Category Archives: Assessments

Video Lesson: The Tech Guide

I had a few people ask how I make the video lessons, so I thought I might do an extra post to answer that question.  First, I have just completed my Master’s in Educational Technology, and that was a great idea to really learn to use the technology out there and to really see the benefits of students using technology EFFECTIVELY.  But in order to see the students using technology effectively to produce academic gains, there are a few steps the teacher must take.  The most important, however, is intentionally planning for growth instead of edutainment.  The second is management and ensuring the students are doing what they are supposed to be doing while on the device.  I know… But I have a strategy for that.

MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE: No one likes a dirty belly button.

  1. Clean the belly button.  We use iPads, and class starts by taking the device off airplane mode (quicker charging and holds battery longer as the power cell in the device begins to die) and cleaning the belly button. What this means is that the students double-click the home key to reveal all open apps and windows.  Students must then close everything except what I tell them to use.
  2. At any point in the lesson, randomly double-click the belly button to see what is opened.  If anything other than what I have instructed is opened, I screen shot and email it to myself. If it is just off task, I give one warning and then contact the parent the second time. I ask for parent email, and then for any additional offenses, I include the parent.  The third time, I involve administration because clearly I’m not good enough to make the behavioral change in the student.  If it violates school policy, I send the screen shot directly to administration and enter a disciplinary referral.  If the only thing open is what I have directed, students sometimes get a piece of candy or just a positive phone call home.

MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE: Use apps that monitor student activity for you.

  1. Try Nearpod.  There is a free version that allows for LIVE implementation of the lesson.  This means that the students must progress in the lesson as you push them through the slides.  Student assessment can be built into the presentation, making it totally awesome. Finally, you can actually show student responses (with or without giving student names) to the class for feedback.  All data is tracked, and you get a PDF analysis of student work individually and as a class. If you use the purchased version, Nearpod lessons can be launched in HOMEWORK so students progress at their own rates.  This is great for leading PLE instruction.  Join Nearpod by visiting https://app.nearpod.com/#/market?view=npInit.
  2. Try Zaption. This has a cost, but I think it is totally worth it.   Basically, you create videos and post them.  Then, you build a Zaption lesson with assessment built into the video you have created. Or, you can use a video someone else has created.  I’m convinced this is worth the cost, but you can get a free two month trial by visiting http://zapt.io/ruem93kaf.

 

PLANNING THE VIDEO LESSON:

  1.  Have the lesson.  To make instruction clear, I still use PowerPoint to start everything. In each PowerPoint, I include the notes of what I want to be sure to say.  Instead of adding animations that advance on my click, I add a new slide for each part.  For example, if the slide has 4 bullets, I make four slides so the first has the first bullet, the second has the first and second bullet, and so on.  This helps with the video elements.
  2. Buy the “ExplainEverything” app.  I cannot put to words how valuable this has been.  There are others out there, and I’ve used several.  But this is the best five bucks you can spend. Promise.
  3. Transfer the PPT into a PDF and email it to yourself. (Trust me, easiest this way.)

 

USING NEARPOD FROM THIS POINT: While you can import videos into Nearpod, you can’t stop the video to add the assessments.  So, for implementing this tool, you would combine the lesson with videos through the interactions menu in Nearpod. Sounds confusion, but I promise that playing around with the program will be helpful.

  1. Open Nearpod and click to create a new Nearpod.  When open, click to import your Powerpoint or JPG files. Each slide will import as its own page. (Note, importing from jpg will reduce file size and keep fonts and spacings.  With PPT, sometimes that gets messed up.)
  2. With the slides imported, begin adding activities and assessments for the students.
  3. Save the file and publish it for students to begin learning.
  4. Once published, you will want to share it when you are ready to use it.  For LIVE mode, you are in control.  For HOMEWORK, just give the students the pin or send them an email for them to use at the appropriate time.
  5. As a part of my degree, I had to create instructional guides.  One of the guides I created was Nearpod, and you can find it by visiting https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Guide-to-Nearpod-in-Class-2079687.

