Little Bits

Little Bits are an “open source” library of electronic modules that snap together with magnets. These magnetic circuits allow students to prototype, learn, and create just about anything. As students manipulate these devices, they are learning how to use different circuits to create just about anything that they can dream up. As they place these circuits together, they become a network – each circuit working off of each other to create light, sound, movement and much more.
 

Thankful!

Comparison Lesson w/ Class

I really thankful for a number of reasons.  First of all, I am thankful that my team works hard to help kids learn.  Secondly, I am thankful that I work in such an awesome district - one that allows me to take risks as a teacher, and change the way the 21st century learning looks  feels.

Trying a Flipped Lesson with some 2nd Graders

Comparison Lesson (Girls Vs. Boys)

Augmented Reality

We are thinking about doing something with a free app called Aurasma. Using this app, parents could subscribe to your channel and see what their child is doing for back to school night. Great idea!!!

  How Augmented Reality Works

Update on Flipped Learning

We just had our first local benchmark assessment. My class did very well! I had 82 percent meet expectations with 23 percent commended. I had 3 students not pass - but they missed it by 1 point. The students who did not do well, were those students who come in for tutorials on a bi-weekly basis. I'm almost pretty sure that I read somewhere that in a Flipped Classroom, the students who struggle, would have struggled anyway with traditional instruction. So, I'm loving the fact that I have the lessons saved so that those students could re-watch them at home. It is also helpful for those students who seek tutoring outside of school so that the tutor can see how we are teaching them. I've had many compliments about having that right at their fingertips!

Complaints? Well, I have only had a few from parents.

•  One problem is how the kids are over committed and do not have the time to devote to homework. The other issue is that the parents are over committed with their other children and cannot seem to find the time to help them watch the movie because "so and so" has a football game, or soccer practice, etc. So, I reminded them that they could easily watch the movies in the car on the way using their cell phone. When I gave that idea, they were receptive. Another idea I gave at parent conferences was to have their child come early to school to watch them over our devices. 
•  Another issue that was brought up was that the parents had a hard time relearning something totally different than the way they learned. I agree - it is SO different - especially with manipulatives!

Personal Complaints:

•  It seems that it is very difficult to coordinate times to create videos with 3 other people. We all have a lot on our plates - school, children, sports, regular family stuff, etc... It just seems that I am getting stuck with the brunt of things and it's getting hard to juggle. Like one day last week - I had forgotten to attach a video (or actually we didn't have one to attach) and started receiving texts about it. So, I responded with a love and logic approach - "That was the movie that we were supposed to record last week but nobody had time to help me with!" Well, that sparked concerns! So then the texts started popping in with - what about a video on.... or on... Well, that is all nice and dandy and the suggestions are appreciated, but I'm not bringing technology home with me! I have made the decision that I need to power down in the evenings and spend time with my family. That is time I will never get back and work will always be there for me!

Modeled Drawing with 2nd Graders

This was a lesson that was done with my class on Friday.  I really appreciate Ricky Mikelman for volunteering her time to help my class learn!  She is SO talented in math and knows just what questions to ask!

2nd Grade TT from Theresa Trevino on Vimeo.

Increasing STARR Scores

I have to attribute the other happy moment that we (our entire team) had on Wednesday.  After school during our faculty meeting, we were joined with a "sister" campus who had some wonderful scores on the state assessment.  So, the 2nd Grade teachers from Wilchester, joined us as we talked about what our day was like focusing on what differences / likeness that we had.  It was phenomenal!  They are such a great group of teachers and I so badly want to get to know them better!  We learned a lot and I appreciate them sharing their expertise with us!

Perfect Day!

Bird's Eye View

Yesterday, we hit a milestone marker for being the most productive team ever!  We were very fortunate to be given the gift of time with our dear friend, expert, genius in mathematics - Ricky Mikelman.

Mini Lesson

 She came and helped up create 10 videos to use with our classroom.  It was such a great feeling because we had SO many questions on how to teach certain objectives - simply because the standards have raised and we are now doing more like 3rd grade math than 2nd grade math.  I think deep down inside, teachers are just naturally perfectionists.  We really want to do well at teaching a concept the first time.  I think I can probably speak on behalf of almost all teachers - there has been at least 1 lesson where we have failed miserably and had to  "retrain minds" after the fact.   Once this happens,  we just have this innate

knowledge on great first learnings.  So today, we did something that we usually do not know do - we took the time to "talk" out our lesson before we taped.  This was extremely helpful!
Another great "a-ha" that happened was to invite our administrators, iCoach and some wonderful student teachers to create a video.  It was a complete by-in!  I know our team really enjoyed it because it helped them understand what we have been doing.  I think that there is a lot of empathy for all the time being spent and they can now relate to us and how hard it is to stay after school when you are just flat-dab exhausted!

New Voices / Hands on Tape

Stay tuned for more exciting news that happened after school!