MSM 315: The Darwin Letter Writing of Verbal Cursive
Jokes You Can Use:
Why does a chicken coops have 2 doors?
- If it had 4 doors it would be a sedan
How do you make a Kleenex dance?
- Put a little boogie in it.
Did you hear about the cheese factory that exploded in France?
- All that was left was de Brie.
What did one fish say to the other fish in the tank?
- Do you know how to drive this thing?
Did you hear about Sam? He got fired from his job in the calendar factory.
- He took a few days off
Did you hear about the inventor of LifeSavr’s?
- He made a mint.
Who is Irish and sits on the lawn?
- Paddy O’Furniture
What’s the difference between a poorly dressed man on a tricycle and well dressed man on a bicycle?
- Attire
Advisory:
Why do people talk weird in old time movies?
It’s not quite British, and it’s not quite American – so what gives? Why do all those actors of yesteryear have such a distinct and strange accent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv_IkO_ZBU
Trick your brain into seeing color in a black and white photo
Perception is a fickle thing. As good as our senses are at keeping us alive, they can often mislead and deceive us. Here’s a great example of that which you can try at home, featured in the new BBC Four series, Colour: The Spectrum of Science.
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/image-can-trick-your-brain-and-make-you-see-it-color
Middle School Science Minute
by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)
Lab Safety — Backpacks
I was recently reading the March, 2015 issue of “Science Scope,” a magazine written for middle school science teachers, published by the National Science Teachers Association.
In this issue, I read the column, “Scope on Safety” written by Ken Roy. Within the column is the popular “Question of the Month.” This month’s question is:
“Besides potential trip-and-fall hazards, what other things should I be concerned about if students are allowed to bring backpacks into the lab?”
From the Twitterverse:
| Maria Popova @brainpicker
Jane Austen’s advice on writing, in letters to her teenage niece http://buff.ly/1lAMt0Y |
| Diane Ravitch @DianeRavitch
John Thompson: The Gates Foundation Never Listens to Teachers, Unless They Endorse the Gates’ Experiments http://dianeravitch.net/2015/11/21/john-thompson-the-gates-foundationnever-listens-to-teachers-unless-they-endorse-the-gates-experiments … |
| Larry Ferlazzo @Larryferlazzo
My co-author & I r spending week editing galley proofs of our next book,Navigating Common Core w/ ELLs.Out in March
|
| Gary G. Abud, Jr. @MR_ABUD
Hacking Feedback: The Bookends https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2015/11/18/hacking-feedback-the-bookends/ … via @TeachingChannel @mr_mccomb #miched #edchat #sblchat |
| MindShift @MindShiftKQED
Exploring the Idea of ‘Happiness’ As Part of School Work http://ow.ly/UU6CV #edchat #noncog #teaching |
| #mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!” |
Strategies:
Gamification
Game based learning in the classroom should not be worksheets with points. It should be engaging and exciting. Here are eight ways to level up game based learning. Because, face it, many educational “games” fall short. Chocolate on broccoli. That is what many educators call these games that fall short of what great gaming can be.
- Make Your Whole Class a Game Experience
- Engage with Minecraft: Let Kids Build in the Sandbox
- Build a Game Experience into Learning: Live It and Learn It
- Play Games for Social Good: Have a Point, Don’t Just Earn Them
- Game Based Platforms for Learning
- Experience Learning: Immerse Yourself in the Experience
- Go Offline or Outside: You Don’t Need Tech to Teach
- Create Solutions as You Learn: Gifts from the Hour of Code
http://www.coolcatteacher.com/game-based-learning-in-the-classroom/
Word Nerd: Make the Connection
Create a Keynote (or PowerPoint) that provides three to five pictures about a vocab word you want to introduce. Kids brainstorm the connections between the pictures to derive the vocabulary word, and display the word with the pictures at the end of the run. Next slide . . .
Resources:
Google Expeditions
Virtual field trips.
https://www.google.com/edu/expeditions/
Do it on your own:
http://friedtechnology.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-get-google-expeditions-via.html
Web Spotlight:
YouCaring
(https://www.youcaring.com/): Compassionate Crowdsourcing, 0% overhead.
Voices of History
The Bill of Rights Institute consistently provides quality, primary-source based resources to civics educators across the country. Voices of History gives you the opportunity to access six of our best curricula, online, anytime, free of charge. Looking for a lesson on the Constitutional Convention? Simply type your terms in the search bar and a plethora of options will appear for you. Need to narrow it down to Thomas Jefferson’s role? You can filter your search by a number of options providing the simplest, most effective way to find exactly what you need with the click of a button.
https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/voices-history/
Random Thoughts . . .