Here is something from a colleague and blog member that all of us who are using the Circling with Balls activity need to wrap our minds around and talk about: Ben: It seems as if the Circling with Cards is losing it’s steam and I haven’t gotten to all of the students yet. I can […]
In talking about grading kids, Michele sent in this link: http://prezi.com/axzlriy65i7x/daughertys-bicycles-performance-based-learning/ She was saying how at parents night, she uses this bike analogy applying the process of riding a bike to explain how she grades. My response is that in my confused mind this conflicts with natural emergence of skills as per Krashen. A kid who is stable
For those of you who are just beginning your year (as I am, having just finished day two with my students), I wanted to make a few connections that I somewhat stumbled upon, and have found to be very helpful during these first days. I have realized that you can easily integrate the explicit metacognition
Today I was being interviewed by the Colorado Dep’t. of Education. I mentioned about the Latin New Life Commandos out there kicking up dust and getting it in people’s faces. The interviewer, who proudly told me about her own Latin background, could not keep her eyebrows from moving up and down over her glasses. I also noticed that her socks
This comment/question from Corinne kind of ties in with Angie’s question so I’ll pull it out of the queue and publish it here. I agree with what she says about the jGR. Her question is subtle and I hope we can give her some quality responses in the comment field: Ben, The discussion around the
Got this from Angie. I am assuming this is about a level 1 class: Ben, I’m feeling a ton of pressure to have the students start PRODUCING something. I read about the free writes in the green book and on the blog, but when can I start these, and what do the very first ones
David Talone asks a great question we can all benefit from: I was wondering if you would mind either starting a new thread or bumping one up on ideas to do at Parents Night. I have two parents nights (one middle, one high school) in the coming week. I only have ten minutes with the
Both David and Jim have mentioned here over the past month or so that they are keeping their stories, extended PQA, etc. that they build with their kids limited in details. This is so key. One of the keys to discipline, the major one, is that the kids must feel like they can do it, like
Ben, Jeff here. I’ve been reading mostly and not commenting. Although I have not commented much as of late, I have been enjoying the reading. This past summer I was working on my Italian in Italy. Nothing has convinced me more about the power of CI than trying to improve my abilities. I could see
This article is to pick up on the thread we had in spring and summer here about getting the kids to self reflect on and discuss what it means to do a comprehensible input class: I think we should use David Sceggel’s rubric a lot now. This may be the most important time to get
Chris was talking about how the kids heard from the older kids in the school that they don’t like Pobre Ana. It put Chris in a hard spot. Here are two ideas, Chris, if you have to use Blaine’s novels: Don’t give them the book. Read it folded flat on the document camera. Spin parallel novels
Starting with a YouTube video on any topic interesting to the kids has been the subject of Jim’s teaching this past week. It is a significant idea from Nathan. I will start this thread below with some comments by Jim. We can categorize this idea as “YouTube CI”. Jim: If I may give an example
