In my classroom, collaboration is key. If students are going to speak French, they need someone with whom they can speak. Small groups and partner work is essential in getting students to use the language. Plus, when working with a small group or with a partner, students have a low-risk environment to speak up and contribute. In previous posts, I have mentioned the importance of creating activities where everyone in the group has a responsibility and is contributing to the end means in some way. I want everyone to feel needed and I want everyone to know that they are, in some way, responsible for getting the job done. I do everything that I can avoid the "bogs and logs" mentality.
But, how to divide the students into those very important groups?? I subscribe to the thought process that the students need to work with the same groups for at least six weeks. I usually keep them together for an entire unit. New unit = new groups. At the beginning of the school year, I took great time in sculpting my groups. I would often put strong students with weak students in order to have students with varying abilities in groups. As the year has progressed, I wanted to get a little more creative in my grouping. When we came back for second semester, I decided to randomly choose groups. But, to make it more exciting (and to get kids up and moving--which is the key to an active class) I had students write a sentence/word on a piece of paper. In level 1, they had to write the French word for one of their favorite gifts or something that they bought over the break. In level 2, they had to write a sentence about a gift that they gave to someone. It worked out to be a great review, especially in level 2. As students were writing, I walked around and talked to them about it, so that I knew at least one thing about each student. Then, I had them line themselves up alphabetically by the gift that they received or gave. I loved this part because they had to get up and, like it or not, talk to their classmates. Then, I walked through the line and gave each student a crayon, alternating the colors between the number of groups I wanted. (I used ROY G BIV). This REALLY helped to review colors with my level 1 students. Then, the students found their like colors and formed their groups. Immediately, this gave the group something in common because I could name them the color that they had. (I like to have a name for each group.) Before the activity started, I have them a few minutes to discuss what they had written on their paper. Kids love to talk about themselves, and this gave them a chance to get to know each other which helps to create a necessary bond between group members.
It sounds like a very lengthy method to divide kids up, but it works. It's creative and different, and the students like that. It gave them a chance to use their individual experiences and to talk about them. The entire process didn't take more than 8 minutes, and that's because 5 minutes was used to write the sentence.
Partner work is something else that I love to do. Typically, I assign partners which are seated near each other. But, during those long winter months, I like to mix things up a bit. For a continuous writing assignment (where students write a little bit of a story based on a picture or goofy photograph as we learn more grammar in the chapter)I wanted random partners. (And,I wanted them to get up and walk around.) I had each student write a sentence on a small piece of paper. We were learning daily routine vocab, so I had them write a sentence to describe what they do to get ready in the morning. Again, I walked around as they were writing to help with grammar and sentence structure. Then, I collected each nameless paper in a box and had students choose papers from the box. They had to then, get up and find the person who either had their paper, or the person who wrote on the paper that they had chosen. Whoever they found first, was their partner. They grabbed the activity and sat down and got to work. As students were pairing up and sitting down, there always happens to be students who can't find their matches, so i just paired them up and they got to work. Again, a crazy chaotic method, but it got kids up and moving, and speaking French because they had to read the paper aloud to find their match.
Another random way of finding a partner, is to put two corresponding vocabulary words on a card, cut them apart and have students find their match. For example, I put the action on one side of the card, and a noun that would complete the action on the other side. I cut them apart (sort of like a puzzle), then the students had to walk around to find the matching pieces. Once they found the other half of their card, they could sit down and get to work. It's a great way to review! If time allowed, I could have each group share with the group the words on their cards and have the rest of the class say the English, as if they were flashcards.
There are hundreds of creative ways to get kids up and moving to find a partner or group. The important element, is to keep them guessing. I love that my students never know what to expect. We rarely do the same thing twice which keeps them interested.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Ok, Students, Today we are going to France!
In earlier posts, I posted about my Project Based Learning unit that I did with my French 2 students. I decided to do it again last year. But, as most teachers do, I took the things that I learned from last year and improved the unit. We started the unit yesterday with an activity where students "went to France." I gave the students the web site of the school that we have partnered with on this unit. We have a school in Lille, France who has agreed to help out, and a school in Versailles, France. Each group was given an IPad and I pretty much just let them go. I required them to do three things: 1. Figure out the name of the high school (this is level 2 and they were looking at website that is entirely in French, that task is a little more challenging than you might think) 2. Find it on Google Maps or Google Earth and look around, then pinpoint the location the city in which the high school is found on a map of France. 3. They had to complete a Venn Diagram comparing our high school to the one in France.
