Five Fun Fillers

Assessments...one of the major buzzwords of 21st century teaching. As we work with students of many different academic abilities, with many different learning styles, it can be difficult for teachers to quickly and efficiently be able to determine the level of comprehension of each student in the room. 

The Five Minute Fillers are a few short activities that teachers can use as a quick exit activity for teachers to use when determining the level of comprehension of their students. These activities can be use as pre-teaching, re-teaching, and even during some tasks. 

A fun way to present the activities is to allow the students the chance to choose the activity they would like to do for that day. 

Click on the link below to go to the Essential Edification TpT store to find this product.

Five Minute Fillers

Try these activities with your students, and see if you grasp the level of comprehension of your students. 

Enjoy, 

Emily 

Let's Talk Politics...

In 8th grade U.S. History, we dive into the U.S. government and all of the ins and outs of how to comprehend how our government system works. No this is not easy. I will say that students do tend to have many questions on the topics, which makes the process more interactive. 

government also seems to be a topic that many students are able to relate to due to the fact that they hear lots of information outside of school about politics. We had a to make a rule in our class:

If you don't research it, you don't talk about it. 

Instructing the concept of how the government works in our country is a huge undertaking for teachers. Here are a couple of tools I have found to be helpful. 

First, one of the best websites out there on government is icivics. Click on the link to go directly to the website. They have teacher tools, students worksheets, and even games for the students to play to practice their skills. 

When you first get to the site, this is what you should see:

You can choose from here if you would like to check out the games fir the students to play or the teaching tools. Both very beneficial. 

As thr students play the game, you will here lots of commentary. 'Oh Man' 'You want what kind of law?' 'They want to go to war again!'

Very fun for the teacher. 

The next day, I had my students complete the following graphic organizer. 

When following the link below, you will also find a Constitution Summative Study Guide as well as a Branches of Government short quiz. 

Constitution Study Guide - Branches Quiz

These products will give your students the opportunity to practice skills and give the teacher an opportunity to see what concepts should re-taught or have reached mastery.
Have fun with government!

Enjoy,

Emily 

Collecting Data with Google - Part I

Data Collection is definitely one of the issue that is most discussed in education today. How do I take data? When should it be take? Why should take data? What will it tell me about my students. While I understand the skepticism, it is impossible to be knowledgeable about every skill for every student with out data collection.

(Data will be used throughout this post, therefore if you have an aversion to the word...keep reading anyway)

I have a few posts about how to data on paper collection form, and there are many that you find on the link below. 

Free Data Sheets

I know this process can be very scary, but I would like to talk about a few use that I refined the process to allow you to receive the most information from your students and to not loose your mind.

For this particular post, I would to focus on using a technology based data collection system. As we are learning, Google has SOME awesome pages that will help us in this tedious process.  

First we will focus on collecting for IEP students goals from the regular education teacher. For secondary teachers, Google Forms are a dream come true. Before I dive into how to set up your form on Google Drive. I want to spend a minute talking about Goal Writing. Goals that are being measured really need to be written in a way that can be broken down for the regular educators to quickly understand and assess. (I will dissect goals in a separate post.) Here is an example goal for you to check out:

In both the small group and large group instructional setting, Billy will develop a paragraph when a given a provided structure to an average 80% by November 18, 2016. 

In the large group setting, Nick will follow adult directives with no more than 2 prompts when given a directive to an average of 75% accuracy by November 18, 2016. 

These clear IEP goals give you the who, what, where, when of the students needs. Now to monitor the goals it is important to remember what all of the components to performing your goal will be. 

Getting into making the form to send to your teachers for generalization data. It use to be acceptable to send an email to the student's teachers asking how he/she was performing in the class. The answer was usually something: fine, he won't stop talking, she doesn't turn in her work. Those answers rarely correlated with the goal you were assessing, so how does that help you write quarterly update on each goal. It doesn't. Take a look at these step by step directions to creating and sending out your Google Form Goal Sheets. 

Step 1: Go to google.com and create a account -  if you do not have one already. Sign in. 

Step 2: Click on the box in the top right corner and select Drive. 

This is what you should seeing on the left side of the screen now. 

Step 3: Click the button label NEW and it will give you a variety of choices. 

