Where to start?

Next semester starts Monday. I have so many awesome ideas spinning in my head. Where do I start???? 

At first the plan was a whole class Nearpod lesson I created with a Google Slide Presentation and added some Nearpod acticites such as a poll and draw it (meme the theme!).  Then I decided I wanted to make sure that the students who finished the different activities before their peers still had something to work on. 

So, I can't start with whole class. How about giving each student a Sheet with their NWEA MAP scores, goals, and focus. Then the early birds could work on the Quizlet flash cards or games while waiting for their peers to finish their drawings or quiz. 

The third option is a multi level fix to the midterm constructed response question that about killed me to grade. I am glad my creative brain kicked in gear before I threw in the towel of getting evidence based complete sentence responses. 

Here is the low down on this assignment. 

I will have an actual piece of paper to give the students. It will actually be a note taking work on sheet. First the students will cut and glue their actual response from the midterm to this "worksheet." Then they will go through a Nearpod lesson on editing and revising with CUPS and ARMS. 

Students will work through the presentation and their sheet to create a much better constructed response answer. They will CUP, ARM, and CUP again. 

To turn in the assignment the students will make a Google Slide Presentation to show the life cycle of a constructed response answer. 

So after this therapeutic typing/ blogging I am thinking Monday will be constructed response while I meet with students in small groups or individual to review their NWEA MAP goals and show them the Quizlet. They will be getting other lessons to work on their level throughout the semester as well, but I can be overwhelming...KISS (keep it simple (for the ) students!) 

Suggestions please!! 

Discussions with Tech

Sometimes technical errors or glitches lead to better solutions...

My last post was about setting up Google Sheets as whole class discussions. It went great on day one back from break. 

I started off with the question 'what did you do on break?' I couldn't get the students off the Sheet, but they got the concept of answering in the cells and replying with comments right away. 

However, the next day we were back in the classroom on iPads. Sheets was only working on about 50% of them. So, I looked to do the discussion starters on Forms. 

It was great. I love the new Google Forms. Students were able to answer as individuals and then gather in the Board Room (area of meeting tables around the SMART Board as we discussed the anonymous answers. Although the answers on the SMART Board were anonymous I was still able to open the spreadsheet and link students with their responses.

I am continuing to use Sheets as whole class resources where all students can edit one Sheet. For example I am doing small group research on a Sheet that is editable to all. From this research sheet students will complete individual writing reflections on a Doc. 

This is a project where students will connect the book NightJohn by Gary Paulson to MLK, Ghandi, and Mandela. I am excited for this project on so many levels. The tech, sharing, small groups, connections, discussions and the content - I could not ask for more!!! The crazy part is now that the students are comfortable with the technology they will be able to focus on the tasks, content, and learning. 

Students need PD too! 

Now Sheets has been updated on all the iPads but Chrome is glitching...

Sunday Setup

After spending Saturday night with my daughter's gymnastics team on their holiday sleepover I decided to spend all day Sunday setting up my week with all of the technology I learned over break.

It took about two pots of coffee but I am happy to say that I was able to set up lots and lots of neat stuff. I hope I remember it all come Monday.

I set up daily do now questions in a Sheets Discussions. The Discussions Tab from Alice Keeler was great for this. I am nervous to have all my classes on 1 spreadsheet so it was still tedious to create the same sheets for my 4 8th grade classes and then having to go back and update the sheets 4 times each of need be. Plus I have a 7th grade class that is on a completely separate Sheet as well. So I will just have to figure out a system as I go. 

I was also able to make a deeper discussion Sheet where the students would be reading a doc, answering questions, and copy and pasting their evidence. I have not made a copy for each class yet as my brain is technically throbbing. 

In between the discussion Sheets (hehe) I also created an interactive Form where I was able to insert a video and a diagram where the students could learn/review Point of View. The resources were followed up with excerpts from books where they had to choose the POV. At first I created this as a Doc, but thought it would be much easier to check as in Sheets. I will make charts of the results for the students to review thier answers. 

Links to all this stuff coming soon! 

Happy returns!!