 

USING ZAPTION FROM THIS POINT:

  1. Open the email on the device with Explain Everything.  When it is open, click to open in “ExplainEverything” app. Each slide will import as its own video page.
  2. Begin recording your speech for each of the slides.  I recommend allowing record to run for one second BEFORE you start talking and 2 seconds AFTER you stop.  This helps with signaling for revisions if you need to record over what you have and for giving time to import the activity in Zaption.
  3. Once you have recorded everything, hold down the play button until the big yellow play button appears.  Push the big play button and verify you like the video.
  4. Save the file and export it to your youtube channel. (Don’t have one? Just visit youtube and create one.  This is also free and easy.)
  5. Once the video has exported, ExplainEverything will ask if you want to share. Click yes and select to share by email. This is great for giving a backup link to the video.  Once in your email, copy the link.
  6. In Zaption, click New Lesson.  From here, paste the link to your video.  Alas, you’re now ready to add the assessment parts.

(By the way, I get nothing from having you use any of this. I’m just going with my personal favorites from my own practices and my own data of what seems to works best with my students.)

 

Hope this all helps! If you have any comments, questions, or ideas, please let me know!

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Week 2: What REALLY Happened

Between absences, delayed schedules, extended pacing, and surprise assemblies, class plans seem to always go astray.  So, here’s the way Week 2 really worked:

Monday went on as planned. Multiple choice Monday appears to be a great idea.  I used questions 15-24 on the 2007 released practice test.  I gave the students 15 minutes, but I secretly paused the timer to give 20 minutes.  Each question was worth 5 points, and they had the option of selecting only one answer for a shot at the full 5 or giving two answers for a shot at 3 points.  Students then were to reflect on how they decided to answer the questions and what scores they gained.  This strategy worked well because students do not lose points for incorrect answers, and narrowing it to two means they have tried and increased their odds.  They were told to use the “Letter of the Day” strategy for the final two minutes, but I noticed students didn’t do that.  Next week we are going to readdress “Letter of the Day” and focus on doing a preview of the questions to help provide a purpose for reading and annotating the passage.

 

Tuesday went decently well.  We used BAT the prompt, and students seemed to understand that if I’m scoring it and I am telling you to do this, then maybe you should do what I suggest.  Thesis statements and identifying the correct response or even what to write about was a struggle, and I’m going to need to focus on that moving forward.

 

Wednesday it went astray. Big time. If you don’t know your subject and verb, a sentence pattern is nearly impossible to get.  I ended up having to complete an impromptu lesson on subjects and verbs, scaling back to focus only on the base of pattern 1.  This took much more time than anticipated, and when student frustration ran high, I swapped to a very short focus on diction  in Lincoln’s address.  Analysis of diction went over much better than sentence patterns. First, students read and annotated for understanding. Next, they were to look over their notes and identify words or groups of words that stood out.  From here, they identified the words/phrases as positive, negative, or neutral.  Finally, they have to identify the overall perspective based on the diction they identified.

 

Thursday during tutorials, I had students take a quiz to match the figurative language term to the examples. I knew they had not studied the vocabulary from last week, so I prepared task cards giving the definition of the term in a complex manner.  This will appear in the TPT store as a growing bundle soon. Hopefully this weekend, but I have two kids and my (eegads!) Christmas stuff MUST come down now.

 

During class, I decided to bring sentence patterns back.  I wanted to do it through some other skill we needed to work on, so I scrapped my plans and did something completely different.  Thursday because the less-than-alliterative Visual Rhetoric Sentence Pattern Practice.  I found a few cartoons and had students apply guided questions to analyze them.  The answers were written, and then a final response had to be written to one of the four sentence patterns.  We repeated this with a total of five, one for a model and then a we do before independent practice.  Students were told to mark the subject and verb, including vertical bars between the sentence parts.  Mastery was much higher this time around, and I created a plan for tomorrow to make sure they have it.  For the last bit of class, we revisited Lincoln’s speech and identified and justified overall tone from looking at the diction that was chosen. This created a perfect opportunity to look at a shift in the passage and how that might affect the audience.

