100% participation - always an instructional goal of mine - happened today thanks to TodaysMeet.com. TodaysMeet allows anyone to set up a temporary chat room (free!) where students can share their ideas and questions with each other. Quick and easy to set up, and just as quick and easy to join in, a teacher could decide to use this website without any advance preparation.
Today I used the site to have students share sentences that included our social studies vocabulary terms in a variety of contexts. Our current unit is on economics, so terms included incentives, opportunity cost, etc. The photo shows a screenshot of some of their entries.
Some students quickly entered their sentences. This allowed others to see examples that sparked their thinking. Because all of the students knew that their work would be visible, they were a bit more motivated to check their spelling and grammar (although still not perfect!) As a group, we went through the sentences and discussed which worked and which needed tweaking, making sure that everyone really understood the terms.
Warning - to join a classroom, all you must do is enter a name. This means that a student could choose to enter a fictitious name and type inappropriate comments. Be sure to review appropriate use guidelines before you begin.
Today I used the site to have students share sentences that included our social studies vocabulary terms in a variety of contexts. Our current unit is on economics, so terms included incentives, opportunity cost, etc. The photo shows a screenshot of some of their entries.
Some students quickly entered their sentences. This allowed others to see examples that sparked their thinking. Because all of the students knew that their work would be visible, they were a bit more motivated to check their spelling and grammar (although still not perfect!) As a group, we went through the sentences and discussed which worked and which needed tweaking, making sure that everyone really understood the terms.
Warning - to join a classroom, all you must do is enter a name. This means that a student could choose to enter a fictitious name and type inappropriate comments. Be sure to review appropriate use guidelines before you begin.
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