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Twitter, history, tweet, digital literacy, critical thinking, creative writing, historical, figures, events, review, game, activity
Historical event: Happened after the Potsdam Declaration was ignored
Next, decide which historical periods/events/figures will be used. Select ones relevant to what students have been studying in class. In case students guess the answers quickly, have a relatively large number of people and events ready. You may wish to serve as the quizmaster who will tweet clues about these people and events. If you decide to add to the challenge by having kids serve as quizmasters, write the people and events on slips of paper and place them in a bowl for random selection by students.
Historical figure: I am a famously conservative politician.
Receive timely lesson ideas and PD tips
During the school year, teachers are master balancers. In addition to the daily diet of rigorous academic content and classroom management, colorful sticky notes and intricate calendars remind us of pending tasks. Conferences next week! Make parent phone calls! Prep for Friday PLC! With all the hubbub, it can be overwhelming to tackle a large project or learn a new skill. Fortunately, summer offers a slightly slower pace thats perfect for tackling serious professional development. Conferences and seminars give you access to experts but theyre not your only option. If youre looking for a more customized plan, here are a few ideas to get you started on your own DIY summer professional development. Tap Into Local Resources Students love when we make lessons come alive with a tactile artifact or a perfectly timed field trip. Take time this summer to connect with local resources that can expand your lessons beyond the textbook. Start by making a quick list of local museums, aquariums, or zoos you want to visit and what collections might connect with your academic goals. Most institutions have an educational coordinator who can help you brainstorm the best way to access museum resources, direct you to field trip grants, or discuss increasingly popular backwards field trips. Even if you cant fit a field trip into your curriculum, museum visits may yield helpful access to primary source documents. Think beyond admission-charging institutions. Universities and historical societies often have impressive artifact collections and archives available to the public. Businesses and camps are another out-of-the-box option. Maybe a local yoga studio has resources on building kids social emotional skills. When 5th graders at my school studied ecosystems, we followed up with a trip to a local camp to see their functioning aquaponics system. Your community is full of educational gems so use the summer to uncover which ones work for you. Improve Your Tech IQ Summer professional development is a perfect time to experiment with new technology. If youre already tech savvy, challenge yourself to grab an Echo Pen to prep for recording mini-lessons or set up a green screen to practice for the live history broadcasts youve been wanting to work into your social studies curriculum. If you dont have any new tech tool in mind, check out a compilation list of new Education Worlds coding class.
Historical figure: I am NOT a fan of labor unions.
Decide how youd like students to make their guesses (on paper, on individual dry-erase boards, verbally, etc.) and set rules for participation (raise your hand to share your guess, no shouting out guesses, etc.). Also decide if you will award prizes to winners. (Consider awarding prizes both for correct guesses and for the best or most creative sets of clues, since good clues require deep understanding of history content.)
Tips for Managing Your High-Needs Classroom
DIY Summer Professional Development
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Improving your tech IQ doesnt mean you have to choose cutting edge tools. Summer PD is about working on skills new to you. Choose technology challenge that fits your needs. If youve been itching to move homework assignments to Google Classroom, get going! If you keep hearing about engaging classroom websites, start thinking about how you might use one. Whatever technology you decide to focus on, savor the extra time you have to master the basic functions and plan how to implement it in your classroom. Harness the Web The internet offers a wealth of free resources for teachers but it usually takes some time to determine which ones will work for your summer development plan. First, figure out what format youre interested in. If you want the weight of a book in your hand, use the web to find curated reading suggestions for teachers. You can plan a trip to your local library based on teacher book lists on everything from classroom differentiation to learning innovation. If audio is more your beat, download a podcast app and learn from teachers, psychologists, and other school-based professionals. I like the Harvard EdCast for up-to-date interviews with education experts and authors. For conversation and connection, participate in Twitter ed chats. Many professional organizations host and publicize their own or you can use this spreadsheet to find one that works for you. Make It Your Own Whatever combination of reading, visiting, or Tweeting you decide upon, make it your own. Part of being a teacher leader is prioritizing growth. This summer, design a professional development plan thats perfect for your needs. Written by Marissa King Marissa teaches 5th grade at Tulsa Public Schools where she spills tea and misuses the coolest slang. She is also a Yale National Fellow.
