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1 Essential Step for Effective Co-Teaching

2/26/2015

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An old proverb says, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” As more hands participate in the completion of a task, the roles and responsibilities can become blurred. Whose job is it to be the head cook? Who has to scrub the pots and pans? Who gets to add the spice? Who cleans up the mess?

A similar confusion can occur in a co-taught classroom. Two teachers, often with years of solo experience, must find a way to share or divide responsibilities to achieve the best student outcomes. This process is complicated by a number of factors, such as:
  • Ego
  • Philosophy of education
  • Values
  • Personal and Professional Goals
  • Cognitive Style
  • Sense of Time

Explicit communication about roles and responsibilities is essential to success. Partners who fail to engage in this discussion often report frustration over a lack of parity.

The Co-Teaching Responsibility Checklist offers partners a structure for discussing the many responsibilities that arise throughout the instructional cycle. Decisions reached by using this structured checklist are not lodged in cement, but can be reexamined as the year progresses. Teams can adapt this form to add the unique tasks associated with their co-taught class.


For additional information, read Co-Teaching that Works: Strucutes and Strategies for Maximizing Student Learning, or attend an upcoming seminar sponsored by www.ber.org


Upcoming seminar cities include:
March 16 Rochester, NY
March 17 Newark, NJ
March 18 Long Island, NY
March 19 Burlington, VT
March 20 Detroit, MI


April 20 Atlanta, GA
April 21 Houston, TX
April 22 Dallas, TX
April 23 Tulsa, OK
April 24 Phoenix, AZ

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Persuasive Writing with WOW Factor

2/25/2015

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“To Sell is Human,” claims Daniel Pink in his book with the same title. Everyone is selling something – an idea, a hope, a rule, etc. What do students sell? My partners and I considered this question and decided that students frequently try to sell a peer on their favorite book. To make this process more authentic and engaging, we had students develop a sales pitch and added augmented reality for Wow factor.

How to:

·      First, students created a Book Talk in written form. We asked for a hook, a brief summary, a counterargument and a close – about 7 – 10 sentences.  When read aloud, the average time was 1 minute.

·      Students then rehearsed with a partner, adding expression and gestures.

·      Small groups worked together to videotape each other giving their Book Talk.

·      Students then used the free Aurasma app to turn their video into an overlay or aura. Next, they took a photo of the book cover and used it as a trigger. This means that when anyone scans the book cover with Aurasma, up pops the video sales pitch for the book.

·      Finally, Aurasma stickers were placed on the book spines. Now, when students are looking for a book in the library, they can scan with Aurasma and listen to a persuasive book talk. 



Here's a photo of me demonstrating to students what it looks like when you scan and the video sales pitch pops up.

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Focusing a Personal Narrative

2/24/2015

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Personal narratives are best when they capture a moment in time and help the reader to experience it fully. The challenge for teachers is helping students to narrow their topic so that they don’t write a “bed-to-bed” story.

After students chose a day they wanted to write about, we used a clock face as a planning tool. Students broke the day into 12 one-hour segments. Then students starred one of the hours that was most interesting. Using another clock face, they broke the hour into 4 fifteen-minute segments, and again starred one segment that was most interesting.

Next, we taught a “slow motion writing strategy” to slow down even a short amount of time.  For example, we had each student write down, “They threw the ball.” Using the iPad app SloPro, we videotaped students throwing a ball, then viewed it in slow motion. Students were asked to rewrite the original sentence, adding more detail based on what they saw in slow motion. One student wrote “He quickly glanced at the catcher, cocked his arm back, aimed with precision and let the ball fly off his finger tips.”

Finally we had students think of a simple action they might include in their personal narrative, i.e. “I hit the piñata.” Then they practiced envisioning it in slow motion and rewriting it with greater descriptive detail, i.e. “I gripped the bat tightly, threw my hips into it and swung at that stubborn piñata with all my might.”

Using the time continuum (12 hours to 1 hour to 15 minutes to 1 slow motion minute) really made sense to the students and helped them to write a focused but rich personal narrative.

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Are you Generationally Savvy in your Co-Teaching?

2/12/2015

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Jennifer Abrams, author of The Multigenerational Workplace, explores the issues of a working and collaborating with peers of a different age.

We may have millennials who will have many different careers partnered with Boomers who are single-career oriented. We  may have millennials who have a multi-tasking approach to work co-teaching with Boomers who find multi-tasking rude. We may have Xers with blunt communication styles working with Millennials who can be more sensitive. How do we create partnerships that honor a wide range of beliefs and behaviors?

The first step is to become aware of the common profiles associated with people of different generations. Check out this document from Abrams work that includes a table of comparisons.



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Make Dice

2/10/2015

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Add a bit of novelty to your instruction by using the Make Dice app for iPad. This simple app lets you design the six faces of a die, placing either text or photos on each face, and choosing from 6 background colors. The dice appear on a board and can be rolled by tilting the iPad. You can have several dice on the board simultaneously. $2.99 in the App Store. 

Use this in teaching for 
  • selecting students to read their writing
  • linking application tasks to vocabulary
  • adding the five senses to writing
  • discussing one of the themes of geography
  • choosing a web tool to explore
  • deciding who gets to go first
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    Anne M. Beninghof

    Anne's mission is to improve instruction through collaboration and the sharing of creative, practical ideas for educators.

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