Friday Musings: September 9, 2016

Coming Soon

It was a good week of teaching and learning. Students really pulled together with the entire fifth grade teaching staff to complete a great video for Curriculum Night. The best part of the project is that everyone had a meaningful part and it gave students, teachers, and parents a chance to get to know one another.

Now since we have a computer for every student, the learning opportunities are terrific. It's much easier to scaffold, differentiate, and target learning when you have one-to-one access. With the computers students took math knowledge, attitude, and behavior surveys using Google forms. The survey data will help me to teach students well as I'll have a better sense of who knows what and how students feel and act towards math.

We changed desks a lot as we tried to set up the room to accommodate the different kinds of teaching such as marshmallow-spaghetti team structures, independent work, video viewing, and choice time. The room will continue to morph over time as we teach and learn in different ways. Next week we'll focus on The Global Cardboard Challenge project and with that we'll have a chance to practice the design process, teamwork, and lots of creativity and critical thinking.

Hopefully this weekend I'll have a chance to review students' first assignments and offer feedback too as a goal I've made for myself this year is to offer meaningful feedback on a regular basis. Onward.