Bonneville Blog

Dear NEA Member,

Greetings! There are many new ideas out there to help teachers. NEA has created a web-site called “Works-4-Me” which are tried and true teaching hints suggested by NEA members. Each week you will receive an e-mail with six helpful (and short) hints to help you in your teaching. They will fall under the following categories:

Teaching Techniques
Content
Getting Organized
Managing Your Classroom
Relationships
Using Technology

In addition, you will get information about your NEA Member Benefits that are available to you through your membership in the Association. Click on the link or visit http://www.neamb.com/.

Teaching Techniques
Student Control of Learning
"I design an activity that offers opportunity for personal expression and that will require students to use a small piece of information that they DON'T have, such as a vocabulary word or a verb tense. Once they realize they need to know that, they will want to learn it because it has become their decision to learn it, not mine. Things acquired in this way seem to stick much better."

Content
Reading in the Halls
"For Read Across America, we took time at the end of the day and every single student and teacher sat in the hallway and read for thirty minutes. It was awesome! Our principal feels that we should do this every week. I hope we can do that. It was wonderful!"

Getting Organized
Extra Copy Box
"I frequently have students absent, leaving my room for music lessons, calls to the office, nurse, etc. I have a box in my room labeled extra copies. After I pass out worksheets, I put 10 extra copies in the box for students to use. When a student comes back to my room and notices we are working on a sheet he/she doesn't have, they know to go to the extra copy box and get the sheet. I post all assignments on my backboard so they could check to see what they missed and do not have. I leave the assignments up for two weeks. This has eliminated them interrupting class to ask for a worksheet and makes them responsible for catching up on work they missed. Frequently students may ask to recopy a worksheet because it is sloppy and they want to do it over, I just tell them to go to the box and get another copy. This also instills pride in their work."

Managing Your Classroom
Group Work
"When choosing groups, I tell my students that when they are working they will not always be working with their best friend. I remind them that an important part of class is learning how to work in a group."

Stick Grouping
"I vary my classroom groups by greeting each student at the door with a craft stick. The tips of the sticks are color coded according to the area of the room they must go to or the activity they must work on first. This allows for a differentiation in grouping. The students really like this method and it's very simple to control."

Relationships
Reflections on the Quarter Past
"When report card time approaches, I ask my students, without submitting their names, to reflect and write short notes on what to change, delete and add to the class. Sometimes students have insight that teachers forget to consider. Their comments help me improve my lessons and teaching techniques as well as see myself through their eyes. This gives my students ownership and gives me some grounding."

Using Technology
Movie Night
"I add a blank tape to my list of supplies at the beginning of the year. The students and I use a digital camera to take pictures of classroom activities all year. We use Photo Studio software to download the pictures to videotape and can even put music to accompany these pictures. Our year ends with a class movie night. Parents and students come view our class memory tape. Everyone enjoys the tape tremendously. I make individual copies on the blank tapes students brought in at the beginning of the year so all students have their own copies. It is a wonderful way to capture and celebrate student accomplishments."