It was exciting to back in my classroom to implement some of the awesome things I learned over the summer. The first thing was getting to know my students through improv this was different. The students love it as they encouraged others to imagine and participate. A few students didn’t think they could think of a line to add to the story. My school decided to do preps differently this year using a block schedule so this changed how I would introduce Google Classroom because usually students have technology class once per week. Now students have the same prep everyday for each quarter. The great thing was my homeroom was the first class to have technology class. Yesss!!! This started collaborations with the technology teacher which we rarely did since I’ve been at the school. The teacher gave me the CPS gmail accounts for all three of math classes so that I can teach them how to use email and Google Classroom.
Due to the changes with the prep schedules I had to utilize my instruction time to teach Gmail and Google Classroom. I reviewed expectations and technology rules with the students but as we used it I had to add a few things like how I expect them to participate in online discussions and staying on topic. Google Classroom is a great asset to my classroom. After a few discussions with my teacher team, I invited them to participate in Google Classroom at the end of the semester. I tried flipping the classroom but students don’t have technology at home and I believe it was too much new things happening in the classroom to add more stress.
Using Kahootit brought excitement to the classroom. Students are always asking when we are going to play it again. They know that it’s assessment and they try their best to do well. This was a great segway into building community in classroom and creating teams. It was a challenge at first but students look forward to working in their teams. The first team assignment was to create a math song about the topics their learned about in math for the first five weeks. We chose the popular song “Ju Ju on that Beat” to remix.
The technology teacher taught them how to use the Animoto App and they created math videos about place value. We used cheeseballs to created and answer math questions. Students did a team project writing sketch notes about one math topic. One of our biggest projects was creating the 12 days of Math Christmas song. We recorded the song and made a video. The students were so proud of their project. In December, I also implemented the second phase of my ImagineIT by collaborating with the kindergarten teacher and third grade teacher. One class is building community with kindergarten helping with the number 5 and another class is helping third grade with division. I look forward to returning to school after winter break to start the STEM club and implement phase 3 of my ImagineIT project. Due curriculum and assessments I have been unable to implement my PBL project so try set a time to start implementation.