Reward Systems in the Classroom

The topic of my blog post for this week is reward systems.  Differentiated reward systems are seen in classrooms throughout the U.S. When teachers create their classroom management, they must consider consequences for interfering behavior and then also consequences for positive behavior.  Students need a consistent system for both positive and negative reinforcement that they can relate to and comprehend.  A reward system is a great way to give positive reinforcement to those students who show positive behavioral and academic choices.  Through my experiences in the classroom, I have seen many examples of reward systems.  One example that I have seen is teachers hand out dollars to students who make good choices and then at the end of the week students can spend those dollars in the classroom treasure box.  Another example is the teacher gives her students tickets for good choices and then the students put the tickets into a jar to be picked on Friday to go to the treasure box.  Another component of this specific reward system is when the class's tickets reach a certain line on the jar then the whole class gets a reward.  I like this component because it is rewarding the entire class for a series of positive choices.  In my own classroom, I think I will have a reward system based on each student and based on the class.  I like the second example's system and would envision something similar in my classroom.  To my reward system, I would also add that whenever the student receives tickets she or he should write it in their agenda to their parents.  I have seen this technique before and I really like it because students get excited about letting their parents or guardians know that they behaved and worked well that day.  Ultimately, I would like the students to be working towards a reward that is not materialistic, but is intrinsic.  When students are intrinsically motivated to make positive behavioral and academic choices, they are able to begin self-regulating their behavior and performance.  Self-regulation will be the ultimate goal of whatever reward system (and consequence system) that I will create one day in my classroom.

"Taking a Trip Through Our Government!"

The title of this blog post is the title of my hook lesson that I have created for my group's UbD unit plan.  I am extremely excited about this 5th grade lesson plan because it is an interactive lesson that makes great use of  a Web 2.0 tool.  The overall goal for this lesson is to spark student interest in government.  In order to achieve this objective, this lesson plan transforms a classroom into an airplane flying to the capitol of the United States and the capitol of North Carolina--thanks to Google Earth.  Through this extremely neat online resource, the teacher is able to guide the students to buildings in each city that house the different branches of government.  The rationale behind this lesson is that students will be able to visualize where our three branches of government function both locally and nationally.  This lesson allows students to be able to see places that they might not normally get to see from a super neat street level view.

And the coolest part of this lesson is made possible by Google Earth.  When the teacher reaches the White House, the last stop on the trip, you are actually able to go INSIDE the White House to show the students a virtual tour.

In order to get inside the white house, click on the yellow man seen in the right side of the screen.  Then drag him inside the White House and release.  You should now be looking at a picture similar to this:

I randomly stumbled upon this virtual tour, and it astonished me.  I hope I will get a similar reaction from my students during this lesson!

Diversity in Social Studies

When thinking back to my social studies education as a learner in elementary school, I remember studying history through a textbook.  In my mind, history was a dull, boring subject that didn't impact me whatsoever.  It wasn't until college when I finally started noticing all of the topics that we didn't learn in my early years of schooling.   Minorities and those with different perspectives were left out of my education.  We simply focused on major cultures, societies and ethnicities when discussing history.  Schools have begun attempting to promote the learning of diverse cultures specifically with Black History Month and Hispanic History Month, but some teachers only mention these minorities during those months.  It is my goal as a teacher to make sure that voices and perspectives of minorities are represented in my social studies lessons year-round.  Students will be reading books and primary sources about or by minorities as well as learning in the classroom with their diverse peers.  We must educate our students that diversity is a positive that creates differences in our society that are to be respected by others.  I want my students to be comfortable sharing information about their lives and not feeling shy about others being critical of their point of view or opinion.  For specifically, ELLs and students with disabilities, I plan on including their diverse backgrounds in the classroom, and I am hopeful that they will share information about their lives with our classroom community.  I would also make sure that I find material and content that has interest  and connections to each of my students so that each student knows his or her perspective is important in my classroom.  This is why finding literature and media from minority perspectives is so essential to elementary social studies.  Students need to learn about the biases in history and how not all people are affected by history the same one way.

