Category Archives: Guest Blog Posts
Smart Quizzes to Empower Classroom Engagement (Guest Blog Post)
I’ve been so lucky to find wonderful bloggers, teachers and writers who are willing to add their ideas to Lessons From The Middle. This post is by Laura, from 123Contact Form and she’s sharing some info on how you can use quizzes in your classroom. We all use them, but do you ever create online quizzes?
I don’t usually take guest posts from “companies” even if the rep was once a teacher. However, I see so much potential use for these online forms in my classroom and on my own blog. Also, because my students just started their own blogs, I see tons of potential for them to create their own forms, surveys or quizzes with the tool below. Uses in math, beginning of the year surveys…so many ideas! Take it away Laura!
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When speaking of evergreen teaching methods, quizzes certainly own a place in the top list. I’ve yet to encounter a K-12 teacher who hasn’t ever used at least one quiz with her pupils. This post will discuss the magic of quizzes in creating a higher level of class engagement and why it’s useful (not only trendy) to make use of online tools for designing your own.
Education quizzes come in all shapes and sizes. Trivia quiz, revision quiz, thematic quiz – the possibilities are almost endless. Pre-made quiz templates you can find on the web are a great timesaver for teachers looking to create something useful and engaging. It’s important to caliber your quiz to be “smart”, as so to challenge pupils’ knowledge level while being fun and engaging. Quizzes can help gather instant feedback from students, by students and therefore increase the level of independence in the learning process.
Why use an online app for creating your quiz?
The web holds a couple of very good tools that will help you build an electronic quiz in just a few minutes, then pass it along to kids in the classroom. This way, pupils will also get used to filling in online tests, which is a great way of building their internet culture.
With an online app such as 123ContactForm, it’s easier to share your education quiz with all the pupils, without having to create hard copies of everything. Moreover, you will be able to track responses later and get a quick overview of all data within a single dashboard.
Smart quizzes in action
During my teaching years, I used to give quizzes most often as consolidation exercises, but they can also be a great evaluation tool over various curriculum expectation categories. It’s not about separating the wheat from the chaff, but rather to engage children in an educational activity that stimulates their interest in discovering new things. Also, quizzes help triggering the natural sense of competition that leads pupils to great results.
Here are a couple of use scenarios for quizzes that students absolutely love.
- He who knows, wins!
Students divide into three groups and the teacher chooses one group leader for each. Next, the teacher offers a trivia quiz that every group leader answers independently with the help of their team in a given time. The teams are ranked: first, second and third by percentage of correct answers. Each of the participants receives a symbolic prize – cards, tokens. This type of exercise encourages discussion and interaction in the classroom, helps participants mingle together and works well before doing other activities that involve team spirit such as sports.
- Intuition Quiz
The idea of this quiz comes from Marlene Caroselli’s “500 Creative Classroom Techniques for Teachers and Trainers” (pg. 331) and works best for upper grade middle school students. It’s great for stimulating pupils to take decisions on the run and cultivate their “intuitive powers”. You can use questions such as “How many different vocal sounds can a cat make?” (100+) “How about a dog?” (10) “What is the lifespan of a dragonfly?” (24 h) Provide a range in which you believe the correct answer will fall. Pupils can be categorized as having intuitive powers if they can “guesstimate” the answer with some degrees of precision.
- Jigsaw Technique
This is a great method of learning by teaching. The class divides into groups of 5-6 students, with the most responsible of them as a team leader. Each student of the group receives a certain topic to learn (same combination for all the groups) and he should only have access to his own material. All students take a quiz before everything starts, to test their level of knowledge. Next, they form expert groups, when students of the same specialty exchange viewpoints over what they’ve learned. After that, the jigsaw recomposes and students take turns presenting their topic to their group mates. There is a final quiz to view the level of achievement at the end of the exercise.
These are just a few examples of what you can achieve in class using education quizzes. You can always vary styles and strategies. Be creative and positive outcomes will show up in no time!
Laura
Bump It Up Boards (A Guest Blog Post)
Welcome to Kristy, from 2 Peas and a Dog, my guest blogger for today. Thanks again for such an awesome idea, Kristy. Enjoy folks!
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Need a strategy to improve student achievement? Have you tried Bump It Up Boards? They are a great visual way to help your students self monitor their achievement.
