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mangofirst

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Everything posted by mangofirst

  1. mangofirst
    No wonder she won an Oscar for this! That was quite a monologue.
  2. mangofirst
    I do not fall under the labels of conservative or liberal thank you very much. GDI till I die!
  3. mangofirst
    Middle school would be a great time to start social media literacy, however I started my teaching career at the high school level, so discussion of any and all levels is great.
  4. mangofirst
    Oh yes, we are test proctors. There's a whole bunch of stuff we are told not to do, but the first and the most heartbreaking is not to help them with anything besides technical issues. Just imagine teaching a group of kids every year, modifying your lessons based on different learners' styles and ability levels, then watching them struggle for 4-5 hours a day for a week straight. It's all so logical. 🙄
  5. mangofirst
    1) I was not, but you can damn well bet that I will have one within the week if such a thing exists. 2) I get your reference, old man. 3) My heart just dropped into my stomach reading that. Hmm...the game is afoot!
  6. mangofirst
    Now, now, let's not start talking about how boys and girls are different and have different brains and body parts and stuff or you might offend a little snowflake.
  7. mangofirst
    Already thinking about adding an 'Economics/Marketing' type section to include analytics and affiliate type stuffs.
  8. mangofirst
    Interested in picking your brains again. So, I have been thinking about a social media curriculum lately. I did a quick brainstorm before turning to Brave browser + duckduckgo for a scan of others' ideas on the matter. I didn't find much but... Here's what I brainstormed: Here's what Journalism Education Association (JEADigitalMedia.org) had to say: Comments, concerns, suggestions, complaints?
  9. mangofirst
    Fixed and fixed. New and improved charts! Cannot figure out how to change font color within charts.
  10. mangofirst
    Ours is called the LEAP 2025. Louisiana Educational Assessment Program. Haven't discovered who owns the test...as far as I can tell, it's owned by the State. I usually try to follow the money, if for no other reason than to know which products will be introduced next. Yeah, I know. I was looking at it on my phone and the Google Sheets app doesn't have all the same edit options as the online one. Also, I'm new to Google Sheets, haven't used Excel in over a year, and have to search for how-to's, but I'm practicing. 😊
  11. mangofirst
    So what you're saying is, they have more faith in me? It just seems impossible when I look at the data. Guess I should put the data to the back of my mind and rally forward.
  12. mangofirst
    Done. Check them out.
  13. mangofirst
    Well, my personal (school evaluation-type) goal is for all of my students to grow by 5 points, so that's actually almost attainable. I guess I should clarify that federally and state-wise the goal is student growth, but there has also always been this (really dumb) thinking that all students should achieve mastery or higher scores. It's impossible. Isn't there some theory or law that states that humans are not all smart and are not all capable of being smart? I mean, in every way I've ever seen humankind scaled, there's always a low, middle, and high...
  14. mangofirst
    Just a little [publicly available] information about the students in my classes... We want them all to be at mastery level or advanced, of course, but here are some charts and graphs because CHARTS & GRAPHS!! Regular Bar Chart Stacked Bar Chart For those of you who are good at charts and graphs, is there one that would show this data in a more visually appealing way than these? This side of my brain rarely gets used, so it's a little rusty, but I figured since I'm starting grad school soon, I should brush up.
  15. mangofirst
    That's how I used to get my high schoolers interested in Shakespeare 😂
  16. mangofirst
    NYT has put out a giant list of argument topics, so I get the idea. My problem is that the students are supposed to be arguing about "the changes Charlie experiences after surgery" and "How the author’s choices contribute to your understanding of those changes and their impact on Charlie." So I guess my question is really, how do I get students to engage in an argument they don't care about. [emoji849] I would have no problem teaching argumentative writing if I were able to choose my own curriculum. I was quite good at it when I taught AP Language to juniors.
  17. mangofirst
    I love the idea of group work, I just can't figure out how to implement it effectively and efficiently (and without creating a bunch of extra work for me). Every time my kids work in groups, it seems like they waste a lot of time, or only certain kids are working.
