Throwdown Thursday--3 days late...

Yes, I have a calendar. I know what day it is. I apparently am busier during winter break than I am during the school year since I have had a post-it on my monitor that says "Throwdown Thursday -- 1/2/14." For those of you who are unaware, a post-it makes the event permanent. Set in stone. As in, I MUST follow through! So, without further ado, I am linking up with Erin from Lovin' Lit for her monthly link-up!

One of the things that I use in my classroom to make learning more interactive is to assign random seats. I know what you are thinking, that is not interactive! But, it can be! The first thing that I do at the beginning of the school year, and then again at the beginning of each semester, is put vinyl stickers on my seats/desks that number the desks 1-30 (or however large my biggest class is!) Then, on the day that I want to switch seats for whatever reason (usually because they have become too comfortable in said seats and need to sit by someone less familiar--please tell me I am not alone...) I will stand at the door and hand each student a card. Or, when I am feeling especially lazy, I will place them in a basket by the door with instructions on the board. And, then there is usually a student who yells at all of the boys who don't pay attention. I teach 8th grade, ya know.

Anyhow, I know you are DYING to know what is on these cards. Big shock--math problems! Each card has a math problem that they need to solve in order to find their seats. They are usually problems that are relative to the content that we are studying at the time. The best part is when two kids try to sit in the same seat, or when someone says their seat isn't there. There is sometimes that one kid who just waits at the back until there is a seat left and sits there. BUT, I always go around and check to make sure they are in the right seats. The first time we do this, it can take 10-15 minutes and in a middle school class of only 50 minutes, that is a good chunk of time. HOWEVER, I think it is time well spent because of the error analysis.

Click the picture to view the product on TPT!

I do have 4 sets of these available in my store individually, as well as in a bundle for 25% off! If you buy the bundle, you will get any future sets of seating cards that I add to it for free just by re-downloading! I would love to know if there are other types of sets you would like to see, so feel free to email me or leave it in the comments. Thanks!

Throwdown Thursday - Making learning interactive with CLICKERS!

I am linking up with Erin over at Lovin' Lit for her monthly Throwdown Thursday!

I know that this is not a new concept...many schools have used a version of the "clicker" or some sort of student response system long before my campus got them 5 years ago. I don't use them all the time, but boy are the students engaged when we do!

The ones that we have look like this:

I am sure there are newer versions. You can use these several ways: it's easiest to begin using these where the the students sign in anonymously (no student login required) to assess and see what students know about a particular topic. Simply set up your lesson for the day in SMART notebook or whatever software comes with yours and insert slides to "ask a question." A professor of mine did this in college and we never knew when the questions were coming. This forced us to stay awake in an 8AM Oceanography class...yawn. BUT, there was something fantastic about the immediate feedback that he received from us as well as immediate feedback from him when we found out the correct answers.

There are several ways that you can ask questions, true/false, multiple choice, short answer, and many more. Mostly, I have used these whenever we give a pre-assessment that is multiple choice because the students log in and there is not any grading required. This year, however, I want to incorporate these into my daily lessons for more interaction!

Don't have the funds for these? There are several FREE options for you if you have access to iPads or if you are a school in which kids bring their own devices. The app is called Socrative and you can find out more information about it here!

Throwdown Thursday - Making Lessons Interactive

I am thrilled to link up with Erin over at I'm Lovin' Lit for her FIRST Thursday Throwdown!

I wish I had pictures of some of the cool things that I did in my classroom this year...but of course, I was busy facilitating learning in the classroom and not playing photographer to capture the moments...I vow to be better at multitasking this year!

In any event, I attended a wonderful professional development in June about integrating more technology in the classroom. My teaching partner and I tried to integrate as much as we could, but in an older building, technology could either work or not work at any given moment. It became frustrating to plan something only to have it completely fail. We had a class set of iPads (for all teachers to share) and we LOVED the idea of using them...except the only place in the building that had WiFi was the library...and it didn't reach all the way to my room. I am not complaining, it just took a little more planning to be able to use them effectively :)

However, my new campus is said to be wireless (YAY!) and I discovered the coolest app (at the PD meantioned above) called Nearpod! It is a way for you to have a presentation that each student views on his/her device by being logged in to the app with a specific PIN number unique to that teacher's presentation. It's not just a "PowerPoint" type presentation, though. It has ways to ask students questions via multiple choice or short answer, you can share websites with information and so many other things! The best part is that they can only see what you want them to see! I have already created my first nearpod presentation to use the first week of school with my kiddos and am super excited about it. This video does a much better job of explaining the wonderfulness of nearpod:



What a great, innovative way to get kids engaged and involved in their own learning! I will be sure to report back at the end of August and tell you all how it went!

Happy 4th!