This lesson makes a great review activity and can be done in either a single class period or over the course of several weeks (by setting aside a few minutes per class).
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(Optional) Bowl and small slips of paper
Digital Literacy Lesson: Tweeting History
Explain to students that Twitter has changed the way people communicate today. But what if this technology had existed in the past? Imagine Colonial Americans tweeting about their lives, or think about what the Twitter feed of someone like Napoleon might have looked like. How many followers would Socrates have amassed? Lets use our history knowledge, digital literacy skills and imaginations to explore famous people and events from the past.
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is another type of instant chat tool for class discussions. It allows you to create a password-protected virtual chat room. The room is shared with a simple link and can be set up within minutes, even from an iPad.
Dr. Ken Shore: Classroom Problem Solver
Answer:U.S. dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan at the end of WWII
Online PD: Integrating Brain Breaks in All Classrooms
Historical figure: My strong leadership style earned me a special nickname.
(Optional) Individual student dry-erase boards, pencils and paper
First, ensure that all students have created individualTwitteraccounts and that each student will have access to an Internet-connected device.
If you are using an alternative to Twitter, simply set up a chat room on your chosen platform and provide the link to students. Within the chat, make it clear where a new game begins by entering GAME 1, GAME 2, etc. into the conversation at appropriate points.
Students are divided into teams of three or four, and each team gets a chance to tweet clues, based on the historical figure, event or period the team selects from the bowl. (Teams should make sure to show the teacher the correct answer before they begin tweeting clues about it.) During each game, the remaining students (they also can be divided into teams if you like) guess. First student or team to guess correctly wins.
Students use history knowledge, critical thinking and digital literacy skills to tweet clues and guess the historical figure, period or event related to those clues.
NOTE: For those uncomfortable with using Twitter in the classroom, or for teachers in schools that block access to Twitter, here are some alternatives, all of which are free, and some of which do not require individual accounts:
Historical event: Made possible by the Manhattan Project
Blackboard, dry-erase board or projection screen for whole-class viewing
Jason Tomaszewski, EducationWorld Associate Editor
July Every-Day Edits Use Every-Day Edits to build language skills, test scores, and cultural literacy. Be sure to see our tips for using Every-Day Edits in your classroom. Hot Diggity DogBlueberries Thurgood MarshallU.S. Independence DayIdahoKoko the GorillaEarths TiltMildred Wirt BensonPresident Gerald R. FordRabbitsIda B. WellsDisneyland OpensAlexander Calder, ArtistTunisiaThe Empire StateJacqueline Kennedy OnassisHarry Potter Looking for ideas for using Every-Day Edits in your classroom? See our idea file. Run out of Every-Day Edit activities for the month of July? Check out our Xtra activities for any time of year.
Review and gain perspective on key historical events, periods and figures
Use critical thinking to guess the historical events, periods and figures associated with clue tweets
Historical event: Major aggression in 1945
Teacher/student access to information about historical figures, events and periods
Divide students into teams as needed, get everyone logged in and describe how the game will proceed. If applicable, provide the list of hashtags on a dry-erase board or projection screen. Make sure to erase already-used hashtags as the games proceed, so that students can always see the most current one. If youre using alternatives to Twitter: These platforms will not place a 140-character limit on the length of clues, so remind quizmaster students to keep their clues brief.
NL-ENG.K-12.2Reading for Understanding
Historical event: The only use of this type of weapon in war to date
No thanks, I dont need to stay current on what works in education!
Build digital literacy skills by writing tweets describing historical events, periods and figures
Class Twitter accounts plus individual Twitter account for each student (alternatives to Twitter also provided)
More Great Ideas for the New School Year
Historical event: Viewed as an awful responsibility which has come to us…We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies.
Computer or device with Internet access (one for each student; can include BYOD)
Historical figure: My heyday was in the 1980s.
This activity offers a fun, informal end-of-class or end-of-unit formative assessment to check for student understanding. You may leave the activity ungraded and use it simply for motivation and engagement, or you may choose to grade students on the creativity and accuracy of their tweets, as well as their success in identifying historical figures, time periods or events based on the clues provided.