  18. mangofirst
    I was just having an internal conversation about this. "Are we asking these kids to do something that they aren't developmentally capable of?" Methinks the answer is yes. So I think maybe I should bring my focus back down a bit to be more about the building blocks for them to get to that point in a few years (personally, I don't think it happens until that prefrontal cortex wakes up at around 22-25, or at least that was my experience). Being self directed is one thing, but having the cognitive ability to create your own argument is quite another. Thanks for validating my thoughts.
  19. mangofirst
    I try, I try. But when I'm stifled by pre-formulated curriculum, things get dicey. I would love to teach a creative writing class! The thing that middles schoolers should be focused on is finding their voice. This curriculum does not allow for much student choice, and my hands are tied right now. 🤷
  20. mangofirst
    Yes, it would be a much easier task if my content weren't chosen for me. But for now, I have no way to get around that. I have however created a Steven Crowder-esque "Change My Mind" poster for all 8th grade ELA students to participate on. I choose a stance that I'm certain most students will want to argue against. This week I did "Listening to music while doing assignments is distracting. Change my mind." This has gotten them more engaged in the idea of argument, so I be plan on continuing it. The idea is that they just add their reasoning to a sticky note and add it to the poster in the hallway. The kids are not starting from scratch, but sometimes it feels that way. I'm having a hard time figuring out what background knowledge is actually in those little hormone filled brains. We will definitely not be doing anonymous online discussion with 8th graders. They must be held accountable for their own content. There are ways for them to be anonymous with the teacher having access to whodunit I'm sure, but Google classroom is not set up that way.
  21. mangofirst
    I definitely never bring papers home. I tried that when I first started teaching and they never got graded, so now I leave them at school. It helps me to keep that work versus professional line drawn, although I'm constantly finding teaching moments in life, so there's no real line, but a girl can pretend. Thanks for all of your ideas and comments. I tried a test run yesterday. Part of my curriculum calls for students to participate in Socratic seminar over specific questions on our content (currently "Flowers for Algernon'), so I thought I would try that online first, because in theory they should be more comfortable with that versus face to face. As expected, one class was a complete disaster, one class did very well, and one was in between. And I'm sure it would've gone the same way if we had done a classic Socratic seminar. I hear the comments about teaching everything in smaller chunks, and of course that is how our curriculum is set up, but I'm also expected to get these students to lead the classroom, so there's a catch 22 here with how much I should "give" them versus letting them discover things on their own. I would love to hear your suggestions for student led discussions with no input from the teacher. Does anyone have a magic wand?
  22. mangofirst
    We are doing a close reading unit on the short story "Flowers for Algernon."
  23. mangofirst
    So I want to get my 8th grade English and Language Arts kiddos familiar with and (crossing my fingers and toes) interested in discussion of any type. I use Google Classroom in class, which now provides a "stream" tab in addition to the "classwork" one. Apparently you can use it as a sort of discussion board. But many of my kids are unsure of everything they do, so my test runs haven't gone so well. I think with a bit more structure, it would be an excellent tool to teach them conversation skills as well as civilized debate. I read this suggestion for some ground rules and I like it, but I wanted to get some more input...from real forum participants. Looking forward to some useful (and I'm sure a few hilarious) suggestions.
  24. mangofirst

    Scrubbed!

    mangofirst replied to Jeff Matthews's topic in Lounge

  25. mangofirst

    Scrubbed!

    mangofirst replied to Jeff Matthews's topic in Lounge

    I had my 8th grade English students write down directions on how to make a PB&J, with instructions to be detailed. Had the ingredients ready to go when they were done. If student wrote "Get bread. Put peanut butter on bread" I would take out the bag of bread then put the jar of PB on top. They quickly got the idea. Everyone got a quarter sandwich at the end.
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