After reading the assigned section, I once again came across more excellent resources that I would use in my classroom. In the identifying similarities and differences section, as I read the included examples I started to think it would be great to have a word sort- like website. My "wheel" was turning and then in the practice and homework section, I saw flashcardexchange.com. So naturally I had to explore this website. There is an option for a free account or you can pay a small lifetime fee. For free you can create flash cards, study them, and play memory. It's pretty neat but I am really looking for a place where students can sort words into different categories. Let me know if anyone has any suggestions.
In the past I've had students record their results to various typing tests taken during computer class in an excel spreadsheet. They are to focus on their words per minute and accuracy. After teaching graphing through excel, the students then need to create an excel chart graphing that information at the end of the year. They really like this activity because it allows them to take personal results and visually see them. Also it is a great way to squeeze in extra practice of graphing skills. One of my goals for this year includes having a class create a "Choose Your Own Adventure" using power point. I almost forgot that this was something that I wanted to do sometime through the school until I read about the BattleGraph power point game. I also checked this resources out and it is something that I can use for my 7th and 8th grade math class.
Finally, I would say my least favorite of the instructional strategies this class focused on was generating and testing hypothesis. Maybe this is because I'm a little spent already or because my classes I teach force me to really think outside the box to do this. I always thought this strategy is geared toward science activities, but do see how it can be incorporated into other subjects. I liked the $10,000 inheritance activity and could easily adapt that for my social studies classes.
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Having students think about what they want to learn about a certain topic and what the learning goals should and will be is a great way to use testing and using hypotheses in your teaching. It gets the students invested in their learning because they feel as though they had some control of their learning choices (but not all of them). It also makes it easier to hold them accountable for their work and effort.
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