Let me just say, using IPads in the classroom is so cool. I have a little jealousy for those teachers who get to teach in a school where all students come the class with an IPad. I use my IPad daily for the management of the classroom, but using it for instruction is beyond anything that a textbook can offer. The ease of using a tablet so that all the students in the group could see the terrain of the city where their partner school is located makes the learning experience so exciting and engaging. Of course, many of the students had the website pulled up on their phone, as well, in order to compare their findings. They were engrossed in looking around the community where the school is located. The used Google Eartth to look at the windows of the buildings, the cars that were parked near by, and even the graffiti that they found on buildings that were near the high school. Each group found different and unique things and it was fun to watch them so enthusiastically involved in learning.
Let me just say, using IPads in the classroom is so cool. I have a little jealousy for those teachers who get to teach in a school where all students come the class with an IPad. I use my IPad daily for the management of the classroom, but using it for instruction is beyond anything that a textbook can offer. The ease of using a tablet so that all the students in the group could see the terrain of the city where their partner school is located makes the learning experience so exciting and engaging. Of course, many of the students had the website pulled up on their phone, as well, in order to compare their findings. They were engrossed in looking around the community where the school is located. The used Google Eartth to look at the windows of the buildings, the cars that were parked near by, and even the graffiti that they found on buildings that were near the high school. Each group found different and unique things and it was fun to watch them so enthusiastically involved in learning.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Oh Where, Oh Where Should my Projects Go?
This week consisted of one of my most monstrous of projects. I use a Microsoft program called Photo Story where students narrate pictures of their family members in order to practice their vocabulary and grammar. We spend several days in front of computers in the computer lab. Students spend days lining up their photos and recording their voice as they describe the ages, likes and dislikes and give descriptions of their family members. Then, render them into videos.
However, when students participate in a project such as this, the conundrum occurs when it is time to submit their work. In the past, our school had a large amount of space tied to their student ID. While it was a bit tedious, in order to grade the projects, I would find their folder on our shared drive and find their project. This meant that I had to be at school on the network. This school year, in order to save server space, the district did away with the "Student Docs". At first, it sent me into a panic, how in the world am I going to grade 70 projects if they can't save them on our shared drive? No way was I going to accept a flash drive from each student. Can you imagine the mess? This problem ended up being a blessing in disguise. It forced me to investigate the many different ways of submitting to the cloud.
Our school does not have a Classroom Management System for each teacher. Something like Blackboard or Moodle offer very easy ways for students to submit electronic assignments, but I don't have those at my fingertips and I can't afford to buy them. Two other free options are Schoology or Edmodo. My students use Edmodo on a regular basis. Edmodo offers up to 100MB in size for each student submission. That was plenty of space for these projects. But, in order for the students to turn it in, there is a "process" that they had to follow. I wanted to avoid the issue of "I can't remember my log in" or "How do I submit to an assignment". While Edmodo offers what I needed, it was too labor intensive. I wanted something easier.
At last, after a weekend of searching, my husband came across "Drop It To Me". This ended up being the answer to this frustrating problem. With Drop It To Me, I set up an account so that when students submit their assignment to me, it goes into a Dropbox folder on my Dropbox account. Teachers, if you don't have a Dropbox account, you need one. My account has 14 GB of space because I send students invites in order to expand my available space. (Smart, huh!) I put a link unto my website, (Which isn't even necessary because the URL for Drop It To Me is very simple.) and my students uploaded their projects. Important Note: I had my students save as "classperiod_lastname" For example, my file, if I were in 5th hour, would be 5_Burton.wmv--for a Photo Story movie. Since I had students save this way, their files appeared in class order alphabetically. Awesome!! I could walk around with my IPad, open the Dropbox app and show students immediately that I had received their project. Double Awesome!! It is important to note that there is a file size limit of 75MB, but for these projects that was plenty of space.