How To Get Started:
Choose a curriculum expectation or focus you see as a need in your classroom. I chose the 4 R’s [retell, relate, reflect, review] reading reflections strategy.
Collect many work samples of your focus. You can use previous student work, ask colleagues for their examples, create your own, use government standardized test exemplars or search the internet for examples.
Ensure your samples represent a range of student achievement levels – not just ones that meet or exceed expectations.
Student Involvement:
Students worked in groups to read the responses and “grade or mark” each response based on their previous knowledge of what makes a good Retell, Relate, Reflect and Review.
A student in each group was the recorder and wrote down all of their ideas on what made the each exemplar a Level 2, (C), Level 3 (B) or a Level 4 (A).
We had a class discussion and compared our answers to ensure consistency among our expectations for Level 2, 3 and 4 work.
Final Process to Create the Board:
Type up student thinking under the appropriate curriculum expectation categories – this will become your Success Criteria.
Type up the assignment expectations and format the graded work samples to fit on to the display board.
Colour code your examples by level and attach to a bulletin board or poster board. Have students reference this board while working on their assignments to self monitor their progress.
Products to Support Bump It Boards
Inquiry Based Math Lesson on Data Management (Guest Blog Post)
I’d like to introduce a guest blogger this evening, AnneMarie, from Looking From Third to Fourth. She teaches grade 3/4 in Ontario. She’s written an excellent and detailed data management blog post. Enjoy!
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This year I am part of my board’s Junior Numeracy Network, where I work with math consultants and other Grade 4-6 teachers from other schools to develop, implement and discuss inquiry-based math lessons. In between our sessions we have to have another teacher and consultant watch us teach an inquiry-based lesson to discuss at our next workshop.
As I was about to begin my data management unit I decided to do a formative assessment lesson to kick off our unit. Previously when teaching in primary classrooms I have always started by making a class graph based on a survey questions – to engage the junior students I decided to change it up a bit. Here’s what I did.
First we played a classroom minute to win-it like game. Students were giving some conversation hearts (left over from our Valentine’s Math!). They were given 1 minute to stack them as high as they could. Each time it fell they were to start over – but record the height of the tower before it fell.
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| Her stack just fell over! |
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| Page to record data. |
When the 1st minute was up I recorded their data (only at that point we were calling it scores) on our Brightlinks whiteboard.
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I was purposefully recording their numbers in an unorganized manner. Once it was up I asked them a few questions: Which ones were Preston’s? Who made taller towers the girls or the boys? Which number is on the board the most? The students all agreed that we could not answer some of those questions just by looking at the numbers, and when someone told me what number was up there the most and I asked are you sure they quickly said well no, I said can you prove it and they started to hesitate. So we quickly reached our first pieces of consolidation:
*you need to organize information so that it is easy to read
*information that we collect is called data (yes they actually remembered it from the year before – they must have had a great teacher : ) ).
We started again, they had another minute to build and record data. Before I collected it from them we talked about ways to organize it. Some students tried to apply multiplication since that is what we just finished but a few came up with a chart. I was supposed to use tally marks but didn’t in my haste to collect.
They labeled their first loop and put them away. The first part of our lesson was over.
That afternoon I had the students get their paper chains and bring them to our carpet area. I did not give direction about how to put them down. They all started putting them down in the same direction and one eager student started to line them up – but I stopped him for a minute and asked him to let people decide where to put their chains.
Once we had all the chains we talked about how they were displayed – were they easy to compare. The students decided they all needed to line up at one starting point so we could compare them. Yes, consolidation point 3 – our display need to be organized – in this case with a starting line.
Now we could easily compare the chains and see which was the longest.
Lastly, they were asked to make their own graph based on our data. They could choose a blank paper or one with a grid section in the middle. Many chose the grid paper – only to realize it was not big enough to count by 1′s for the scale – and some people were stumped. A few said “Oh, I know what to do” (yes, what a great teacher they had last year). And a few just added squares to the top of the grid (who the heck was their teacher last year!).
Our next steps are to use the paper chains and plot our data on a number line. Then we will find the median. We will also find the mode – we have 3 paper chains that have 19 chains and one that has 23 so we will focus on the mode being the answer the one that occured the most not the one with the most chains. Lastly they will make a model of their chain using paper clips and then we will find the mean by averaging out the paper clips from one chain to the next.
