Friday, May 15, 2015

Thinglink!

I'm experimenting with Thinglink for a workshop on technology tools. Kind of like Glogster or Voicethread, but a cleaner look and a bit simpler to use. I easily created this one with a picture from my photos.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

S.M.A.R.T. Reading Goals in Middle School, Part One

I've been working with a group of seventh and eighth grade co-teachers in ELA and reading teachers on student goal setting for reading. We started with having students write in journals about personal experiences with goal setting: either a goal they met or a goal they didn't succeed in meeting. There was such an array of goals from improving in parcours to becoming a chef to quitting nail biting. We created an anchor chart about what helps us meet our goals. We connected that conversation to goal setting in reading, teaching students categories they could use to select reading goals from the CAFE menu. (I'm such a fan of the Daily Cafe web site!!)

After students selected a goal area for themselves, we taught a lesson about growth mindset and referred back to our anchor chart on what helps us meet our goals.We used clips from Eduardo Briceno's TED talk and this brief video from the University of California to introduce the idea of mindset, but I haven't found a video that I love for growth mindset yet. (Someone needs to make one!)

The next step was to teach a mini-lesson on writing SMART goals. I introduced the idea with this Edutopia video clip to a teacher for her own knowledge. I was a bit surprised when she suggested showing it to the students, but it ended up being a short way to introduce what each letter in the acronymn stands for. Since it shows a fifth grade class, I made sure to emphasize to the seventh and eighth grade students before showing the video that we see SMART goal setting in college and in the working world. More on what happened to come!