Blog post for week of 3/28-4/1

I hope that everyone is making progress with their inquiry plans- I want to update on my progress! I am videoing this week and I taught my first lesson of two for the plan- I am teaching fractions and today was the "desk lesson" - students at their desk and me at the board. The students were identifying and drawing (on their own packets) fractions as I taught and reviewed what 1/3, 1/2, etc... looks like. We also went over common mistakes in identification and labeling fractions. I must say that they were very well behaved- I have a great class this year and I didn't expect anything different. But, I also noticed that once they say the video camera, they were good as gold. I would say that they majority of the time the students were on task and engaged. I will be interested to see when I watch back to look at the percent of engagement and active learning or engagement. I am also curious to see how much more or less they will be engaged by the "hands on lesson" tomorrow- I will let you know how it goes!

Inquiry Plan - Blog post for week of 3/22-3/26

I wanted to post an update on what I have been doing this week in regards to carrying out my inquiry plan. This week, I have developed two math lessons. One is a "desk" lesson and the other is the "hands on" lesson. The lesson is on fractions, which is relevant to what they are currently learning in the general education classroom. I think that I have created two lessons that are very engaging, but the true test will be carry them out. Of course, I am looking to see which lesson is more engaging for my students. I am planning on taking anecdotal notes and observation as well as comparing work samples given at the end of each lesson to assess comprehension of the lesson. I plan on teaching the lessons next week! As I re-read through my plan and think about video purposes, I do have a question. I want to video to show each part of my plan, but of course, to stay within the 10 minutes. I was wondering should use 5 minutes of the video to show the "desk" lesson and 5 minutes to show the "hands on" lesson? I thought that I could use this as a comparison, to show everyone a piece from both lessons. Or, I could do it like I said in my plan and take both lessons, compare and use data to improve, re-teach the lesson that enagaged them the most, and video this ( the re-teach) lesson to show student engagement and implementation of the whole group? Anyone have any thoughts??? Thanks!

Task Five- Domain Three

The article that I read was Ten Steps to Better Student Engagement. I found this article interesting, there was a lot of information that was very familiar and then there was information that made me think and question: How does this information relate to the work that I do in my classroom? The article starts by raising a very valid point and goal I think for most teachers. How can I go home at the end of the day with more energy than what I started with? This really leads into the body of the text and how we can go about achieving active engagement that flows naturally and with student centered learning. The text then goes into the authors tips or ten steps that he thinks will help achieve better student engagement. To answer the question how do these relate to my work and my classroom, I try to frame my room around most of these ideas, such as: Creating an emotionally safe classroom, practicing journal writing to communicate with my students, creating a culture of explanation, self-awareness, making students think and answer, and increasing the quality of work!

How does this deepen your thinking about this domain? Through this article and others, along with the blogs, I think that it really made me think when the aspect of how to cultivate your engagement meter. A teacher that is really in tune with their students is creating an active-learning environment, in which students are on-task, thinking, questioning and answering 100% of the time. So in turn these teachers are able to assess the rate of student engagement more so than on-task behavior. This may take years to develop the skills and tools to create this type of environment, but it really had me thinking about my classroom and how I am positively working towards this type of environment. I think that it takes one step at a time and yes, years of practice. Which could be the frustrating piece to this puzzle. As teachers you want to achieve success here and now. But, I did find that I relate my framework to others who are working towards success in student engagement.

How could this fit into my inquiry plan? I think that this piece will fit nicely into my inquiry plan. I am all about finding out what and how is going to actively engage my students 100% of the time so that I am able to assess the engagement more so than the students ability to maintain being on-task. Of course though high quality lessons and activities that have meaning and purpose to each student no matter what learning style.