UbD in Our Current Education System

In my social studies class this summer session, we are learning about how to create unit plans through Understanding by Design (UbD).  UbD is a framework of research-based practices that have been proven effective in helping teachers develop instructional activities that promote high levels of student achievement.  This type of teaching is one provides teachers with the ability to provide students with essential content understanding and multiple forms of assessment to present their understanding.  I personally really like this framework because I am required to consider the 'why?' when creating lessons and activities...something that is often left out by a lot of teachers when lesson planning.

However, there are a few challenges to UbD which could be the reason why it is not apparently widespread around schools.  One challenge is that this framework is complex and requires teachers to modify their original lesson plan frameworks.  Sometimes teachers are not accustomed to thinking about the 'big picture' when planning lessons, and this idea of the 'big picture' is a critical component of UbD.  This change of thinking will require teachers to be trained how to plan units according to UbD.  Thinking ahead to the future, UbD training sessions would be beneficial to all teachers since specifically in the areas of science and social studies teachers frequently unit plan collaboratively.

However, this framework is not one that can just be used in social studies and science.  The most advantageous aspect of UbD is how simple it is to plan interdisciplinary lessons.  This is where teachers can make up for the fact that too many teachers are not teaching social studies because it is not being tested.  UbD allows teachers to easily plan lessons that are across curriculums and domains to make the classroom a more authentic, meaningful learning environment.  Social studies for example can be found in math, literacy or even science lessons, and it is obvious that the teacher has planned for this interdisciplinary learning because of UbD.

What do y'all think about UbD?
Have you ever used or seen it used in a classroom?

Authentic Assessments to Match Authentic Tasks

During this summer, I have taken classes in both science and social studies content areas.  Through these classes, I have strengthened by understanding of effective assessment in the elementary classroom and how I can deliver assessments that show full student understanding.

When most people think of assessment, they are plagued with past memories of tests, pop quizzes, and standardized testing.  While these structures of assessments might help the teacher see which students have mastered the content, the teacher can not be 100% sure that a student has full content understanding.

According to the textbook we have been reading for social studies, Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High Quality Units, a student has full content understanding if she or he constructs big ideas in her or his mind through processes of inquiry, inference and rethinking in order to 'transfer' material learned across situations, places and times.  If teachers are expecting students to have this understanding for content in their classrooms, then teachers must learn to properly assess this understanding so that students are able to show their range of performance.  This is why performance tasks are one of the most effective assessment strategies that a teacher can use.  Typically this requires students to apply content learned to a new situation that they are not expecting or haven't seen before.  Students must use strategic thinking methods autonomously and must use habits of mind to persist with the taks and polis the work to suit purpose and audience.  Through an assessment such as this, a teacher is able to get much more insight into the students' knowledge to guarantee that they really understand versus only seem to understand.

In the areas of science and social studies, performance assessments are extremely applicable.  In these content areas, teachers are teaching authentic lessons to help students understand fundamental content that will be builded upon throughout their education.  It is only appropriate to assess students after these authentic lessons in an authentic manner that requires them to apply their understandings.  Performance assessments do just this!!

Power Tools Class Reflection

Over the course of the past two months I have learned an enormous amount about how to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.  These tools have the power to transform a classroom to a fun, engaging environment where students are not only learning critical content skills, but also crucial 21st century skills.

First, I would like to start with a self-reflection of this blog.  This is the first blog I have ever created, but I am glad that I did so before I got into the classroom.  Blogs are great ways for teachers to share educational resources, to update parents and students, and to self-reflect about their pedagogies.  With this blog project, I developed a niche for updating my followers on online resources such as gliffy, infuselearning and wikis.  I see myself using a blog in the future as a way to communicate with the students and parents in my class as well as a way to share and discuss resources with my fellow teachers.  I thought I did a really good job with the layout and design of my blog, and over time I developed a more engaging writing style.  This engaging writing style is something that I will definitely take away from this class because it keeps my followers coming back to read my updates and it facilitates discussion on my blog.

