Andrea

How do I ensure that students meet standards—and meet enough of them to make the effort worthwhile—in open-ended activities and projects?
 * =**Your Name:**= || Andrea Wiesner ||
 * **Identify a problem from your classroom proven difficult to teach and for students to learn:** || Science is difficult to teach, because it is hard for students to understand the concepts without hands-on activities. ||
 * **Think about which areas you would like to focus your learning and write your initial goal(s) for the course:** || I would like to focus my learning on Science, specifically volcanoes. ||
 * **Unit Portfolio Link on Google Docs:** ||  ||
 * = __**Concerns**__ ||= __**Solutions**__ ||
 * *Time management issues in terms of allowing for the needed amount of time while also making sure that all standards are meant in the allotted amount of time. || *Planning ahead for challenges that could come into play and developing shortcuts for when students don't finish their given product. Also, redesigning elements after a single day of teaching to compensate for students who haven't finished. ||
 * *Differentiation for students - How can we ensure that students are meeting the standards while also ensuring that certain elements of an IEP or Gate strategies are being meant. || Modify the original designed lesson for those who have an IEP designation for extra time for a given assignment, etc. For GATE students, perhaps an early finishers assignment or an extension activity could allow students who finish early to still be engaged and taking their learning to the next level. ||
 * Technology hiccups - Technology doesn't work perfectly all the time. There are always substantial things that go wrong when numerous computers, a Promethean board, document camera, and wireless internet are involved. How do we compensate and plan for these technological difficulties? || These are items that must be planned for and have back up plans for. The probability of all netbooks being down is slim unless the netbook cart goes down or if the internet isn't working. If one individuals netbook isn't working, there are others in the group the team can fall back on. Having a physical paper copy of all computerized graphic organizers is always a good thing. ||
 * *Collaboration - Kids don't always get along and groups don't always meld as well as we would like them. In groups that aren't cohesive, and constantly verbally arguing, how are we supposed to ensure a good group dynamic, knowing that they kids will eventually grow up without the choice of getting to work with who they want to? || A good collaboration tool to ensure students work well with one another, is to list in their rubrics that students are graded upon how well they work together. Another thing that we, as teachers, can do is to add an evaluation portion to the unit series to gain feedback on those who are working together to get a better idea about what went wrong, what could of been done better, etc ||
 * *Communication - For students who have low English proficiency, or even those who do not, perhaps, feel comfortable talking to one another, how can we encourage and support these students? || Students, in this day and age, are so much more willing to communicate online. Often times those who are the quietest in the classroom make their presence well known online and aren't afraid to take risks on sharing their opinions. Thus, having an online blog or any space where students can share their thoughts and idea's is greatly beneficial and can even give those with low English skills more practice with writing the language. ||


 * File Name || Google Document URL Link ||
 * Unit Plan || https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_zK0XUOiJJ9YTl4QzJ5bG5TLUNyQVhLS1dnZ1ZBQQ ||
 * Student Sample || https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ig0sJ4S8UNLpcicT49mV3pqpMYszBaBHfNlbaXIM8nw/edit ||
 * Assessment || https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_zK0XUOiJJ9M3h4ZGZkTHlRNUdHTWZSOGxQYmhSZw ||