Tweeting History: A Digital Literacy Lesson
NSS-WH.5-12.8Half a Century of Crisis and Achievement
Debunking Education Memes, Part Two
Prior to playing, it might be helpful to run through a few examples with students. If students will be providing clues, remind them that their clues should be neither too easy nor too hard, and have them do planning on paper prior to beginning the game. Decide whether you will allow students to use textbooks or other sources in order to plan their clues. Let guessing students know whether they will be allowed to send inquiring tweets (requests for hints) to the quizmaster(s) during the game.
Tips for Managing Your High-Needs Classroom Lets talk about capacity. If you look into the world-weary and sleep-deprived eyes of any educator this year, youll realize one truth: meeting the complex needs of each of our students is no small task. As educators in the 21st Century, we are constantly on a quest for the golden mean between individualized curricular plans and teaching densely populated classrooms. We employ technology, standardized testing, creative grouping, and anything else we can possibly imagine that might ignite engagement to make each lesson feel tailored to the kids in our courses. But the differentiation of need is often still just out of a perfectionists reach. And teachers are perfectionists, in the sense that we spend our lifes work finely tuning our practice always looking to improve, to refurbish, to inspire. Nonetheless, even your most veteran educators struggle with the high demands of the modern education system. Today, Education World examines the kinds of student needs youre likely to encounter at any academic level, as well as essential tools every educator should have in their pedagogical toolkit to make the sometimes seemingly impossible, very possible. Student Needs Were not going to pretend that we can write a simple article that can problem-solve every type of student need you are going to find in the classroom. Our jobs are nothing if not unpredictable. And yet, if we were to break down the types of needs students tend to have in the middle of your lesson that might create barriers to their learning, we could very probably generalize most of them into behavioral needs and academic needs. When we say behavioral needs, were referring to student struggles with some of the soft skills associated with the expectations around being a student: listening during a lesson, staying focused during worktime, staying in the chair when appropriate, modulating voice, transitioning from activity to activity, self-monitoring, avoiding excessive distraction, being respectful to the community, and participation. When a student struggles with managing these classroom habits, no matter what the cause or catalyst, it is hard to even begin imagining accessing the higher order thinking necessary to achieve in school. Academic needs, on the other hand, are those specifically tied to understanding of the material: content acquisition and skill mastery. Many of our students also struggle with a wide range of characteristics and unique ways of thinking that can sometimes make the substance of the traditional learning process more difficult to manage. In many cases, we find that students are often managing a combination of the two. Regardless of the type of needs your diverse student population is facing, lets be clear: the first step when you see students not accessing the content and skill you are attempting to transmit in your lesson is to identify what is going on. To truly do this, you need to look at each student as an individual. Its too easy to try to group a problem together: this class is struggling with __________. Unfortunately, this approach never gets to the heart of the many different needs sitting in your class. You have to do you research. For the kids you are concerned about make sure you: Check their docs: IEPs, 504s, grades history, testing scoreseverything you have documentation on: What is the narrative here and how might it connect to what you are witnessing? Talk to the student: Whats going on at home? How they are feeling about class? What has their sleep been like? What do they do after school? Reflect on your classroom culture: How is your respect agreement working out? Is your class a rigorous working space? Talk to your horizontal team: What are they noticing with this student in their classes? Whats working for them? What is not working? Talk to the parents: How has the student been at home? Have there been any major changes? What are their concerns? Share what you are noticing. Talk to the support staff (school psychologist, social worker, sped teacher, department head): Is there any information you should know about this student? Do they think a referral is necessary? What do they suggest exploring? Going through this process for each student you are concerned about takes up a lot of time, but is also going to give you the most effective long-term impact. But what do I do in class today? In the meantime, however, you need to make your class period work. Below, find some in-class management strategies to help you best facilitate your high-need classroom, whatever that need may be. 1. Fine-Craft Your Groups: Sometimes, half the battle is how you set the students up in the classroom. Generally, kids get off task when it is too difficult, too easy, not interesting, or if the social dynamics just dont feel right. Homogenous groupings with differentiated assignments for each crew can help kids to feel competent, yet challenged. Giving working roles to students during group work