The first day of the California Association of Teacher of English 58th annual statewide conference is in the books. This year's conference is focusing on Text and Tech: Blending Tradition with Innovation which all teachers are looking to do in the 21st century classroom. This is my third year attending the conference and I plan to continue attending for as long as I am able.
Troy Hicks, @hickstro on Twitter, kicked off the day with his presentation "With Literacy and Learning for All". You can see it and other great materials from Dr. Hicks by going to his website hickstro.wikispaces.com/. A new tool Dr. Hicks shared I plan to play with more is called Popplet, this tool can be used for digital mind-mapping as well as vocabulary development, or anything you mind can imagine to use it for. The activity I liked best and felt I could incorporate into my classroom practices immediately is the 4C's Collaborative Summary in which students read a text, the example Hicks uses here in his is nonfiction but I think it's suitable for fiction as well. Students then respond to the questions and have discussions and work on building understanding. Connections: What connections can you draw between this idea and others that we have been studying? Challenges: What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you want to challenge or argue against? Concepts: What key concepts or ideas from the text are valuable and worth holding on to? Changes: What changes in attitudes, thinking, or actions are suggested for you or others? What I love about this is the simplicity of it and it reminds me of how good teaching does not have to be chock full of tech stuff. After that I attended a session by Heather Dean from Cal State Stanislaus and she talked about close reading and using tools like Kahoot and Quizizz to reinforce close reading practices. I never thought of using these fun tools in this way and really am motivated to try it. Finally, I attended a session from Jen Roberts @JenRoberts1. She talks really fast but she has great information for those more familiar with GAFE. You can find more from her at LitandTech.com. When I attend these conferences I am always blown away by what other people are doing in their classrooms and it inspires me to do more. Push a little more, work a little smarter/not harder. Tomorrow's Super Session presentation is from Catlin Tucker, Spotlight Sessions from Jon Corippo and Lisa Highfill. I plan to share tomorrow's learning as well.
0 Comments
|
AuthorMy name is Sarah Todd and I teach freshmen and junior English in Southern California. Archives
August 2018
Categories |