There's an App for That (Comments Wanted!)

Want to have student do more work with the speaking and listening standards of CCSS?  There's an app for that...Spreaker Radio is a free app that allows students to become on-air personalities, mixing their voices with music and sound effects, creating podcasts, etc.

Want to have students watch or design their DIY projects?  There's an app for that...Instructables is a free app with over 100,000 tutorials and a way to upload student-designed tutorials.

Want to have students demonstrate their knowledge by teaching a friend?  There's an app for that...Educreations is a free app for iPad where kids show what they know through an interactive whiteboard.

I challenge you to share apps that you've found in the comments below.  There are so many great tools that we can use in the classroom, and they're developed daily!

The Math Curse - An Interdisciplinary Approach to Real-Life Math

Students in 6th grade math are using a model text to write their own version of the math curse.  One might ask, "What is the math curse?"  It's the inability to go throughout your day seeing all of the real world uses of math...All. Day. Long....

This interdisciplinary activity gets kids reading and writing about math, creatively looking at math in their daily lives, and provides collaborative learning opportunities.

Check it out...

The assignment!

Writing about math!

Conferencing with their teachers!

Student choice in the format of writing!

Students sharing ideas and supporting one another!

Moving on to the final draft!

The One Non-Negotiable in EVERY Lesson: Required Student Engagement

Engaging kids in their learning equals getting kids thinking and building understanding about both content and skills.  While there will always be a need for direct instruction, each lesson should also do 2 things:

1)  Check for student understanding through engagement; this requires a "no excuses" mentality - a simple class question/answer session allows students to "check out" while others answer the questions.

2)  Get students engaged in their own learning; this requires students to be thinking about their work - while taking notes looks like students being engaged, I speak from experience when I say I can take notes with the best of them while thinking of something else entirely.

Students are thinking about their science content.  Instead of listing qualities of different types of rocks, they are looking at rocks and classifying them with a teacher-provided chart.  Each member of the small group takes turns with the jobs to ensure full engagement and thinking for every student.

Getting kids to manipulate their math engages their minds.  In the above picture, kids are matching the equation to the word problem and the graphic representation.  This diverse experience requires them to make connections and apply their learning.

And, here are the directions for that last picture...

By collaborating, students are required to articulate their thoughts about the above matching exercise; additionally, by having a partner, a student struggling with the learning has a support to help determine accurate answers.

A simple piece of paper within a plastic cover provides a "whiteboard" for quick checks of understanding and required engagement of all students.

And look, they each show their answer.

Kids love games, so getting students involved in a little friendly competition is great for engagement.  In this case, fluency is key...the faster the student, the more fluent in their understanding of the content.  

All students participated in a play about the Revolutionary War.  Students learned songs and individual songs to help foster their understanding of the content.

In the above two pictures, students are listening to a recording of their performance and making notes about their observations.  Once finished, they discuss their observations with a partner before a whole class discussion.  In the end, their observations lead to improvements in their performance.

In the two pictures above, students are working together to design a workout routine that will incorporate the core components of fitness; once they've completed their routine, they publish it to music and lead the class to build a healthy community of learners.

Technology is a great resource for student engagement; in this picture, a student is taking a quiz on Infused Learning to demonstrate his understanding of the content.

Getting kids to chart their progress over time engages them in reflective learning practices,  Here, students are charting their repetitions and weights to support increased fitness.

Building Tolerance Within Our Family

In Flyertimes and beyond (yes, that's a lot like "to infinity and beyond..."), we have been focusing on building tolerance.   Check out these examples of expanding thinking about diverse groups of people and things...

Pilots lead students in diversity awareness activities.

Students lead a discussion on the true definition of beauty.

Students practice communicating clearly to help build understanding of those with learning disabilities and communication challenges.

Students make an acrostic to help them build tolerance.

Tolerance starts by understanding ourselves and being open to learning as evidenced in this guidance lesson.

Beyond Flyertimes, we build tolerance for interdisciplinary learning.  Because we prioritize the interconnectiveness of learning, students aren't shocked when they see another subject "creeping" into their classes.

Equations in science!

History and timelines in science!