time can keep them engaged in the task at hand, making sure all members take on responsibility for the product. However you decide to group your students in the classroom, it allows you an opportunity for social engineering a successful lesson well before you even enter the classroom. An ounce of prevention, in this case, is often well worth the pound of cure. 2. Master Non-Verbal Signals: Whether you are dealing with insecurities associated with academic rigor or an otherwise behavioral response to external stimuli, teachers run a very real risk of escalating a distraction by making it public with verbal reprimands. Unfortunately, drawing attention to it often rewards off-task, attention-seeking behavior. Instead, have some non-verbal cues loaded into your classroom culture. Some of these can be for everyone in the class; some can be private communication for a specific student. Some that you might consider include: A whole-class signal for quiet and to refocus attention back to you during work time. We like to use a hand, straight up in the air. A signal to identify a specific noise or habit enacted by an individual student that is disrupting class. We like to point to the source of the behavior, hand extended, palm-side down. A signal to suggest a student take a quick break from work and go for a walk or see support staff. A whole-class signal for being interrupted during a lesson. We prefer folded hands, looking down, and waiting for students to correct the behavior of their peers. 3. Have A Break-Out Space: This is a life-saver. This breakout space could be a single desk in the corner of the room, a front table, a chair in a hallway, or even a messy desk. A space that is separate from the general classroom can do wonders. It can be used for impromptu minilessons to clarify or remediate with a small crew, without the distractions of their peers. It can be used for one-on-one conferencing, whether it is for academic support, revision, or behavioral concerns. It can act as a work space for students that tend to get distracted in their regular seating. For many of us, a temporary change in environment can help us to re-center and re-focus when we are frustrated, overwhelmed, or just need help and support. An all-purpose break-out space can help to facilitate just that. 4. Clarify Your System: Finally, it is absolutely essential that whenever there are behavior issues due to high levels of need, students need to very clearly understand what is okay in your classroom, what is not okay in your classroom, and how you approach discipline and support. If students do not know what to expect from you, it can be incredibly anxiety-provoking and make them feel insecure and unsafe. What is your academic protocol? If they are struggling in class, where do they get support? What days are you after school? Where can they work quietly? How can they access support during the class period? If students are struggling in the regular classroom environment for any reason at all, they need to have options. It will make them feel supported and valued as a unique individual learner. What is your behavioral protocol? After the non-verbal signal, what is the expectation if the behavior continues? How many warnings does a student get? At what point will they be expected to leave the classroom for support? Whatever the process is, make sure that your student understand it, and that you are consistent with it. Knowing the next step in the process of consequences allows students some control in the process, which can ultimately curb disruptive behavior. Written by Keith Lambert, Education World Associate Contributing Editor Lambert is an English / Language Arts teacher in Connecticut.
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NL-ENG.K-12.5Communication Strategies
The teacher tweets clues, and the entire class guesses. Add a level of collaboration by having students form teams. First student or team to guess correctly wins.
Answer:The late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Then choose one of the following activity options and adapt them to suit the size and climate of your class:
NSS-WH.5-12.6Emergence of the First Global Age
CoveritLive.comis a very powerful liveblogging tool for classroom discussions that can be logged and stored on your Web site for later viewing. Its free, and it works on the iPad. Setup for the administrator takes longer because it does require an account, but it gives you the ability to moderate the chat and embed it into a Web site.
Next, create a hashtag for each game. You may want to use a numbering system to keep track of them. (An example hashtag for guessing game 1 in Mr. Camerons class at George Washington High would be MrCameronGWH1.)
Once the games are underway, keep track of scores and winners on a blackboard, dry-erase board or projection screen and award prizes accordingly.
Debunking Education Memes, Part One
It is important to remember that these hashtags will be public. As such, when students begin using them, their friends will be able to see them. It is unlikely that the hashtags will be trolled, since this activity would be public. You will, however, want to monitor them. Since Twitter can open the door to distractions, youll also want to keep an eye on students to ensure that they remain on task during the lesson.
is a quick and easy discussion tool that can be used to set up a chat room in seconds. The room is accessible via a link on the Web. It takes two minutes to set up the room, and its an easy discussion or brainstorming space for students.
Here are a few sample clues and answers: