Instructify

BY KEVIN HODGSON

Like a lot of beginning teachers, my first year in the classroom was stressful and exciting. Establishing daily classroom routines seemed important, but how does a newbie go about doing that? Luckily, I had Harry Wong and his classic book, The First 100 Days of School. Wong’s book became a sort of bible for me that first year. This past year, I handed it off to a friend who was beginning his first year of teaching. I miss the book but I am glad to know it is going to good use with my friend.

Now, Wong has set up a quiz for teachers at his book’s website. He poses 20 questions about classroom management and regular routines that he says will allow you to reflect on your own teaching effectiveness. A quiz for teachers? Yikes! I took it and got the following results: “You can improve! You’re just surviving, aren’t you?” I hope I am doing more than that.

Here’s what I liked about the quiz: it really forced me to reflect on what I do in the classroom, from seating arrangements to making tests for units to how to begin the day. The site analyzes the answers (against Wong’s expectations) and then offers up some advice for the “wrong” answers. Again, even if I didn’t agree with Wong, I appreciated the (canned) feedback. For example, I answered “false” for this question: “The number of questions on a test is governed by the number of objectives on the assignment.” My feeling is that I gear my teaching around objectives, but nothing is ever one-for-one. I often focus on specific things, making some areas more important than others, and my assessments reflect that. Wong disagreed with me on that one. Sorry, Harry.

Go ahead. Take the quiz. See how you do.

Harry Wong’s Teacher Effectiveness Quiz

BY KEVIN HODGSON

What’s a classroom if not a place for motivation? We want to encourage our students to reach inward and for their very best. We do this with words and actions, but sometimes, a well-placed poster or saying can help, too. Poster-Street is a site that offers up free downloads of inspirational posters that can be used in the classroom. The site is divided up among such themes as Teacher Posters, Kid Posters, and more.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Dividing your class into teams is an activity fraught with peril. Friends cluster together, shy kids awkwardly ask if they can join a group, and all that jostling can eat up several minutes. You could pick teams yourself, but doing so makes things too complicated — you have to put Little Johnny and Little Suzie in separate teams or they’ll goof off the entire class period. Type-A Bobby will want to do all the work himself, and Steve and Vanessa will let him, so you’ve got to split them up. See? Nothing but headaches. If only you could turn this process over to random chance.

See what I did there? I set a problem to make you wonder if there was a solution. And there is. Team Maker randomly generates teams for your class’ group projects. (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

One of the oldest classroom management tricks in the book is to use a timer to keep your students on schedule. Just finished a math lesson? Let them know they have two minutes to get ready for science. Big test today? They have 45 minutes to finish it. A timer sets clear expectations while keeping class running on time.

Online Stopwatch is the latest free online timer application I’ve found. Obviously it lets you set the timer, which then counts down to zero. However, it has several more features as well. (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

Who doesn’t love moving furniture? The answer, of course, is pretty much everybody. Changing up the floor plan for your classroom involves moving desks, rugs and shelves around until you achieve feng shui (or you just say “good enough” and give up), or killing a few trees as you sketch up then toss out flawed, not-to-scale maps of possible layouts.

You could use mind-mapping resources such as Gliffy to create your new floor plan digitally, but why not use a purpose-built application to do the work for you? Classroom Architect from 4teachers.org lets you drag and drop your desks, tables, chairs, TVs, and whatever else you have in your classroom without breaking a sweat.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Happy Monday, dear readers. To ease you back into the work week, I thought we’d begin with a fun ice breaker. (Well, I think it’s fun. Your actual fun may vary.)

Consider the tattoo in the picture. Someone, quite possibly a mad scientist, has gotten the entire periodic table tattooed on his arm. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s a real tattoo.

Now say you’re a science teacher about to give a test on the elements. Do you make this student cover up the tattoo? Why or why not?

Photo credit: o2b on Flickr.

BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features foods that will keep you healthy, a new job-search site for teachers, and tips for stopping conflicts. Read more after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

I like construction paper on classroom bulletin boards as much as the next guy. Cut-out letters on a solid background are a classic look. But consider for a moment what your bulletin board would look like if it instead had a six-foot by four-foot picture of the solar system, or a huge reproduction of a Van Gogh. You can do that and more easily and cheaply at BlockPosters.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Students have gotten used to doing things electronically. Your classroom doesn’t have to be an exception thanks to LectureTools, a learning management thingy from the University of Michigan.

