LessonCast at ISTE–Join us!

Saturday, June 23, 2012; 8:30 to 11:30 AM  Pre-Conference Hands-On Workshop: Come Make Your Own LessonCast and Receive 3 Months Free Access to LessonArchitect.  Register here: additional fee required. Tuesday, June 26, 2012; 5 to 6:15 PM Birds of a Feather Session: Mentor Teachers Multiplied: Building Teacher Capacity. Come share best coaching practices! Wednesday, June 27, 2012; 8:30 to 9:30 AM Bring Your Own Device Session: Mentor Teachers Multiplied. Come explore lessoncasts and the process for developing them. Register here: free. View lessoncast

Flip It Word Parts

Transcript: Flip It Word Parts is a fun, interactive vocabulary lesson idea where students combine roots and prefixes to build and define new words. Students start with two slips of paper. One slip has two prefixes (front and back); the other slip has two root words (front and back). Students put the two pieces of paper together and flip them over until they have formed four words. For example: re/spect, in/spect, in/vert, re/vert. Then they take those four words and use context clues to put them into a cloze paragraph. They use context clues or a dictionary to help them. Students examine View lessoncast

Rigor for Real Classroom Instruction

Rigorous instruction is a term with multiple definitions but few practical guidelines. This lessoncast shares a practical process for ensuring rigor in everyday instruction. 1) First we have to define what rigor looks like in the classroom. Here’s our definition: Rigorous instruction engages every student in learning that is complex, thought-provoking, and moves from concrete to abstract. Rigorous instructional tasks may include critical thinking skills, problems solving, higher-level questioning, developing conceptual definitions, categorizing and sorting, cross-curricular connections, View lessoncast

Synthesis: Quest for New Understanding

Assessment Questions: How can I relate multiple pieces of information to form a new (big picture) meaning? Which pieces of information are most relevant? What relationships are present among key details? Transcript: Synthesizing is a comprehension skill that takes pieces of information to form a new big picture. This lessoncast introduces a mnemonic called QUEST to help students synthesize for higher levels of understanding. If students are unfamiliar with the concept of synthesizing for reading comprehension, begin with a quick team activity. Give each team an envelope with puzzle View lessoncast

Connect Two: Vocabulary Strategy

Assessment: At the end of the unit, have students create appropriate sentences using the vocabulary words they've learned and/or have students write a paragraph explanation using the vocabulary words correctly. Connect Two is an activity that encourages students to become familiar with specific content vocabulary as well as develop vocabulary-in-context strategies. At the beginning of a unit, display and read aloud selected content vocabulary words. Explain to students that by the end of the unit, they will become comfortable with the vocabulary about to be introduced. For example, here are so View lessoncast