(Sholl)iloquy

Retrieval Practice The best way I can think to describe retrieval practice is to share what Jennifer Gonzalez says in her blog. She says that, " retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you ." This probably doesn't seem like a new concept to you. If you're like me, you might have thought of flashcards or tools like Quizlet. These can be ways to do retrieval practice. Some other ways that Gonzalez mentions are low-stakes/no-stakes quizzes or brain dumps. I focused on these last two methods for this activity. I created a quiz on Virginia's geographical regions using Socrative. The quiz could be used as an exit ticket or a warm up for the class after a lesson. This would be a no-stakes quiz since I would not be using it as a grade. If this quiz was a warm up, you could bridge it into a think-pair-share once everyone was done. Socrative This was my first time really using Socrative. Overall, I liked it. I thoug...

My assessment I created a formative assessment on the three branches of government. I could use this as an exit ticket after a lesson or as a warm up in the next class period. My quiz is broken up into three sections for the three branches, with 2-3 questions per section. Why I chose Google Forms First of all, I personally find Google Forms easy to navigate. Since this is a short, formative assessment, I didn't want to spend too much time on the set up. Google Forms also allows you to break up groups of questions into sections. I found this particularly helpful for this topic because I could look at an individual's responses for a certain section.  For example, I can see how this person (me on my trial run) did on the Judicial section. If all or most of the answers are correct then I can infer that they have a good grasp on the judicial branch. Conversely, if they didn't do well on this section, I would infer that they need to review and refer them to an acti...

Summarizing formative assessment Over the past couple of weeks I read the following articles: What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? , Tech Based Formative Assessment , Dial Up Your Formative Assessment Technique , and Formative Assessment Techniques for 21st Century Learning. Each article varied in the content, but they all dealt with how formative assessment should be used. Based on these articles and what I have seen in the classroom, formative assessment should be a part of instruction and/or should be used for learning. Formative assessment can provide student feedback on where they are at in their learning process. I've observed teachers using formative assessment in the middle of instruction and used it to either reinforce concepts or to review common errors or misunderstandings. I've also seen formative assessment used as warm ups or exit tickets. Students should also be given another opportunity after the initial formative assessment to show...

Focus for this week This week I focused on scaling back my interactive presentation. I felt like my first presentation was not worth the time I spent working on it. I probably could have found a more productive learning activity that required less work. This week, it took me around 30 minutes to do my presentation and I felt that it had a solid amount of content. My presentation is designed to be used in Present mode, and is something that I could use during instruction, my students could use as a study tool, and has potential to be an example for something they can create on their own. Below are some pictures of my checks and balances presentation: Checks and balances of the US federal government are usually taught with a visual aid because it can be a confusing process! This is the starting place on the presentation and students can choose which branches or directions they want to view first by clicking on the title or an arrow. This page is called the Clean Slate! page and c...

Interactive Slides Background This week I worked on creating an interactive resource using Google Slides. This was the first time I really created something interactive via Google Slides, so it took me a while to get everything set up. My first step was to mentally come up with a game plan on how I wanted my interactive slides to work. After I knew what I wanted, I created my slides and added the content (this week my topic was the three branches of US government). Once I had my content, I started to create links between my slides. One of my goals was that my users would be able to go back and forth between the necessary slides with ease. Below is an example: Users can click on "Lesson" to go straight to the lesson, "Review" to jump to the review, and "Next Class" to see what the topic of the next class will be. I also set my links up so that students can have a choice in the order that they want to go over the content.  Students can decide whi...

Choice Board Background This week I created my first Choice Board! I wanted the subject to be on something that I could potentially teach so I chose the Salem Witch Trials. I find the Salem Witch Trials fascinating and Halloween is almost  right around the corner so I thought this was a fitting subject to focus on. As of now, I would assign the Choice Board at the beginning of the unit so that they can start working on the activities as we go over the content. I might assign it later in the unit if my first group struggles with having it so early. The way I have my Choice Board set up is that I would make a copy of the Google Doc for each student on Google Classroom. I have three pieces of clip art that they will place over the three activities that they choose. Once they do that, they will submit the Google Doc back to me and then I will create assignments on Google Classroom for them to turn in their activities. What I struggled with Some of the activities are designed to s...

Getting my blog set up I’m a little embarrassed that as a digital native I have little to no experience with blogs. This is definitely going to be a learning experience for me, but I’m ready for it! The instructional video made setting up my blog fairly easy. I occasionally had to refer back to it, but the setup is user-friendly. In fact, what I struggled with the most was coming up with a name for my blog. I started out with generic ideas like Katie’s Corner, but most of what I came up with was already taken. Finally, I used a strategy from my Yearbook and Newspaper days and started brainstorming words that had to do with myself and blogging. Obviously I ended up blending my last name, Sholl, and the word soliloquy. I look forward to continue playing around with my blog and personalizing it. Uses in the classroom I’ve been thinking about how I might use blogs in my classroom. I could have my students keep a personal blog throughout the year and have them use it almost like ...