New Classroom

So today I learned that I am moving to another classroom.... My first year teaching I was on the left side of the school, then I was moved to the far right end of my school last year, and now I am moving to another classroom upstairs. Now I have to come up with another classroom design/layout again and this time it is more challenging. I love challenges :-) What makes it harder is I lost wallspace and if you look at my classroom pictures for my first 2 years, you will notice that I use every bit of my walls. So, I took pictures of the before and maybe you can give me ideas or strategies to tackle this challenge.

A few of my concerns are:

• Where am I going to place my word wall?
• Anchor Charts?
• Small Group location?

Welcome to My Random Life of Teaching :-)

...

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

So as I am sitting here completing my master's assignment, I read an interesting article that relates Blooms Technology to Digital Learning. I find this article very intriguing as well as informative with different types of digital activities that correspond to the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally by Andrew Churches

I highly recommend you read this journal article :-)

Enjoy My Random Life,
Lauren Kubin

Life is hectic!

Sooooooo I have been slacking this last week or two on the full creation of my blog, and I am sorry :-(

I have been traveling and going to trainings left and right this summer.... 
Summer started for me the second week of June and this what I have done since:

• Visit my best friend in College Station for a couple of days
• Attended the Prezi Presentation Training my district offered
• Went to Killeen for my Aunt's funeral :-(
• Attended Formative Assessment Professional Development (2 days) Region 4 offered
• Attended Flipped Classroom Session Region 4 offered (2days)
• Attended the AVID Summer Institute (4 days)
• Attended the Revised TEKS Session Region 4 offered (2 days)
• Psychic Reading and Ghost Hunt in New Orleans/Myrtles Plantation (3 days)
• Birthday Party 
• My BFF's Bridal Shower in San Antonio

Yeppers and the summer is NOT over! Whew....On top of all that I am working to complete my Master's Program as well as plan to teach my classes next school year.... 

I promise all of those who have asked me about many different sites and ideas that I will get all of them uploaded and more in time. I feel super bad that my blog is not perfect just yet, so I ask to please hang in there with me :-) 

If you have anything specific that you would like me to research and add, please comment below and I will look into it :-)

"It is not our fault, but it is our problem to solve."

Last week, I was blessed and fortunate enough to attend the AVID Summer Institute in San Antonio.
The quote that is the title of this blog was said and it is sticking to me.

Basically what it says is that it is not the our fault as educators that our students are coming to us with limited skills such as multiplication facts or reading strategies, but it is our problem as educators to solve. This quote hit home with me because there are some things I didn't realize I was doing until I was at the conference. I assume students know how to take notes, but they don't. I assume students know how to read a paragraph and summarize it, but they don't. How can I expect my students to know something, if I don't teach it to them. Most of the time,  I assume they know because of ELA, but in all honesty, ELA is different than Math. The reason math is a poor subject for students is because teachers like myself assume the strategies are the same. I apologize for this because it didn't hit me until I was being trained for my Math 1 strand in AVID that the summary looks different in Math than ELA as well as the critical reading strategies. We assume students know how to read a textbook, but if you compare the textbooks in all subject areas, they do not look the same. Instead, the math textbook is much more complicated and we must teach the use of text structure.

Somehow in the past, adults were taught these basic skills or taught themselves, but as educators today, we must teach our students these fundamentals and not assume they know things because they don't. A 5-10 minute review over the much needed skills will help close this achievement gap and will help our students to succeed.

I'm going to keep this in mind from here on out.
Lauren Kubin

AVID Summer Institute Pre-Day 1

Howdy!

So I am super excited to be in the WICOR 2.0:  All Hands on Technology professional development session.  This is so cool!

So I am taking notes via Google Docs and I am sharing my document with you :)

Technology Websites and Math Resource Websites

My Google Doc of Additional Resources to incorporate technology into your classroom.

Region 4 ESC Flipped Classroom Notes

So I am attending the Flipped Classroom professional development via Region 4 and I thought I would share my notes to my fellow colleagues in attendance. 

Evernote Notes:

What is Flipped Classroom?  --Group Quickwrite on Padlet

Created with Padlet

How it relates to my classroom:

1. Parent Letter I send home -- I adapted Todd Nesloney's letter to fit my classroom.
• Todd Nesloney's Blog
2. My Video Websites:
• My District Website
• Edmodo
• Show Me Interactive Whiteboard
• YouTube
• ITunes U
3. Great Informational Websites/Blogs
• https://tackk.com/Flipped 
• http://alphamath.weebly.com/flipped-videos.html
• http://techchicktips.net/
• http://www.educatorstechnology.com/search/label/collaborative%20tools
• http://edu.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAABmCc3uwAA42ACqT2-Q==
• http://www.canflip.ca/
• http://flippedinstitute.org/
• http://flippedlearning.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1
• https://sites.google.com/a/byron.k12.mn.us/byron-high-school-mathematics-department/flipped-classroom
• http://www.lacademy.edu/page.cfm?p=1400
• http://www.flippedmath.com/
• http://flippingwithkirch.blogspot.com/

To Be Continued...