These Listening Activities for Middle School Students Help Build Important Skills Following Directions Activity One fun way to improve students’ listening skills is to give them directions and see if they can follow them. It sounds simple enough, as teachers give directions all the time in class, but these directions are to draw objects in the right space. To add more interest, turn it into a competition. All of the students who correctly draw the items from the oral directions can win candy or a small prize. Note: You will need the key that is included below. Steps to Listening and Drawing Correct Shapes These directions are to be given orally in class. Step 1: Turn your paper horizontally. After the students have finished drawing the star, square, circle and triangle, they need to trade papers. Students should check that the paper they are “grading” looks exactly like the paper on the screen. Also, if a student forgot to shade in the square or place a “happy face” in the circle, the student should also mark this wrong.
20 Must-See Facts About The 21st Century Classroom The Current State Of Technology In K-12 7.62K Views 0 Likes What is the next device most students will soon purchase? How many schools have a digital strategy? Find out in the current state of technology in K-12. Technology and Education | Box of Tricks The Digital Education Revolution, Cont'd: Meet TED-Ed's New Online Learning Platform - Megan Garber - Technology TED's new tool lets teachers create customized lessons that revolve around web video. The iconic image of high school education, forged for most of us through personal experience and viewings of Dead Poets Society, is this: a teacher, standing in front of his or her class, lecturing. There are exceptions, definitely: the class discussion, the interactive lab experiment, the game, the field trip. For the most part, though, despite years of education reform, we tend of think of education as a highly vertical experience, one of active teachers and passive students, one in which knowledge radiates out from a single speaker to a roomful of silent listeners. That model is changing, though, and quickly. Today, it's going a step further: TED-Ed is launching a suite of tools that allow teachers to design their own web-assisted curricula, complete with videos, comprehension-testing questions, and conversational tools. That's big. Video, unsurprisingly, is an important component of that toolbox.
The LanguagesResources Blog What Is PBL Really? Do you want to engage your students in Project Based Learning (PBL)? Maybe you are asking yourself what is PBL really? Am I doing it right? Well, first of all, the most important thing to understand is that PBL is a construct made up by human beings and so there are lots of variations! My suggestion is to study many of the great resources that are available to you and then create your own working definition and effective PBL practice. Some Parameters to Consider I have created this diagram, enhanced by the critical eye of Brenda Sherry, which may be useful as you consider what is important to you and to your students. We like to think with the frame of continua rather than dichotomies simply because things are rarely on or off, black or white, ones or zeroes! You could likely add other dimensions to consider as you build your own understandings and beliefs! Trust Who is in control? Questioning Who is asking the question to be investigated in the project? Collaboration Content Knowledge Purpose
International Project or Partner Place - Homepage Welcome to iPoPP iPoPP is a place for educators and youth worldwide to find global learning projects and partners. iPoPP combines the best offerings of GlobalSchoolNet and eLanguages, to improve academic achievement, encourage workforce readiness, and give youth skills to become responsible global citizens. iPoPP News and Social Media Please join the iPoPPulation conversation, and share your iPoPP news and ideas via Twitter and Facebook. Our Vision Globally connect every student and every educator through iPoPP by 2020. Our Mission Provide a multi-lingual, online collaborative learning place for educators and youth; Deliver education programs in collaboration with companies, NGOs and governments; Evaluate projects, learning outcomes, academic skills and competencies; Connect learners worldwide to improve themselves, their local communities, and humanity. Join the iPoPPulation
www.inquiryhub.org 7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore. It explains the project in more detail. "Each student has to choose an organisms they wanted to study and were required to submit their topic for approval. Afterward, students had to write informative – but entertaining! – articles about their organism." Andrea collected work from 69 students and entered it into iBooks Author. iBooks Author is free but only works on Macs running 10.7 Lion or higher. iBooks Author is a fantastically powerful tool. There are some disadvantages to using iBooks author for crafting your own learning materials. Check out what Andrea and her students say about writing their book. I think the comment by CNEBBY in the Customer Reviews of Creatures, Plants and More sums up the project well: "This is an awesome example of what kids can do when they are properly motivated by a skilled teacher."
The Socratic Method The Socratic Method:Teaching by Asking Instead of by Tellingby Rick Garlikov The following is a transcript of a teaching experiment, using the Socratic method, with a regular third grade class in a suburban elementary school. I present my perspective and views on the session, and on the Socratic method as a teaching tool, following the transcript. The experiment was to see whether I could teach these students binary arithmetic (arithmetic using only two numbers, 0 and 1) only by asking them questions. I had one prior relationship with this class. When I got to the classroom for the binary math experiment, students were giving reports on famous people and were dressed up like the people they were describing. "But what I am really here for today is to try an experiment with you. 1) "How many is this?" 2) "Who can write that on the board?" 3) Who can write ten another way? 4) Another way? 5) Another way? 2 x 5 [inspired by the last idea] 7) One more? X [Roman numeral] 14) Which, nine or ten?
Resources and Tools for PBL Start to Finish Tips for downloading: PDF files can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms -- both as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application -- with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Click here to download the latest version of Adobe Reader. Documents to Help You Get Started The Hunger Games Project Documents Below are sample project-based learning documents from teachers Mary Mobley (English) and Michael Chambers (world history) of Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas. Back to Top Culture at Manor New Tech High School Manor Visitors Summary Sheet An overview of Manor New Tech for visitors, including mission statement, learning outcomes, and the school's commitments to their students Learning Outcomes Manor New Tech's learning outcomes for all classes Manor Bell Schedule Daily bell schedule for Manor New Tech Additional Resources on the Web Suggested Reading
The Role of Questions in Teaching, Thinking and Le One of the reasons that instructors tend to overemphasize "coverage" over "engaged thinking" is that they assume that answers can be taught separate from questions. Indeed, so buried are questions in established instruction that the fact that all assertions — all statements that this or that is so — are implicit answers to questions is virtually never recognized. For example, the statement that water boils at 100 degrees centigrade is an answer to the question "At what temperature centigrade does water boil?" Hence every declarative statement in the textbook is an answer to a question. Hence, every textbook could be rewritten in the interrogative mode by translating every statement into a question. To my knowledge this has never been done. Thinking is Driven by Questions Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions. Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. This is why it is true that only students who have questions are really thinking and learning.
As a teacher I struggle with teaching the meta layer, especially when it comes to transferring their learning to other areas. This past year, I’ve been connecting their learning for them but that’s me just telling them. I want them to apply it. by kimberlyng Jun 5
This is an interesting blog post about the areas of managing as a 21st Century learner - knowledge, skills, behaviour (character) and meta-layer. Read the post to explore these four areas. by janeschmude Apr 25
Yes its great. THe notion of teaching or developing character in Higher Ed is interesting isnt it. And the meta layer is full of lots of different things that may need teasing out. by susie_mac Aug 22
I like the breakdown into 4 areas: knowledge, skills, behaviour and "meta-layer". kp by krispaterson Aug 22