 

For Friday, I noticed I didn’t update the objective on the weekly plan, but that was okay because our day went astray again.  It was one of those days where something happened and the students were really struggling, so I had to scale back and revise. For pattern practice, I gave the students five sentences and instructed them to mark the sentence parts and then identify the pattern.  Once they did this, they were to create their own sentence of the given pattern.  This worked very well, and mastery of the creation was much higher than before. In reviewing student work, however, this is because they used the same sentence and changed names or simple details. In my mind, this is cheating, but I didn’t give any kind of direction that they could not do this.  Who knew that would be the result?  Next we moved into a discussion of an article they will be using for a guest lecture next week.  The students were to read and annotate the article.  Next, they got with a partner to discuss the article. For homework, they were to create the Toulmin Model of the text, identify specific examples of diction and overall tone, and then respond to, “Is this right?”

 

Not sticking to the intended plan was rather unavoidable this week, but I hope next week will be better. It is a short week as a result of the holiday, they will have the diagnostic placement testing for the semester, and we have the guest professor lecture of an overview of ethics.  This should give me time to post some of my resources on TPT.

 

Any suggestions to help me push students toward a higher level of academic achievement? I welcome your feedback.

AP Lang: Plans for Week 2

As should be expected, I had to make some modifications to the first week.  Alas, here’s the set for this week.  As you look at my plans, please keep in mind that this is the first time I’ve taught this course — the first time in 7 years it has been offered in my school — and I’m literally starting from scratch.

I welcome your feedback as I help prepare my students for success.

  Standards/Objectives Detailed Agenda
W2

M

Bell Ringer: Through the study of fairy tales, students will be able to monitor GUM and identify the meaning of unknown words.

Hidden Agenda: Building background for allusion

 

 

Multiple Choice Monday: Through the study of an AP MC reading selection, students will be able to correctly answer the question, including justification for the selected answer.

 

Bell Ringer: 15 minutes

Caught ‘Ya (L11.1-3)

Etymology (L11.4-6)

~ G/AF: Sentence Corrections with guided questions with assigned weekly partner

~ Share outs (based on pacing)

 

Multiple Choice Monday: Released AP Exam 2007 MCQuestions from Joyce Carol Oates passage

I: Student are given 15 minutes to read the text and answer the questions.

(Ss may select one final answer or one of two for half credit.)

D/Ap: Students will review answers and write corrections with argumentative stem. (15 minutes)

 

Reflection Closure:

1. What do you notice about the MC testing? What will be a strength to help you? What will be an area to work on before the test?

2. How does last semester’s learning seem to fit into what you now know about this course?

 

W2

T

Bell Ringer: Through the study of fairy tales, students will be able to monitor GUM and identify the meaning of unknown words.

Hidden Agenda: Building background for allusion

 

Thesis Statement Tuesday: Through the study of an AP MC reading selection, students will be able to correctly answer the question, including justification for the selected answer.

 

Diction and Tone: Through the overview of diction and tone, students will be able to identify and analyze denotation and connotation of specific text examples.

 

Bell Ringer: 15 minutes

Caught ‘Ya (L11.1-3)

Etymology (L11.4-6)

~ G/AF: Sentence Corrections with guided questions with assigned weekly partner

~ Share outs (based on pacing)

 

Thesis Statement Tuesday: Released AP Exam 2007 from Joyce Carol Oates passage

I: Students are given a writing prompt to analyze and describe the task in his/her own words.

2. Students will identify possible evidence for the prompt.

3. Students will write a thesis statement for the prompt.

 

Diction and Tone Overview (Practice 1/2)

O: Ss will REVIEW diction and tone as literary devices supporting effective rhetoric.

D/App: Students will practice identification throughout the scaffolded lesson.

Closure: Think about your answers and T’s answers.   What do you notice? What did you do well? What changes might you need to make?

 

 

W1

W

Bell Ringer: Through the study of fairy tales, students will be able to monitor GUM and identify the meaning of unknown words.

Hidden Agenda: Building background for allusion

 

Writing Wednesday: Through the study of The Art of Styling Sentences, students will be able to write thorough and concise sentences.

 

Diction and Tone: Through the overview of diction and tone, students will be able to identify and analyze tone of specific text examples.

