Take 5! Integration Update - March 2, 2011 (Vol.2/#18)

Issue #18

“Take 5” is a weekly update containing information related to teaching and learning for today and beyond...

Take just 5 minutes (or less) to look over these resources and see what might be helpful for your and/or your students. Better yet, set aside at least 15-30 minutes a week (yes, that's been increased from last year!) to focus on finding resources and ideas that will improve student learning and prepare them for their future!


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Tips and Tools for Teachers

  

• Hippocampus – Online curriculum, videos, textbooks... From their site: "HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE). The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge."
• Some topics/subjects:
• Algebra (English & Spanish)
  
• American Govt
  
• Biology
  
• Calculus (English & Spanish)
  
• Environmental Science
  
• Physics
  
• Psychology
  
• Religion
  
• Statistics 
  
• US History

• Grammaropolis – A site full of grammar review games and lessons for elementary or even middle school students. Wondering how to use this site in your classroom, here are some suggestions from Kelly Tenkely's iLearn blog. 

  

• Internet Speed Test – Ever wondered how fast your internet connection is? Connect Ohio provides a speed test for your internet upload and download speeds in an easy to read format. Give it a try at: http://speedtest.connectedoh.org 

Ponderings

•   
  
  (Book & Website) Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery (by Kathleen Cushman)
  
  Some important messages here about student motivation, effort, practice, and mastery... 

  (About the importance of connecting with students... From a student) - "If no one's going to notice what you're doing, it doesn't matter whether you push yourself. But if the teacher develops a connection with you, you don't want to disappoint them.

  
  

  (About effort... From a student) - "Everything takes practice. It's not like one day you can just get up and say, 'I'm going to do something.' You got to practice it."

  Goals Checklist for student practice in class - developed by students

  A teacher's planning tool for organizing a lesson around mastery

  Homework advice from students (this link is to the entire Ch. 8, which includes the HW advice, alternative HW assignments, and the difference between HW and "deliberate practice")
  

Learning Opportunities

• 1. In-District Professional Development Opportunities
• 2. NWO's STEM Education Inquiry Series (at Rossford High School!) - Thurs., March 24th (from 5-8pm) a low-cost, local opportunity for elementary teachers and JH/HS science, math, and technology teachers offered 7 times from September 23 - April 14, 2011.
•  3. In the right margin of this blog, enter your email to receive future postings into your email Inbox (Take 5s and more!) -- plan on 1-3 posts per week.

;-) Just for Fun?!?! (and a little learning, perhaps)

• Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - (from their site...) "NPR's weekly hour-long quiz program. Each week on the radio you can test your knowledge against some of the best and brightest in the news and entertainment world while figuring out what's real news and what's made up." Or try their daily quiz HERE