100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator. Kath Murdoch: Readings & Presentations. Untitled. Take a guess: What is the single most important year of an individual’s academic career? The answer isn’t junior year of high school, or senior year of college. It’s third grade. What makes success in third grade so significant? It’s the year that students move from learning to read — decoding words using their knowledge of the alphabet — to reading to learn. The books children are expected to master are no longer simple primers but fact-filled texts on the solar system, Native Americans, the Civil War. Children who haven’t made the leap to fast, fluent reading begin at this moment to fall behind, and for most of them the gap will continue to grow. So third grade constitutes a critical transition — a “pivot point,” in the words of Donald J. (MORE: Paul: Born to be Bright: Is There a Gene For Learning?)
Too often the story unfolds this way: struggles in third grade lead to the “fourth-grade slump,” as the reading-to-learn model comes to dominate instruction. (MORE: Andrew J. Share My Lesson - Free K-12 Resources By Teachers, For Teachers. Working together assembly. Types of Assessment - Rohan Roberts. Assessment for learning comprises two phases—initial or diagnostic assessment and formative assessmentassessment can be based on a variety of information sources (e.g., portfolios, works in progress, teacher observation, conversation)verbal or written feedback to the student is primarily descriptive and emphasizes strengths, identifies challenges, and points to next stepsas teachers check on understanding they adjust their instruction to keep students on trackno grades or scores are given - record-keeping is primarily anecdotal and descriptiveoccurs throughout the learning process, from the outset of the course of study to the time of summative assessment Assessment as learning begins as students become aware of the goals of instruction and the criteria for performanceinvolves goal-setting, monitoring progress, and reflecting on resultsimplies student ownership and responsibility for moving his or her thinking forward (metacognition)occurs throughout the learning process Evaluation.
Active Learning Techniques - Rohan Roberts. A growing body of research has made it clear that the overall quality of teaching and learning is improved when students have ample opportunities to clarify, question, apply, and consolidate new knowledge. There are any number of teaching strategies that can be employed to actively engage students in the learning process, including group discussions, problem solving, case studies, role plays, journal writing, and structured learning groups. The benefits to using such activities are many. They include improved critical thinking skills, increased retention and transfer of new information, increased motivation, and improved interpersonal skills.
Engaging discussion/workshop/classroom participants small group activities – pairs and trios, especially – is a low-risk strategy which ensures individual participation in groups of any size. The sampling of basic activities listed below can be adapted to almost any classroom setting. Ice Breakers Think / Pair / Share Question and Answer Pairs Corners.