Above the Line in Elementary

I teach fourth grade in California which means I teach all about California history and geography. Traditionally my students have completed a research report on the four regions of California as a way to practice research, notetaking, and expository writing skills while covering the Social Studies standards. We would finish our unit by sculpting and painting salt-flour dough maps. traditional research report - not too exciting messy and disconnected from the content I wanted my students to understand about each region I realized this project needed a redesign. Enter Google Classroom and Google MyMaps! To begin the research portion of the project, I provided a note-taking guide and a HyperDoc that outlined the whole project. We used a combination of online sources and our textbook.  Rough drafts were typed in a Google Doc that was assigned in Google Classroom. We worked on writing and editing our expository paragraphs in the Google Doc and this beca...

Session 5 - Lesson Builder's Fair: A BOLD Approach to Lesson Design, Jon Corippo & Lindsey Blass BOLD Lesson design is rooted in Madeline Hunter's 7-step Lesson Plan model. Jon talks about how to use the various steps of traditional, good lesson design (anticipatory set, guided practice, check for understanding etc...) and how to adapt them using new technology. This allows students to be the ones doing most of the work, not the teacher. Thanks to technology, we are no longer needed to deliver content or lecture to students. We can design activities that provide students with opportunities for higher level thinking. Jon Corippo regarding assessment: "Closure is not a test, it is another rep of what we already do." Madeline Hunter's Lesson plan steps: Anticipatory Set Objective/Purpose Instructional Input Modeling Check for Understanding Guided Practice Independent Practice Closure These steps can be remixed - change the order and/or amount, ...