vPQA Presentation

5 thoughts on “vPQA Presentation”

1. Don Read

   June 24, 2015 at 6:04 am

   Wow! What a great presentation by Carol! There is so much here! Thank you!
   A couple of questions/comments:
   1.. The notebook: does it stay in class? Is it a bound notebook? With the different sections, are you talking about a binder? When does the notebook get put away? (I ask because I love the rule of nothing on the desks – it solves the problem of students doing homework from another class, reading a novel in English, or doodling and not making eye contact with me.)
   2. A vPQA for each of the three structures before a story? I teach middle school kids, and I don’t think their attention span will last for a vPQA on each structure before I start the story. But this just might be my not having a compelling vPQA for each structure.
   3. Using pictures of students in the vPQA – do we need to get approval from the kids and the parents?
   All of the above are small points set against the big point of what a great presentation Carol made. Again, thank you!

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2. Chill

   June 24, 2015 at 6:38 am

   Hey, Don, glad it’s helpful to you and some of your questions came up at the meeting.
   1. Notebooks: For me, the empty desk is critical. Cell phones are harder to detect when the desks are clear! So, following Julie’s NB instructions, my kids would record the new vocabulary in section 1; then they would write day, date, time, translation sentences in section 2 of the notebook; then, I have to do the prayer part. After the prayer, I would show them the corrections and they would check their work and correct (if you are evaluating their notebooks as an assessment, I think that it is reasonable to say that they get a better grade if they took the time to attend to their corrections. Uncorrected work would get less points or whatever.)
   The following slides with the weather pictures are just there in case I need them. Same for the week-end/ sports talk. This Ppt was the Monday after our long Easter break so if they wanted to share, there was some support – some of the pictures are of students in my school. Follow the energy and go with it as long as it works. When the energy is gone, put the notebooks away and do the brain break. Then the vPQA on il s’inquiete begins.
   I did this same Ppt with all of my levels 1,2,3,4. For some classes, the week-end talk took longer and I never finished the worries part. I have 40 minutes per class. If you are going to dedicate the time to the do now and notebook part, I don’t see doing more than one structure per class. If I understand the suggestions on the blog, slides should be limited to 20. My question would be 20 slides per one structure or twenty slides for two or three structure. I am thinking 20 slides for 3 structures. I think Julie said 3-6 structures per week? It could look like 2-2 1/2 classes for vPQA, 1 class story asking, reading, dictation, textivate, debate with quick quizzes interspersed. After the reading, the options are wide open, I think. I like Ben’s daily schedule – the original version works better for me.
   Regarding permission to use pictures. The crew picture and the tennis player were images that I found on Google. We do have a public FB page and photos of kids are posted, but it is a question that I have to ask for sure. Thanks for your feedback, Don. I will be in Agen and at NTPRS. Really regretting not being able to make iFLT too, but hope to meet you someday!

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3. Chill

   June 24, 2015 at 6:55 am

   Oops, I would not keep the notebook in class. I don’t have the space. At the HS level, one would hope that they could get a light weight, 1 inch three-ring binder with five visible, labeled dividers to class everyday, but you would be surprised! Middle school may still have an excuse to be disorganized! I ask them to use regular loose-leaf paper too because I hate the “fuzzies” on the spiral binder paper. Trust me, I am not OCD, but the fuzzies are annoying! The notebook thing can be a battle and I have gone both ways on it: organize yourselves or follow my notebook prescription. Attaching a grade to it is another thing. I am thinking of randomly spot checking one row at a time rather than a mass collection. This notebook thing will be interesting. Ben and Julie’s comments about having artifacts and creating an illusion of a “traditional classroom” that a parent or admin could look at and say that yes, they can relate to a notebook with something written in it daily makes sense to me. Since everything else I am doing is different from the experience of the parents and administrators, throwing them the bone of a traditional looking notebook seems like a good idea.
   In addition, these Haiku Decks and or Ppts along with the class stories are a tangible representation of all of the work that their kids are really doing. For the teacher, its the documented version of their lesson plan all in one place. With four preps, planning for midterms just became a lot easier for me.

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   1. Don Read

      June 24, 2015 at 8:44 am

      Thank you for your quick response! I look forward to seeing you (and meeting you!) in Agen.

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   2. Ben Slavic

      June 24, 2015 at 9:55 am

      …throwing them the bone of a traditional looking notebook seems like a good idea….
      This is no minor point to make about the notebooks. When you tell a parent that you don’t use notebooks they hear you saying that you are incompetent.
      Plus, when the kids walk in and wait for you to get finished talking to Sal and Jennifer about their absences last week, or breaking up a fight in the hallway, or trying to sneak a few more seconds with a cup of coffee before you “go back in”, and the other kids are just waiting around, it is never good. So, with the notebooks, they see the DO NOW work up there and they sit down, take out their notebooks (which yes they carry with them) and quietly start working, it is really nice!

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