My personal manifesto is a summary of the things that I do in my classroom to ensure that I am providing an engaging and inspiring environment in which my students can learn, grow, create, and imagine. I do this in a variety of ways including how my classroom and lessons are organized, by incorporating hands-on activities, and by utilizing technology to increase efficiency and effectiveness of lessons, all while meeting the professional requirements and educational standards of my school, state, and national. The manifesto presents a number of resources that serve to explain my views and practices. My manifesto does not stand to dictate a specific way to teach or manage a classroom, rather, it is a means of sharing my methods and ideologies in the hopes of improving education on a grander scale than just my little classroom. The resources presented were selected based upon several factors including depth of knowledge, relevance to the selected area, and the degree to which it provides practical information.
Classroom Organization
Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that can be used in a variety of ways both in and out of the classroom. It is especially helpful for organizing ideas to use later. Boards can be created for different classes, lessons, or other areas to keep the ideas organized logically.
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Engrade is a free online gradebook that allows parents to keep up-to-date on their child's grades. It also has the capability for parent-student-teacher communications, as well as quizzes with automatic grading, and attendance tracking.
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Organized Teacher, Happy Classroom: A Lesson Plan for Managing Your Time, Space and Materials
by Melanie S. Unger In her book, Melanie S. Unger outlines ways for teachers to stay organized, leading to a more efficient use of time and resources. It is available in paperback or in Kindle digital download.
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Content Area Teaching - English/Language Arts
Launching the Writing Workshop: A Step-by-Step Guide in Photographs Paperback
by Denise Leograndis This is the book that started my love of workshops, and not just in language arts. Leograndis goes step by step through starting the use of writing workshops in your class, down to the charts she makes and the books she reads.
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Weebly is an easy-to-use website building tool that is perfect for teachers. By creating an educator account, teachers can moderate student accounts and privacy. I use this to infuse writing into my content areas through the use of the blog function within Weebly.
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Planet 13 is a blog created by teacher Beth Newingham. She outlines her routines and procedures for her language arts block including reading and writing workshops, as well as her program for spelling.
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Spelling City is a free website that allows teachers to create spelling lists for their students to practice. There are a variety of games that are automatically created for the teacher once a list has been entered. Premium features allow teachers to test their students directly through the website.
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Content Area Teaching - Math
First in Math is the program that got my students excited about math! This is a subscription based site that allows students across the country to compete to earn the most points. Students can check their standings compared to their class, school, state, and country. The competition is enough to hook a few students, but what really gets them are the games. The games in First in Math are genuinely fun and engaging, making math less of a chore.
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In this blog post from Scholastic, a math teacher outlines her use of the math workshop approach to differentiate her math instruction for varying ability levels within her class. The post includes the teacher's daily schedule, how she sets up the math stations, and tips for managing math stations.
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Content Area Teaching - Science
My school purchased the Discovery Education Science Techbook to replace our outdated science textbooks. The Techbook is superior to a normal textbook in that it is interactive. In addition to high quality text, the Techbook includes videos, virtual labs, hands-on activities, an interactive glossary, and more. Teachers also have the capability of creating and assigning specific assignments online since each student has their own account.
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This wiki is a great starting point for people who are just starting to implement the DE Science Techbook in their classes. The wiki provides numerous ideas and tips for making a successful and smooth transition from a traditional textbook to an online textbook.
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This website provides numerous hands-on science activities and demonstrations. The use of tagging makes finding relevant activities quick and easy. Many include videos that show exactly what should happen in the experiment.
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Content Area Teaching - Social Studies
The Content-Rich Reading & Writing Workshop: A Time-Saving Approach for Making the Most of Your Literacy Block by Nancy Akhavan
While this book is helpful in any content area, I found it to be especially helpful in social studies where students do frequent projects. Tying in language arts makes sense and maximizes class time.
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The third grade social studies curriculum focuses on Michigan history and the Mackinaw Historic Parks website is a great resource for teachers. They provide a number of great printables, as well as an artifact sharing program and traveling historians.
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Pearl Trees is a bookmarking website that is especially helpful for the elementary classroom. Researching is a big part of my social studies class. Pearl Trees is especially helpful since I can organize websites that are appropriate for third graders to visit.
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Educational Standards
My school uses the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations for all subjects expect language arts and math. The MDE has all of the standards available online for download.
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The CCSS website is a great resource for learning more about the standards. In addition to viewing the standards, there are also appendices which aid in helping to understand the standards.
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In this report, WestEd discusses the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. It also offers insight into planning and sequencing.
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Networking
The Discovery Educator Network is an online network of professional educators centered around the use of Discovery's suite of resources as well as general technology integration. Teachers connect in various ways including Facebook, Twitter, Edmodo, and the DE website.
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#Edchat is a Twitter "search" that allows teachers to share ideas with one another. It is Twitter based, meaning that it is a quick way to glean information on a wide variety of topics.
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Parental Interaction & Social Media
My class websites serves a variety of purposes, but the primary reason is for keeping parents informed about the happenings of my class. Student work, such as videos, blog posts, and photos, are showcased for parents. Homework and other announcements are also included.
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Twitter is a status updating website and app that is a valuable tool for communicating with parents. Quick updates and notes are sent to parents who follow you. This can be paired with Facebook to provide updates to both platforms simultaneously.
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Facebook is another useful tool for communicating with parents. By creating a profile for your class, you can limit online "drama" by limiting the capabilities of your followers. This can also be paired with Twitter.
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Remind101 is an app and website that allows teachers to send text messages to parents. The teacher simply gives the parents a code and a toll free number to text, enrolling them in your class. The teacher can then send text messages to the enrolled parents instantly via their phone or computer. In the age of cell phones, this is a valuable tool for contacting parents and keeping them up to date. This is especially helpful for field trips and snow days.
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Professional Growth
There are numerous webinars available online, but the ones available through EdTechTeacher are especially good. They cover a variety of educational technology topics. Living in the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan, webinars are a valuable tool in expanding my teaching abilities.
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The DEN Summer Institute is an annual gathering of members of the Discovery Educator Network. It is a week long professional development that focuses primarily of science and technology.
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Part of my professional growth has come through Michigan State University's MAET program. Focusing on technology integration and being a leader in its use, the MAET program has provided numerous strategies that have been brought directly into my classroom.
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Technology Integration
While frowned upon in many schools, YouTube, when used properly, provides numerous uses in the classroom. There are numerous educational videos that can be used in a variety of lesson. There are also many videos that can help teachers, such as TED talks. I also use YouTube to upload student video projects, creating a real audience and creating purpose for the students.
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Untangling the Web
by Steve Dembo and Adam Bellow This book describes numerous Web 2.0 tools and theirs uses in the classroom. Including teacher input, this provides relevant and useful ideas for making useful of online tools in the classes from kindergarten to twelfth grade.
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Creativity in Learning
Breakout EDU
One of my favorite exercises for getting kids to think is Breakout EDU! The students work as a class to solve clues, unlock lock, find hidden puzzles, and eventually unlock our Breakout EDU box. This has been a wonderful tool for promoting critical thinking, teamwork, and problem solving. In addition to using this in my classroom, I've also facilitated several professional development sessions on Breakout EDU as well as acting as a game designer for Breakout EDU.
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Maker Space & the Makers Movement
Another of my favorites is the implementation of our maker space and the maker movement! I love letting the students be inspired to share what they know in new, interesting, and inventive ways. Rather than assigning prescribed step-by-step projects, I allow the students to choose the way in which they will present the information that they know. The students love the freedom and I love the ownership and quality of the work they are doing.
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