T'was the week before Christmas Break...

And all through the school students and teachers alike are anxiously awaiting for the final bell on Friday!

While I may still be relatively new at teaching, one thing I have learned with the week leading up to Winter Break is you can't really do your usual routine.  It more than likely won't work.  This is an ideal time to be a little more laid back and have fun with your lessons.  Continue to make them rigorous, but make them fun as well.  Your students will be forever grateful that you did!

Here are some suggestions to do with your class:

• Projects (Have the project due on Friday - all they do is present :))
• Have group work for each day - do jigsaw, gallery crawl, presentations, 
• Watch a movie of a text you just finished and have students compare text to the movie (Many school districts do not approve of movies, but if assignments that go along with it are rigorous and involve students comparing media to text and discussing differences, it is CC aligned!)
• Choice board - great for introducing a new unit in a fun way or or use a Choice board as a test and give students projects in the choice board that they can complete in the course of one or two days.

Keep in mind that it's not that students don't want to learn the week before a break, they just have other things occupying their minds that they are not as likely to be invested in their academics.  We just need to step up our lesson plans and make it interesting, fun, and engaging.

Cheers!

Ms. Bergin

The Nuggets of December

Hey y'all!

We are in the midst of the Holiday season!  One week left to Christmas break, or the more politically correct title, "Winter Break".  I cannot believe how fast time has flown.  It seems only the other day I had wrote on the blog, just to find out it was last month.  Oh boy, I truly need to step up on the blogging. :)  

My students have been working feverishly on their Romeo and Juliet projects, and I am so excited to see the final product on December 20th.  As I have mentioned in my previous post, there are three sets of projects - a movie, a newspaper, and an advertisement.  As I work with the students on their projects, I realize that  I truly love teaching best when students are working on projects, not doing basic run of the mill "old standard teaching".  Gone are the days where sitting in rows and kill and drill methods are effective. Kill and drill methods can be effective, in some aspect, but not for all.  Gone are the days where students are capable of sitting in desk and listening to lectures, doing cornell notes, whole class discussions, etc.  It's all about group work, collaboration, using laptops, and utilizing 21st century skills.

I have been doing intensive research into Project Based Learning, more commonly known as PBL.  An effective PBL classroom has the students choosing a project to do and the teacher revolves any mandatory mini lessons around the project.  For example, if a class decides to write a novel, the teacher can teach theme, characterization, point of view to assist them in creating their novel.  I am blown away by High Tech High, located in California.  They are truly an exemplar at PBL.  I can only hope that as I move towards PBL in my classroom, that I become as good as the teachers at High Tech High!

I have backed off on editing papers myself and started allowing my students to edit one another's papers.  It gives me my time back, and allows the students to learn from one another.  I developed a Critique packet that has several different methods of critiques, based on Ron Berger.  My students LOVE it. It gives them a chance to talk out where they're going with their papers, get (extremely honest) feedback on how to improve, what they do well on.  To students, they take to heart what their friends say, not necessarily what the teachers say.  This also teaches the 21st century skill of collaboration. Look for the packet on TPT, coming soon!

Happy Thursday!

Ms. Bergin

Where has the time gone?!?!

Hey y'all!

I've been meaning to update my blog for so long - it's like I turn around and it's November already and the holidays are creeping up on us! Where has the time gone!?

I have been super busy with planning awesome lesson plans, going through my first observation of the year and working to incorporate the Chromebooks in the best way possible.

We are about to dive into the wonderful world of Shakespeare and read the classic play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.  I am pretty excited about this unit and the unit projects in particular.  The unit projects will be assigned to students according to level of ability and thanks to the Chromebooks, students will be able to collaborate with other classes to create an awesome final project.

My higher level students will collaborate with higher level students in my other classes to develop and shoot a script of a post-apocalypse version of Romeo and Juliet.  My medium level students will work with one another to create a Sundays Verona Times Newspaper.  My lower level students will work to create an advertisement of Romeo and Juliet. My medium and lower level students will work with students at their levels in my other classes on their project - theirs will be cross-class collaboration as well :)  I am super excited about this and super nervous since I've never done cross-class collaboration and want this to be a success!  If you have had success with this type of project, Please let me know what works best for you!

