MSM 469: HashTag, HashTag, We got your HashTags!
Jokes:
The Gene Pool:
I have a friend who wants to buy a boat. However, he doesn’t have a place to dock it.
- Yep, I have a friend without pier.
I don’t usually tell dad jokes,
- but when I do, he laughs
Have you heard about the new snail racing sport in France?
- It’s called NASCARgo
Why did the housecleaner put a bottle of Coke in the oven?
- The housecleaner was told that baking soda can clean an oven.
If you don’t like musical puns…
- You have my symphony.
I just realized my kitchen countertop is made of marble.
- I’ve been taking it for granite for all these years.
I have a friend who is very afraid of misspelling texts. He’s been looking up symptoms on the internet.
- You could say my friend is a typochondriac.
If you adjust your posture….
- Do you stand corrected?
Middle School Science Minute
by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)
I was recently reading the Spring 2020 issue of “The Concord Consortium,” a publication of the Concord Consortium.
In this issue, I read an article written by Chad Dorsey. The title of the article was “Perspective: Environments for Coherent, Inquiry-based Learning.”
Robust simulation environments can foster coherent, inquiry-based learning. Indeed, many topics and phenomena are simply not accessible for inquiry in the science classroom—they may be too large or too small, demand timescales that are too long or too short, or require conditions that are too dangerous to create in a school laboratory setting. In such cases, technology is essential. However, while individual simulations can illustrate a phenomenon, far too often they do little more than that—provide an illustrative animation. There is another way.
Concord Consortium
Reports from the Front Lines
- Making Plans to Return to School – Now is the time to prepare!
- Plan for a full year of distance learning. Even if we don’t.
- Create contingency plans that include face-to-face lesson design in case we are able to go back to a regular classroom environment.
- Seek out teachers who have the remote learning puzzle figured out and learn from them.
- Consider curriculum options already online.
- Push back on unreasonable expectations by the administration.
- Plan for a full year of distance learning. Even if we don’t.
- Suggestions for Distance Learning:
- Start the online experience like it is the first day of class again. Establish norms.
- Remember they will have additional home responsibilities.
- Make social interaction a priority.
- You don’t need to use 100% of your online time in direct instruction.
- Limit the amount of messaging that goes home. Parents could get overwhelmed.
- Designing a “learning space” at home:
- Avoid windows
- Avoid noisy areas & distracting environments
- Swivel chair if possible
- Headphones, please
- Middle School Principles: This We Believe – Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (2010).
- We value young adolescents and are prepared to teach them.
- We must engage our students and ourselves in active purposeful learning.
- Our curriculum is challenging, explorative, integrative, and relevant.
- We use multiple learning and teaching approaches.
- We create varied and ongoing assessments that advance learning as well as measure it.
The Twitterverse
Brittany Washburn @BrittanyWTweets
Distance Learning Idea: “Research Assignment” Internet Scavenger Hunt
https://t.co/9mXLfI3ivy?amp=1 or http://www.brittanywashburn.com/2020/05/3-types-of-internet-scavenger-hunts-to.html
Cameras don’t work well and a broadcast pedagogy will not work for remote students. #PBL is the only hope of having S’s on and off-campus do similarly engaging work.
Quote Tweet
Rob Elliott @robiupui
I cannot teach a course with half of the students in a socially-distanced classroom and half in a Zoom room simultaneously. People think I’m being a crank. Am I a crank, #AcademicTwitter ? Show this thread
Look for your host, Todd Bloch, to have a middle school topic all ready to go! Make it a strategic part of your personal professional development.
Resources:
Matt Miller – Ditch That Textbook – Remote Learning 101
Free online course in 15-ish modules to get you ready for remote learning. Comes at the right price and with a certificate at the end of the course.
https://ditch.teachable.com/p/remote-learning-101
Activity Sheets
The activities below are available for free download, and are to be used in educational and/or private settings. They may not be used elsewhere or for other purposes (such as for profit) unless explicit permission is granted.
Below will find: Blank Comic Book Pages, Special Activities, “How to Draw…” Instructions, “Finish This Comic!” Comics, and Drawing/Writing Prompts.
Choose Your Own Fake News
Choose Your Own Fake News is an interactive “choose your own adventure” game. Play the game as Flora, Jo or Aida from East Africa, and navigate the world of disinformation and misinformation through the choices you make. Scrutinize news and information about job opportunities, vaccines and upcoming elections to make the right choices!
https://chooseyourownfakenews.com/
Web Spotlight:
#Hashtag180 Your Classroom
WHY: To Improve Student Learning Experiences.
#Hashtag180 began as one fifth grade science teacher’s journey to enhance and supplement curriculum. It grew into: Hashtag A Community Around Your Curriculum.
HOW: See: How To Hashtag North Carolina Science Essential Standards and North Carolina Curriculum Hashtags.Tweet one experience on each of the 180 school days of the year, and hashtag it with your learning objective and #hashtag180.
UPDATE: Also see: #Hashtag180 Central, including: Look Out for Learning and Hashtagging ISTE Student Standards
WHO: ALL Educators
WHAT: The #Hashtag180 Challenge was originally designed for educators to access and share learning resources very specifically by tweeting life and classroom experiences, hashtagged with learning objectives and #Hashtag180. Where does it go from here? The possibilities are endless…
WHERE: #Hashtag180
Random Thoughts . . .
Personal Web Site
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