Developers designed LectureTools with huge, impersonal college lecture courses in mind. However, there’s a lot here that K-12 teachers can use, too (though some of them would probably be best suited for 1:1 laptop environments). (more…)

Keep your students on task with E.gg Timer, a simple and stylish timer application. E.gg Timer works much like Class Timer in that you can easily set a countdown timer that plays an obnoxious noise when it hits zero. However, E.gg Timer’s interface is much more slick. For starters, you can program the time right into the URL — http://e.ggtimer.com/2minutes will give you a countdown of two minutes. If you just put a number in the URL (http://e.ggtimer.com/10, for example), it will assume you want that number of seconds. Once the timer starts, you get a clean black-and-white numeral display, as well as a status bar for a graphical representation of how much time is left.

You can use E.gg Timer to let students know how much time they have left to finish a test, or you can give them a set amount of time to get organized for the next activity. Or, I suppose, to boil an egg. -BILL FERRIS

E.gg Timer

Related stuff:

Manage Your Time Wisely with Class Timer

I had some really old school instructors when I was studying Korean. Not only was it great to have instructors with a lot of life experience, but given that they were native Koreans it was even more enriching. In addition to unique teaching styles, they had story after story about what school was like in their home country. How else would I have found out about weird schoolyard games, like the Chicken Fight? (That was the best video I could find.)

That little reflection of mine might be submission-worthy over at CulturallyTeaching. I’d probably have to up the word count, and I’d also need to find out how much they’d plan on paying me. I’d then need to instantly demand they DOUBLE IT. But enough about my negotiation skills.

Have you studied and/or taught while abroad? Do you have a new ESL student? Maybe you’re curious about how you can add some culture to your foreign language lesson. If any of those scenarios struck a chord with you, check out CulturallyTeaching.

Although their blog only recently started up in November of 2008, they have been steadily ramping things up. Its always good when you see a new, useful blog find it’s footing and start posting more and more. Postings at CulturallyTeaching generally fall into a few different categories, with a great deal of images, videos, culture lessons, resources and activities. If you’re interested in how culture affects people both in and out of the classroom — not only in America but also abroad — their blog is definitely worth reading. -NICK YINGLING

CulturallyTeaching

Related stuff:

Field trip to Jordan: No tickets required with Project Explorer

Travel the world with Project Explorer

See the world, learn a language: Scholarships for students to study abroad

Photo credit: alessandro pucci on Flickr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkley California has an initiative known as The Edible Schoolyard. It’s a non-profit organization developed in order to find ways of cooking and gardening for young people in their everyday lives. Chef and author Alice Waters conceived the program with Principal Neil Smith and has been underway since 1997. In the school, students in the Garden Program see for the care and preparation of organic foods from “seed to table.”

This is the type of initiative that teaches students at an early age where food comes from, and what exactly it takes for their favorite meals to make their way to the table. Students plant seeds, tend crops, and harvest various organic produce, and then go on to prepare their harvest in the kitchen. Students are also encouraged to break into small groups, where they learn the value of working together in order to see their work come to life, as well as keep track of their progress in garden journals. This is a great way for students to learn about ecological principles as well as how nature is an important element in their daily lives. There is plenty of information available at The Edible Schoolyard website, where you can also learn about ways to help support the initiative, as well as tips and suggestions of ways you can begin a similar initiative in your own school. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

The Edible Schoolyard

Related stuff:

Food for thought about food

Force Feed Food Force to Your Students

Test Your Vocabulary and Feed the Hungry with FreeRice

Save Money and Your Taste Buds – Bring Your Own Lunch

As educators, it is our responsibility to provide our students with the tools necessary to be successful, not only in our classroom, but in life. As a technology integration specialist, I believe part of this responsibility we have is to teach our students how to be good cybercitizens.

Most districts in the United States and around the world implement some sort of web filter. In some districts, the web filter is doing exactly what it is designed to do, protect our children from online pornography, obscene material, and anything else deemed harmful to minors as required by the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Others, however, are much more restrictive.

Jon-Michael Poff, a senior at Batesville High School in Batesville, Arkansas, has written an excellent article in Edutopia  entitled “Stop Blocking Online Content” which focuses on web filters from a student’s perspective. He discusses his frustration with the filters in place and describes a situation in which a fellow student was unable to access a blog that was assigned by his teacher and an incident in which another student was unable access image files, from a popular image hosting site, for her desktop publishing class.

No responsible educator would argue that students do not need to be somewhat protected when accessing computers in our schools, but what about teachers? Teachers are trusted with the safety and well-being of our nation’s children everyday yet, in most districts, they are not trusted to make sound, responsible decisions with regards to the internet.  In some cases, teachers are “digitally handcuffed” and are unable to use some of the best resources available. Google Docs, YouTube, and Flickr all have high educational value but are blocked in most districts. Why?

