Unlocking SEL in the Intermediate Grades: Social Emotional Learning in our 5th Grade Classroom7/11/2019
Collaboration. Empowerment. Student Leadership. These buzz words get a lot of press, but what do they really mean for today's students? Can students really handle the responsibility of leading the class? Can they actually learn what they need to if they are working together so often? Won't all this freedom cause chaos in the classroom? Not if you're teaching them to learn like PIRATES!
In Learn Like a PIRATE, teachers will discover practical strategies for creating a student-led classroom in which students are inspired and empowered to take charge of their learning experience. You'll learn strategies for: - Crafting active, relevant, and interesting lessons - Creating opportunities for student leadership - Providing effective and beneficial feedback - Instilling confidence so students can take risks - Increasing curiosity and passion for learning Incorporate the techniques and strategies Paul Solarz uses in his student-led classroom and watch your students transform into confident, collaborative leaders! Learn Like a PIRATE has been divided into six main sections:
These are the main strategies explained in each: 1. Peer-to-Peer Collaboration:
2. Improvement Focus vs. Grade Focus
3. Responsibility
4. Active Learning
5. Twenty-First Century Skills
6. Empowerment When teachers empower students, the result is a higher enjoyment of learning, which leads to more motivation to work hard, which often leads to stronger achievement in class. In addition, students transfer their learning more successfully to new situations and develop the skills necessary to succeed in our constantly evolving society. But empowerment isn’t just something you do. Yes, introducing projects that allow students to expand their thinking and explore their passions is important. Providing students with opportunities to make decisions and lead is critical. Real empowerment, however, comes not from activities, but from belief. As a teacher, your foundational beliefs will guide your classroom and do more to shape your students’ lives than any activity ever could. I encourage you to consider each of the following beliefs. Are they part of your current teaching philosophy? If so, terrific! Your students likely already feel as if they are an important part of the classroom crew. If not, why not? Perhaps you’ve never thought about how choice or resilience could be taught or how and why to make students the experts. If one of these core beliefs hasn’t been on your radar, I hope you’ll be open to a new way of thinking. Because for ill or good, what you believe comes through loud and clear to your students. Here are some ways I empower my students:
Links:
Here are my Passion Time (Genius Hour) resources:
Leading Children to Pursue their Passions in the Classroom: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/leading-children-to-pursue-their-passions.html Creating Passion Projects: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/37/post/2013/02/creating-passion-projects-genius-hour.html Step-by-Step Directions for Passion Time: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/37/post/2013/09/step-by-step-directions-for-creating-passion-projects-in-our-classroom.html Using Peer Feedback to Improve the Quality of Passion Projects: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/37/post/2014/04/using-peer-feedback-to-improve-the-quality-of-passion-projects.html Observations and Reflections During Passion Time: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/37/post/2013/10/observations-and-reflections-during-passion-time.html Submit Your Essential Question (Google Form): - http://psolarz.weebly.com/submit-your-essential-question.html Our Google Spreadsheet of Essential Questions: - https://docs.google.com/a/sd25.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvsdG6QMWIEMdDJrUU1YMDZEMDhvN203dF9QVVl0bVE#gid=0 Short clips of me approving Essential Questions: Our Trello Page (for Planning our Steps): - https://trello.com/b/tkBEx78i/passion-time Some colleagues of mine (Brad Anderson & Scott Hastings) have an amazing Trello page (way better than ours!): - https://trello.com/b/UmHcLNf9/genius-hour-projects Status of the Class Trello page: - https://trello.com/b/vuoMscSb/passion-time-flowchart Guidelines for Passion Project Presentations: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/guidelines-for-creating-your-final-product.html How to Post Your Passion Project Online: - http://psolarz.weebly.com/150/post/2013/10/essential-question-by-your-name.html This year's Passion Projects (2013-2014): - Round 1: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects.html - Round 2: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects-112213.html - Round 3: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects-122013.html - Round 4: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects-21214.html - Round 5: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects-32114.html - Round 6: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects-5214.html - Round 7: http://psolarz.weebly.com/passion-projects-6214.html Our YouTube Passion Projects PlayList (2012): - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLyw36KgX4aAZzz5cCOC9XoeaYzU8gUtW Keeping my students "on schedule." My students' comments & reflections on various aspects of Passion Time:
Joy Kirr's AMAZING LiveBinder filled with so many resources: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=829279 This page has all of the ePortfolio Resources we referred to in the session: http://psolarz.weebly.com/21stedchat/eportfolio-resources Here are our classroom websites you can visit:
Blended Learning in our fifth grade classroom means that students learn and get directions from the teacher, their peers, and even electronic resources (the internet, apps, etc.). They demonstrate their understanding of the concept by creating reflective blog posts on their ePortfolio using video, photos, and more! This workshop will provide dozens of examples of how blended learning looks in our classroom & participants are encouraged to ask lots of questions and find connections between our examples and your curriculum. Blended Learning has worked best for:
 Links that I shared:
Mars & Human Body:
Lit Circles & Miscellaneous:
Shared Reading, Oregon Trail, Watery Earth, Science Fair:
|
Workshops that I've Recently LedThis covers the past three years of workshops. For older workshops, visit: https://psolarz.weebly.com/workshops-ive-led.html Archives
July 2019
Categories |
| What's going on in Mr. Solarz' Class? |
|
RSS Feed