 

Bell Ringer: 15 minutes

Caught ‘Ya (L11.1-3)

Etymology (L11.4-6)

~ G/AF: Sentence Corrections with guided questions with assigned weekly partner

~ Share outs (based on pacing)

 

Writing Wednesday: Sentence Pattern 1

O: Ss learn sentence pattern one through short writing lecture.

D/Ap: Ss will create sentences using the pattern by arranging groups of words and when starting from scratch. Mastery 2/3 in each group.

 

 

Diction and Tone Overview (Practice 3/4)

O: Ss will REVIEW diction and tone as literary devices supporting effective rhetoric.

D/App: Students will practice identification throughout the scaffolded lesson.

Closure: Think about your answers and T’s answers.   What do you notice? What did you do well? What changes might you need to make?

 

W1

Th

Bell Ringer: Through the study of fairy tales, students will be able to monitor GUM and identify the meaning of unknown words.

Hidden Agenda: Building background for allusion

 

Tutoring Thursday: Through the study of AP Rhetoric, students will be able to correctly identify and explain the given device in the task cards. (Mastery 8/10)

 

Cycle 3: Through the study of The Crisis, students will be able to rhetorically analyze a given AP article, including analysis of diction and tone.

 

Bell Ringer: 15 minutes

Caught ‘Ya (L11.1-3)

Etymology (L11.4-6)

~ G/AF: Sentence Corrections with guided questions with assigned weekly partner

~ Share outs (based on pacing)

 

Tutoring Tuesday: AP Figurative Language Task Cards

I: Students are given 10 minutes to review the academic vocabulary associated with the excerpts on the task cards.   This is designed to help reteach missed skills, and definitions of unknown words are encouraged for learning outside of class.

D/Ap: Students will rotate through stations to complete a minimum of ten task cards each for a grade. Mastery = 8 of 10.

 

Vocabulary Assessment: Students will take a multiple choice assessment matching examples to the figurative language terms.

 

Diction and Tone Analysis

1. Students are given the text of “The Crisis” to look for 4 examples of diction that support the tone.

2. Students are to write a response describing the tone and providing textual evidence.

 

 

 

 

W1

F

Bell Ringer: Through the study of fairy tales, students will be able to monitor GUM and identify the meaning of unknown words.

Hidden Agenda: Building background for allusion

 

Free Response Friday: Through the study of The Art of Styling Sentences, students will be able to write thorough and concise sentences.

 

Sunday News, Monday Views: Through the study of current events, students will be able to rhetorically analyze a chosen article from the weekend news.

~Note: This assignment becomes weekend homework due EVERY Monday.

 

Bell Ringer: 15 minutes

Caught ‘Ya (L11.1-3)

Etymology (L11.4-6)

~ G/AF: Sentence Corrections with guided questions with assigned weekly partner

~ Share outs (based on pacing)

 

Free Response Friday: Students will respond to an essay question as much as possible with a 15 minutes time frame.

1. Students will review the prompt and thesis from Thesis Tuesday.

2. Students will create a quick outline.

3. Students will begin writing their essay.

 

Sunday News, Monday Views:

O: Ss will learn the assignment expectations. (10 minutes)

D/App: Students will pick an article (5 minutes) and complete the analysis (15 minutes).

E: Ss will share with a partner for feedback (5 minutes each) and make revisions before submission (6).

 

HWK: Students will use the article from Mr. Goff to prepare for ethics overview.

 

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Of Plymouth Plantation… and the inner city attention span

plymouth 1

As we gear up for the new week, the students gear down because they cannot be less interested in Of Plymouth Plantation. Well, they do have one question they seek to answer: What is Americanism? What does it mean to be American? So as they formulate their ideas, we study American Literature. And, this week, we transition from Pilgrims and an active, benevolent God to Sinners and an Angry God. Boy… I can feel the good vibes now!

Since the students completed the Common Core Workshop successfully, I feel confident in their ability to closely read a text, and, thanks to my intense written feedback, the quality of their text-evidence in response to TDQs has increased tremendously. In fact, for many of them, the reading guide worksheet isn’t enough room and they are writing their answers on another page.

