I spend a fair amount of time on Pinterest and sometimes it even pays off in actual work-related ways. While looking at classroom ideas or maybe it was workshop ideas, I stumbled upon these:
And here is what the teacher that pinned them said,
“Now when I set out a station, I simply review the task with the kids. We decide on what the simple instructions for the task should be. I quickly flip these little babies over and record the directions. Then if students get to the station, but forget the task, they can press the button and hear them again. LoVe it!”
I could see myself using these for lab stations or an activity where I had students rotating tasks. Could really cut down on the, “What are we supposed to do again?” And, those of you that like color coding things….imagine the possibilities!
What else could we do with these? Do share!
For $34.99 you too can have you’re very own classroom set.
Looking back at my days in the classroom, I wasted a valuable resource: Student Teacher Assistants. I wasn't really fair to them either. They would show up for class each day and I would be making up a list of things for them to do on the spot. I'd be teaching another class at the same time, so I couldn't have them do much of real value to me or for their own learning and experience. I'm now older and little bit wiser. We're lucky enough to have some college student interns in working with us. The lesson I've learned is the time invested in training and preparing for them each week (or even just daily) has a huge payoff. I might spend an hour a week planning for and detailing what I'd like them to accomplish each week. (I know you're first thought was that you don't have an hour, but our interns work 20-40 hours a week and your TAs are only around for, at most 5 hours per week. So, scale the hour down to 10-20 minutes and you're good to go.) Below are some of the payoffs I've seen.
new information, and learn from those around us. Whether we are asking students what questions they have after a lecture, or expecting our students to generate questions for a guest speaker, questions are a huge part of our learning environment, yet we rarely address them.