(I have chosen to first make a folder for each of my students. so I can keep all of the forms nice and tidy :)

Step 4: Click on the the folder button and label your folder. Then double click to into the folder. 

Step 5: Click the NEW button again at the top of the left side of the screen. This time select form. 

Your screen should now look like:

Step 6: You are name able to label your form. This will be the name you see when you want to select the form at another time. The area for this will say Untitled form until you change it. 

Step 7: Type your first questions for your form in the Untitled question box. You may or may not want to put information into the Help Text section. either way is fine. 

Step 8: In the drop down next to Questions Type. This drop down will give you several different options. Take a look below at the drop down choices. 

Some Tips: 

Text - one line answers 

Paragraph Text - long responses

Multiple Choice - only allowed to make on choice

Check boxes - allowed to make multiple choices 

Choose from a List - allowed to make multiple choices 

Scale - rating scale 

Date - input date from calendar 

Time - input time from clock 

Step 9: Once you have finished your questions and input your choice for the Questions Type, you may decide whether or not you would like to make the question required for your form users. If you would, be sure to click the required button tab on at the bottom right, next to the DONE button. 

Step 10: Select DONE when you are finished with that question. 

Step 11: When you are ready to add a new question, press the ADD ITEM button. If you would like, you can click the arrow next to the ADD ITEM button and select your question type there. 

Step 12: Continue creating your questions until you are finished. 

Step 13: Don't forget that you can customize your form as well. Take a look at the picture below and the descriptions for the top bar on your screen. 

Edit Questions - Make any changes you want to your form. 

Change View - You can choose from different themes to customize your form. 

View Responses - This will open a spreadsheet that contains all of the responses from those who have received and answered your form. 

View in Live Form - this will allow you to see your from as those you send it to will see your form. 

 Step 14: Click the square box again and select mail. 

This is what your screen should look like:

After you have written your messages and entered your recipients information, click on the Drive button. 

Select the google form that you would like to send and it will be attached like a typical document. Once the recipients open the form, they will be to submit their response and send their results to the excel spreadsheet made for you in your Drive. 

One of the best tools that I have found to date is BoomerangGmail. 

This tool, among other things, can take your message and send it out at the exact time you would like it to...once or reoccurring. This automatically keeps sending the form to your recipients until you tell the series to conclude. This tool can be downloaded; however for all of the tools to be used, there is a small monthly fee.  Click on the link below to add Boomerang to your gmail.

BoomerangGmail

In Collecting Data with Google Forms - Part II we will examine the creation of forms and what type of questions to ask using goals. 

Good Luck getting started with your forms!

Enjoy, 

Emily 

Being Thankful

Thanksgiving Break....What a needed time for both teachers and students! While you are spending time with your family and friends, we will all be mindful of those who struggle during this time. 

Check back soon for more quick tips and links for Essential Edification. 

Enjoy your break, 

Emily 

The exciting world of Ancient World Civilization!

As a resource special education teacher, it is clear that many different hats will be worn each and everyday. A few of my hats this school year are Resource Ancient Civilization teacher, Resource US History teacher, Support teacher (more information about that in a later post), as well as a CT teacher in 7th grade Science, 8th grade US History, and 6th grade Geography. Yes, the feeling of being overwhelmed comes quite often. 

I have enjoyed history as a student for many years, and being able to pass on some of the powerful events in history to my students in order for them to understand how they came to be in our powerful nation is exciting. Ancient World Civilization can sometimes be difficult for the students to relate to due to the major differences we see from the beginning of civilizations to our world today. Some connections can be early farming techniques to how we get our food today, or the fact the Egyptians explored so much about the body that they were able to teach us about anatomy. It is true...I have gone as far as to say "If you would like to be a professional football player, you are going to need to know how your body structure works." It's OK to stretch a little. 

The bottom line is...working some technology into what we are learning can be a powerful tool to solidify the understanding of a concept. I want to share a resource that I have to be engaging for my 7th graders. Another great plug for this site: It's FREE. Below in the logo for the site and the link, so you can find yourself in the right place. 

The Children's University of Manchester

This site has so many opportunities for active and engaging learning. I, so far, have been able to use the Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece sections of the resource, but there is so much more to offer. Language, Art & Design, and Science also have active learning resources here too. 