The first step in planning this lesson was to think about anticipated difficulties. Thanks to the first sentence, I didn’t have to think very hard. The Puritan Plain Style might have been easy to Puritans, but thanks to the evolutionary writing style of a few hundred years’ writings, those complex sentences even gave me a headache! I began planning with the idea that if the students could break down the complicated structures of the key parts of the paragraphs (or sections), maybe they could understand enough to work through answering some of the text-dependent questions. However… I needed to model this one for the students too.

Thus, a reading guide was created and designed to focus on breaking down complex sentences in terms of 1. Who? What? 2. Action. Then, I divided the excerpts into major sections and created TDQs for those sections. This made the reading guide look long (5 pages), but I wanted each section to have a visual separation from the other sections and then I needed to add some pretty visuals to keep the students happy. You’d be surprised how happy a different font, cute clip art, or shaded boxes can make the students when they are looking at a complex text they wouldn’t have been interested in otherwise.

From there, I created a reading quiz modeled after the FEW samples of multiple choice PARCC questions that have been released. This is a pretty important step because my students are used to teachers giving completion credit rather than accuracy credit. Also, apparently in some classes if most of the students don’t do the work the teacher makes it extra credit for those who did it and does not penalize those who don’t do it. To combat that, mean as it may be, I have the homework for grading and the reading quiz for grading. Students can retake any reading quiz after scoring a perfect score on the homework if they so desire, but this technique has shown students I’m serious about them completing some work outside of class. After all, my job is to prepare them for college.

If you are interested, you may find this lesson plan bundle at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Of-Plymouth-Plantation-Lesson-Plan-Reading-Guide-PPT-with-KEY-844835

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Back to the EOC Swing of Things

Well, it has been a hard month. I returned to work at the start of April, but keeping up with all of the changes and the blog fell to the wayside. As this is the EOC Swing, I wanted to get back to helping out others and posting as much as possible.
We get out for summer on May 22, and I will diligently work on uploading everything I have missed over the gap and adapting to the change in family arrangements and the loss of my brother.
For right now, I’m going to post a few files to help cover the gap.

What’s the best review pattern?
Well, I don’t have an answer to the best. I choose to use a very structured class schedule:
1. First, our bell ringer still follows the Caught Ya method, but I modify the sentences to meet specific needs of the students. Goal, 7-10 minutes. (Because this is changed based on the previous day’s instruction, there is no specific file to upload for you.)
2. Confused Vocab: This file includes five days of warm-up/bell ringer activities for use in English classrooms (10 minutes a day for five days). The plan comes with an outline, student handouts, a notes grid, and answer keys. You can find this file at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bell-Ringer-Warm-Up-EOCEOG-Prep-for-Commonly-Confused-Words
3. Foreign Words and Phrases: I have created a variety of supplies for this, but I am not yet ready to post them. I have videos for each of the terms with short review tasks to use at the start of the year, and then I have a set with five words a day in the fill-in-the-blank sets where students must use the correct word and justify their answers by identifying context clues which helped to identify the correct term. I will get this posted as soon as possible.
4. Skills Lesson and Strand Reviews – I basically review a specific term going SPI by SPI for key terms and vocab. I have posted the first one, Communication. Use this basic PPT and student handout to reteach Tennessee State English I Communication Standards with your students. This is a great way to put all of the information in the same spot right before the test date! Activity Description: T reviews the strand with definitions and examples on the PPT. Students track information on the included graphic organizers.
FREE Activity Posted: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/EOC-Swing-Communication-Review
5. EOC Item Sampler Think Aloud – I break the test into sections and review every question. These tests are available at http://www.tn.gov/education/assessment/sec_samplers.shtml.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any ideas, comments, or suggestions.EOC Swing Communication

Test Mode

Okay, I admit. I’m in test mode. So here’s the deal…

When I first started teaching, I was in a district and school where the expectation was to gather data. I believe this is vital to the success of the student, and over the years at my current placement I have worked hard to identify elements to help students be successful on the test. I’ve been using RUNNERS for about eight years, and I feel it is a huge part of the success my students have seen in terms of reading comprehension. So, I’m teaching RUNNERS to my students. If you are interested, I have placed it where you can find it at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/RUNNERS-Reading-Strategy-Teaching-Supplies. I teach this slowly at first, but we use it on passages throughout the semester. Starting next Friday, we are going to be working on one RUNNERS Reading Comprehension Drill a week. I don’t have all the details worked out, but I’m looking at trying to find current events articles that thematically relate to what we are using in class. Common Core? You betcha.

