I teacher at Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School. Along with the three math classes I teach, I have one period of 6th grade Exploratory. The purpose of this class is help students develop the skills necessary to be successful in school (and in life.) These include study skills, computer skills, oral speaking and more. I have a lot of leeway in this course, so I try to choose engaging content in a project based learning environment.
One topic I cover each year is why our school is named after the Mendez Family. This year, I decided to use the EduProtocol, Cyber Sandwich. I printed 2 articles about Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez and the court case Mendez vs. Westminster. (tip - I printed one article on yellow and the other on blue to match the slides template). Each person annotated his/her assigned article. Then, in a shared presentation, partners added their notes. They then discussed their notes and created the shared notes slide. From this combined information, each student wrote a paragraph summary. This is a new twist on Focused Note-Taking (AVID Strategy) and was very engaging. My next step is to repeat this strategy with a new topic: Ice Cream! After completing this cyber sandwich, students will make their own ice cream. Admittedly, I should have started with ice cream, then moved into the more content based topic. But hindsight is 20/20. It's always better to start with a familiar topic when introducing a new skill. Either way, I now have another tool in my toolbelt. Cyber Sandwich really helped my students to become active participants in their own learning. |
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I've always been someone who likes to try new things with my student. When when I heard about EduProtocols I had to learn more. I bought the book, The EduProtocol Field Guide Book 1 by Jon Corippo and Marlena Hebern, because hey, who doesn't need more books. As I read about the different Protocols, I realized that some of these strategies were familiar, but with a new twist. Others were totally new to me. I started with the Fast & the Curious EduProtocol because... I HATE timed math tests! My oldest son was put in the "low" math class in 5th grade because he couldn't complete 100 facts in 3 minutes. Give him 6 minutes, no sweat. Unfortunately, at some point (definitely by the time my students get me in 7th grade) they need fluency in basic math facts. The problem is...how do we check for fluency vs. pure speed? Enter: The Fast & The Curious Protocol! So I dove in and created a series of (generously) timed, self-graded math facts tests. I dubbed them "FAST ATTACKS". I started with the basics: Addition, subtraction, Multiplication & division. Then I added addition of integers including negatives, subtraction of integers etc... Then I moved on to basic conversions between fractions, decimals and percents. All of this within our district's LMS, CANVAS. (If you are a CANVAS user, I'm happy to share) No grading yeah!!! Immediate feedback Yeah!!!! Why hadn't I done this years ago????? Sometimes, you need to be inspired to get get out of your rut or to find a better solution to an ongoing issue. Each "test" was repeated daily for 1 week, based on the Fast and Curious protocol. If I missed even 1 day, I saw slippage in the students scores. In fact, I skipped weeks if I knew that daily repetition was not possible. And now in 2nd semester, the retention is still high. I still need to create one more, reading an analogue clock. Ugh! If you do not have access to CANVAS, try looking in Quizizz. Other teachers have created a lot of resources ready to use or modify. #eduprotocols
When you feel like an island....find your tribe!
Have you ever felt alone when it comes to implementing tech tools in your classroom? I use to feel this way until I found my "tribe" at @CUE and more specifically at OCCUE. Here are all of these teachers who have the same vision I do! They want to use technology to help students learn. They want to share ideas and they're not afraid to try something and fail! That was in the early 90's and boy have things changed. The more involved I got, the more supported I felt. Now I on the OCCUE Board and really enjoy working with such an amazing group of educators. Find your tribe. Find like minded educators that are as excited about technology as you are. Suggestion #1: Join us at OCCUE TechFest 2020 this weekend, Saturday Feb. 1st at Newport Harbor High School. I love attending small regional conferences (small, because we only have 300-400 people attend). There will be so many amazing presenters and you'll have time for good conversations, to ask questions and feel the love! I hope to see you there. Please stop by to say hi if you do. I'll be helping out in my new cool OCCUE t-shirt and presenting at 1pm. @occue thanks or the cool tweet
MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS - 2020 2020... Who can believe it? When I started teaching 35 years ago, I never imagined that I would still be teaching in 2020, and that I would still be enjoying it. I remember all of those "old" teachers when I was growing up, talking about retirement and burnout. I'm happy to say that I am not burned out nor do I consider myself old. I think this is due to the fact that I am always trying something new in my classroom, and most is due to the abundance of tech tools at my disposal. I have been using tech in my classroom since before it was a thing. Back in the 80's we got a thermofax machine which was a game changer. Then in the early 90's I convinced my principal to put a modem in my classroom so I could do Fredmail with my students. I've been a member of CUE since about 1991 and have conducted many PD workshops, trainings etc... over the years. I don't say this just to toot my own horn, but to reaffirm for myself that I continue to innovate and move forward both for my students' sakes and for my own. That being said, I still feel behind in some respects. I decided to resurrect this blog, for my own professional growth, not for any other reason. If someone else reads it and wants to share my journey, great. If not, that's fine too. At this point, I don't think I have any "followers" anyway. Most of the PD I facilitate is face-to-face and on very specific topics. I also do a lot of work with teachers one-on-one. I rarely tweet or post and as you can see, this blog hasn't had a post since 2016. (HAs it really been that long?) A friend of mine Kim Vogue @KVoge71 recently posted that she felt like an outlier in the way she conducts her class. She says it's lonely and I have to agree. I have been a outlier most of my career. That's not saying that I don't work with a group of amazing teachers, because I do, but in terms of technology, I've always been in the lead. I'm lucky to have a few other "frontline" teachers on my staff and a whole slew of like minded educators in @cueink and @occue. As you can tell, my blogging style is more like stream of consciousness. If I take time to plan out my posts beyond the basic topic, I'll never get them done. My Resolutions 1. Focus on my own PD - I spend a lot of time on my students, but I need to take a more systematic approach to my own PD. One of the ways I want to do this is: 2. Share my voice - I've presented several sessions on student voice in the math classroom, but I realized, that I have not been sharing my voice. Again, if no one reads these posts, no worries, but I'm going to share anyway. 3. Take time for me!
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CategoriesAuthorAndrea Earl is a Canvas trainer and Instructional Technology Coach at Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School in Santa Ana, California. Archives
November 2020
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