Standards in action!

Once again, standards!!! This time instead of just reading up on standards are we got to research standards of a certain area with our group! Our group's mission: ELA (English Language Arts) standards. Once again thanks to Google Docs communicating with my group was super easy! I am in love with the Powerpoint portion of Google Docs. I still can not believe how easy it can be to work on a group project. I really wish I knew this throughout college! But anyway back to ELA standards. My section of this project was to find out ways to bring ELA into the classroom. Well, I found out there are plenty of really fun, simple ways to teach to the ELA standards. Thank you internet! There are countless websites where teachers post lesson plans that you can use with your own class. It is very comforting knowing that teachers love to share their brilliant ideas! Digitialwish.com is an amazing website that Jessica found. It has all these lesson plans that are simple, cheap and fun to do in class. For example, one was a twist on a classic book report. Instead of doing a boring old report this lesson plan has students create their own movie review of the book. It lets the student learn while at the same time have fun with the lesson! I think the highlight of doing this project was finding the website tikatok.com. This website is simply amazing! It lets teachers create a FREE account and allows them to put students on under their account so they can keep track of their work. The website allows student's to write their own books, along with draw their own pictures. You can then order hard or soft copies of the book the student's started from scratch! I love this idea so much and it is a great way to bring ELA standards into your classroom. Anyway, I am happy the way our group presentation went along with everyone else. Everyone always does such a great job on their presentations, it makes it very easy to watch! Dr. Smirnova then took over to teach us about Social Studies Standards! Very important to know for our big Unit Plan!!!!! It was really cool how she had us get into groups and figure out a fun way to remember the NY state Social Studies Standards. Everyone had such great, creative, fun tricks to remember them! History of NY and US, World History, Geography, Economics, and Civic, Citizenship and Government!! Ok, I cheated and looked up the last one but the tricks did help me with the first four! Well that was what we left off with for Spring Break: next quest- Webquest!!!! Very confused on Webquests but crossing my fingers I will be a pro in the next few weeks!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

It's good to know that snow can't stop Curriculum Planning and Development!!! It's pretty awesome having a tech savvy teacher who can continue on with class through a snow storm!! Elluminate Live was pretty cool. Who knew you could have such an interactive class through the computer? I had no idea! But I am glad I have this class to learn things like this. I really did love Elluminate Live. I really felt like I was in class seeing Dr. Smirnova on the screen and hearing her voice. It really felt like class when we got sent into our groups! I didn't really catch on to how to make a text box and start writing. I made lots of mistakes but the experience was worth it! I think Nick did an awesome job with Microteaching online. I for one would never ever know how to accomplish that. It would probably help if I had a microphone and webcam in my computer. But onto Assessment, the topic of the week! Another important area of education. It was great reading up and learning about assessments, because my idea of assessments before this class were standardized tests, or what I learned in the readings, summative assessments :) I really like the idea that assessments give teachers the chance to see where the student is in their learning. Since it is really important to remember that all students are at different levels of learning, and each student processes information differently, it is important to give students Diagnostic Assessments. I think that KWL charts are an awesome way to go to see what each student already knows, and ideally self-evaluations of each student would be a good way to see what they know. I have always thought that the students are the center of the classroom and that teachers should plan their lessons to student's best interests. With formative assessments it lets the student be student centered and allows them to grow in strength as a student. By providing the student feedback it allows them to know and understand what they are or are not doing so they can improve. Teacher-Student Interaction, I feel, is a vital part to any classroom. If the student feels that the teacher is on their side and wants them to learn it will help the student focus more on learning. Overall, I learned a lot about assessments, and experienced a virtual classroom. Both of which I will take with me in the future!