I want to hear from you!

As the school year comes to a close, I would like to thank all of you for visiting this blog and submitting your ideas. There is more to come even before the semester ends! I hope that you have found the information here useful, and I want to provide even more of the ideas you like to use, so please leave a comment to let me know what you found most beneficial so more Bright Ideas can be added in the future.Tell me favorite posts, what you have tried, and how it worked for you. Also let me know what you would like to see in future posts. I look forward to hearing from you.

QC Toolbox Strategy #3 - Think-Pair-Share

This is also one of Mrs. Townsend's ARI strategies, yet it is worth blogging about because of the way it gets students thinking, speaking, listening, and writing.

"Think-pair-share (Lyman, 1981) fosters collaboration by giving students time to develop their ideas during class discussion. There are three steps to a think-pair-share:

1. Students independently contemplate a response to a question or prompt.
2. Students pair up to discuss and refine their ideas.
3. Student pairs share their discussions with the entire class.

The think-pair-share strategy is useful because it relieves individual students of the pressure of sharing ideas on the spot. Because they are sharing and exploring multiple perspectives on a common problem or issue, the collaborative discourse initiated by think-pair-share engages students in inquiry that extends their thinking and understanding. It is just this sort of collaborative discourse that research (Sawyer, 2004) shows is particularly conducive to learning."

In addition to what is stated above, I like it because every student shares, not just the ones who volunteer to speak during class discussion. It's also quick and easy; I usually pair students with someone nearby so I don't lose time in transition. I also add a writing component. Students respond to the question or prompt in writing, and they read what they have written to their partner. Students can make adjustments to their own writing before sharing with the rest of the class.

I really like this one. I hope you find it useful!

Finding Primary Documents

Common Core Standards emphasize reading inoformational texts, especially historical documents and primary sources. Mrs. Williams has shared a link to the Library of Congress which can be used not only for locating primary documents but also for lesson plans, activities, and presentations. Teachers can modify their search by grade level, state standards, and Common Core standards. There is some very interesting information there, so check it out. The link is below.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Join.me: A fFree App for sharing with students

Thanks to Mrs. Eckl for this one.

There is a free app called join.me (be sure to use the period). You download it to the iPad and your computer. The computer version gives you an access number for the iPad users to type into the join.me login.

Students could then view what you have on your computer screen (they can't access computer and get into files but they see what you allow them to see).

This would be great for teachers that don't have a whiteboard or projector. They could borrow the iPads and give each student or table one and present a PPt or any other lesson they may have.