During our computer lab I plan on using this website to continue practicing our skills:
If you don’t have time to read this post, I’m talking to you (Guest Blog Post)
I’m happy to introduce to you, Michael Roderick, my guest blogger for today. He’s got some really practical ideas on how to manage your time – I think most of us could use a little help in that area. I know I can! Take it away, Michael!
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As a former teacher, I spent a great deal of time at school. Many times it felt as if I didn’t have much of a life outside of school. Then, something interesting happened. I started prioritizing and developing time management tools and I suddenly had a lot more time to work on other projects. In the 8 years I taught I also was able to provide mentorship to student teachers, run a Drama Program, serve as a Department Chair, and as an interim Dean of Discipline. Below are some tools I used to make that happen. I hope they help you.
Stress and loss of time often come from feeling overwhelmed. Being overwhelmed is a direct result of feeling like everything is urgent. If everything is considered urgent, then nothing gets done.
Breaking down your week:
Create a list of everything you have to do in the next week. Even if it seems minimal, put it on the sheet. Once your list is complete, choose five things that you would consider a top priority. Circle them. Choose your second top five and put a square around them. Then leave the rest. (10 minutes)
Now create an A column, B column, and a C column. A=top 5- Done today , B=2nd top 5-Done tomorrow, C= Rest- Done within the week
Now approximate the time it will take to do each task
Choose test format- 5 minutes
Choose problems- 15-20 minutes
Write the test for 9th- 30-45minutes
Write the test for 10th- 30-45minutes
Write the test for 11th- 30-45 minutes
Now that you know how long each thing will take, punch it into your schedule.
If you prioritize and choose the most important things, you’ll find that not everything is urgent and you’ll have more room in your schedule to plan.
Grading strategies:
Specific days for specific assessment- Choose a specific day each week for tests and quizzes. Ex: 9th graders get a quiz every Tuesday and a test every Friday.
Paper overload- You can assign do now activities and do a spot check with 3 or 4 students randomly. Do this often enough and you’ll cover the whole class in about a week. You can also give each student a folder and collect 5-10 folders randomly each week. The key is spacing things out so that you don’t have a day when you walk home with 200 papers. You can also stagger when things are due. So rather than having 4 classes with projects all due on the same day, you assign one class due on a Friday and another on a Monday etc.
Tracking- Whether it’s a clip board, a Note Pad, or an Ipad. You want a place that you go to for your notes from the day regarding students and issues. Having one place you can go to review for the rest of the day, will save you a ton of time. You won’t have to run around finding notes in three or four different places. You can also plug in the items to complete into your online calendar, so you can see on your phone when it’s time to get something done.
Delegation- You do not have to do every single thing. Think about the things on your list that you can give to students. They can write your agenda on the board, help hand out papers, help you organize and more.
Keeping in Touch:
Email- Think about responses that you give all the time and create a template for that response. Whenever you are contacted about that specific issue, just cut and paste the template into your email. Cut down on your folders. You should be able to file everything into 5 easy to follow folders. You can remember them easily by thinking of clearing S.P.A.C.E.
- Students- Any email from a student regarding homework, assignments, questions etc.
- Parents- Any email from parents about a student and their progress
- Administration- This is where you file any email from the administrative team. Principals, Department Chairs, Asst. Principals, etc.
- Content- Use this for emails regarding lessons, tests, and anything else
- Extras- This is for clubs, activities, and any email that does not have to do directly with your classes. Ex.) Drama Club, Walk for a Charity, Newsletters that you’re interested in reading
De-Stressing:
Masterminds- Find a few teachers who teach the same subject and schedule a lunch or after school sit down at least once a week. One of the best ways to relieve stress is to converse with others experiencing the same thing. You can share best practices and connect which may be the best way to wind down.
Be realistic- If you have 100 papers to grade for tomorrow, it’s going to take you a lot of time. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get them all done. You’re human. Remember the plan, take things in small chunks and schedule throughout the week. You’ll get them done. Remember that any big number can be divided. Do the math on your projects and you’ll find more time.
Bringing it all together
So in order to take control of your time, you need to ultimately do 5 things.