Another great tool for discussion that I really enjoyed from this class is our class webliography.  For this project, we created a wiki where my fellow classmates and I posted reviews and rubric scores for different technology resources.  This project was so beneficial that I see myself using it well into my teaching years.  I am hopeful that my classmates and I can stay in touch on this webliography and update each other on great technological finds.

During this class, I was also exposed to a new pedagogy style that is sweeping schools: flipping the classroom.  This classroom management technique is one that requires the students to listen to pre-made  lecture videos for homework.  Then the next day the class can focus on hands-on activities that require the students to apply skills learned from the videos.  I think this pedagogy style is extremely beneficial for both students and teachers.  Basically a classroom that is flipped is a classroom that is transparent--parents and students know exactly what you're teaching so there are no surprises.  Students are able to learn from the videos are that own pace, and teachers are able to give more direct attention to more students throughout class time.  It is difficult to argue against this pedagogy style.  I am planning to continue studying flipping the classroom to see how plausible it is in an elementary setting.  But overall, I can't wait to try out this new engaging, resourceful teaching style!

This class has been one where the products that we have created will serve us well throughout our teaching professions.  I wish that more teachers learned about the power tools that are available to classrooms now.  These tools have enormous potential for our students and the skills that they are learning.  We must remember that we are preparing our students for a technological age where they must possess both collaborative skills and technological skills.

Thanks for following me throughout this journey!!  I will try to keep posting throughout the rest of the summer!

Feedly.com: My RSS Feed Lifesaver

With so many sites and blogs to read on the internet, I have found it extremely helpful to have one place that keeps track of all the blogs that I follow as well as the websites where I can read up-to-date news and education articles.  I find that often times I am really overwhelmed with all these resources on the internet.  What do y'all think?  How do y'all keep track of the helpful sites and resources that you've found online?

Recently, I stumbled upon a site called Feedly.  This site makes blog reading easy and enjoyable, as it compiles all of your blogs, sites and news with its simplistic, minimalist user interface.  Feedly is perhaps one of the best resources that I have seen to track your RSS feed.  (For all those blog newbies out there, such as myself, RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and is a online tool that is used to publish frequently updated works in a standardized format.)

The screen shot above is what my personal Feedly Education site looks like.  The most recently updated unread blog posts and news articles are at the top of my page while my list of blogs and sites that I'm following are listed on the right for easy access.  On the left side are the categories that all of my followed sites are listed under; these make navigating around this RSS feed extremely easy.  Another great benefit from using Feedly is how easy it is to subscribe to new sites without having to copy and paste the url or any other time consuming subscription methods.  Feedly makes this possibly by providing a small, transparent Feedly button that appears in the lower-right corner of your Web browser.  If you find a new website or blog that you would like to remember or possibly subscribe to, all you need to do is click on this button and Feedly will not only allow you add the site to your feed, but also email, facebook, or tweet the site to share!  This is probably my favorite component of this website; it keeps me coming back to Feedly to remember cool sites or resources even if I don't look at them right away.  

Another positive about Feedly is it is compatible with laptops, iPads, iPhones and Androids.  I love being able to stay current with blogs on the go, even if I can just read a few articles at a time.

A few negatives about Feedly are:

• It does not work in Internet Explorer.
• For browsers that Feedly does work with, it requires users to install a plug-in which is not allowed on some public computers.
• Sites can not be cross-listed in two categories.

I'm really interested to see what y'all think about Feedly if you've used it or even just visited the site! 

How easy was it to use?

Did you like the display/organization of the RSS feed?

Does it make blog reading any easier?

I would also love to hear what RSS aggregator sites y'all use and how they compare!

Thanks for stopping by and reading!  

Tune in soon for a post on a teaching strategy that is increasing its presence in the classroom... or should I say flipping its presence in the classroom!