Instructional Sites

All these links were researched by S. Porter EOU, I wanted to make them readily available for everyone.

Instructional Strategies 1

Instructional Strategies 2

Lessons

Games
I did a little research on the following:
Instructional strategies that might give some people some ideas!
Instructional Strategies A
Instructional Strategies B
Instructional Strategies C
Instructional Strategies D
Instructional Strategies E
Instructional Strategies F

Literacy at Work With Graphic Organizers

Graphic Organizer for Ch. 9 in our ED 521 Literacy text

Graphic organizers are a great way for students to learn material and I wanted to be able to implement this strategy in my future classes. Surprised, is all I can say about how well this graphic organizer helped me to divide the chapter into smaller more specific groups. There was a better understanding given to me by being able to see the content organized in group fashion. The chapter made more sense now than it did when I first read it. I wish I would have known more about how graphic organizers worked so that I could have used them on previous chapters. I am a better visual learner and the information formed a more coherent whole. This is a great strategy for your visual learners that need learn by seeing instead of just aurally!

A Word to the Wise!!!

Teaching a class full of Middle School students when you are sick and exhausted. Your lesson will be choppy and the kids will not get a full understanding of the content.

I experienced this recently and had to re-teach the lesson the next day. It also happened to be the day that my university supervisor dropped in to do an observation. Double whammy! Things were going well, the lesson was planned out and homework was given, but the next day we had the math class, every student was unclear on some of the aspects of graphing lines with the slope-intercept form equations.

When people are sick, you just cannot think as straight and on top of your toes as you think you are, and it will show if you are trying to teach somebody something. My university supervisor and cooperating teacher had suggested after the lesson was over, to have things efficiently planned out so that you do not have to think so much off the top of your head. My cooperating teacher recommended doing worksheets or student-led activities that were relevant to the content that we were studying as to not totally waste a day.

I learned a valuable lesson if I must come to school a little sick and out of it. If you get sick either stay home or print out some activities that are relevant to your content.

Using Math Cross Curricular-Wise With Health Standards

This type of strategy can be used in any content area. I will use an example that I made up in our Health Standards classes I was involved in. I wanted to incorporate mathematics into the health standards, it was a daunting task to say the least. Teachers just have to be creative and relate the material to the students. An example I used was decision making when having a new baby.

The prompt that I wrote addressed that the student and their spouse just had baby and it is going to cost them 15000 the first year. The students have to calculate the total finances it is going to cost over the next fifteen years if each year after the first year it costs about 5149 a year. They have to graph the results and then write a short couple of paragraphs on how they will deal with this financial obligation. What if twins were born?

This really helps students learn about real-life situations and makes mathematics real. As a teacher I really learned how to listen to radio, television, and other media to make new math projects and equations for students to build off of and make the math come to them.

Dig in we are almost done!

Students show you their knowledge!

What is up?

Hope everyone is surviving!

I wanted to talk about a strategy that works well in math and can see it working in many other content areas.

I observed a teacher use individual white boards for every student to answer math equations that were written on the board. The students would do the problem on their individual board and then show the teacher and the teacher would be able to give immediate feedback on errors and praise for doing well on problems.

I like this strategy because students do problems at different times and a teacher can glance around the room and give immediate feedback and do informal assessment to where certain kids are at in the content area. If a number of students made the same error, the teacher can go back and focus on the step where students are having problems. The teacher does have to be careful to not let the students get too out of control. I plan on implementing this strategy in my future classroom, the students enjoy it and the teacher has a chance to interact with students in a less stressful environment.

Thanks for all your great comments!

Students never act how you think they are going to act!

I took over an algebra class in the high school. The class is the last class of school and the kids tend to be a little rowdy and do not follow directions very well. I was very nervous that this class was going to be out of control and not willing to participate in class discussion.

Much to my lack of faith, the students were very willing and attentive. I had volunteers to answer questions and they worked quietly when the class assignment was given. I had even noticed that one student that was taking notes, this is something that I had not seen when the actual teacher was teaching.

I made sure that I was confident in the material and was able to give instruction fluently so that the students did not have excessive time to get off task. Also, if they got off task, I made sure to get them back on task, it worked very well. So, I have learned to have more confidence and not judge what students are going to be like when they have never been taught by me. Lesson learned! Phew!

Daily Warm-Up Quiz!

The students always grumble and moan when they enter the room and there is a daily quiz on the board. The grumbling often dissipates and they usually start working on it quietly soon after they enter the room. Some tips for everyone out there that thinks they might want to do a daily quiz.

First, it is not really daily, maybe two three times a week depending on the content covered. More quizzes on the harder material to effectively see where everyone's understanding is. Material included can be one or two lessons prior to quiz, again depending on the content.

Second, make the quiz relatively short so that they may take 5 minutes to take and then a couple minutes to correct and answer any questions. To long of a quiz might run into your lesson.

Lastly, you can make it formal or informal, keep the students effort up by grading some or just see what material needs more review. This keeps the students honest and on their toes, also have them correct with highlighters, so the teacher can do a quick check and see how many problems are being missed.

Students like doing work on the board! Who Knew?!

I just taught an Algebra I class and used some of the same strategies that my cooperating teacher used. One strategy in particular is having students do homework assignments on the board. My cooperating teacher usually picks the students for certain problems, but I chose to ask for 7 volunteers and I was able to get volunteers better than I thought. There was less grumbling and the whole class was willing to go up and show there work on the board. They did very well and I then went over what went well and if there were mistakes I showed the class what the mistake was. The students did very well with this strategy, and I plan on using this type of instruction to help me see where the students understanding of the content is. Oh, and this was sort of the warm-up that started the class, very effective!

Strategies That Work

Just a heads up to all teachers out there. I know not all schools have technology to take advantage of, but when the opportunity presents itself, get on the bandwagon. Technology such as clickers and interactive white boards can be very effective in a classroom. I used the clickers to informally assess the students and I was able to get a much better understanding of where the students were. Also, the students were much more involved in the lesson. This is a great supplement to any curriculum. The uses are numberless and can be used across all content areas and grade levels. I have been very fortunate to have learned and used this technology in my classroom.