Dry Erase Boards - A Classroom Must!!!

Do yourself a favor and head over to Home Depot and purchase a couple of 4'x8' sheet of dry erase panels.
Have them cut into eight 2'x2' squares, for a total of 16 white boards. (I have them cut at Home Depot and pay the minimal cutting fee.) Get a bucket of dry erase markers and a packet of cheap terry towels and  let your imagination go wild.

Dry erase boards are a great way to create students guided learning opportunities. Whether students are working in  partners to teach each other, Creating a brief presentation to share with a group or the whole class.  Dry erase boards create opportunities to maximize space and time, without wasting a great deal of resources. 

Dry Erase Boards...

• Math Problems
• Gathering Data
• Writing Out Instructions
• Editing
• Diagraming sentences
• Brainstorming
• Making Timelines
• Scorekeeping
• Presenting in Small Groups. (Jigsaw)
• Vocabulary Games
• Cloud Maps
• etc...etc...etc... 

The Best Teachers are Thieves

Let's face it!!!

The best teachers are thieves. 

The best teachers are those that can take ideas, lessons, methodologies from other teachers, workshops, inservice and incorporate them into their own classroom in such a way that they become their own.

I encourage all of you to become Great Thieves!!!

Visit colleagues

Visit other schools

Go to workshops

Attend conventions

Utilize inservice opportunities

Read journals, books, and blogs

Take in information

Take ideas

Put your own spin on them

Make them your own

Become a GREAT TEACHER!!!

The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow, is uneducated the next day.
                                           ~Newton Diehl Baker

The Learning Machine

If you could create a schematic diagram of the learning process in your classroom, what might it entail? 

What pathways would learning take?

What would be deemed as most important?

What could immediately be transferred to waste? 

How much emphasis is placed upon assignments, quizzes and tests?

How important is the pathway that leads to a learner for life?

If you were to take the schematic above and adjust the lines to represent the importance of each path, how might you adjust the daigram? 

Which boxes would be larger for greater emphasis?

Which would be smaller for less importance? 

What processes are missing?

How might your students ideas on this differ? 

How might they be the same? 

If you were to look at your classroom, does it enhance this process or detract from the process?

As a teacher, what do you emanate?

What really matters to you in this work?

What difference can you make where you are, right there, right then?

Is what you do in your classroom moving the future of your students?

What stands in the way of making your students dreams come true?

What are you no longer willilng to accept?

Are you capable of transcending all of the obstacles that are in the way of your mission?

A teacher affects eternity:
he can never tell where his influence stops.

                                            ~ Henry Adams ~



Making the Most of Extended Class Time (BLOCK)

Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst. 

                                                                         ~Willaim Penn

Break It Up

Most people learn best in incremantal progression. Divide the block into a series of short intense and chllenging activities.  Surround and separate, two 20 to 30 minute presentations with three or four 5 to 10  minute, active, hands on, and collaborative activities.  Extend projects over several days, utilizing a segment of time each day.

Utilize Multiple Instructional Strategies

Use at least three different types of activities each class period. Alternate between teacher centered and student centered.  Teacher centered activities could include lecture, Q&A or demonstration.  Student centered activities could include peer-teaching, cooperative learning, games, role-play, presentations, research, online simulations or project building.  Reach out to students to maximize the various learning styles to provide opportunities for each student to find a comfort zone in your classroom.

Create Possibilities for Movement

Develop methods in your classroom to allow students to change position of their own body but also in the classroom.  Provide stretch breaks, rearrange groups between activities, collect, gather, distribute materials, role-play are all means to get students active in the classroom.

Incorporate Multiple Media

Provide opportunities for students to listen to music, lectures, speeches, interviews, audio books, poetry or plays.  Use movies, video, pictures, You Tube, TED Talks, to bring the world into your classroom.  Allow students to create posters, models and simulations.  Store in your classroom, magazines, fabrics, various types of paper, paint, glue, markers, crayons, scissors, and colored pencils.

Use Passive Learning Opportunities

Provide passive learning opportunties as students are entering and exiting your classroom or when they are moving between activities in class.  Run PowerPoints of images, cartoons, quotes and ideas.  Provide a thought question on the board.  Create flash cards to display on a, PowerPoint, SMART Board or computer screen.

Make Use of School and Community Resources

Block schedules allow for excellent opportunities for class excursions both on campus and off.  Create interdisciplinary projects, integrate more technology and visit the library.  Bring in guest speakers, alumni to bring relevant content from the outside world into your classroom.

Allow Time for Students to Reflect

Provide time for students to reflect through a journal, thought question, quick checks to monitor their own progress, expectations and needs.  Encourage the students to take more responsibility for their own learning. These types of activities provide the internal reflection that overcomes,
"What did you do in school today?" 
"NOTHING!!!" 

Core Principles of Lasallian Education

This is a brief five slide piece I show periodically of the five Core Principles of Lasallian Schools

Faith in the presence of God

Quality Education

Inclusive Community

Respect for All Persons

Service ot the Poor and Social Justice

Science Quote Resource

Science Teachers! Do you need that great quote to complete a SMART presentation or Powerpoint.
You can remember the quote but can't remember who to give credit too.
The Dictionary of Science Quotes is a great online resource to access quotes about a vast array of sceince topics and ideas.  The site includes a search tool for This Day in Science History and links to alibrary of online Science Stories.

http://www.todayinsci.com/Quotations/QuotationsIndex.htm

The Role of Mentor

This is a copy of the original from John Wooden.  This copy was given to me by another teacher in my Master's cohort at Concordia University.

I am reminded of the importance of being a mentor, whether we are a parents, siblings, teachers or coaches.

The values we live are going to be mirrored by the people in our life.  Many of the students we teach spend more time with us as educators in the classroom than they do with their own parents. 

How invaluable is the job we do, as older brothers and sisters to the students entrusted to our care.