Here is a link to the instructions that I gave my students:
Submission Instructions with Screen Shoots
Now, I need to sit down and grade some projects! Which I can do with my Ipad on my couch, thanks to Dropbox!
However, when students participate in a project such as this, the conundrum occurs when it is time to submit their work. In the past, our school had a large amount of space tied to their student ID. While it was a bit tedious, in order to grade the projects, I would find their folder on our shared drive and find their project. This meant that I had to be at school on the network. This school year, in order to save server space, the district did away with the "Student Docs". At first, it sent me into a panic, how in the world am I going to grade 70 projects if they can't save them on our shared drive? No way was I going to accept a flash drive from each student. Can you imagine the mess? This problem ended up being a blessing in disguise. It forced me to investigate the many different ways of submitting to the cloud.
Our school does not have a Classroom Management System for each teacher. Something like Blackboard or Moodle offer very easy ways for students to submit electronic assignments, but I don't have those at my fingertips and I can't afford to buy them. Two other free options are Schoology or Edmodo. My students use Edmodo on a regular basis. Edmodo offers up to 100MB in size for each student submission. That was plenty of space for these projects. But, in order for the students to turn it in, there is a "process" that they had to follow. I wanted to avoid the issue of "I can't remember my log in" or "How do I submit to an assignment". While Edmodo offers what I needed, it was too labor intensive. I wanted something easier.
At last, after a weekend of searching, my husband came across "Drop It To Me". This ended up being the answer to this frustrating problem. With Drop It To Me, I set up an account so that when students submit their assignment to me, it goes into a Dropbox folder on my Dropbox account. Teachers, if you don't have a Dropbox account, you need one. My account has 14 GB of space because I send students invites in order to expand my available space. (Smart, huh!) I put a link unto my website, (Which isn't even necessary because the URL for Drop It To Me is very simple.) and my students uploaded their projects. Important Note: I had my students save as "classperiod_lastname" For example, my file, if I were in 5th hour, would be 5_Burton.wmv--for a Photo Story movie. Since I had students save this way, their files appeared in class order alphabetically. Awesome!! I could walk around with my IPad, open the Dropbox app and show students immediately that I had received their project. Double Awesome!! It is important to note that there is a file size limit of 75MB, but for these projects that was plenty of space.
Here is a link to the instructions that I gave my students:
Submission Instructions with Screen Shoots
Now, I need to sit down and grade some projects! Which I can do with my Ipad on my couch, thanks to Dropbox!
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Cooperative Learning for the Workplace
One of my favorite things about conducting a flipped classroom, is that it allows for the inclusion of so many cooperative learning activities. I love watching as students take the teacher role and teach each other. However, cooperative learning has its challenges. How does a teacher insure that each student benefits from the cooperative learning activity? How does one avoid having "bogs"--students who do all the work and "logs"--students who just sit there and take up space? In small groups I give jobs to each person so that each person is responsible for something and those jobs switched throughout the activity.
Today, I used cooperative learning with large groups and with an application to the real world. This activity was a lot of fun. It got crazy, but that is normal for my classroom. For this activity, I told students that we would be part of a "corporation". I am the CEO; I give the paycheck (aka: grade). They would be working in committees. Each committee was assigned a category of regular verbs. They would be responsible for teaching (or really reviewing because this is level 2) the conjugations, providing a clever way of remembering how to conjugate these verbs, and providing a list of common verbs in the category, as well as what those verbs are in English. To make this activity work like it would in a business place, each committee had to chose a foreman (or "patron"). I, as the CEO, would communicate with this foreman. Within each committee, they had to divide into sub-committees. One would be in charge of creating an engaging presentation; the other was in charge of creating an activity which would allow the rest of the class to participate in practicing the grammar point. Students had 40 minutes to work. I called a "board meeting" 15 minutes after they had started working to touch base with the foremen and to make sure that each group was on track. At this time, I told them what I saw that was working, what wasn't working. I asked them about their method of presentation, as well as the type of activity that their group would be doing. I talked to them about their committee members who were being "logs" and gave them ideas of how they could get those team members involved.
It was a great experience. The students amazed me with their enthusiasm. It was fun to watch the foremen as they moved within their groups to delegate jobs. I loved hearing the conversations about what types of practice activities would be the most beneficial for their classmates. As any CEO would do, I guided them when necessary and encouraged good behaviors. Tomorrow the groups will present. We'll see how those presentations go.
Today, I used cooperative learning with large groups and with an application to the real world. This activity was a lot of fun. It got crazy, but that is normal for my classroom. For this activity, I told students that we would be part of a "corporation". I am the CEO; I give the paycheck (aka: grade). They would be working in committees. Each committee was assigned a category of regular verbs. They would be responsible for teaching (or really reviewing because this is level 2) the conjugations, providing a clever way of remembering how to conjugate these verbs, and providing a list of common verbs in the category, as well as what those verbs are in English. To make this activity work like it would in a business place, each committee had to chose a foreman (or "patron"). I, as the CEO, would communicate with this foreman. Within each committee, they had to divide into sub-committees. One would be in charge of creating an engaging presentation; the other was in charge of creating an activity which would allow the rest of the class to participate in practicing the grammar point. Students had 40 minutes to work. I called a "board meeting" 15 minutes after they had started working to touch base with the foremen and to make sure that each group was on track. At this time, I told them what I saw that was working, what wasn't working. I asked them about their method of presentation, as well as the type of activity that their group would be doing. I talked to them about their committee members who were being "logs" and gave them ideas of how they could get those team members involved.
It was a great experience. The students amazed me with their enthusiasm. It was fun to watch the foremen as they moved within their groups to delegate jobs. I loved hearing the conversations about what types of practice activities would be the most beneficial for their classmates. As any CEO would do, I guided them when necessary and encouraged good behaviors. Tomorrow the groups will present. We'll see how those presentations go.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
New Beginnings
Teachers have reported for duty in our school district, and our students join us on Thursday. I am nervous and excited about this year. Our French numbers have dramatically increased and since I am the only teacher to teach level 1 and level 2, I have huge classes. It's a wonderful problem to have.
I have decided that from Day 2 I am going to continuously run my class with the integration of Kagan Cooperative Learning. On Day 1 and Day 2, I am going to include Team Building activities to get kids talking and moving. I figure if we first have fun, it will start us off on the right foot. So Day 1, we are doing a Six Degrees of Separation from Madame B, where students have to figure out who they know that also know me, and a Venn Diagram with their assigned partners for likes and dislikes.
Day 2, students will be assigned their groups for the next four weeks. In those groups, they will discuss things that they all like by doing a round robin share time, then decide on a group name. Then, in those groups, they will play triangle tag. To play triangle tag, three group members hold hands to create a triangle. The fourth person stands outside of the triangle and has to try to tag the person in the triangle that is furthest away, BUT the people in the triangle try to prevent that from happening. The group that goes the longest wins and has bragging rights.
I will include a lot of French in my explanations and encouragements for these days in order to be modeling target language as I go along. I am excited to see how it goes. I met my freshmen today and they are awesome!
My next task is to create a list of gambits, or positive reinforcements, to teach the students. I want a list of encouraging phrases that they can use to help each other. Hopefully, I will get that list together soon.
As your school year begins, good luck! Remember, we are in it for the kids. As I said in my Teacher of the Year, Back to School speech, we have the power to change lives each and every day. Let's do it!
I have decided that from Day 2 I am going to continuously run my class with the integration of Kagan Cooperative Learning. On Day 1 and Day 2, I am going to include Team Building activities to get kids talking and moving. I figure if we first have fun, it will start us off on the right foot. So Day 1, we are doing a Six Degrees of Separation from Madame B, where students have to figure out who they know that also know me, and a Venn Diagram with their assigned partners for likes and dislikes.
Day 2, students will be assigned their groups for the next four weeks. In those groups, they will discuss things that they all like by doing a round robin share time, then decide on a group name. Then, in those groups, they will play triangle tag. To play triangle tag, three group members hold hands to create a triangle. The fourth person stands outside of the triangle and has to try to tag the person in the triangle that is furthest away, BUT the people in the triangle try to prevent that from happening. The group that goes the longest wins and has bragging rights.
I will include a lot of French in my explanations and encouragements for these days in order to be modeling target language as I go along. I am excited to see how it goes. I met my freshmen today and they are awesome!
