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In my first grade classroom, I have been working hard to meet the needs of all my learners. For our current math unit, first grade students are working on addition and subtraction. I have a small group of students who have exceeded the first grade math standards for this unit, so I looked at the second grade standards and found some ways to enrich their learning. By comparing the standards for both first and second, I am able to see where my students who already mastered the first grade standards need to be for next year. These students watch a video teaching them the standards for second grade while I teach the rest of the first graders the standards for their unit in a whole group setting. After the whole group lesson we move to small group rotations. The group that watched the video meets with me for a short mini lesson and practice with the second grade standards. Following the mini lesson they complete appropriate lessons on Study Ladder. The students are challenged and engaged and they are not sitting through whole group instruction for skills they have already mastered.
As with any new initiative, especially one involving loads of technology, there are bound to be problems that arise. So how do teachers and students deal with these unexpected issues? Recently, 5th grader Kelsey Annis shared, “The track pad on my device was not working well for a while, and then one day my device just wouldn’t turn on at all. I let my teacher know, and after we tried to charge it with a different charger and she checked the battery, she sent it out to have it fixed and I got a loaner. I got my own device back a few weeks later and it is working well.”
At Rodgers Forge Elementary, teachers notify the school’s tech team of a problem using an online technology request form. The request is usually acknowledged within that school day, and it is handled by the Daly representative or one of the school’s tech liaisons. “We usually have about 2-3 issues to handle on any given day,” says Rodgers Forge STAT teacher, Jen Piet. “Most are easy fixes that require basic troubleshooting. For others that need additional repairs, I submit a help desk ticket in order to have it fixed.” A recurring problem over the past few months has been general day to day issues that have arisen with the BCPSOne learning platform. At times students are given an error message and can’t even log in, while other times teachers cannot log in to a specific portion of the platform to access curriculum, assignments, etc. This can sometimes be resolved by using a different web browser or simply closing out the program and logging back in. Other times, teachers and student have expressed frustration and have had to find another way to complete the activity on the spot. Second grade teacher Beth Siuta commented, “While I feel that BCPSOne is a forward thinking platform, it certainly has had growing pains this year as more teachers and students are using it. There have been times I cannot access the curriculum which is frustrating since we no longer have hard copies. The students have also had days when they could not access their lesson tiles, so activities and lessons had to be changed at the last minute. I have learned to always have a back-up plan.” BCPS appears to be committed to improving and fixes these bugs as they are brought to their attention. Fifth grade, Nora Sevidal, stated, “Even though the devices have problems sometimes, they still are really helpful as a tool to help us learn and understand new things in a fun and engaging way.” Submitted by Chelsea Mazurek
Art Teacher, Edmondson Heights Elementary In art class at Edmondson Heights Elementary, students are experimenting with creating their own stop motion animation videos. Stop motion is created when you take many still photographs of objects or drawings, moving each one slightly in each picture. When all of the photos are put together and increased in their speed, they create movement. We are using windows movie maker to edit our photos and music from freemusicarchive.org. Right now students are using found objects to tell short stories through movement. Later on in the year we will revisit this media and create our own stop-motion cartoons or Claymation videos. Second grade students selected an animal to research in order to answer the question: How do animals grow and survive in the natural world? Students read and viewed print and digital media to gather information to answer the research question. Students took notes, composed paragraphs, and added text features to share key information in a class book. Students then made a class video to share interesting facts from their research using Animoto.
This month in Physical Education, students participated in units on Soccer and Pickleball. Students enjoyed using the devices to record themselves performing Pickleball skills in order to analyze these skills and use the visual aids to improve. Pickleball was a new activity that almost every student had never experienced! Students also enjoyed practicing their soccer skills while experimenting with modern day equipment and colonial times equipment. All current PE students will be taking Health Education class throughout the entire month of November. Physical Education will resume the first week of December.
Mr. St. Germain’s 8th graders are analyzing different mediums using Malala Yousafzai; a brave girl from Pakistan. She is an activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize Laureate. The Language Arts Department at Windsor Mill is on the move. We are building learning capacity and our students are excited about it. We are letting our “Lighthouse” light shine for all to see.
Mrs. Ford’s Language Arts classes are learning about Plot and Theme. Students were first given a short quiz on Kahoot to test their knowledge about plot and theme. After a brief discussion they worked in stations around the room identifying short clips from a story as plot or theme. Students were highly engaged and worked well on this task.
In order to keep parents informed, teachers at Rodgers Forge send out monthly newsletters to make parents aware of curriculum content, past and upcoming events, etc. In previous years, the fifth grade teachers created a document in either Microsoft Word or Publisher that was emailed as an attachment. This year, they wanted the option to include videos and photos in the monthly newsletter to share. At the suggestion of their S.T.A.T teacher, Jen Piet, the fifth grade teachers utilized Tackk for their October newsletter. Katie Lark, fifth grade teacher at Rodgers Forge, commented, “Tackk was easy to use, and it gave the teachers an opportunity to showcase student learning in a different way compared to our traditional newsletter format.” They received some very positive feedback from parents who were excited to get a clearer glimpse into their child’s classroom.
Check out the link to view their newsletter: https://tackk.com/xwnvtg! Fifth grade students at Rodgers Forge Elementary had an exciting opportunity to connect via Skype with a Sherpa from Mt. Everest. The fifth grade classes were all enjoying a read-aloud of the novel, Peak by Roland Smith in which a boy has the opportunity to climb Mt. Everest. As they listened to the story over several weeks, students generated and noted questions for Tenzing Sherpa that were sparked by information in the novel. This was such a valuable experience with a real-world connection for all involved.
Algebra students at Cockeysville Middle School worked to strengthen their skills with Linear Equations as they selected from nine stations. In some cases, 7th and 8th grade classes intermingled and helped one another as they worked through a mix of teacher led stations as well as self assessing stations. Students were assigned to their first station based on formative assessment results. From there, the students were able to choose from a 10-foot floor graph, scavenger hunts, a Jeopardy game on a large kiosk monitor, graphing calculator activities, laminated problem cards, or book work. Scores on a follow up quiz indicated the day was a great success. Visit the Cockeysville Middle "Shine a Light on Math" website to learn more.
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June 2018
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