Below is an image from the site that shows a the beginning of the interactive game when teaching the Ancient Egyptians gods and goddess. 

I hope you are able to explore all that this site has too offer. We have enjoyed it in 1st hour AWC!

Enjoy, 

Emily 

Compound Sentences? The difficult delivery of sentence structure...

As I try to remember back to a classroom memory were I learned the structure of a compound, complex, compound-complex sentence...I can't. Although this seems to be a habit that my teachers ingrained when I was much younger, I am now able to see how difficult the concept can be to get across. One format used in many schools for compound sentences are the FANBOYS. These conjunctions in the FANBOYS format are very easy for students to remember. They are able to check their sentences, and eventually able to think in the compound format. 

Below you will find links to the Essential Edification TpT store for powerpoint, student, and teacher documents for the FANBOYS lesson. 

FANBOYS PPT

FANBOYS Student & Teacher Documents

This product uses videos from Flocabulary (You will need an account to view this video) and School House Rock. Providing the information to many different learning styles is always a blessing when teaching a difficult concept. Flocabulary is a wonderful resource for many students because it provides information a format that will stick with students and allow them to repeat the information through the music. Students also enjoy the the presentation Flocabulary provides. 

Another way of presentation that the FANBOYS Mini-Lessons is visual. Making a visual of what the sentence structure should look like can create a picture in the student's minds. Take a look...

FANBOYS format gives a really great delivery for teachers and a lot of options for comprehension for the students. 

Enjoy, 

Emily 

A day to say thanks...

Veteran's Day is one that is very important to our country and a day that we try to express the importance of to our students. In the middle school, there are students who have many different views of the day and understand the meaning, but they are not always sure how to express their feelings on the topic. The Veteran's Day Mini Lesson is a way for students to express their thoughts through a discussion and individually in their letter to a veteran. 

Veteran's Day Mini-Lesson

Each year our school puts on a large Veteran's Day assembly, inviting many Veteran's to celebrate. It is very meaningful to both the Veteran's and the students. It is always a powerful presentation of the recognition of the men and women who have fought for our country. I encourage others to look at what your classes can do to pay their respects to military members while still utilizing skills they are working on in class. A few examples: writing Christmas Cards to service members through the red cross, creating care packages with thank you letters, write letters to veterans living in the near by VA's, etc. 

Enjoy the mini-lesson for this important day!

Emily 

Character Education Lessons

As we continue down the journey of creating a school with Multi-Tiers of Intervention, students best interest is, of course, at the heart of all of the many changes. We have transitioned our 'Academic Lab' time to a 45 minuter class period twice per week. This had made a tremendous that opportunity to provide some very important and needed interventions during the school day. When sharing this change with the staff and even colleagues from other schools, we were met with the same question time and time again. "What are the students who do not need intervention during to do during this time?" This is a difficult question to answer, especially at the beginning of such a big transition for our building. While the hope is to eventually offer extension lessons specific to student interest, the focus has become to use the time for students who do not require intense intervention to experience future planning skills as well as character education lessons. A great foundation for our middle school students as they begin the decision making process for the rest of our lives. 

Below are a couple of the lessons created for character education purposes during Academic Lab:

The Kindness Boomerang:

This lesson focuses on the simple act of kindness. The lesson was created around a video that has been circling the internet showing small acts of kindness passed from one individual to another. The lesson includes an brainstorming time for students to determine acts of kindness they can perform for others in their daily lives and scenarios of social situations that allow students to determine ways to show kindness. Even my 8th grade students found this lesson intriguing and worth their time!

Click the link to go to the Essential Edification TpT store for the Kindness Boomerang Character Education Lesson. 

The Kindness Boomerang

Our Digital Footprint:

This lesson focuses on the fact that all actions in the world of technology can never be erased. Especially in the secondary schools, but also in the elementary schools, the use of technology is a topic of conversation that should be taken very seriously. This lesson allows students to think about their use of technology and how it effects the friendships, relationships, families, and even their very bright futures. This lesson forces students to ask themselves, "What digital footprint are you leaving?"

          Click the link to go to the Essential Edification TpT store for the Digital                                   Footprint Character Education Lesson. 

                                              Our Digital Footprint 

Thank you so much for stopping by, 

Emily 

More Than Just Some Tallies...