My next task is to create a list of gambits, or positive reinforcements, to teach the students. I want a list of encouraging phrases that they can use to help each other. Hopefully, I will get that list together soon.
As your school year begins, good luck! Remember, we are in it for the kids. As I said in my Teacher of the Year, Back to School speech, we have the power to change lives each and every day. Let's do it!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Bon été!?!
I love summer! I love the slower pace. I love being able to spend sun up to sun down with my kids. I love being able to just sit at the pool and watch my kids as they are smiling and laughing. I love that I can sit and sip a cup of coffee in the morning. I love that I can get more than 5 hours of sleep each night. I truly love summer!
This summer has been more of a working summer for me. I learned how to code in HTML 5 and use CSS. I realize that for many people that accomplishment is merely a "whoopity-doo", but for me it is quite exciting. The grad class that I took this summer was probably the most challenging, yet most rewarding endeavor that I have been faced with in a long time. HTML is really fun. It's mind-boggling, but I found it to be so exciting. Yes, there are time when it brought me to tears of frustration, but I really feel that I have accomplished something. And with excitement and relief, I can unveil my new website: flip.mrsburton.com. This website is designed to help any teacher to successfully transition to a flipped classroom. It is no secret, that I love the flipped method. It is something that I preach. My website has the tools and explanations that one would need to get started and pull off the flipped method. I know that teachers are planning for the upcoming school year, and I hope that this website can help.
Speaking of the upcoming school year, I, myself, am starting to think about what I am going to do differently this year. I felt as if last year went well. I still need to address those students with Ds and Fs. I had a few students who just didn't buckle down and do anything (except show up), at the end of the year. Unfortunately, those students didn't pass. I guess, I really need nag those kids. My plan for those kiddos this year: everyday, I will remind them that they have a D or an F. Everyday, I will point out something that they can do to improve that grade. I will applaud every single little point that they earn. Some students are fine with failing, especially an elective course. Their parents tell them that they could never do a foreign language, and they get this idea that being able to speak a different language is an impossibility for them. I have to figure out how to get those kids to change their mind-set. It's tough, really tough.
I have been working on ideas for a few projects, all of which I hope to share in the upcoming months. For now, I plan to sip my coffee and enjoy my last days of this wonderful time of year.
This summer has been more of a working summer for me. I learned how to code in HTML 5 and use CSS. I realize that for many people that accomplishment is merely a "whoopity-doo", but for me it is quite exciting. The grad class that I took this summer was probably the most challenging, yet most rewarding endeavor that I have been faced with in a long time. HTML is really fun. It's mind-boggling, but I found it to be so exciting. Yes, there are time when it brought me to tears of frustration, but I really feel that I have accomplished something. And with excitement and relief, I can unveil my new website: flip.mrsburton.com. This website is designed to help any teacher to successfully transition to a flipped classroom. It is no secret, that I love the flipped method. It is something that I preach. My website has the tools and explanations that one would need to get started and pull off the flipped method. I know that teachers are planning for the upcoming school year, and I hope that this website can help.
Speaking of the upcoming school year, I, myself, am starting to think about what I am going to do differently this year. I felt as if last year went well. I still need to address those students with Ds and Fs. I had a few students who just didn't buckle down and do anything (except show up), at the end of the year. Unfortunately, those students didn't pass. I guess, I really need nag those kids. My plan for those kiddos this year: everyday, I will remind them that they have a D or an F. Everyday, I will point out something that they can do to improve that grade. I will applaud every single little point that they earn. Some students are fine with failing, especially an elective course. Their parents tell them that they could never do a foreign language, and they get this idea that being able to speak a different language is an impossibility for them. I have to figure out how to get those kids to change their mind-set. It's tough, really tough.
I have been working on ideas for a few projects, all of which I hope to share in the upcoming months. For now, I plan to sip my coffee and enjoy my last days of this wonderful time of year.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Food, Fun, Foolishness
We are one day away from Spring Break. We missed two days this unit due to snow days, I am losing my mind trying to keep my kiddos focused. This could possibly be a VERY long entry, since I have done a lot and had no time to jot it down.
