4-Mat writings - 5th grade, Borger, Texas

Please comment below to add your 4-Mat Review

Google Docs Lesson Plan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oXtuwR7ze46cxN_b_R2xbN6mTFC6J25qaAtj8gZpHsg/edit?usp=sharing


Sorry about that. I hope we can all edit it now.

Above is Google Docs.
Below is Google Slides.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JjtA_11EIkiTWj1gh-FY_gKz-jQmO4yb9_J_PUT6AL0/edit?usp=sharing

ASL

Is anyone clear on how we are supposed to do the Assessment of Student Learning assignment? It seems like we're expected to teach the lesson to a group of students ...

Lesson Plan

Good Morning,

I plan on starting to look at this more tomorrow. The lesson needs to be tied to a TEKS and I think our idea works best around some sort of reading related TEKS. It also has to target a specific set of students; my idea is that it be in the 4th - 7th grade range, but I'm not particular.
It also has to be tied to a Technology TEKS and I think that shouldn't be that difficult to find.

Since we're using Blogger for our assignment and the main idea is that this be generally an outside the classroom activity, but since our lesson plan must concern inside the classroom, then the lesson could be based on a beginning of the year I assignment in the Gradual release model. The teacher models it, the class does it together, then the goal would be for the students to be released to do this more on their own than inside the class as the academic year progresses.

Just my initial thoughts. I'll add more tomorrow.

Pre and Post Assessment ideas:
Since we are doing this assignment over some sort of reading and the students have to use the Blogger to interact, perhaps the Blogger could be used as homework before the in class part of the assignment and answer the questions in teams. So, we could teach a lesson on how to analyze a piece of writing around themes or motifs or grammar or whatever is done in the appropriate grade level, then the pre-assessment is centered on GENERIC questions about analyzing writing. This gives us as the teacher a level of measurement to see if the students understand the principles we are trying to teach. THEN, we teach the lesson related to our specific piece of writing, or the students read it and discuss it, the POST-Assessment is generally like the pre-assessment questions but related SPECIFICALLY to the assigned reading. 

It seems like the lesson plan would just cover one period of class time but maybe it should be a broader lesson plan covering a unit, piece of writing, etc. Having a pre-assessment, a post-assessment and teaching + technology interaction in one 45 minute (or whatever) block of instruction would be pretty difficult. 

That way the technology component is not the WHOLE thing, but just part of extending learning/interaction outside of the classroom lesson but that is integrated with it.

I'm reading Differentiating Instruction with Technology in Middle School Classrooms for my Literature Review; chapter 4 has great ideas to use technology for English/Language Arts

Technology Project

I wrote a rough technology project for us. You can find the Microsoft Word document under the file exchange or access the Google doc here Document

I was fairly unclear on the directions, so I just went with it. Please feel free to edit/change as you wish!

Quentin McCart

This is a great idea, and an easier way to keep track of students' initial posts.

I like the idea of there being a class blog. Students create posts with their name as the heading, perhaps name and title of assignment "Quentin McCart Reading 1" then write their 4Mat review (or whatever). Then students respond to their peers writing. 

It seems like there is a lot of flexibility; it could, for example, also be used for peer editing. If a paper of some length were assigned, the peer edits could be done on the blog post itself (perhaps in a different color), then the student could complete a final draft before submission.

A couple of questions: how does the teacher ensure students don't come on and mess with their peers' work? Is there a way to track who is posting what ... maybe that is what the email alerts detail ...

Laura Rodgers

I was trying to figure out a way for students to post their individual responses where other students and the teacher could comment and give feedback, without having to search for each individual blog. I figured out that the teacher could add the students to the same Blogger account (like I have done for y'all with this account) and the students can create a new post with the title being their name. That way when you click on an indivudal student's name under the blog archive, it will automatically take you to what they have written for their assignment. This is an example of what they could be doing. From now on, let's each post under our individual names. Can y'all go in and create a new post with the title as your name?

Technology Project

For this project we are supposed to type a 1-2 page paper explaining how we are planning to implement Google Blogger in the classroom. We need to explain the main reason that our students will be using this and the main goal for our students. We need to be creative and find ways to make Google Blogger interesting, fun, and useful/helpful for the students. We will need to upload this individually to Blackboard, but the paper can be the same for everyone. If we all put in our thoughts and ideas, Mistie said she would edit and finalize the paper. (Laura)

I like the idea of using the Blogger as an online class journal, where students record reflections related to assignments. In my context it would be a good way for students to respond to reading assignments they have. I think if we did that we would need to have some sort of required format the students have to follow in their online journals ... maybe it could be that teams have to create a journal entry (like we are doing here), where each member adds a piece.

For another set of classes I did this thing called a 4Mat Review: The four sections are: Summary, Concrete Response (how the writing affected the reading. For instance, "what came to mind as you were reading this piece"), Reflection (this is the critique area), and Application (how will the writing change what the reader does or think). I have used it in my classes and sometimes it works better than others. Obviously we don't have to use this exact thing, but I do think there should be some sort of Structure for the students to follow.

Do we want each student to have their own blog? Or do we want to say that the teacher has a class blog that the students comment on? If each student has their own blog, the teacher and other students can go in and comment what they think about the blog. If the teacher has the blog, they would have to post 4 different blog sections [for each of the 4 (4Mat Review) sections] so the students can post on each of the 4 required sections. (Laura)

It seems like we have a pretty good idea of what we are going to do: use Blogger to provide students an opportunity to discuss a writing. We will use some sort of structure to the assignment (like 4Mat). Perhaps we could say that the Blog/Journal responses has to be to ONE aspect of the 4Mat review. "Respond to the critique" or "In what way did you identify with the student's concrete response?"

For the actual lesson plan, I would think we'd need to come up with a specific assignment for the student to use. I think we have to have a pre and post-assessment built into the lesson plan as well. Anyway, I will be in and out today and on again around 11:00 pm. Let me know if you need any other info!

Blogger Uses

Hey everyone!

Here are some ways that we can use Blogger in the classroom:

• Use this instead of a weekly newsletter 
• Assign homework where students can ask questions and make comments
• Hold class discussions and extend the learning outside of class
• Using Blogger with Google Reader is another way for teachers and other students to see student work without having to collect it every day.

This is from the book Creating a Google Apps Classroom.

I created this blog so that we can become familiar with this Google app and practice using it so that we can implement it in our classrooms.