Next, I think there are test questions which can be answered based on the question itself and the answer choices. All the students need to do is understand what they are being asked in order to answer it. When I interview students after not testing as well as they would like, I get to the specifics of questions. I would say 99% of the time, the student says they did not understand what the question was asking. I tried using what I called Poe (like Edgar), but really that was just fancy for “process of elimination.” I was not seeing what I was hoping, so I was relieved when visiting another school a science teacher was using RAMS. Now, I have not a clue where this came from, and I have visited so many schools that I can’t even be certain in which school I saw this. Never the less, I started using it two years ago and have seen great gains with it. So, we’re going to use it in conjunction with our Friday RUNNERS.

Other idea for test mode? Testing Tuesdays. Each Tuesday we are going to look at a sample stand-alone EOC question for the purposes of analyzing RAMS and, hopefully, improving student ability on those questions on the actual test. I will use the gradual release in looking at a model to show my thinking process, a we do for me to guide them, a we do take two for them to guide me, and then two questions for them to do alone. Hopefully this will help with teaching skills and test strategies at the same time.

I have testing ideas for the other days, but I am thinking I need to wait and roll out the newbies slowly so as to not rock the structure we have in place. I’ll give you more on those ideas as they come, but I’m thinking about one specific test-related task a day…

Our objectives also have this weird standard asking about foreign words and phrases, so I am going to create short films – one minute each – to teach an assigned foreign word or phrase each day. I envision this beings something like the old “The More You Know” commercials from my childhood. Creating the videos will take some effort, so I’m going to start with doing two a week. Since we do SSR three times a week, I can use the other two days on foreign words and phrases to help students master them.

I will post all of this stuff out there, but this is the start of test mode and the steps I am planning to take starting Monday. So, with 10 weeks to the EOC, I will keep you posted.

Files/Resources:
I’m working on this. I promise. My goal for the weekend is to get these files posted at Kirk’s Corner.

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Resuming the Writing (with a snow day on the side)

The week is over for us, and we managed to complete the Common Core expository writing assignment. Amazing success – all but two students completed essay. The two who did not complete it had everything except the conclusion. Now, this worked because of a little motivational strategy I like to refer to as, “The Goods.” Any time we have a major project or essay due, I have some sort of treat for those who complete it. Such a tiny thing to do, but it means a lot to the students. Today I had brownies.

After turning in the essay, we went to the computer to take the digital Common Core Discovery Education Full Year Test B. Here is the interesting thing about this: We have massive data reports due on a regular basis, but the school/state has not officially transitioned to Common Core yet. The test, therefore, is at a much higher text complexity and proves more of a challenge for many of the kids. I believe all but one student tried his or her best, and I am looking forward to seeing the data. Yet this begs the questions because Common Core assessments tend to not be adequate in predicting mastery of the Tennessee State English I EOC. Based on what I know, I think the data will show lower than what I might have anticipated when the students take the EOC benchmarks. Additionally, I have worked diligently to teacher the RUNNERS reading comprehension strategy and the RAMS testing strategy. I have gone so far as to make students write on the test and REFUSED to give them a scantron until I saw evidence of RUNNERS and RAMS on their tests. I have, as a result, seen great growth over the few years I have used these strategies. Unfortunately, on the computer screen, the students were unable to complete RUNNERS and RAMS. Additionally, the question is on the screen but the passage and not, discouraging students from verifying the answer by consulting the text. And then the readings are incredibly long for the few questions asked. I look forward to the data, but I am skeptical of its predictability.

Alas, the weather has taken a plunge, and we have another snow day tomorrow. I have not used a snow day ever (child of the South), and it is a complete thrill to get to have a snow day to spend with my family and working on stuff for school over the break.

Happy three-day weekend to us!

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