First of all, very exciting news....I was announced this week as the Francis Howell School District's Teacher of the Year. I was totally caught off-guard on this one. It is an unbelievable honor. I work in a wonderful school district and to be chosen as the teacher of the year in such great place is quite meaningful.
On to the happenings in room 236. Last week, I tried a great little lesson that proved to be quite fun. Since I am a firm believer in letting the students work through problem-solving to come to conclusions, I decided to try something new when teaching the French superlative. We had just learned the comparative and they seemed pretty sure of the ways of the comparative, so I transitioned them into the superlative. I created a video with several series of images. FouFou is a cute dog. Milo is a cuter dog than FouFou. Pierre is the cutest of the dogs...You get the picture. I posted the video on Edmodo and I put them into groups. The groups had to watch the videos and come up with some statements about what they noticed in the superlative sentences. Each student wrote things down. I had them use their cell phones to watch the video. In most groups, at least two people had a phone, so they could crowd around their phones and watch. Then, the group agreed on one thing that they noticed and posted it on Edmodo, being careful to read what others had posted so that the same post wasn't repeated. It was such an amazing thing to watch. Some kids got it right away, some of them struggled and couldn't figure out what it was that they were looking for. I asked them to be able to answer my question "What is different about the superlative than the comparative?" I walked around to each group to make sure that everyone was grasping the concept. One thing that surprised me was that the kids who caught on right away, were the ones who usually struggle when notes are directly presented to them, and the ones who usually grasp direct instruction immediately took a little longer. That switch created confidence in the lower students, but frustrated the higher students. It was an interesting turn.
To help practice the information, I had students bring in several types of food. We had cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, chips, juice, candy, and much more. Students were instructed to write sentences comparing these things. I was able to walk around and look at their answers and work one on one with them to help clear up confusion and double check that they were writing the correct answers. Every student was engaged and because I was checking in with them, I could make sure they were appropriately engaged. I feel as if I have room to grow with this one, but we had a lot of fun with the assignment. Our class period was cut short due to a shorted school day. Had we had a normal class period, I would have had the time to do an end of the hour summary. That was something that was missed. But...I am ready for next year!
First of all, very exciting news....I was announced this week as the Francis Howell School District's Teacher of the Year. I was totally caught off-guard on this one. It is an unbelievable honor. I work in a wonderful school district and to be chosen as the teacher of the year in such great place is quite meaningful.
On to the happenings in room 236. Last week, I tried a great little lesson that proved to be quite fun. Since I am a firm believer in letting the students work through problem-solving to come to conclusions, I decided to try something new when teaching the French superlative. We had just learned the comparative and they seemed pretty sure of the ways of the comparative, so I transitioned them into the superlative. I created a video with several series of images. FouFou is a cute dog. Milo is a cuter dog than FouFou. Pierre is the cutest of the dogs...You get the picture. I posted the video on Edmodo and I put them into groups. The groups had to watch the videos and come up with some statements about what they noticed in the superlative sentences. Each student wrote things down. I had them use their cell phones to watch the video. In most groups, at least two people had a phone, so they could crowd around their phones and watch. Then, the group agreed on one thing that they noticed and posted it on Edmodo, being careful to read what others had posted so that the same post wasn't repeated. It was such an amazing thing to watch. Some kids got it right away, some of them struggled and couldn't figure out what it was that they were looking for. I asked them to be able to answer my question "What is different about the superlative than the comparative?" I walked around to each group to make sure that everyone was grasping the concept. One thing that surprised me was that the kids who caught on right away, were the ones who usually struggle when notes are directly presented to them, and the ones who usually grasp direct instruction immediately took a little longer. That switch created confidence in the lower students, but frustrated the higher students. It was an interesting turn.
To help practice the information, I had students bring in several types of food. We had cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, chips, juice, candy, and much more. Students were instructed to write sentences comparing these things. I was able to walk around and look at their answers and work one on one with them to help clear up confusion and double check that they were writing the correct answers. Every student was engaged and because I was checking in with them, I could make sure they were appropriately engaged. I feel as if I have room to grow with this one, but we had a lot of fun with the assignment. Our class period was cut short due to a shorted school day. Had we had a normal class period, I would have had the time to do an end of the hour summary. That was something that was missed. But...I am ready for next year!
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