Adding Mystery and Intrigue to Your SMART Notebook Lessons: Boxes and Screen Shade

Which of these normal, everyday slides from a normal, everyday Notebook lesson grab more of your attention?

What's behind those squares?

You can take the content you already have created in SMART Notebook (or PowerPoint for that matter) and up the interactivity of your lesson in a matter of seconds. By using the Screen Shade or boxes to cover text, images, or writing, you give opportunities for students to:

Predict...

• what's next in a story
• the next step in a mathematical solution
• connections between two ideas
• meaning of new words in context

Signal importance - I feel like my students skim over or miss even the bold words in texts, sometime, so I like that some books highlight, but you can even go the next step and emphasis with a box. 

Focus - When I'm hoping that I say the right words to communicate a concept to a student in the 30 seconds I have their attention, the LAST thing I want is for them to be focusing on something ELSE related to the lesson on the SMARTboard.

The greatest ally to misunderstanding in math class is misinformation. 

"You wrote it on the board, and you said..."
"Yes, but not at the same time..."

Encourage interactivity - that kid may not want to write a lick of the information you're sharing, but you better believe you may entice them with a chance to drag a box.

Now you've got, "Remember when you went to the SMARTboard and moved the boxes? That's what you need to use right now," in your back pocket, even though its surely no where on a piece of paper. :)

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HOW TO...
Screen Shade:

Between boxes or Screen Shade, the easiest of the two to implement would be the shade. Pull up your content, put up the shade, and drag to reveal. I use this most often in my Algebra class to ask, "What do you think I did next?"

The Screen Shade icon

Drag at your own speed...

Boxes

Using boxes is a bit more complicated, but FAR more customizable. Here I've used boxes to cover up the solution to an example I grabbed from my online texbook using the screen capture tool (the camera icon)

5 Reasons I Was A Better Teacher My First Year

I was a better* teacher my first year. Here's why.

Such enthusiasm. A world where I still flipped up my hair in the front (and pulled it off.) 

1. First year teachers will try anything.

If you were anything like me, you were always willing to lend an ear to someone with a different strategy for illustrating properties of equality, tactfully contacting parents of difficult students, increasing engagement, or establishing routines. The further I get into my teaching career, the less willing I feel to take a new tip.

2. First year teachers don't have bad experiences and classroom baggage.

Remember that first student who tried to drive you bananas? The first time you felt like an administrator didn't support you? The first time your perfect lesson bombed? The first time your students disappointed you? The first time you disappointed your students? Ever wish you didn't? The longer we teach, the more we have to forgive, the shorter memory we require, and the greater courage we muster to put ourselves out there again.

3. First year teachers "wing it" less.

Before you start to feel like a vet, there are those 1,2,3 years where you don't. Where planning ahead isn't a luxury and "good professional practice" - it's a necessity just to get through your lessons.

Now that the level of structure and planning is on my terms, I know that proper planning for instruction really is best, and that my worst days teaching usually come on the days I'm least prepared. My students are less focused, my transitions take longer, and fewer students are engaged. Granted, winging it is helpful for the days you're distracted by family demands at home or you're a bit under the weather, but prepping like a rookie usually keeps my teaching fresh.

4. First year teachers follow policies. (For better or worse).

As ridiculous, redundant, or reactionary as some of the bureaucratic hoops we have to jump through may be, by George, I was minding my ps and qs my first year. Some teachers are more likely to take one for the team and go through the motions than others, but even the most defiantly natured first year teacher will follow more policies. And sometimes (often?) following these policies really is best for maintaining school environment and student expectations.

5. First year teachers don't know what doesn't work.

This is connected some to #1, but because I didn't know what strategies "didn't" work, I was willing to try. I was amazed at the (proven) effective strategies from the Marzano group. I expected everything I picked up from PD expert my school brought in to work. (Sadly) I believed then that every PD my district would offer me was going to change me life. (And maybe it did because I believed it would.) This sometimes results in ineffective lessons I can avoid with more experience, but there's something to be said for the power of a positive attitude and an open mind.

We entered the city golf-cart Christmas Parade for Math Club. I'd label that under "crazy" these days. We're not Minnesota, but golf-carts on December 5th is still too cold.

*I say "better" because these are qualities of a good teacher that are inherent to new teachers that overcome other inadequacies. If we keep these qualities as we add experience, we slide into that professional growth sweet-spot. Master teachers are made.

What about your first year experience do you wish you'd hung on to? What are you most glad is over?

Writing with Tech: Marzano "Chalk Talk" for Summarizing, Similarities and Differences

We've recently just finished solving systems of inequalities in my Algebra 2 class. Without really know what that means, its only important to know that there are many similarities between systems of inequalities and systems of equations in the manner with which you set them up to solve, and only a few distinct, but important, differences.

I knew several of my students felt like the inequalities was another example of the course seemingly doing something "new" every week or two, and I knew some of my students were really making the connection between the two, so I took a day to take advantage of the knowledge gap and practice some summarizing skills in small groups.

This activity was loosely based on what I thought I saw as a Marzano high-yield strategy called "Chalk Talk." I can no longer find any linked reference between "Marzano strategies" and "chalk talk," but here's a document that IS somewhat similar in explanation from The League of Professional Schools.

Lesson:

Day 3 of Solving Systems of Inequalities
This would have been Day 2, but I had not previously reviewed graphing linear inequalities yet in this course (where it was supposed to be in Chapter 2), so I tacked on a day here in Chapter 3 because I always felt like I was reteaching them anyway.

Do Now: (about 7 minutes)
Students came in, took out what was supposed to be their homework from the night before on systems of inequalities, and I played this video in which I'd worked out some solutions.

A couple of hours I just let the video play and allowed some talking amongst the kids about things they were noticing while I took care of administrative things, a couple hours I stopped it every once in awhile and had kids respond with what the next step would be.

Chalk Talk: (5 minutes)
Because this was the first time trying it out, I didn't want to invest too much technology-time getting the kids set up, so I did this step with Post-Its. Accomplishing this step with each group in a Google Doc would be simple as well.

There were two things I loved about this activity. I randomly distributed the group numbers around the room, forcing at least half of the class to move in order to sit with their numbers, and many students who had never worked together shared wonderfully together. It disappointed me that I hadn't switched them up sooner. Secondly, the last, summarizing step was a happy accident of scaffolding. Some of the groups basically regurgitated back a list of things they had all compiled, and some groups' writers spent several minutes writing wonderful paragraphs and being very thoughtful about using descriptive, math vocabulary.

Sharing and Conclusion: (10 minutes)
As the groups read, I put things I was hearing up on the SMARTboard.

You'll probably notice that a few things would up on both sides of the chart - a confusion I wasn't even aware of. It was helpful for me to see that and for the group that put it (incorrectly) on the similarities side to have the uh-oh moment after the other groups put it as a difference.

Tech Adaptations for YOU:

Charting the class list of similarities differences could have been done as a Google Doc, on the SMARTboard, with a document camera and a projector, or even just a whiteboard/big poster (but then the kids wouldn't be able to access later.)

A good conclusion activity for interactive notebooks/portfolios could be a reflective piece on how/why some things ended up on both sides, or something the student learned/strengthened as a result of seeing others' thoughts

This could serve as an introduction to systems of inequalities with a webquest, book reading assignment, or video completed prior to the post-it note silent writing time.