Thoughts from 7/26

Today's class continued our work on assessment and brought us into the world of rubrics. We reviewed several online resources for rubric creation. It is so helpful to not have to start from scratch, but rather modify a rubric that someone else has created. Rubrics allow students to have the ability to see the expectations prior to beginning an assignment. This is critical in a long term assignment or one with multiple parts. They can see the point values and determine those pieces which are the most critical.

Rubrics also allow the teacher to be more transparent with grading. It takes away from some of the subjectivity that can plague the grading procedure. It also gives parents greater clarity and justification for their child's grades.

Some of the resources that can be found online are:
University of Wisconsin's site on educational rubrics: http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/rubrics.shtml

A Rubric on an Inspiration created graphic organizer:
http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/inspirationrubric.html

A Generic Rubric Generator:
http://teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/

Guidelines for Rubric Development:
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/july/rubrics/Rubric_Guidelines.html

Our last mission of the class was to create our own rubric for the unit assignment. It took us a long time, but the end result was a comprehensive rubric that had point values and categories of quality for all of the pieces of the assignment. It can be viewed on myLesley.

Thoughts on 7/24

In class we explored the many areas of assessment. Utilizing a jigsaw method in conjunction with cooperative learning we broke into groups of 4 to cover 4 major areas of assessment: MCAS, traditional assessment, non-traditional assessment and Lindquist's Chapter 8 on Student Assessment. The traditional and non-traditional folks began with information on thirteen.org's online professional development site. The MCAS group delved into the Massachusetts' Department of Education site on MCAS.

As we came back together as a group, we heard from members of each division and explored the topics in depth. Our assessment work will continue as we begin working with rubrics. Thursday's class will feature the whole class construction of the rubric for our unit assignment. All of our assessment findings will be written up in Thursday's blog entry.

Thoughts from 7/23

Tonight's class served as a way to get caught up with discussing our readings, review various types of instructional strategies and delve more deeply into our use of Inspiration. In Lindquist, we reviewed Chapter 2 and explored Tarry's ideas for creating a positive classroom. Starting off the year with a classroom set of goals created by the class is a way of teaching students the importance of rules and respect for others, but it also carries over a critical civics lesson. Tarry has many ideas for promoting peace in the classroom.

Moving on to the course readings we covered instructional strategies for Differentiated Instruction and Cooperative Learning. There are so many ways to get students involved in group work and to help them gain the skills necessary for working with their peers. Social Studies provides many opportunities for collaboration, problem solving and critical thinking as a group. Differentiated Instruction requires the teacher to have a thorough understanding of the students in class and ways of learning that are most effective for them. This website provided a clearinghouse of DI resources. We also reviewed Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which can be found here.

Lastly, we delved back into the world of graphic organizers in Inspiration for work on the unit lesson integrating the software. As I went around the room I saw a wide variety of usages for the program. Some are creating models for their students to create in a classroom. Others are using the program to create a graphic organizer to use in conjunction with a projector for whole class instruction. As the units are completed for the end of class I will be posting completed units on my website so that those resources are available to all.

Thoughts from 7/19

Our class began with a presentation from School Psychologist, Debra Culberson. In her presentation, Debra covered the 8 Neurodevelopmental Domains according to Mel Levine's work. The presentation included descriptions of the domains, warning signs that something may not be functioning properly as well as strategies to help students who are having difficulties.

After the presentation we shared our Cultural Biographies. This class was truly amazing. It was great to see people sharing their personal thoughts about how they viewed themselves culturally. For many this description extended far beyond our normal conception of culture: race, ethnicity and religion. Many described themselves according to their beliefs and passions. Some of us identified ourselves according to our familial relations and those who have had a profound impact on our lives. We were treated to food, photos and music. I am still amazed by the depth of your sharings and I am very proud of all of you. I hope this was a beneficial assignment and one that you can carry over to your own classrooms to become more connected with your students.

Thoughts from 7/17

Well, we packed in a great deal in this class. This class was dedicated to latitude and longitude and our first geocaching adventure. In class we reviewed the principles of latitude and longitude. Often times this subject can be difficult to teach. One of the things that I have found that make it a difficult subject is the counter-intuitiveness of the lines. Latitude lines run east/west around the globe, but we measure latitude in degrees north or south of the equator. Longitude lines run from the north pole to the south pole, but we measure longitude in degrees west or east of the Prime Meridian. With all of that said, we moved on to GPS and its role in the beginning of geocaching.

Geocaching began around 2000 with the deregulation of GPS.
Geocaching.com is the source for locating geocaches around the world.
Accounts are free and necessary for the site.
We typed in the Cambridge zip code and located the cache, "Billy Moon's Bear". Click here to view the page for this cache. With our GPS loaded with the first coordinates we headed out for Harvard. Our first find was a small red door with a name above it...




From here we used the clue of Sanders to locate the next part...off to Sanders Theatre. There we had to find a William with one given name and use his graduation date to complete a math problem to finish off the coordinates of the final cache location. The theatre was beautiful with sunlight streaming in through the stained glass.

We plugged in our new coordinates and headed towards those, approximately .5 of a mile away. This lead us back through Lesley's campus and into a surrounding neighborhood. As we approached the cache we found a yard that contained Winnie the Pooh's friends. The cache site was a hollowed out tree complete with a miniature door, log book, signs and a book swap box. Here with are with our first geocaching find!
We made our way back to class to log in our find online. We reviewed the numerous ways to incorporate GPS and geocaching in the classroom in conjunction with the assigned readings. After that we got on the computers to delve back into Inspiration for our next lesson plan. The uses of the program are widespread. Looking over shoulders I saw Venn Diagrams, mind maps, timelines, sheets for students to organize new information....the list goes on.

Our next meeting features a guest presentation by school psychologist Debra Culberson as well as our Cultural Biographies and a readings recap. Keep up the hard work, I'm so impressed!

Thoughts from 7/12

Thursday's class opened with a classroom meeting. In our meeting we discussed the implications for classroom meetings as well as tips for classroom management within the circle, ideas for discussions, as well as time parameters, etc. Everyone was willing to share their thoughts on what's the most unappealing subject within social studies to teach. Tops on the list? Politics, religion, and economics.

On a side note of management, please be aware that class participation is 30% of your grade. That means that your attendance in class is extremely important...if you're not there, you're not participating. For those who have not had issue with this, I thank you for your insight and thoughts in our discussions.

After our meeting, we discussed Chapter 1 of Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies. This chapter was loaded with information on multiple intelligences, integration across the curriculum, and curriculum planning ideas. I will be giving out handouts that will provide you with more strategies for incorporating multiple intelligences as well as Bloom's Taxonomy.

From there we delved into the topic of teaching with primary sources with the help of a slideshow from Kathy Schrock. I found this helpful in illustrating what a primary source is, how it's different from a secondary source, and for providing a wealth of clearinghouses online and ways to use primary sources across the curriculum.

When we meet again, we'll be trekking down Mass Ave on a quest for a geocache. Dress comfortably and be prepared to fully experience latitude and longitude!

Thoughts from 7/10

Our second class seemed to have a better flow. We began class with a discussion of the readings. There were great quotes pulled from the Foreward and Introduction of Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies. Many students remarked about the importance of centering our teaching around our students. We must look at our class and realize that they are all different individuals. Great teaching involves seeing the whole of each child and helping them engage in their own learning.

After our discussion we moved on to examining topics for the unit assignment. As people perused the frameworks and the web, ideas began flowing and it was great to see excitement developing around these ideas. Looking over the list of topics and grade levels is quite impressive! We have first and second grade topics on immigration and community, third grade coverage of local and U.S. History, fourth and fifth grade coverage of explorers and native peoples and sixth grade coverage of Africa. This will be an incredible resource available to the class upon completion.

We didn't get to the George Lucas Educational Foundation piece on Geo-Literacy, but we'll be covering that in class on 7/12. This class will also feature our first look into teaching with Primary Sources. There's much to be examined here and this will get you started in creating your first lesson plan due next week.

Summary of Class 7/9

I came away from class feeling as though we accomplished a good deal for our first meeting. We examined the syllabus in depth. Utilizing Inspiration, we discovered the Taba Teaching Strategy in action as we attempted to pull together a definition of Social Studies. We began reviewing the parts of myLesley, examining where to find articles, assignments and links to important sites.
Tonight we'll be reviewing last night's readings and continuing our work on Inspiration. Most importantly we will begin reviewing resources in efforts to determine a unit topic for each of you. This is a critical decision to make early on in the course, because many of your assignments are based upon this topic. We'll also delve into Edutopia online and begin perusing a section on Geo-Literacy with a focus on the importance of essential questions.