Tuesday Teaching Strategy - 3-2-1 Assessment

3-2-1 Assessment

Chances are you have heard or done something similar to this instructional strategy in the past.  3-2-1 Assessment is a strategy where students take inventory of their own learning by sorting out what they know from what they have yet to master.  It can be used quickly to assess student understanding any time new information has been presented or a review of information is being presented.

In 3-2-1 Assessment, students will need to have either 3 index cards, 3 post-it notes, or in a modified version, a sheet of notebook paper with three separate columns.  On the index cards or paper, the students will need to write the following:

3. THREE things that they have learned and feel comfortable remembering.

2. TWO things that are not yet quite understood about content material

1. ONE question still outstanding about content material

            *NOTE – These can certainly be changed to match specific needs.

When finished, students can either attach the slips of paper to the bulletin board, a poster, or a piece of chart paper that has been divided into three columns for each part of the strategy.  The teacher can then review the notes to build a representation of a class’s understanding of the content material.  The results can either serve as a starting point to the next lesson, help extend a classroom discussion, redirect a planned course of instruction, or alert a teacher to a topic that requires re-teaching.

-       This could be beneficial for math teachers looking to find parts of problem solving that students are having difficulty with.

-       All teachers could use this prior to the review for an exam.

-       Science teachers could use this with an experiment so students can ask why something happened.

-       Social Studies teachers could use this to check for students understanding of relationships between events and time periods

-       English teachers could use this strategy following the reading of a short story and checking for symbolism in a poem

-       This strategy could be used during watching a film in class.

Have You Seen the New Prezi?

Prezi has finally relented from their "Editing Bubble" and created a new menu feature that makes it easier to create presentation.  Although the "Bubble" was an icon for their presentation tool, it was time for a change.  The new interface provides easy access to playing your Prezi in a preview or for presentation and to edit the path.  Also, the usual features that the Editing Bubble provided are now in a menu at the top of the screen. 

This new toolbar is where you can find New Frames, Themes, Images, Videos, Power Points, and Shapes...which has a new feature containing over 200 symbols to use in the presentation.

To the far right of the toolbar you will find the settings tab which will allow users to switch back to the old version if you don't like the new version; at least till the end of the year.   Also in this area is where you can collaborate on the presentation, find help, and share the presentation.  There is also an option to print your presentation.  This option will create a PDF that you can save and print.

A quick test, reveals a much more user friendly software.  The Presentation aspect also provides a scroll bar through your presentation which makes it easier to find key points if necessary.  The other menu and editing features of Prezi have remained the same.  Prezi is a very interesting study of how a website software changes and adapts to the needs and suggestions of its users. 

Tuesday Teaching Strategy - Frayer Model

Frayer Model

The Frayer Model is a strategy for learning a new concept, such as vocabulary, by helping to establish relationships.  The model is used in a graphic organizer format for students to easily see those relationships.  Below are two ways to incorporate the Frayer Model Graphic Organizer

-          Students write the term in the center, and then in the surrounding boxes they write the definition, characteristics, examples, and non-examples.

-          Students can also write the term/concept in the center and list essential characteristics, non-characteristics, examples, and non-examples.

-          You can make each box a heading that fits the needs of the concept you are trying to teach.

The purpose of listing examples and non-examples and essential and nonessential characteristics is to help students build well-founded knowledge about the concept they are learning. In order for students to precisely understand completely what a concept is, a student must also know what it isn't.  The Frayer model can be especially useful when guiding direct, in-class vocabulary instruction.  If students have sufficient background in content, the Frayer model can be used for taking notes and monitoring their own learning and progress about the concepts that have been covered in class.

Implementation:

-        Instead of assigning the vocabulary in a book, have students each complete a Frayer Model for a single vocabulary term and then present it to the class and then students can take notes on each term.

-        Science teachers can use this same format for taking notes about reactions from a science experiment.

-        Social Studies teachers can take a time period, historical event, world leaders, or a government/economic concept and use this to help format understanding.

-        Math teachers could use this same format when students are completing a word problem.  Each box could represent a different aspect of the problem to solve it or each box could be a step in solving the problem.

-        Health teachers could use this to discuss the various effects of drugs or chemicals in the body.

-        English teachers could use this to check for students understanding in a short story or to identify various parts of a piece of writing.

Remember, the Frayer model DOES NOT have to be just for vocabulary words.

Tuesday Teaching Strategy - Index Card Assessment

A couple days late...been out of the office....

Index Card Assessment

An index card assessment takes advantage of the small size of index cards to quickly construct a portrait of students' understanding.  On one side of a card, students write something positive in response to the day's learning, such as a summary of the class, an interesting fact learned, or a concept that finally makes sense.  On the opposite side, students identify what they do not understand by describing their confusion or asking a question.

With an index card assessment, identifying the person who does not understand a concept is less important than discovering what is not understood. Therefore, consider reinforcing anonymity by creating a drop box in which students can place their index cards as they exit the classroom. Upon collecting the cards, list students' comments and questions and use the list to identify patterns in students' understanding.

Index Card Assessment provides a valuable tool in progress monitoring, formative assessment, and re-teaching.  The information from the activity can be used to determine what needs to be retaught the following class to ensure understanding.  This teaching method allows you to tally which parts were misunderstood the most. 

Potential Implementation

-          Use this strategy as an exit slip from the classroom.

-          Integrate this strategy as a break during lecture or following a class discussion.

-          Need to fill time at the end of a quiz or test, ask students to explain what they found easy and what they found difficult

-          Watching videos is not a bad thing, watching videos without stopping for understanding is.  Use this strategy to check for understanding during a video.

-          This would be a helpful strategy in understanding primary documents or readings in the classroom as well.

-          Math problems often require multiple steps and some students struggle with certain steps.  This could be a way to find out which part they don’t understand.

Some Great Information from Edudemic

I am not sure how many of you all are familiar with the site Edudemic, but the other day looking through my Twitter feed I came across several valuable posts related to technology and education.  The goal of Edudemic is to mainstream the learning process; to bring the great stuff related to education in one central location.

As we move forward with more instructional technology, it will be important that students have a good understanding of what it means to be a good Digital Citizen.  A valuable resource will be The Teacher's Guide to Digital Citizenship which offers insights and resources into understanding safe Internet use by students. 

Wikipedia CAN be a valuable resource for student and teacher use.  Wikipedia itself has tons of other resources which I have written about before.  One of the struggles with Wikipedia is the accuracy of the information that is available on their sites.  A valuable resource that teachers should be interested in reading is The Teacher's Guide to Wikipedia.  Very important to have a good understanding of how to use Wikipedia and this is a valuable starting point. 

Twitter can be an excellent resources for educators.  The biggest problem for new users to Twitter is discovering people to follow.  There are several list out there of people to follow.  You can go through my blog and my posts that I have tagged with Twitter to find some I followed when I first got started.  Edudemic has also put together a 50 Education Leaders Worth Following on Twitter to help you get started as well. 

We all probably use Google, or Bing, and even some people probably use Yahoo!  There are tons of other search engines available, which I have written about before as well.  Edudemic has put together 50 Search Engines You Probably Don't Use Yet and this would be a great starting point for trying to search for resources.  Many of these search engines will be specific for a certain resource.  That can make things a lot easier.

If you are stuck and looking for some information related to education, technology, online learning, mobile learning, and other resources related to education, Edudemic is a good starting point.  You can also follow Edudemic on Twitter.