A Collection of Peer Recommended Resources

In G7 Earth Science, we've been using Padlet to consolidate online resources from a large collection (scilinks.org) of topic-focused websites.
Scilinks contains a tremendous amount of links, and it can be overwhelming for students to effectively use it as an extension. The use of Padlet allows students to share and recommend the links that were helpful to them. 
Padlet, in this case, served dual purposes - consolidate resources, as well as build a learning community where students get to do what they enjoy (i.e. sharing their opinions and letting their preferences be heard).  

The 7th Grade Humanities Projects are Underway!

Right before Christmas break, the 7th grade students began working diligently on their Humanities Projects in preparation for the Academic Fair to be held on May 6th. More recently, they have been recording and organising their researched information and developing note cards.

The process of writing note cards has been made more efficient and effective, thanks to EasyBib. This program allows the students to keep an online and ongoing record of their note cards in a systematic way that checks to make certain their sources are credible, records their sources, and gives students an opportunity to organise their information in one of three ways: direct quote, paraphrase, and summary.

The students have been learning how to properly cite sources and just today they were given a lesson on in-text citations as they make the "big transfer" of connecting what they have researched on their note cards and using the information within their research papers for their Humanities Projects.

The humanities teachers are extremely proud of how hard the students have worked so far and we hope to see many of the parents of 7th grade students at the Academic Fair in May.

 (In Humanities class, several 7th grade students are sharing and discussing their note cards on EasyBib.)

Pre-Algebra grade 7 and 6

Students in Pre-Algebra class are learning gamification through a website called Lure of the Labyrinth. It is a site created by the Department of Education in the state of Maryland(USA). It helps students learn all the Algebra skills they will need for grade 8. It mixes fantasy with problem solving puzzles. It's a fun way to reinforce Pre-Algebra skills. Ask your children about it, or try it out yourself online - it's free!  labyrinth.thinkport.org

3-D PRINTING

8th grade art class has been exploring how to design, draw, and print a lidded vessel.  Here are some images.

 

Empowering Students through Self Defence

Our grade 7 girls spend a unit learning Karate as a form of self defence. During this unit students will learn not only self-defence skills, but also self-discipline, respect, self-control, and confidence, along with having a lot of fun.  This is a popular unit which the students have greatly enjoyed.

A look at how to kick and punch:

Student Reflections:

"It impacted me because I am able to realise how important karate is for self defence. It helps me understand how to control my powers and use it at specific and desperate times. Karate not only builds self control, it also builds our self confidence. Karate helps us focus on our inner movements and it is demanding discipline. You aren't able to maintain structure without discipline because with karate, comes respect. I think that discipline impacted me because I should understand how to respect the teacher and follow orders as instructed."

"I thought that this unit was that it was very helpful for my everyday life and it is a good skill to have in my back pocket, just in case of dangerous situations.  I thought that it was fun and cool because you get to learn the cool karate moves that you usually see in movies.  It was one of my favorite units.  Not only was it fun and edgy, it was also very informational and important to learn.  I would like to learn more cool moves and do a mock fight where it is like real fighting but no one gets hurt.  Something like sparring.  I learned that I have to have a faster and quicker reaction to when people try to attack me because when I was sparring, I was very slow reacting and my opponent always got me." 

     One of the most practical ways that student laptops are used in 6^th grade Bible is for their Journals. Each day, students come into class and write down a question (called an Essential Question, or EQ for short) that is posted on the board but they don’t answer it until the end of class. When the lesson begins, we talk about what the objectives are for the day and what they should be able to tell me, explain, do, show, demonstrate, etc. Many times, this will be directly related the question (EQ) that was on the board when they arrived. In setting the lesson up like this, they know exactly what they are expected to understand by the end of class.

     When they answer the question at the end of class, it requires them to synthesize what they heard, read, saw and interacted with in the lesson into a written response, often linking it to an example from Scripture. Students type their responses into the document that they share with me and then “reply” on a previous comment of mine to let me know it is ready for checking.  As soon as students reply on a comment, within a few hours, an email is sent to my Inbox and I can often check their response that same day. I can then provide specific feedback, which is one of the most effective ways to improve student learning. It also means that they have almost unlimited opportunities to go back and work on making sure they understand the information before the end of the unit. They can ask for clarification during the next class and it provides many opportunities for one-on-one instruction and re-teaching.

                                   Here is an example of on-going, individual feedback:

constructive feedback:

and timely and conversational feedback:

Group Work, Good Show

The 6th graders in Ms Lo's class has used the google doc to work collaboratively on their Chinese class activity of role play.  Students acted out the different stages of the famous writer, Tagore's life.  This activity involved scripts writing, rehearsing and performing in front of the whole class.  Students made good use of the google doc to allocate their jobs and discuss the understandings of their scripts.  They had a great time!


Below is the scripts that created by the students and the comments from the teacher and other group members on the right.

Go green Go fast

Using Schoology

Do you know that Schoology is also an assessment tool? There are different types of questions on Schoology, e.g. multiple choices questions, true / false, ordering, fill in blanks, answer questions, etc. 

In my 7th grade Chinese class, students need to finish reading comprehension and listening exercise on Schoology. Once they submit their work, they can immediately get feedback such as explanations on why certain answers are correct. Using the quizzes/tests feature of Schoology helps us save more paper and go green!