  

Ready to switch to the next station when Mrs. Schaum gave the launch word, "Texas". 

These procedures were so impressive to witness and I know they made the stations so much more effective because they did not have to stop for any little behavior problems. Thank you for inviting me to your class, Ms. Schaum! 

If you have any questions, please email Megan Schaum and I am sure she would love to help you out!

Valley Ranch's Kindergarten Measurement PBL

I had the pleasure of visiting Katie Kennedy's classroom to see her completed Measurement PBL. What a treat that was! It was amazing and inspiring to see a successful PBL done at the Kindergarten level.

As an entry event, Katie brought in a suitcase full of stuffed animals and other non-necessities. She told her learners that she was going on a trip and asked them if she had all that she needed for the trip. They gave a resounding 'no' and then as a class they brainstormed in a circle map what she needed to pack for this trip.

She then introduced her driving question and her learners brainstormed their knows and need to knows. 

She had pulled many books to help with their research on what to pack. 

As the kindergarten team, the educators had decided that the trip would be to either Hawaii or Alaska. The learners had to brainstorm the similarities and differences of what they would pack to these two extreme weather conditions. 

I just love seeing Kinder double bubble maps! Their circles are so tiny! :-)

The learners were then assigned a destination.

Then they had to go through a series of cards (with hidden paper clips as weights on the back) to figure out what to pack. Originally, they had told their learners not to exceed 50 paperclips (pounds) because at the airport there is a weight limit. As the project progressed, the number increased to 75 paperclips. (We are always assessing and modifying for our learners!)

This is the recording sheet that they used to determine what they can pack.

  In a station, the learners designed 'suitcases'.

On the inside of the suitcase, they had to 'pack' for their trip. 

 Here is an example from another VRE Kinder class...

The project was awesome and the learners got a lot out of it. We are so proud of VRE Kinder for implementing this new PBL and making it a successful learning experience! 

If you would like some of the materials from this PBL, please visit the Educator Academy website.