How to disguise a worksheet!

Snow/extreme cold day!! And perfect timing because I came up with an idea for this blog on my way home from school yesterday. Great day to be able to relax and write!

In education it is important for students to engage and discuss and not just sit and listen to lecture then do independent work. In science and I'm sure in all subjects, sometimes you just really need the students to practice something or remember content. How do you do both? Simple "trick" the students into thinking they are not doing a worksheet. Here are 5 easy strategies to take a worksheet and make it interactive, encourage discussion and allow students to practice and process. I tried to mix it up with some that are in seats and some that require movement around the room.  These strategies are not original to me. Many of them are cooperative learning strategies or reading/writing strategies. If you have been teaching for a while you probably know most of these. This is just meant to be a quick refresher if you feel stuck in a lecture/worksheet rut.

1. Coaching back and forth: This is great  cooperative learning strategy for math type problems or anything where it involves steps that can be talked through.  Have students work in pairs. Have students choose to be partner A or partner B. They get one worksheet between the two of them and then go back and forth to answer the questions. The key is that first Partner A talks through the problem and records while partner B coaches. Then they switch on the next problem. Tell them for coaching to Tip, Tip, Tell, Re-ask. They each initial the problem they do. Wander the room to make sure they are following procedure. It is not just passing the worksheet back and forth. They must interact and coach in order to make it work correctly. Here is an example when students are asked to calculate force of gravity.

2.  Card sorts:  For any worksheet that involves matching this works great. Or even vocab. There are many variations of this. Use to sort vocab words with definitions, use to put vocab words into categories/groups One way to implement is to have students in groups of 3-4 and then deal out cards. They each put one card at a time into a category. Only the student with the card can touch it but others can tell them what category to put it into. You can do this with words or also pictures is a fun variation. Rock types example  and a comparing cells example using pictures.

3. Say it, write it, pass it: This is another cooperative learning strategy where  you can take questions on a worksheet and have the first student in a group say the answer out loud, then write it down, then pass the paper. The next student answers the next question and so on.

4. Find someone who: This is a go to for me. I take a worksheet and change the questions into Find someone who knows... I put each question in a box and generally do about 15 questions in a  3 x 5 grid. Students are assigned a column of 3 boxes to answer. Wander the room to ensure they go the correct answer. Then have students stand up, hand up, pair up to get the rest. They can only get one answer from another student then have to move to find another student. Encourage and monitor so that students are explaining and talking through each question. Do not allow a clump of students to just pass the paper around the circle as this defeats the purpose. Here is an example on static electricity and after students have completed a PHET simulation on static

5. Fold the line/quiz,quiz trade: This is another good vocab practice. I have found that many students don't fully understand how to utilize flashcards so doing structured activities helps them with this. For this one I make cards with a question or definition on one side and then the answer or vocab word on the back. Then I hand them out to students so each student gets one card. Students make a line then fold it in half until everyone is standing across from a partner. One side quizzes the other side. Remember to have them tip, tip, tell, re-ask if their partner doesn't know the answer.  Switch so the other side quizzes, then have students trade cards and one side rotates one person so they have a new partner. They end up asking the question they just answered so they get double practice on each question.

Hope this give you a little inspiration to get the students up and moving! I am realizing that it is easy to get lazy and forget a lot of great strategies! There are so many out there! It's nice to have a few go to ones on hand. My first three years I had an amazing new teacher coach who always said that the more "tools in your toolbox" the easy it gets and the better teacher you become. I fully stand by her advice!

2019!

I just got my first student teacher! I’m hoping I may have some time to get some much needed organization type stuff done. And maybe even get in a few posts in a row! Imagine that!

If you've been following my few and far between posts, I promised some mural pics from my Earth Science geologic timeline project so first here’s that:

   

 


     

     

 

In other news, here's some fall 2018 of interest notes from Earth Science. I did the biosphere set design project again, (see previous posts if you don't remember this)...I am thinking about revising this next year. It takes way too long for the amount of content the students get out of it. Not sure what I will do...but at the very least I will shorten it.  We are just starting the atmosphere unit and since carbon is such an important/big part of the new standards I think I might incorporate some of the carbon activities into the first unit as well.

I really enjoyed the Hydrosphere unit! As a culminating project the students painted a canvas to draw awareness to a water related issue. I will mostly keep this unit the same next year, but I would like to try to add in more water quality testing to get the students out and doing more hands on lab work/data collection.

Just thinking about some other various teaching ideas and have decided to try to get back to some of my reading and writing strategies. I think sometimes its easy to get bogged down, always trying new activities and its easy to forget the oldies but goodies!   So I might pull out some of my note taking and reading/writing strategies that I have been using less frequently lately.

In particular I plan to bring back the power write. Simple directions: Students get a topic you choose related to what you have been covering. Time them for 2 minutes with the rules: Pens/Pencils must be moving, no taking and you can't stop talking. After 2 minutes have a few students share what they wrote. You can do several rounds if you want.

Another area I'd like to explore is student self motivation and the use of service learning to increase student motivation. I've been working on creating lessons for a freshmen learning lab. I've been following an amazing teaching blog:  cultofpedagogy
If you are into getting some new teaching strategies or getting re inspired I highly recommend checking it out!

I am also looking exploring motivation from the ideas of Daniel Pink; check out his TED talk here.

This week I plan to ask some hard questions and explore with my students why they do or don't value education and what makes them engaged. I'll post with an update at the end of the week.

That's all for now. Until next time....(hopefully not as long of a wait for my next post as in the past)

-Mara