I have also become somewhat obsessed with Google Plus lately - I think I'm going to retire from Facebook pretty soon and just use Google Plus - it's so much better!  If you haven't had a chance to explore Google Plus, I urge you to just explore it!

Happy Veteran's Day to all who served!


Ms. Bergin

Three days into the school year!

Wow, it's been three days since school started, and I am still as pumped as the first day!

I have all 9th grade English and we are well underway in our semester.  I'm pretty sure I've been called a hardass behind my back, but quite frankly, I don't think I mind.  It just goes to show that I have high expectations.

The first few days has been all about drilling procedures, taking pre-assessments to ensure my students are in the correct class and reviewing basic stuff (plot/conflict/tone).  While teaching mini-lessons and having them do assignments, I go through grouping procedures, passing out/in papers, answering/asking questions.

I also have what some may consider absurd rules in my classroom, but I am hoping these rules will limit distraction and increase learning.

1. No one is allowed to open the door except the student sitting closest to the door.  I let the two students who are closest to the door choose who on the first day and that person is responsible for the semester.
2. Knocking on the door must be done appropriately (firmly, but not obnoxiously - I had students demonstrate!)
3. Food is not permitted at all in the classroom.  Food that is seen in the room will be thrown out.
4. 5 bathroom passes in a grading period (6 weeks in a grading period).  If you have any left over, you may turn it in for extra credit. If you go over 5 passes, you will have an administrator walk you to the restroom and you will give back the time in lunch detention with me (I have planning during lunch, so this works perfectly!) I was told that 5 was generous and I should do 3.  I will need to try 3 next semester!  I even have set times when they are NOT allowed to use the restroom and when they are.  It is so explicit!


One thing I really need to work on is my whiteboard.  In all honesty, I think it needs serious improvement. In addition, I need to learn how to write objectives!  I just am never happy with the objectives I do write - I feel it's not rigorous enough, does not explain the objective enough...  Any suggestions?!

One thing I was concerned about were lack of pencils, but since establishing a rule in which students must ask their neighbors before me before the final bell is working beautifully!

We get our Chromebooks in two weeks and I am stoked!  If y'all have any GREAT interactive learning programs that works in your high school class that I can incorporate, please let me know!  I plan to use Google a lot!  I feel that would be beneficial with the writing.  I did the laptop 1:1 last year, and while that was awesome, I want to go in complete technology mode and really make it an integral part of the classroom.  Teachers with  this kind of success, I could use your words of wisdom!

How to organize all these awesome ideas?!

Hey y'all!

It's been quite a relaxing summer!  Just a few more weeks til we're back in school hitting the books again!
I've taken the time this summer to really look through different sites such as Pinterest, TeachersPayTeachers, blogs to gather ideas for the upcoming school year as well as traveling to visit family.  Now I'm starting to feel overwhelmed with everything I want to do and such little time to do it all!

Does anyone have good organizing strategies or a way to not feel so overwhelmed with awesome stuff to create to fit you best?

What I've been doing is making a list of things I want to do and dividing it up accordingly and then I plan on tackling as much as I can in the next two weeks before I go on vacation to the beach!  No, I don't plan on doing work at the beach, but I am definitely bringing a notebook to jot down thoughts as they come to me!

Collaborative Test Taking

In today's world, we are require to instill 21st Century Skills in our students.  One of those skills is to be able to work with others to solve "real world" problems.  I came across an idea on the wonderful world wide web: collaborative testing.

With collaborative testing, our students work with a few other students to come up with answers, and as expected, generally score higher on those assessments as opposed to independent test taking.  I thought this was an interesting idea - one I definitely will be incorporating in my class for the 2013-2014 school year.  However, I will be having students take the assessments independently first, then working in groups to answer the questions.  I believe I will then average out the two test scores, putting more weight on the first assessment.

Any thoughts about this?

Ms. Bergin

End of year sale!

Hey y'all!

I've been slacking on my blog big time! :-(  It's be hectic with end of year and running around!  I am hosting an "End of Year" sale at my store on teacherspayteachers.com - several items are 10% off!! :)

Hop over to my store and check out my products!  teacherspayteachers.com/store/colleeen-bergin .

I promise to be updating more often now that we are heading into summer vacation as well as updating my store, so stay tuned!

Ms. Bergin