Noticed and Noted

Notice and Note Lesson

Here's my grade 7/8 lesson plan in brief. I'm sharing it because it went so well and I'm so impressed with how the students engaged as collaborators, readers, and developed their skills as close readers. I took my inspiration from this amazing resource book Notice and Note. 

This text by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst has inspired me because it makes so much sense. I have also gained inspiration from the Facebook group which is full of great ideas and discourse about the close reading strategies in the book. https://www.facebook.com/groups/260078764136335.  So far with my class I have covered the first three signposts using the lessons directly from the resource. 

For this lesson I have selected some good but simple picture books. I used The Magnificent Thing, Whimsy's Heavy Things, The Invisible Boy, The Dot, and Ish.  

They are all rich picture books with great deep messages. Any set of such books will work.

I gave one book to each group of 4 students. Students have to each take on a role:  reporter, reader, recorder, and orderer. In the group they read the book, identified the signposts using sticky notes in the text, recorded and responded to them in a reading log, and then gave a short presentation to the class explaining how the signposts helped them understand the author's message. 

After the presentations, they each independently wrote down their own description of how the signposts helped them understand the book. 

My students chose to present their findings by reading the stories to the class. Each group did it their own way and some creative things happened. One group used sound effects to indicate signposts!  So while one student was reading the story, another made the sound (using an iPod touch) and then described the signpost. Another group held up pictures to enhance the story visually. I asked the students to complete a reflection activity at the end including assessing themselves and their group members on their collaborative skills, 2 stars and a wish, as well as a reflection on how he signposts helped them understand the author's message. 

I'm very happy with how it turned out. The kids were all engaged, they enjoyed the activity, they were challenged, and they were able to use the signpost strategy to read deeply.  

My next steps are to teach the next three signposts and then do the activity again with different groupings and different books.

I'd like to thank @Leslie_hodgins for giving me this fabulous resource. Here is a link to the rubric I provided to students for reflection. https://docs.google.com/a/rscloud.ca/document/d/14w9f3Yld3ky3YbfS0PLazH-S2-wfCy0-iCn48StSCAg/edit?usp=docslist_api

Promote the Vote!

We have been watching the leadership debates and learning about the tragedy of so many young eligible voters who failed in their civic duty to vote in the last election.  And now, I have given my students an assignment to create an ad to promote the vote!  They have to select a target audience which was done after brainstorming to find out why some people choose not to vote.  I have created a media literacy rubric for this assignment and I'm excited to see the ads.  I will have to post some here as a follow up when they are done.  Promote the Vote rubric

I made a rough example for them using Tagul which is a great word cloud service which can be logged in to from Google.  Here is a link to the mock-up:  Mock-up

Manipulatives!

I'm so happy to be able to get my grade 7&8s using manipulative for math. Yesterday I pulled out a big tub of algebra tiles and I had then build arrays to model multiplication of fractions. It was amazing to watch all the different ways they tried to model 4/5x2/3. They were actively engaged and discussing with partners. There even was heated debate. It did take hem a lot longer than just following the formula, but I think some of them actually started to understand why multiplying fractions results in smaller fractions. 

"Can we cut these ones in half?"

Please UNBLOCK the web!

I'm frustrated today because my students are frustrated.  I use our eLearning Ontario site to teach Science, Geography, and History in a 'blended learning' style.  So far, things have been going well with a few kids who struggle but some who fly and the rest are in between and good.  Except that some of the course content I chose includes BLOGGING for the students.  Fine.  Or, it should be.

I taught them how to use their restricted access to Blogger to make blog posts to meet the assignment requirements.  Great!  They like it even.  Then they tried to go and view their own blogs only to discover that our board has BLOCKED the blogs.  What nonsense is that?  They can create the blogs but they can't view them!!!!

I really think it's time we stopped relying on baby gates and taught the kids how to go down the stairs one step at a time, don't you?  I think we need to unblock the web and teach the kids how to use the information.  It is old fashioned to hoard information.  I'd like to see the board of education let it go.

Here's hoping that my request to have it unblocked gets approved!

Election time

I have been teaching my students about elections and we are starting to follow the federal election. The lack of comprehension about how the Canadian electoral system works means I have a lot of instruction to do!  The conversations we have had around it is amazing and interesting. I am thankful for the organization that has put together an excellent package for the student election process: studentvote.ca

Having held a student election campaign prior to this was a really good idea because it helped them develop a concrete understanding of important terms such as ballot, candidate, nominate, campaign, and vote. 

Now they are discovering ridings exist!  And the questions are flying!  

Time to Blog

What if the industrial revolution is about to trickle away to an end when the boomer generation dies off?  What if the last few generations of human were special because they had just the perfect combination of boredom, needs, and ingenuity to stimulate intense creativity?  What if that mix of genetics and environment is going extinct due to the very changes it brought?  What if it was no longer the lone designer or small team working in relative isolation, studying everything and working furiously towards a goal, a veritable vision that would bring further progress?  What if the only way to work out improvements to society and our lives will be through communicating our individual ideas to the world in bursts and the responses?  

If this is the case, then all the children must learn to blog and respond to blogs thoughtfully. This form of communication will help them to learn from each other and together. To have online conversations via blog and comment is the way we will bring empathy and understanding to our world of machines and industry. This will produce a new generation of global citizens who are not merely users of technology and consumers of information, rather the progenitors of a super human neural net  or Collective Consciousness. Each of our brains connecting with each other multiplies the power of our ability to think making the resulting process million fold more powerful than a single thinker could ever be.

This is the true power of 'social' media if we use it with care. This is why I have decided to blog and tweet and why I am teaching my students to blog.