This most common form of data collection is the Tally Mark data sheet. This type of behavior sheet is not wrong to use. It can give the teacher many different ideas to improve the instruction for their students. However, simply including the tally marks can cause teachers to run in circles when  determining what instructional strategies students need to improve acquisition. Take a look at the data sheet below:

(To get your copy of this free data sheet, please click on the initials: ESM

Concept: Concept is the blank for the teacher to determine the overall goal of the intervention. The goal should be descriptive of the individual type of instruction task. For example, 'Language Arts' is not descriptive, it should breakdown the skill into individual instructional tasks. A descriptive Concept would look like, 'Develop 3-Word Sentences'.
Description of Task Being Measured: The task description must be very specific to when, where, and how the Description of Task Being Measured. An example of a descriptive task is, 'Student will create and compose a three word sentence in during small group instruction with no more than 2 prompts.
Baseline: Give the students a 5 trial of the instructional task. Then complete the average of that task trial, and use that information as your baseline information .
Rec. & Exp. - Teachers will circle whether they are instructing the task receptively (by having the student point or show the teacher the correct answer) or expressively (by having the student orally give the answers.)
Date - The date will be use to determine, not only how long it takes the student to complete the task, but it will also give the teacher the idea of who the student is being successful or not successful with certain locations and/or staff members. (paraprofessionals, teacher assistants, teachers, parent volunteers, etc.)
Correct: This section is for the number of correct times the student completes the task. In this example a tally would be made for every independent 3-word sentence the student completes.
Incorrect: This section is for the number of correct times the student completes the task incorrectly. In this example a tally would be made for every independent 3-word sentence the student completes incorrectly. 
-Suggestion - When using the data sheet, 5 trials per seating shows the students true understanding of the concept. 
Average: The average will be determined each time the trials are completed by taking the correct number of the trials and dividing that number by five. 
Behavior Observation: This is one of the most important parts of this instructional data sheet. Teachers can use the blank to describe students behaviors, strategies that did or did not work, etc. This information will allow anyone who is working with the students to have upfront information about what instructional tips work for that student.  
Maintenance: At this point the teacher has either filled the data sheet or the student has met the goal for consecutive trails on three different data days. If they students had completed this goal, then the task will go into maintenance. (Please see the  post on maintenance data collection.) 
If not, students will continue the same goal on an additional tally sheet. 

The data tally sheet works well with any academic instructional task. The importance of using data collection sheets, such as the one above, is key to understanding the instructional needs of your students and how to academically  move them forward.

Don't forget - Comments and questions are always welcome! We need to move our students forward academically together. 

Thanks for stopping by, 
Emily 

Creating a Data-Based Essential Skills Classroom

The definition of an Essential Skills classroom is a classroom based on a student focused curriculum in the areas pf functional life skills. The Essential Skills classroom is one that identifies the needs for students with severe disabilities that impact their daily life and education. Data collection is the single most important form of information gathered during instruction. 

When I started in the Essential Skills classroom, my experience was from the ground up. I was a single teacher in a classroom of 13 students with significant disabilities, and I had 9 capable Para-Educators in my classroom. I was lucky to have the capable and experience Para-Educators on my side, but building a data based classroom where data was not previously used, is a large project. Deciding how to create your data protocol takes time, and it is also beneficial to have baseline completed when beginning the structure.  

Take a look at some of the tips below:

Setting Up Data Binders - Essential Skills 

                Data Collection is a teacher’s best tool when monitoring student progress, concept mastery, and retention.  To create a fluid system in the classroom, teachers need to think about their population, environment, and structure.  Teachers in an Essential Skills (Low Incidence, Cross-Catagorical) classroom have an enormous about of data to keep track of and continually monitor. The following system of creating a Data Binder will encourage an organizational system for all areas addressed in the Essential Skills classroom. 

Take a look at the teacher’s pre-work to create skills concepts:

1.       Identify all student goals. Breakdown the goals into individual concepts and order them according to their foundational skills. (i.e. single digit addition before double digit addition)

2.       Create data sheets that will address the concepts you have identified. 

a.       Note: As you are completing diagnostics and learning the student’s skills, you may discover additional concepts. Create a data sheet for those concepts as well. 