- Identify what’s important
- Schedule everything according to priority
- Track what you’re doing daily
- Keep email at bay
- Schedule time to recharge
Hopefully you have found these techniques helpful. If you have good time saving techniques, I invite you to share them below.
Bio: Michael Roderick is the Director of Business Development for LearnBop www.learnbop.com , a tool that helps teachers save time. He has mentored student teachers and has a Masters in Educational Theatre from NYU. He has also produced on Broadway and been published as a playwright. He can be reached at Michael@learnbop.com @LearnBop on twitter
Guest Blog: Change a Student’s Life With One Quick Email
I’m so excited to have another guest blogger join in at Lessons From The Middle! I asked Catherine, today’s guest blogger, to tell me a bit about herself. She runs a nonprofit called Deep, which offers free after-school creative writing workshops to 400 public school students every year. She’s been teaching writing to middle school students for four years with Deep, and she also blogs about it at That Writing Lady. She also studied English at Yale, and finally, she told me that she does a great giraffe impersonation. Catherine obviously has a great sense of humor as well! Thanks again Catherine for insightful blog post.
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HOW TO CHANGE A STUDENT’S LIFE WITH ONE QUICK EMAIL
We all know that students love to be recognized and rewarded for their hard work. We teachers do this every day through good grades, pats on the back, and gold stars. But what if I told you there was a way to recognize your students that would not only thrill them, but also give them a lasting source of pride that they and their families will remember for the rest of their lives (and impress the pants off your principal in the process)?
Well, here it is:
Get your kids on TV.
Think about it: have you ever been on TV? If you have (and you aren’t a celebrity), then you know that you will remember those fifteen minutes of fame for the rest of your life. Imagine how much more of an impression it makes on children. (I still have a vivid recollection of being on a local children’s show when I was in middle school—I’ve never felt cooler or more proud of myself.)
Sound difficult? It isn’t. Local news stations are usually starved for human interest stories, and your adorable students are just the thing they need to perk up their broadcasts. Here’s how you do it:
- Look up your local TV station’s website. Find emails for the local morning show hosts and evening news producers; they’re usually prominently displayed. If not, just call the station and they’ll tell you who to contact.
- Draft a quick email along the lines of, “Hi, my name is _______ and I teach _____ at ______. My students are just about to finish [a community garden project, a book publication project, huge musical production] and I think that it would be a great story for your program. I’m available by email or by phone at _______, and I would love to set up a time for you to send a crew here, or for me to send a student to your station for an interview.” If you’re feeling ambitious, you can attach a picture of an especially photogenic child doing said project.
- Send it.
That’s it.
My nonprofit, Deep, just did this for two of our students, and I can’t tell you how much the students (and their parents!) were bursting with pride when they walked into the TV station for an interview. Check out their interview here: Television Interview with Students Discussing “Deep”.
If you try it for yourself, I’d love to hear how it goes! Make a comment here or shoot me an email at catherine@deepkids.com.
Catherine
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Such a great idea Catherine and congrats on the interview! You and your students did an amazing job!
We all love to be recognized for a job well done. Why not take Catherine’s advice? If it’s too late to do so this school year, hang on to the idea for next school year. Your students will never forget it.
Incorporating Physical Activity into Your Classroom: My First Guest Blogger!
This is so exciting! I’m thrilled to welcome Neil, Lessons From The Middle’s first guest blogger. Neil is from the UK. He’s been teaching for two years, at the primary level. He has a passion for physical activity and recently started a blog focussing on physical activity and outdoor education. He practises what he preaches – he’s worked as a camp councillor and is a canoeing instructor. Although Neil teaches in the primary grades, his message is one for all teachers of all grades and subject levels.
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We all know the stats: Approximately a third of children in the US, Canada and the UK are obese. Children are getting fatter and may not live as long as their parents. I don’t want to dwell on the problem, but what is our role as educators to find a solution? Children spend around 6 hours a day at school and a lot of that time can be spent being pretty inactive. So I think as the olympics loom on the horizon, it’s a good time to start to talk to our classes about their lifestyle. What if every teacher spent an extra 5 minutes a week of our class time being active? Wouldn’t that make our children’s lives a bit less sedentary? I think that over time, it could start to make a nation fitter and healthier.
