Notes+from+In+District+Visits

Started in Mrs. McCormack's class, 9:10am. 11 students. Writing prompts for photos of sharecropping - "Sharecropping" document saved for student to download. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Journal entries. Questions about images.

Schedule:

Period 3: 9:30-10:10 - 7th grade team - meet all together - 140

Maria - going on leave; replacement is coming in next week - Maria will give him some basic tools; will give him a little tutorial on StudyWiz. Request for more training on StudyWiz. Podcasting - general request for whole team. Smartboard. Possibly recommend Smartboard software for every Grade7 and Grade 8 machine. Math - NCTM site and Explorelearning with Smartboard. Smartboard meeting all together between now and end of year? Lobby for time on May 24? Looking at Outsiders - personal journals. Help students with organizational issues - finding and saving documents. Tips for organizing work. FL teachers going to Spain this summer. Set up blog for FL teachers going to Spain. Set up Wiki project for assingment - different countries? Jigsawing - Maria Bradford will take over. Next: we need to get "individual learning" contracts for the participants; coordinate with work that John Costa is doing.

Period 4 10:14-10:54 - room 213, 208, 211, 187 Science (observations)

ML observed ELA; LA observed Math. Student desks were not facing the Smartboard - students initially checking their work against answer keys. Doing currency conversions, etc. - test is over. Smartboard has portable projection unit. "Do Now" written on side whiteboard. Students started sitting in small groups - looks like each student individually consulting with teacher (until 10:30) - not sure if any other work or assignment is going on. Use Study Island for Math problem work. Separate writing pad for Smartboard. Independent work for pythagorean theorem - 3 problems. Send link for Explorelearning.

Period 5 10:58-11:38 - 7th grade classes (observations)

Observed Maria's grade 7 class - substitute - went around checking homework on laptops. Is there any other way to do this - more efficient? Typical class behavior for a substitute. Apparently Maria assigned them a webquest last time she was here - went over multiple choice questions on grid.

Visited John in computer lab-grade 5 students working on writing pieces. Would like some recommendations on what else to do or cover.

Students seemed to be able to type fairly well. Had music playing - nice atmosphere. Had story starters for writing, and a page for storyboarding out wrotong piece.

Observed class with Smartboard, document use - went over some basics - need to download Mac Notebook software - worked on maps, primary resource worksheets with SS class. Students were working off their own versions of the documents on laptops. Also might recommend having students work in smaller groups when analyzing documents and get up to present? Make sure everyone is involved in the whole process. Went over some basic Notebook features but need more in depth.

Period 6-8 Grade 8 classes: 216 math, 204 Spanish, 209 period 7,8 (SS); 187 Science, 210 ELA

Period 9: 8th grade team (216) Grade 8 prep time - discussion of whole grade group. Talking about using IWeb next year - for publishing files, etc. RSS feeds, etc.