3D Pens and Printer in Math

3D Printing Tech in Math Centers

Today in our math Centers, we used our 3D pens to practice doing transformations. The kids used task cards to identify what transformation they  needed to complete, and then used the 3D pens to draw the shapes. It was a really low-prep activity, but the kids loved using the pens and were really engaged in practicing their translations, rotations and reflections. 

We have also been using our 3D printer to create math manipulatives. This week, we made fraction dice. I just found the design online and then downloaded it- it's amazing what you can find for free online! But students can also use a program called tinkercad to design their own prints. This is something we will work more on during some of the down-time near the end of the year. The design program makes use of many mathematical concepts, such as angles, measurement, 2D and 3D shapes, transformations of shapes, spatial reasoning and so much more! 

6A Best Practices--Using Technology in Math

3 h)  Teachers apply a variety of technologies to meet students' learning needs.

This year 6A has been exploring a variety of technologies, including the use of Ozobots.  Ozobots are mini robots that are coded using colour combinations.  These codes can be done using markers or using and iPad app.  Students are quite fascinated with them because they are able to follow the tracks they make using markers.  Even more exciting, the Ozobot can be coded to perform different actions like spinning and going backwards.

We use centers in 6A as a means of spiraling the curriculum.  Ozobots are a great way to explore angles in the math curriculum.  This past week, students were challenged to create a race track that had different requirements, among them the use of different types of angles.  At the end of the math block, the students would line up their tracks and race their Ozobots.

This task had a variety of purposes--

• to review types of angles
• to code using colour blocks with the Ozobot
• to work together as a groups to plan and execute the drawing of a race track that meets the criteria within the designated time limit
• to problem solve (inevitably the students will have to work out something...tech never goes according to plan)!

The students were actively engaged and when circulating it was great to hear the use of math vocabulary throughout the room.  Most groups worked well together, but one group struggled to communicate and discovered that as a result, their track and codes were not as effective as the other groups.  Also, in having a debrief after, we talked about how we could modify the assignment and what changes they would make.  For example, one group had not fulfilled all the requirements and they might get a time penalty or delayed start if that happened again.  In a couple weeks this challenge will resurface in center time
and we will implement the suggestions of the students.

1A Best Practices - Joyful Interventions

KSA: 3i) Teachers gather and use information about students’ learning needs and progress.

Back in October I attended the "Joyful Interventions" literacy summit in Calgary. After attending this summit, I was motivated to make some changes, and decided to start with my literacy block practices. Prior to attending this summit, I had my groups sorted by ability, and student's would filter through various EA led centers that were not necessarily tailored to my student's specific needs, but rather "busy work" centers that allowed me to conduct a guided reading lesson with a small group. Although the students were in fact doing literacy activities, they weren't necessarily designed to help them improve in the areas they were needing to work on.

Before I could implement "Joyful Interventions" in my classroom, I needed to collect data. I started off with re-assessing all of my students on their alphabet knowledge. According to the "program", a student has not yet mastered their alphabet until they can; name upper case and lower case letters, produce letter sounds, produce a word beginning with the letter/sound, and is able to find the letter in text. So I retested each student and recorded my data. (A fully coloured in circle shows mastery, half circles means they either have the name or sound mastered, but not both). Here's a sample of the data from back in November.

For the student's who had their alphabet mastered, I tested them on the fry's sight word lists (At the time, I only had 5 students out of 16 who had their alphabet fully mastered). Using this data, I made each student 5 flash cards. Each flash card had either an alphabet letter or a sight word printed on it that they had not yet mastered. I put each student's flash cards into a bag with their name on it, and filed them in their books bins. During literacy block, my students would filter through 3 different "joyful" centres that allowed them to practice the alphabet sounds/letters and/or sight words from their bags. The student's were split up in mixed ability groups, but were all doing the same activity, just with different alphabet letters or sight words. For a while, the 3 different centres I had going were; rainbow writing (printing alphabet letters or words repeatedly in the rainbow arches using different colours), wikki stick writing, and letter magnets. The EA running the centre would ask the students who were working on their alphabet to tell them the name of the letter, the sound the letter makes, to produce a word that starts with that letter, and to identify that letter in text. The students working on sight words would read the word to the EA, and have to produce a sentence containing that word. After two weeks of working on these words or sounds, I would retest all students and again, record the data. If that word or letter was mastered, they would move on to new flash cards. If not, they would repeat those words or letters for another two weeks.

With the exception of a few, most students master all 5 of their words or alphabet letters at the end of the 2 week period. The students are often eager to sit with me when it comes time to retest them, as they are often really excited to show off what they know. All but 2 of my students are now working on their sight words. I just recently changed the "Joyful" centres, and have the students; using playdoh to write their words or letters, playing "roll it, write it" with their words or letters, and writing sentences using their words or letters.

I've only implemented the "Joyful Interventions" program during my literacy block, but I am excited to explore it further next year as I've truly seen some great results.

1C Best Practices

l) the importance of engaging parents, purposefully and meaningfully, in all aspects of teaching and learning.

