Teacher Collaboration

This is a screenshot of the top of our co-planning document that we use to plan together, keep track of our daily lessons, documents, and even reflect on our progress. As it is a google doc, we can collaborate on it, even sending each other specific questions and updates throughout the day. We all take responsibility for organizing this document equally. The top of the document contains what we like to call our "dashboard"- we link all important documents here because we are all notorious for forgetting the great resources we have created in previous years. This way we can easily find what we need, in particular the important documents we use frequently. 

The second screen shot shows part of the weekly lesson plan where we have written details about the lessons taking place in each of our classes. This is particularly helpful for Jaya, our EAL co-teacher, as she can see exactly what we have planned and what we have accomplished and if there are any changes. We have found this to be the most effective way for all of us to collaborate and keep organized with our lesson planning and delivery of instruction.

Using Cogge It- Technology to help Note-Taking Skills

Note-taking skills are a big focus for us in grade 6 with our social studies units. We aim to teach students many strategies for taking notes and showing that they understand what they have read in our textbooks and online.

While we use our notebooks to model and practice taking notes, we also like to use technology to enhance, motivate, and solidify our learning.

For a recent section of our textbook on the Sumerian City-States and the Changes in Leadership, we used a site called Coggle It which is a mind-mapping tool that allows students to collaborate on their map. Students can add images and even other media. For this assignment, students worked in small groups on their Coggle and were given time to read the section assigned to them and to develop their part of the project. After completing this, students presented their section to the other members of the group.

Here is an example. Click on the image to see it in full screen.

Hands-On Activities for Sumerian Writing

This week students had the opportunity to live as scribes in Ancient Sumer by trying their hand at the written system called cuneiform.
Here are some photos from the last few days:

We watched a video about the life of a scribe and how they used a stylus to make indentations in the clay. Students then received a chopstick to use as a stylus, a piece of clay, and two papers. One paper had numbers and the other letters. They were then able to flatten the clay and "write" whatever they wanted.

Some students noted that this was a difficult task and realized that scribes must have studied the craft for a very long time to be proficient. One student who is left-handed found it hard to make the indentations look as they did on the paper. All students benefited from the tactile aspect of the activity and appreciated the chance to try out this earliest form of the written language.