Healthy living should be like English - a subject that spans the curriculum and an area that every teacher has an obligation to teach well, no matter what their subject specialty. I’m not going to suggest that children should be constantly active in the classroom. There are lots of times when a calm quiet approach is the best way to get our learning across. But there are also those moments in a classroom, when we have a few minutes to spare or when the class appears restless, that using an active approach would enhance our teaching and the children’s enjoyment. So I wanted to share a few ideas to make your lessons full of beans.
An active few minutes:
I apologise if I’m preaching to the converted, but I find in the busy world of teaching – it’s always good to have the occasional reminder. So here are a few ideas for those quick breaks in the middle of your lessons to refocus children’s concentration. Action games are the best place to start. Games like Simon Says, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes can be adapted and put to good use in the younger grades. Music can work well depending on the dynamic of your class. You can simply play some music for 1 minute and just get your class to dance. Displaying songs with actions like the Cha, Cha Slide on your whiteboard is another option. Another idea is to lead some actions yourself and get the children to copy. I like to play the game where I repeat an action four times and then switch to a different action. But whatever action I am doing, the children have to repeat the action that I did previously.
Relay Race:
If your lesson includes any kind of matching activity, then why not turn it into a relay race? Place all of the items at one end of a hall or outdoor space and the children have to run and collect each item one at a time. While this is happening the other children in the group can be matching. This is a good way to involve everyone in group work and helps to stop one child from taking over.
Dictation Race:
I have a lot of children in my class who have English as a second language and this next idea is a way of teaching language structure, as well as getting your class more active. Pick a short paragraph of information from your lesson. It could be a science definition or a poetic verse that you would like them to learn, about 6 lines or so should be enough. Then, photocopy it for each group. You’ll need a bit of room, so you’ll either have to take your class outside or clear some tables. Place the photocopied text at one end of the room and split the children into groups at the other end with some blank paper and pens. This is basically another form of a relay race – the children have to run to the other end of the classroom and memorize one line of text, then they run back and write it down. It doesn’t sound too tricky, right? Well, the catch is that the copied text must be perfect. So, no spelling mistakes and no incorrect punctuation. You can award points for the first team to finish and for the most accurate copy.
Fruit Salad:
Name everyone in your class as a type of fruit: Bananas, strawberries, pineapples and mangos. Then, when your class need to stretch their legs you say the name of the fruit. If you said “Strawberry” everyone who was named that fruit would swap places with the other children who were strawberries. If you feel brave shout “Fruit salad” and everyone has to swap seats.
Charades
This classic game is a good way to summarise a topic or to get children to explain different concepts. Get each table to think of a key word or concept from your lesson. Then, they have to act it out while the rest of the class have to guess what the word or idea is. This is a good way to get children thinking and moving.
So next week, try to include 5 minutes of activity in your lessons. Here are a few more exercise ideas, if you need them.
Neil @ www.outdooradventurous.com
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Again, I’d like to thank Neil for his guest blog post. Please visit his new blog: Outdoor and Adventurous.
I totally agree with adding more physical and/or outdoor activities to our classrooms when we can. Although it can be a challenge – especially in Canada in the winter;) It’s important! Just the other day, we were doing a writing activity in class and it was such a nice afternoon that I took my class outside to write. We took a five-minute walk from class to a sunny spot outside, and also enjoyed some fresh air!
As you get up in the older grades, you have to be a little more creative, I think, to get the kids active. There are issues with self-consciousness, and space as the kids get physically bigger. That being said, I think we’ve all looked at our classes and thought – you just need to get up and move around! So, take Neil’s advice and try to add just five minutes of movement into your class. Trust me, your students will appreciate it – especially at this time of the year! And, I know what you’re thinking…but there are lots of simple ways to get them back into their seats when the activity is over. It’s like anything else – a routine to be taught. Well done Neil!
Want to be a Guest Blogger?
If you would like to write a guest post for Lessons From The Middle, I’d love to have you! Please, send me an email with your post attached. It should be about education, either for all grades OR the middle grades. Please be sure to include where you’re currently teaching, 3 interesting things about yourself and how long you’ve been teaching, so that I can introduce you to my readers. You can also email me with any questions. I look forward to hearing from you!
