Archive for April, 2007

Motivation on the Cheap

Beth Lewis at About.com has come up with a great list of free rewards for students. Some of the suggestions may only be useful in certain grades, but overall they’re pretty adaptable. Some of the highlights include:

  • Lunch with the teacher
  • Special seating in the teacher’s chair
  • A good phone call home
  • Hand stamps
  • Music during art activities

I’ve used iTunes to make classroom music more appealing. Students can earn song requests with good behavior, then I download one or two requests periodically for a class music time. It’s not totally free, but if you have generous parents, iTunes gift cards are a good addition to your Christmas wishlist.

Simple Rewards, Amazing Results

Behavior Tracking

Behavior Tracking Form

To monitor individual student behavior, we developed a daily tracking form.  The day is broken down into hours and each hour focuses on three key behaviors that we would like the student to demonstrate.  Circle a plus to indicate that the student demonstrated that behavior, a minus to indicate that the student did not succeed in that time period.  A section for comments allows for more specific notes about the good and the bad.

Download the form and tailor it to fit your schedule and the behaviors that you would like to develop in your students.

Grab Bag Links: Writing

6+1 Trait Writing
Lesson plans and project ideas for each trait from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Search by grade level and trait to find the right plans for your class.

MMSD Language Arts - Six Traits Materials
Download PDF files for the traits. Files include explanations and rubrics for teachers and students.

CanTeach: English Language Arts: Writing Prompts/Journal Topics
For daily writing prompts, this is a one-stop site. Watch out for the British-style spellings (neighbour, colour, etc.).

Grab Bag Links for April 19, 2007

Discovery Educator Network - A good companion to ASSET. Focus on collaboration and teacher contribution.

Free Educational Materials - A list of contacts “for real honest to goodness posters, kits, etc. that come in the mail”

Test Building in ATI

If you’ve ever wondered how to use ATI for day to day classroom assessment, here’s a set of directions on how to get started with Test Builder.

First time only set up steps:

Click the “Setup” tab

Move the pointer to the “Libraries” link - select the “Library Builder” link

From the “Library Type” drop-down menu - select “Assignment/Test”

Click “New Library” link

Enter the Library Name. Use your last name as the first word in the Library Name for easy reference (ex: “Zehring Math 06-07″)

Click the “Save and Next” button

Building a test:

Click the “Assessment” tab

Move the pointer over “Test Construction”

Select the “Test Builder” link

From the “Library” pull-down menu, select the library that was just created.

Click the “Click here to add a new test” link

Enter a title that identifies the main idea of the test.

Do not modify any other categories yet.  These options can be edited at any time.

Click the “Save” button

Adding Questions:

ATI allows the teacher to create his or her own questions and answers.  ATI also includes a “Generate Questions” feature, which automatically creates questions that test your selected objective.

For this test, click the “Generate Questions” link

Under Step 1, double click a bank associated with the objective you will test.  The bank will appear in the “Selected Test Libraries” box to the right.

Scroll down to the list of objectives.  To the right, select the number of questions that will appear on the test that relate to each objective.  Some objectives offer 10 or more questions, some objectives offer only one question.

Click the “Generate Test Questions” button

Scroll up to the top of the page

Click the “Preview: (Test Name)” link

The link will download a PDF file that shows the questions and answers with the correct answer for each question marked.  This is only a preview file.  The actual test will be completed on the computer.

Click the “Test Status” link

Select the bubble next to “Tryout Phase”

Click the “Save Test Status” button

Scheduling the test:

Move the pointer over the “Test Scheduling” tab at the top of the page

Click the “Class Calendar” link

Click the “Schedule Test” link from the box to the right of the Class menu

Select the library you created (your name should be in title) from the “Library” drop-down menu

Select the test you created from the “Test” drop-down menu

Under “Test Availability”, select the beginning and ending times for the test to be taken.  This can be a window of time during a single day, or a window that is open for several days.

Under the “Student Scores Availability” section, select the time when students can begin to view their results.  A teacher can view the results of any test any time after the student completes the test.

Under “Additional Settings” type a password and confirm the password.  Students will need this password to access the test.

ATI is picky about passwords, so it may take a few tries before the password is accepted.  Make sure to write this password down in a safe place so it is not forgotten.

Click the “Save Schedule” button

Taking the test:

Student should go to http://www.ati-online.com/

Click the “K-12 Student / Parent Center” link

Enter Login Name and Password provided by administration or computer liason

Click the “Take a Test” link

Enter the password selected in the test builder

Viewing the results (as a teacher):

Click the “Assessment” tab

Click the “Test Scoring” link

From the “Library” drop-down menu, select the library you created

From the “Test” drop-down menu, select the test you created

From the “Student” menu, select “[All Students]” to view scores for the entire class.  Select an individual student to view his or her scores.

For a print out of the results, click the “Class Score List” in the “Report Options” box to the right.  The link will download a PDF file with scores for each individual in the class.

Grab Bag Link for April 16, 2007

Check out the tabs at the top for just about everything under the sun, including Powerpoint downloads.

Kim Overstreet’s TRT Page

How to write a good post

Check out these tips to make this blog extra useful for teachers.

20 Tips That’ll Make Your Blog Work - lifehack.org

What’s This “Blog” Thing All About?

Teacher’s Bag of Tricks is a weblog, or blog for short. A blog is a website comprised of frequently published articles. The website shows the most recent articles by default.

A blog is perfectly suited for educators for several reasons. First, blog articles, often called posts, usually read more like mini-articles. Posts can be as short as a single sentence, which is key for teachers with highly limited time.

Blogs are also great for educators because a blog’s archives are totally searchable, and the posts never expire. This means that teachers who read a blog don’t have to worry about missing any information, because all the posts are always a click away.

Finally, blogs offer active participation and collaboration by allowing readers to comment about individual posts. This makes a blog the perfect place for educators to share ideas, tips, and feedback.

If you’re reading this post as a visitor, hopefully these reasons will sell you on returning occasionally to get some great ideas for teaching. If you’re considering being a contributor, I hope you’ll join in the conversations that will happen here. Keep on the lookout for opportunities to spark your own conversations.

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Tags, Tags, Everywhere Tags…

Tags are a great way to “file” a blog post. A post can have a virtually unlimited tags that allow anyone to reference its information. Teacher’s Bag tags are designed to make posts searchable by topic or grade level, or any other category you might think of.