High school English teacher, Sarah Brown Wessling, shares strategies for promoting collaborative writing inside and outside of the classroom. Wessling highlights that such lessons also promote digital etiquette, provide opportunities for teachers to provide rich feedback, and provide teachers with insights into the individual student’s or the collaborative group’s writing process.
Tag: Common Core
Developing Young Authors #MECA14
Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories, presentations, reports, or tutorials you and your students make to share, read, and print. Storybird is a fun, collaborative website that can be integrated in all content areas and at all grade levels. It can be an effective resource for teaching parts of a story, the writing process, promoting creativity, and more. STEM and social studies teachers can use Storybird for engaging alternatives to traditional lessons, reports and presentations. Storybird also seamlessly keeps a portfolio of each student’s work.
Participants will be guided in setting up accounts and helped as they begin using Storybird.com’s tools and services. Participants will learn how to use the teacher-specific tools.
Below are my slides from the workshop that I’ve taught a couple of times this week at the Mississippi Educational Communications Conference (MECA) in Jackson, MS. All the workshop materials and resources (including a video tutorial, additional examples, notes, etc.) are available on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively.
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Possible Implications of Teaching Content in Isolation
I encourage you to resist the temptation to dismiss this video as silly, as soapbox-ing, or not worth your time. Instead, watch the video in its entirety and reflect on its message.
Reflection
I think the video sheds light on (and makes light of) some important issues in the classroom. I don’t agree that the Common Core is “the” answer. I’m not one to think a single approach is ever the best course of action. However, this video has engaged me in worthwhile reflection about learning, curriculum, preparing students for post-graduation, and more. I hope this prompts reflection for you, too.
I’d enjoy receiving your thoughts. I invite you to share them in the comments section of this post.
Related Resources
5 Questions about the Common Core by Yong Zhao
Through the Core – An Instructional Leader’s Journey through the Common Core by Robyn C. Trowbridge
ASCD and Common Core State Standards Resources
Thanks
Hat tip to Anna Clifford for bringing this video and the Through the Core blog to my attention.
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