The good Stuff

The Internet is full of wonderful and amazing things.

Like this:   

And this:

But sometimes, you go looking for something amazing online and you end up with a fail. Like this:

Or this:

Or this:

There’s a lot going on online.

Just like you teach your students to be savvy consumers online who check sourcing and reliability and quality of their information, I think we-as-teachers need to remember those same guidelines when we go looking for teaching resources online.

Whether it’s teaching resource books from Amazon, student handouts from TeachersPayTeachers, or primary sources from randomdudesprimarydocs.com -- there is a lot on the internet.  

A Lot. On.The. Internet.

But like the “Online shopping fails above”, I have seen some online teaching resources that look great -- but aren’t what quite you’re looking for.

So how do you sift through all the primary sources, teacher-created powerpoints, and resource books out there?

1. Good resources target the benchmark (not the “topic”). There’s a big difference between Florida benchmarks, and, say, Kentucky benchmarks. Or New York benchmarks.  For example,
1. Arizona standards say “describe the significance of the amendments to the US Constitution”,
2. while Florida benchmarks have separate, specific benchmarks about
1. “analyze the impact of the 13, 14, 15, 19, 24, 26 amendments”,
2. “evaluate rights contained in the Bill of Rights and other amendments to the US Constitution”
3. and even “explain the constitutional amendment process”

So while you might find something cool about “amendments” does it match our specific Florida Benchmarks? That’s hard to find.

2. Good resources are age appropriate. I lovelovelove John Green’s Crash Course youtube series, but I wouldn’t dream of showing those to a middle schooler. Those resources are too fast-talking, with too-complicated, technical SAT-style vocabulary. And occasionally the allusion to more mature topics. On the other hand, I wouldn’t give my high schoolers some of the lower level materials I find online. It wouldn’t be challenging enough for them.

3. Good resources come from credible places. I once went looking for resources to teach the Arab-Israeli conflict, only to find extremely biased content, from both Jewish organizations and Arabic and Muslim organizations. That’s ok -- if you use one of each to teach both sides. It’s not ok to choose a side in that ongoing conflict and teach that one side as “fact”. I also found completely non-credible materials on that topic, such as articles from conspiracy websites.

*Bottom line? Figure out what/who the author or organization is and who funds them. It’s not as hard as it seems. Go to the “about us” page on the website or google the name of the website/article to see if other places online have criticized/praised/mentioned the source you’re looking at.  As crazy as it sounds, there are even misattributed George Washington documents out there.

Note -- Just because it says “US History” resources or “Civics resources or whatever doesn’t mean it’s credible. There are plenty of people with political/religions/whatever agendas who make good-looking websites and resources that are not credible that are trying to achieve a purpose that is not YOUR CLASSROOM purpose.

4. Good resources do stuff better than what you already have. Don’t choose an extra resource that’s all lower level! That stuff is everywhere! Don’t choose a resource that’s just a lecture or worksheet you could have made up in two minutes. Choose something that’s worth the time it takes to research it -- something engaging, with higher-order thinking, collaboration, and student voice and choice. Choose something that helps you differentiate  -- but that doesn’t “dumb it down”. The last thing any of us needs is to lower the cognitive levels of learning in our classrooms.

There is nothing wrong with supplementing lessons with other stuff. Just make sure it's the Good Stuff. Make sure it's benchmark-specific, appropriate, credible, and high quality. Don't grab every book/power point/worksheet/document on the internet.

What's your favorite online resource? What is your best advice for colleagues about choosing resources? As always, I love to hear! Email me newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

It's Aliiiiive!!

How asleep are your kids this week? Maybe it’s the rainy weather or the fact that a chunk of kids  are out sick this week. Maybe it’s just the January blahs.

Well, let’s wake ‘em up. Let’s get ‘em moving. Let’s make those little monsters come aliiiiiive!!!!!

So remember that I wrote last week about movement in class? It’s kind of a big deal.

Sooooo ....  let’s get our kids up, for just a minute. You don’t have to ask them do dance or jump or anything crazy. Just .... move to another partner and talk...

Here’s a quick, easy strategy that can work with any content. It’s called Words Alive, from Teacher Created Materials. It’s actually adapted from strategies to use with ESOL but because it involves movement, it should be useful with all kids.

How do I do this?  