Last I checked, we live in an unfiltered world. Are we truly preparing our students for life after school when we have such restrictive filters in place?  In many districts, why are teachers not treated like professionals and given the opportunity to make the decision on what is appropriate or inappropriate for their classroom?

This topic always raises many more questions than answers. If you have an opinion, let us know in the comments. – JERRY SWIATEK

“Stop Blocking Online Content”

Related stuff:

How to cope when your school blocks YouTube

Search visually, safely with Redzee

Well, it looks like Ol’ Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so that means six more weeks of winter. Not to worry, though, as here’s a list of lists to keep you warm.

5 Steps to Becoming a Teacher – The Apple delivers this list of five things you need to do in order to get on the road toward becoming a teacher. Since most of you reading this are already teachers, feel free to pass these tips on to your friends and family members who want to know what it takes. Each step is further broken down into more detailed categories, such as “Characteristics teachers need” under the first and possibly most important step, “Decide if teaching is right for you.”

5 Online Tools to Help You Cite Your Research Papers – We’ve mentioned EasyBib before, but The Students’ Blog brings four more citation tools to help your students breeze through the often headache-inducing process of creating a research paper bibliography.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 -I know, I know, it’s 2009, but that doesn’t mean this list is totally irrelevant. With 100 tools on the list, there’s bound to be some things you’ve seen or possibly used before, like Firefox and Skype, but there are plenty of new toys to play with, too. This list comes to us from across the pond at C4LPT (Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies).

69 Free or Open Source Tools For Students – We don’t believe in having to pay for software, especially when it comes to tools that are useful for educators. That’s why lists like this one from “This is the OC (Online College)” are so useful. Again, you’ll probably see some old favorites here, but the list is divided by categories like “Learning & Brainstorming,” so you can discover new open source software no matter what your students need. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: curly_exp(l)osure on Flickr

You are boring. No, not the person sitting next to you. You. I don’t care if you are the “cool” teacher, but you are going to be perceived as a total bore unless you do something to make sure those kids are paying attention to you and not daydreaming or becoming distracted by their newly found way to draw their own initials. Here are some tips to help you stay in control of the classroom, based on some of my own observations along with the help of some other great articles I’ve found:

1. Be Interactive – It’s one thing to ask questions aloud, hoping that one of your students will raise his hand and pipe right up to join in the conversation, but it’s another to actually engage your class by making the whole group get involved at once. This is why in-class games like Jeopardy can be so much fun and ultimately more beneficial than a lecture. Find games or activities that require active participation by the whole class, rather than just wait for one or two go-getters to do all the talking. You also have to keep pace with the entire class, not just the ones who already get it.
2. Be Interesting - History teachers, listen up. I had the hardest time paying any sort of attention in history class because of the horrifying monotony and relentless memorization of dates and events that I still am not sure really happened or not. Make a history lesson interesting by providing information about those heroes of yesteryear that aren’t just the ones found in the text books. Have your students literally act out, too. Give assignments that allow them to take on the roles of historical figures and act out pieces of history. It will help them visualize the past, and put things into perspective as well.
3. Be Funny – As a disclaimer, I don’t suggest you do anything that will get you in trouble, but having a sense of humor can really get your students to pay attention to you. When was the last time you wore KISS makeup to your Algebra class? Okay, so maybe that’s taking it a bit too far, and you want your students to take you seriously, but don’t forget to keep it light. I used to have a teacher who would threaten to “stand on the desk and yodel” if we’d rather listen to him do that than lecture. Luckily, he never had to, but it always got a laugh when he said he might.
4. Be Relevant -  Your students are not dumb. They also don’t live under rocks. Use pieces of pop culture and current events to pepper your lectures, and you might even see a head or two rise off the desk. Teaching about electromagnetism? There are some episodes of LOST you can check out to help support your lesson. And hey, who knows, maybe you can bring in some ideas you found on your favorite educator’s blog?
5. Be Confident – If you don’t know what you’re talking about, then your students will see right through you. How can you expect your students to be passionate about anything that you could give a rat’s patoot about? Be sure of what you’re saying, don’t keep referring to the teacher’s edition, and try to make eye contact every once in a while. Your confidence and leadership abilities are paramount for establishing you as the authority. Don’t be afraid to be human, but don’t forget that you are in charge and they will see you falter if you let them.

These are just a few of the ways you can get your students to stay awake and engaged in the classroom. We’d love to hear about what techniques you employ when it comes to keeping yours engaged. Let us know in the comments. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo: credit:  ***pim*** on flickr