M-TRACT

Summer seems to FLY doesn’t it? Feels like yesterday that you closed your classroom door and here we are – August 21st with September just around the corner. Are you ready to meet your next group of students? I thought this article by Edutopia (linked below) would be of interest to you. Whether you are a veteran or a brand-new teacher, I believe you will find the ideas shared on connecting with students the first week useful. Enjoy 🙂

Edutopia on Connecting with Students the First Week

Have a great year 🙂

Barbara

There’s nothing like giving your students control over their learning. Edutopia has a great article titled “Boosting High School Students’ Sense of Agency and Motivation” by Mary Davenport discussing how “voice and choice in the classroom can build ” students “desire to learn and do well academically.” I’ve linked there article here.

As many of you know Karen and Kim facilitated a great course on The Power of Student Agency which I hope to offer this summer. A description of the course follows:
This course is designed to help educators create an environment where students can be creative and self-directed learners. If we want students to thrive, we need to empower them with the tools to become architects of their own learning. This course aims to walk teachers through the process of designing student-centered inquiry lessons to create learning experiences that leverage student curiosity, encourages exploration, and allows the members of a learning community to learn with and from each other. There will be a strong emphasis on building student agency through choice and voice. Participants will explore the various purposes of utilizing choice, such as encouraging retrieval practice and providing students agency in terms of how they demonstrate their learning. Each module includes resources, templates, and action items designed to encourage teachers to take what they are learning and create resources and lessons they can use with students immediately.

Have a terrific summer!!
Barbara

I’m assuming the ethics discussions in our classrooms are going to be animated. Artificial intelligence is here. How will this effect student work? I can tell you that Turnitin is creating an AI version and it will definitely be needed! Should your students be using AI? Are they already using AI? How will equity be affected? What can AI do for you as a teacher? Time to start your investigation! Here’s an article from THE Journal that can answer some of your questions. Enjoy 🙂 Is ChatGPT the End of Writing? Turnitin Believes It Could Actually Boost Students’ Writing Instruction — THE Journal

How many of us have heard that statement from a student so disappointed in the outcome of an exam. We teach the material, but do we teach them how to study? Here follows a video as well as an Edutopia article on teaching students how to study.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-students-use-evidence-based-studying-strategies

I will never forget one of my Computer Science students (who was an A student in AP Math) telling me that my test wasn’t fair because I had never given them a similar problem. We discussed how real-world problems would not necessarily be familiar ones. He would need to use the tools in his mental toolbox to derive a solution.

This article gives some terrific strategies to give your students “the opportunity to think.”

5 Ways to Stop Thinking for Your Students
https://www.edutopia.org/article/independent-critical-thinking-math

Hi everyone – welcome back!! I am looking forward to working with you this year. Please let me know if there is anything you need from MTRACT as we move forward.

I found a video that I thought may be helpful for some of you as you return to your classrooms. Enjoy 🙂

Another year for many and a first year for some! Congratulations and welcome! Enjoy the following video and hopefully you will find some useful tips 🙂

The Teacher Center forum has shared this very valuable resource created by Dr. Torrey Trust, an associate professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She shares resources that take technology to the next level through choice boards that “enrich the learning experiences of educators and students alike” (https://www.torreytrust.com/home)

I was particularly impressed with the design projects page – https://www.torreytrust.com/design-projects. The following is one example of a Choice Board that ultimately has students do a critical analysis of the coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Critical thinking, research, and evaluation of websites reporting information is crucial to our students in the social media world we live in.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YoqsH0T3xfheEWbdsA1LY8OqZJo_jCCPZo7d1jm6Ixg/edit