1. a. Before class, choose a text to tackle together and a list of terms from that text you want to emphasize. Try to be judicious so that you choose ONLY the most important terms. Try to keep the number of terms down to 5-10.
2. Read the text together. This can be a document or a textbook selection or an article.
3. Write the 5-10 most super-duper important terms on the board for your most struggling group. You can skip this scaffold if a particular class doesn’t need it.
4. Give each kid an index card. Explain that they are going to create their own card. If you don’t have index cards, just cut blank paper in half.
5. Explain to kids (with written directions) that on one side of the card they will write a selected term. On the other side they will draw a visual representation of the term.
6. Give the kids a few minutes to do that.
7. When they have completed their “Words Alive” cards, divide the kids in pairs or small groups. Explain that they will be working as a group to guess the words based on the visual representation, like pictionary.
8. Students should only show the back of the card (the term written) until the other student has guessed
9. Have students change groups/partners so that they get to guess another word from another classmate.
10. Keep the cards to use later on in the unit/year and to increase the number of exposures to the terms.  

How do I keep my kids on task?

1. Make sure they know what the terms mean before they make the vocab cards.
2. Partner them strategically.
3. Use a timer to keep things moving.

Why should I try this one?

• It can be a valuable frontloading strategy to pre-teach vocab before a lesson.
• Or, it can be used during/after a lesson to review, clarify, and solidify understanding. It works because the KIDS make the meaning. THEY make the images and THEY do the guessing.
• They’re not passively copying vocab. They’re doing the thinking.
• It gives the kids a chance to use the terms in a non-threatening setting (not a test or whole-class embarrassment)

What could go wrong?

1. Kids could not understand the terms and therefore have misconception-oriented visuals.
1. Fix by checking their visuals before they group up

2. Kids could get off task during the partner/small group time

1. Monitor closely and use a timer

What do you think? Will you try Words Alive? I think it can be an easy, controlled way to use movement for a learning purpose (not for just stretch-breaks). Let’s make words come alive -- and in the process, let’s make our kids wake up and look alive. Will you let me know how it goes? As always, I love to hear about it! Email me! newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

I Like to Move It, Move It

Happy New Year (still)!

When was the last time you sat in a long meeting, PLC, or training. Feel free to call me out on this one from some meeting or PD you were in with me (“Tracy! That's that one long meeting with YOU!”)

If I can ask a personal question, how do you FEEL after sitting for that long? Do your legs go numb? Does your foot bounce up and down? Do you change posture over and over again? Does your backside get too tired of those plastic molded chairs we find almost everywhere?

Uhhhhh, Trace? Pot? Kettle?

Yup. I’m not a superstar at incorporating movement in my instruction or my PD,  I admit it.

Sitting too long makes you tired. It makes your eyes glaze over. It makes you zone out. It makes your fitness tracker chirp at you. And if you sit there every day in 45-minute chunks (or longer!!) and rarely get to move ...

Your brain won’t work as well. You need oxygen to your brain, produced by body movement.

The average learner regardless of age (that means we- adults as well as our teens and tweens) needs to briefly move their bodies every 15-30 minutes If you’re in a 45 minute class, you need to have kids get up once in the middle. If you teach on block, you need to get them up multiple times a block.

Here are a couple of benefits of movement breaks:

• Brain needs processing time for short term memory
• As students return to content, their brains can refocus; movement re-energizes learning
• If students are uncomfortable or stressed, the brain will not retain new information easily.
• There is much less movement in today’s world of Ubereats, social media, and Shipt. Kids and grown ups need to move!
• Our best ideas often come when we are taking a break.
• Movement and collaboration heighten participation.
• Movement can builds relationships, self-esteem and sense of belonging
• Movement boosts listening skills and communication
• 
  
  
  Approximately 90% of the oxygen in our bodies are “stale” until we take a deep breath, yawn, or move.
• Lack of oxygen results in confusion, lack of focus, and memory problems.

Yeah. It’s kind of a big deal.

“But Trace,” you say, “if I let my kids get up, they’ll go crazy!! (more likely in middle school) or “my kids will think it’s stupid and they won’t want to do it (more likely in high school)

If you’re worried your kids will get wacky, then set parameters, like you do with everyone else. Then don’t give them a “wiggle break” or a “stand and stretch” break. Instead, work it into your lesson.