In my classroom I have recently started up a classroom Seesaw account. I've been looking for a way to interact with my families on a new platform and highlight things we are working on. As of right now, I have nine out of my fourteen families connected to their child's Seesaw. In previous years I've used a Weebly website that I maintained, but the upkeep was a lot on my end.

So what is Seesaw?
It is a student driven online portfolio, that puts the ownership on the students. Teachers can empower students to reflect, share, and collaborate. Students "show what they know" using photos, videos, drawings, PDFs, and links. The best part is students can upload straight from their google drive. Everything needs to be approved by the teacher before it is posted for their parents to see. 

At the beginning of this month we wrapped up our third workshop unit and uploaded one of our stories to our learning journals. The students then recorded their voice over their pictures. All my students were SO excited to hear themselves recorded reading their work out loud. The possibility for having students work on their fluency with the recording options are endless.

Along with the digital portfolio you also have the option to use the activities portion of the app that is easily accessible even by my grade one kiddos. I uploaded a quick digraph activity for one of my words their way groups, with written instructions and audio instructions. Each student completed it and saved it to their portfolio for me to review. It was a quick way for one of my groups to be working independently on the I-pads and know that they are on task, and doing something meaningful. 

Finally, there is an announcement section that gives you the option to their send out a quick private message, or a general announcement to everyone that is connected to the app. It was a super quick way to remind parents about goal setting, and swimming lessons. I also like the option to turn off the messaging and commenting feature if needed. 

I wish I would have started using this earlier in the year, and its exciting to see all the possibilities for this across the board in any grade. I will  be starting it up first thing in the beginning of next year, and continuing to experiment with integrating it more into my classroom practices.

(I've included a wonderful video at the end if you'd like to see how an amazing duo of teachers uses it with grade 1)

Video

Great Literacy Resources

Great Literacy Resources

When the Division One teachers did the RSST training with Lana earlier this year she shared The Florida Center for Reading Research site. It is full of amazing, high-quality literacy resources. There's great phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension activities and resources on it for grades K-5 (I'm assuming it largely aligns with the Common Core, so I'm sure grade six will find these really useful, too). 

Check it out for some great Guided Reading and other activities! 

http://www.fcrr.org/resources/resources_sca_2-3.html

6B Best Practices

3. A teacher applies a current and comprehensive repertoire of effective planning, instruction, and assessment practices to meet the learning needs of every student. 

In my classroom this year, more than half of my class is reading at or below a third-grade level.  As we all know, this presents many challenges when it comes delivering grade level curriculum in science and social and then meaningfully assessing what the students know without their reading levels hindering their ability to share their knowledge. One of the ways I have differentiated my teaching and assessment is through the integration of a variety of technology tools (I'm sure that is a shocker!)

More Tech Tools & Ideas from Jennine!

With all the create tech tools out there for text to speech, I still haven't found anything that will read Google Slides to students. I often use Google Slides within projects as another way to give students information for their research. To get around this gap, I use a Google Chrome extension called "Screencastify" to make videos of myself reading the slides. The reason this extension is preferable over some of the others that exist is its ability to import the videos directly into Google Drive. So using the webcam, I record a video of myself reading each slide (with a sticky note over the camera so it just shows up as a solid color), and then I insert the video on the corresponding slide. I then go into the video settings and set the video to auto-play in presentation mode. This means that when the students open up the presentation, the recording will play automatically without them having to do anything special. Adding these recordings allows students to access the information whenever they need it, and without their reading ability getting in the way of their capacity to learn the social or science content. 

Here is an example of an automatically reading slide deck: 

The second thing that I do is put my assessments in Google Forms. Using an extension called "Select and Speak", students can highlight the questions and have it read to them. For chunks of text that are an image (We use a lot of past PAT questions to help prepare students), I will insert a youtube video of me reading into the quiz. An added bonus of using Forms is that it has the ability to be set into "quiz mode" now, and if you set up your assessment properly, it will grade all your multiple choice questions automatically for you, which you can then open in sheets and print out for your assessment binders. Below is an example of an assessment that includes a youtube video for one of the questions. 

One last example...
Below is what is called a hyperdoc- (Melanie and I are the founding members of the hyperdoc fan club down in the boonies) Hyperdocs are a great learning tool that I love to utilize in my classroom because they allow students to work through the content at their own pace, and the kids find them really engaging. This is also an example of how I use the slide decks with the recordings in my classroom to differentiate the learning for students. 

Other accessibility tools that I find helpful for students are

• Voice typing in Google Docs
• Kaizena in Docs for leaving voice feedback- Great tool!
• Read and Write Gold for reading their documents to them (And Read and Write for Google Chrome)
• Select & Speak Extension
• Announcify: Cleans up the website and removes distractions so it is easier for kids to read. 

6C Best Practice: Stand up Problem Solving

TQS Connection:
 i) there are many approaches to teaching and learning. They know a broad range of instructional strategies appropriate to their area of specialization and the subject discipline they teach, and know which strategies are appropriate to help different students achieve different outcomes

In my classroom last year I really focused on math and how to engage students in the lessons through dynamic openers and various activities. This year I have added in math centers and math fluency but I am very pleased with how my stand up problem solving has been refined. This has allowed all my students to feel successful at one aspect of math.