Reflections of Things #1 - 7

Reflections on Things 1 – 7

            I can’t believe this is just the beginning of what’s out there.  I have learned so much in the first  third of the class. I plan to implement changes in my classroom a little but at a time.  I know it will take time getting things set up, but once in place, the changes should be helpful for my students and me.  I am using the shortcuts daily so that I can engrain them into my head.  These are great time savers that I will share with fellow staff members.  My students will benefit from the varying types of instruction that technology makes available to us in the classroom.  I am sure that I will set up some type of Skype plan for helping students with questions in the evening.  The Weebly web-page will force me to be more organized and will certainly provide students and their parents a great tool for keeping up with what’s going on in my classroom.

            With very little effort, several of the strategies suggested by Marzano can be addressed in my classroom. I would like to work on the strategy for improving summarizing and note-taking by  using Google Docs.  I have an idea to post vocabulary and problem types with space for students to put in their own words for meanings and how to do the problems.  I know that kids learn better from other kids and this may be a great way for this to happen outside of my classroom.  I also will be posting on my web-site notes from lessons that we cover in class.  This will, of course, be great for those students that miss class for one reason or another.

            I will also be trying to increase meaning of homework and practicing.  One of the very first things I tell my students at the beginning of the year is, that math is not a spectator sport.  They must do the problems not just watch me do them.  I like the statistic that shows research suggests that one must practice something 24 times for and 80% competency.  Not enough students know this or believe this!  I like to give little non-graded quizzes at the start of class to see  if students learned what they were suppose to the day before.  I am thinking that it would be great to put a little review quiz on-line nightly for them to check their learning.  Obviously, this would take work on my part, but once on-line they would always be there.  Along the same lines with on-line review, the objectives and feedback strategy will be addressed.  I need to check with my technology people and see if we have any copies of ExamView that are for district use…I also will provide links to web-sites that I think students may find helpful.  Thinkfinity and the Kahn Academy are both sites that I will have on my web page.  I have sat and watched a video from the Kahn Academy for re-teaching purposes with a student that I am tutoring in AP Stats.  It was great to sit there at my kitchen table and stop the recording and go back when we didn’t get something!

            I think that using Google Docs with my students to create a classroom set of notes is going to be a great learning tool.  I will set up an outline with vocab from a single lesson or maybe a whole chapter.  I plan on having the students access the document and put in their own words their description of the vocab.  I will have taught the lesson already, so they all will have had access to the correct information, but this way they get to rephrase in their own words for others to see.  It can be a situation where they leave their name and get credit for participating or don’t leave their name if they aren’t comfortable with sharing what they know.  I will also try and put sample problems for the students to work on in addition to their homework.  Sometimes, the homework from the book is not really repetitive enough so this way I could ensure that they know exactly what they should have learned in the lesson that day.  I’m thinking I would have to put these problems on both Google docs and on my web-site.  On my web-site, I would put my answers with the work required for finding the solution.  I would hope that on the Google docs students would share their way of doing a problem.  This would be a great way for students to improve the strategy of generating hypothesis.

            I am very excited about trying to implement this idea by the start of the second semester!  I am loving these 7 things and can’t wait to learn more.

Works Cited

Marzano, Robert J., Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock. "Putting the Pieces Together." Gloucester County Public Schools. 24 Feb. 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/index.htm.