Try things like

• If you agree with x, stand up at your seat. Now sit down. If you think it’s y, stand up at your seat.
• Please walk around the room to find someone who chose the same answer you did. See if you two (or three) can explain why you chose what you chose.
• Please send one member of your group to me to check the answer.
• Go post your response on a sticky note on the board/question when you’re done.
• Do a gallery walk in small groups.
• Graffiti challenge -- post prompts, misconceptions, or political cartoons on chart paper on the board. Have kids go respond to those question with graffiti. No chart paper? Have them write right on the whiteboard
• Turn and talk -- but GET UP and find someone to talk to  ... (whose name starts with the same letter as yours, someone whose birthday is in the same month as yours, someone who as the same math teacher as you.. whatever)

One last note -- Movement is one of the 6 Ms of Culturally Responsible Instruction. When kids are up and moving, they are interacting with each other. When they speak and are heard by each other, they are being culturally responsive. And when they get up and move you-the-old-person-teacher (yes, even you, recent-college-grad. You’re old in their eyes), your Old Self is being responsive to their youth culture. And youth (children and teens) need to MOVE! It’s developmentally appropriate. So with movement, you are incorporating a small piece of CRI (Culturally Responsive Instruction)

And today, it might get the blood flowing through their frozen little limbs.

Try some movement. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Put some rules/parameters on it and give it a purpose. You’ll be surprised at how much it improves student learning.

And then, get up and move it, move it. (You’re welcome for that Lin-Manuel Miranda "Moana" earworm!)

Let me know how it goes. Does your class implode? I hope not! Email me to tell me! newmantr@pcsb.org

Write It Down

Happy New Year!

I’m not doing New Year’s resolutions, per se, this year. I’m just...

• Cutting back on my holiday eating and tracking my food
• Trying to keep my family room more picked up (darn it!)
• Finding more time for personal (not work) reading.

New Year's’ Resolutions are a little cliche. And are often “fails” before Valentine’s Day. So instead of thinking about a New Year’s Resolution, I am just trying to be more conscious and intentional.

I feel that way about my new semester. I don’t need a real “resolution:. I just need some attempts at improving myself and my instruction. .

Now, I certainly haven’t taught every type of kid out there. But I have taught a bunch.  

• I have had classes of entirely ESOL students with not an English-speaker to be found.
• I have taught entire classes of all gifted students.
• I have taught ESE Inclusion classes and classes that just happened to have 90% ESE students.
• I have taught classes with 26 boys and 3 girls (who does that?!?!).
• I have taught classes of all girls
• I have taught 6th graders and 12th graders and most grades in between.
• I have taught required courses and electives

And here is the number one teaching hack that I feel is rarely used.

Are you ready for it?

It’s so stupid, it’s brilliant.

Here goes:

Write. All. Your. Directions. Down.

Write ‘em down. Write ‘em on the board, write ’em in a powerpoint, write ‘em on the handout  before you photocopy it. Write ‘em in portal, for make-up work. Write ‘em digitally in your Google Classroom or class website.

Just put the directions in writing to whatever activity or assignment.

It’s amazing how frequently a teacher shows me some student work and bemoans the quality of work ... and then when we look at it more clearly, they notice that a kid missed some part of the directions.

You know. The kid copied the whole question when they weren’t supposed to. Or they answered the first part of the question but missed the second part. Or they totally didn’t find the answers in the reading. Or they didn’t know that there was a second page.

This is not because the kid is stupid. This is because some kids are not auditory learners.

I am not an auditory learner. I need directions written out for me.

When you give verbal directions, some kids are going to miss parts of those directions. If the directions are written, the kid can go back and look to see what she missed.

Here is the beginning of a  solid set of written directions from superstar/Pinellas teacher, JH.

Step 1: Get into groups of 3.  No groups of 4.  You will be in 2 groups of 2 instead.   No, you can’t work by yourself.

Step 2: Read both documents written by Camillo di Cavour in your group.  Come up with comments or questions for each paragraph, and write them on the margin.

Step 3: Discuss the documents in your group.  What is di Cavour’s main idea?  What idea is he trying to spread?

Step 4: Underline the passage every time he makes an argument for nationalism.   Are you convinced? Why or why not?  Write your answer somewhere on the document for each underlined argument.

There is more to the assignment, but do you see how students choosing groups can be a little distracting and can make the kids forget what they’re supposed to be doing next?

Instead of just giving the directions verbally, write them down, too.

Seriously. This is such a small “teaching hack” that can make such a huge difference.

Written directions can help

• the ESE student who struggles with more than one-step directions.
• the gifted student who gets distracted and goes down the rabbit hole.
• the ESOL student who needs to connect the written word to the spoken word, helping his language acquisition.
• the kid who was daydreaming, talking, texting, or staring at her love crush du jour across the room.

It’s not a magic fix-all. But it sure does help more kids be more successful at the learning tasks in your class. And if they’re more successful with the tasks, then they can be more successful with the  learning.

Try it. It’s so simple, it’s awesome.

Write the directions down. And see if that boosts the success of some of your kiddos.

I love to hear about it. Email me! newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy