Useful Information In and Out of the Classroom 2/19/21

Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found this week, thanks to my PLN. As a teacher, I feel we have to keep up to date concerning research in our field and current issues in the education system. I hope some of these inspire you, inform you, and even have you asking questions. Thank you for coming by and visiting!

Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.

Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle; H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers

Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All

Same But Different Math – “Same But Different is a powerful routine for use in math classrooms. The activity of same but different is an activity where two things are compared, calling attention to both how they are the same and how they are different.” (L:G;SA:M)

Would You Rather Math – “Asking students to choose a path and justify it with math” (L:G;SA:M)

Visible Learning Meta – “Through the Visible LearningTM research, John Hattie has identified more than 250 factors that influence student achievement. He then set about calculating a score or “effect size” for each, according to its bearing on student achievement. The average effect size of these 250 factors was 0.4, a marker that can be shown to represents an (average) year’s growth per year of schooling for a student. Any factor that has an effect size above 0.4 has an even greater positive effect on student learning.” (L:T;SA:A)

GameStormEdu – “GameStormEDU is a way of thinking - how could I take an idea, a lesson, or a concept, and turn it into an experience for others? How can I turn it into a game?” (L:T;SA:A)

Pick Your Plate – “Travel around the world with Plato to learn about building healthy meals. Eat avocado toast in Australia, baobab fruit in Benin, and sautéed reindeer in Finland! Yum! Pick your favorite plates for morning, midday, and evening meals. Be sure to meet your daily nutritional needs while not going over your budget! Pick Your Plate! A Global Guide to Nutrition is an educational nutrition game that will help teach students about building healthy meals while using nutritional guidelines from countries around the world!” (L:E,M;SA:S,SS)

Original photo by Pat Hensley