3.       Identify how you will address and teach those concepts. 

a.       Utilizing Task Boxes, computer programs, and direction instruction. 

4.       Create your binder!

This process builds as you work with your students. The binder is a working document through the time of instruction.  It is important for the teacher to organize a system of implementation for the concepts as well. Due to the fact that the Essential Skills classroom engages students of multiple disabilities and learning levels, it is important to have a systematic, organized instruction structure in place. This structure should include practice of the routines with prompting and needed and quickly faded.  The sample structure below gives teachers an organized plan for instruction of multiple levels of learning at one time, while also giving students as much independence as possible when working on the concept isolated for them. 

The first piece includes determining when and how you will instruction on the concepts. For the ParaEducators, it is important to give them an idea of the concepts for the student as well; especially since there implementation of the instruction is usually consistent with the students in which they are assigned.  

Example of student’s instruction breakdowns for the week would go in the front of the student binder for easy access for staff members working with that student. The concepts listed in the boxes above are those identified by the teacher through IEP goals and diagnostic tools. In the Essential Skills classrooms the concepts are foundational building blocks that build upon one another, therefore the skills will not often change. 

 Bell Ringers – A Bell Ringer is an activity that the students will participate in at they enter the classroom. (as the bell is ringing and time to change activities is approaching) This is an activity that can give the students some independence in their learning. However, completing a Bell Ringer and the routine of doing so must be taught. For more information on Bell Ringers in the Essential Skills Classroom, click the link. 

Behind the Bell Ringers are where the data sheets are stored. It is important to share your organization structure of the data binders with all staff who will be working with them for fluidity. 

Mathematics (red)

Addition Single Digit 

Double Digit

(Multi-Digit – re-grouping/decimal)

Subtraction (Multi-Digit – re-grouping/decimal

  SAME

Money (add./sub., like/unlike, $/coins)

                Rounding to the next dollar 

Time – Time to the hour

                Time to the half hour

                Time to the 15 minute intervals

                Time to the minute

Elapsed -to the hour

                  To the half hour

                  To the 15 minute intervals

Measurement - inch and half inch

            Measuring Cups

         Thermometer

Calculator (+/-/x/÷)

Multiplication – single digit 

Word Problems (one-step, two-step)

Communication Arts (green)

Reading Fluency

Reading Comprehension

Capitalization 

Ending Punctuation

Independent Writing Skills

Edmark Packet – if used 

*Dolch Words should be paper clipped and put into the Old Data Form 

Benchmarks (purple)

Reading A-Z Benchmark Sheets – used to move student to the next reading level

Social/Life Skills (blue)

Nutritional Facts 

Environmental Sight Words 

Fire Drill Completion

Following Directions

Maintenance pages (orange)

These pages list concepts that have been mastered by the student. The concepts are checked weekly for retention. 

Old Data Pages (yellow)

  The Data Binder – Essential Skills Table of Contents

The sample Data Binder Table of Contents includes some of the concepts that may identified for students in the Essential Skills classroom. Not all students would have the same concepts on data sheets in their binders.  Additionally the concepts themselves would be specific to the needs of that particular student. For example, while one student may have writing a simple sentence as his independent writing data sheet concept, another in the same class may have writing his name as his independent writing data sheet concept. This is an example of how the process truly is individualized. 

As you thinking about your students, their needs, and beginning to set up your binders, take a look at the pictures below as examples for creating a classroom environment conducive for the individualized, data-driven classroom.

The Boxes included the student’s Data Binder and manipulatives they may need to complete the data-driven concepts. The students take these binders with them to each location in which they would work. 

The Station Cards tell the students exactly what their tasks are for that class period. This serves as a reminder for routine, while giving the students monitored independence in their schedule. The cards include Bell Ringer (which all students complete with in the first 5-7 minutes of the class period), teacher and Paras names, computer program names, etc. 

The front end work of setting up this systematic approach for both the Data Binders and the classroom routine and organization will not only save the teacher time, but will also provide appropriate and on target reports for students skills and levels of mastery. 

Please comment below with additional questions and ideas! Let us know what works best for you in the Essential Skills setting.

Emily 

Follow this link to Essential Edification's TpT store to download data sheets!

Essential Edification TpT