Common Core Cafe for Parents - Session 2

Slides for Today

Click HERE

Free Learning Websites for Elementary, Middle School and High School Students

PBS Kids is committed to making a positive impact on the lives of children through curriculum-based entertainment. With a 360-degree approach towards learning and reaching children, PBS KIDS leverages the full spectrum of media and technology to build knowledge, critical thinking, imagination and curiosity. By involving parents, teachers, caregivers and communities as learning partners, PBS KIDS helps to empower children for success in school and in life. http://pbskids.org/

ABCya focuses heavily on building math, reading, and writing skills, but it also covers some additional topics as well as holiday themes. http://www.abcya.com/

Fact Monster™ This site combines reference materials, facts, and trivia quizzes for kids on all subjects. Parents, educators, and kids can get homework help and access almanacs, an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and an atlas.  http://www.fact.monster.com/

Discovery Education offers free student resources that bring learning to life both inside and outside the classroom. We invite you to take a look at our interactive games, videos, contests, virtual labs and activities designed to help you dive deeper into a topic —and have fun too!  http://ww w.discoveryeducation.com/students

Multiplication.com (2th - 6th Grade) helps students review multiplication tables as well as addition and subtraction facts. It has interactive games, classroom games, and worksheets that can be downloaded. http://www.multiplication.com/

Light Up Your Brain.com (K–8^th Grade) The brainteaser games and audio stories featured on Light Up Your Brain help students hone their problem-solving, reading, color-matching, math, and fine motor skills. http://www.lightupyourbrain.com/

Chem4Kids! It's not just for kids, it's for everyone. If you are looking for basic chemistry help and information, stay on this site. We have information on matter, atoms, elements, the periodic table, reactions, and biochemistry. http://www.chem4kids.com/

Khan Academy Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. https://www.khanacademy.org/

CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. This award-winning show and its companion website are available free of charge throughout the school year. After viewing CNN Student News, use the Daily Discussion to help students discuss and understand the stories covered in the program. The questions are designed to promote critical thinking and are written for middle and high school students, but they can easily be adapted for upper elementary school classes if you feel the topics addressed are appropriate. www.cnn.com/studentnews

CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization providing access to education materials for K-12 students and teachers. http://www.ck12.org/

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Fostering “Academic Conversations” in ALL content areas in K-12 Grade Levels Speaking and Listening Across the Common Core

You can access today’s slides by clicking HERE.

Learning Targets for today:

• Analyze the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening
• Learn how to integrate academic discourse into classroom conversations
• Learn how to incorporate productive group work routines 

It has been my experience that teachers have some form of group work imbedded in their weekly lessons. However, it usually is a simple task that student leaders or “worker bees” complete easily. Students that tend to struggle allow others to take the lead and are usually left out of the discussion. In the Common Core standards, instruction needs to be deliberate and students need to be provided with multiple opportunities to collaborate and engage in group tasks. How can we do this and what does it look like? Today’s presentation is all about what that looks like in our classroom. Angelica Paz, David Keys, and I put together some of our best tips of how to incorporate productive group work in your classroom. We also recorded our class collaborating. Our goal is that teachers begin to find ways to gradually release the responsibility of learning to the students. We should be the facilitators in the classroom and students should guide their own learning.

Productive Group Work

Productive group work is part of a larger discussion of effective instruction. Incorporating group work into lessons involves lessening a teacher’s control over every aspect of the instructional process, toward asking students to assume greater responsibility for their learning (Fisher & Frey, 2008). Fisher and Frey describe the transition in a classroom as moving from one where the teacher “does it” to one where students “do it together.” They identified four components to such a classroom:

1. Focus Lesson - The teacher establishes the lesson’s purposes and models his or her own thinking for students.
2. Guided Instruction - The teacher strategically uses assessment, prompts, and cues and questions to guide students into increasingly complex thinking and students’ assumption of greater responsibility.
3. Collaborative Learning - The teacher designs and supervises tasks that enable students to consolidate their thinking and understanding and that require students to produce individual products that enable the teacher to assess their learning.
4. Independent Tasks - The teacher designs and supervises tasks that require students to apply the information they have learned in new and authentic products. (SOURCE: Frey, Fisher & Everlove, 2009, p. 6).

Steps that move the learning to collaboration:

ü Focus Lesson to establish purpose and modeling

ü Guided instruction with cues, prompts and questions

ü Collaborative Learning- Consolidating Thinking with peers

ü Independent Learning tasks

The Keys to Productive Group Work

§  Students must be taught how to talk with one another.

§  Teachers need to know how to move them.

§  Know what you’re looking and listening for.

§  Make tasks engaging and interactive.

How do we know when Group Work is productive?

§  Knowledge is built and extended between the exchange of ideas

§  Task must require Individual Accountability

§  Level of difficulty so students can consolidate their understanding

§  Too Easy – Students will divide and conquer and reassemble to turn in

§  Should be hearing academic language and academic vocabulary – “Using the language of the lesson”

§  If the conversation is mostly about logistics then we’ve missed the mark

I prepared terrific freebies for you! Click on the following link to access a bunch of my posters I use to set up collaborative groups and rubrics to measure success.

Productive Group Work Posters Bundle

Self-Assessment (Productive Group Work Rubric)

Indicators of Success - Productive Group Work Rubric

Rubric for Group Activity or Group Project

Productive Group Work:  

The Role of Collaboration in Learning

§  Done properly, productive group work results in:

•       Increased self esteem

•       Improved relationships among students

•       Enhanced social and communication skills

•       Higher levels of academic learning and retention than peers working individually

In successful cooperative groups, each member has a task with the teacher as a frequent monitor and “guide on the side” instead of the “sage on the stage.”

Join the NEA Professional Practice Communities!

What is this?

The NEA Professional Practice Communities, a place where teachers, parents, school support and administration professionals, and community members share ideas and resources to improve student success. It is free and open to all!

Click on the following link to join my online community:
Common Core K-5

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