Monday, February 27, 2017

10 Ways to Make Projects Work for Low Level Students

Recently I wrote a post about why low level/ low income students need projects as much as higher level students. After I wrote this post, I had quite a few questions about how to implement projects with low level students. So today's post is 10 Tips to Making Projects Work for Low Level Students:

10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources.

1.) Model clear expectations - Be very clear about what you want your students to do, step by step. I often have these steps written out, like in my Math Projects, AND I discuss them with the students before we begin. Then be ready to explain the expectations again when students get stuck. Be patient, especially the first few times when the expectations of a project are completely new to your students. 

If possible, show students examples of possible end projects. I like to take pictures of student projects to show next year's students. You can also create your own versions of the project to help them have a good visual of the expectations.

2.) Share rubrics with students BEFORE they begin working - Just as you want them to know what the end project will look like, you want them to know what their grade will be based on. With worksheets students generally understand what they have to do to get a good grade. With projects there are many ways to work hard but not be focused on the "correct" key elements they'll be graded on. For this reason, before we begin working on our projects, I always go over the grading rubric with my students. I point out the things that will cost them or gain them points so that they know how to get a good grade.

3.) Gather resources - Lower level students will often benefit if they have specific resources to use, rather than just being asked to "Google it". Especially during the first few projects, I gather together books, articles, videos, website links and other resources where I KNOW my students will be able to find the information that they need. 

Often, I may even have students complete an Internet Scavenger Hunt on the same topic before we begin a project. This way the students have been led through the research and built up their background knowledge before they're being asked to create a project with this information. For example, I may have the students complete the Amazing Americans Internet Scavenger Hunt first, which covers 9 different American heros. Then we'll do the Amazing Americans Project where they choose one hero, do further research and create an informational power point about the person.

4.) Prepare "background building videos" - Similar to gathering resources, I often spend time building up our background before we begin a project. I often do this with videos. Right now my students are working on the research for the Ancient Civilizations project of their Country Study. Before they began researching their own individual countries' ancient civilizations, we watched multiple videos about ancient civilizations in general. We started with videos about civilizations in general and then moved into videos on the move of people from generally nomadic to generally agricultural. We also watched videos about archeology and how we learn about these ancient civilizations. All of this background helps our low level students to better digest their individual research because they have a frame of reference already built for them.

5.) Be ready to "guide from the side" - Projects are a great way to build independent work skills, but this is an area where most low level students are lacking. Be careful not to take over your students' projects, but be ready to guide your students with a well posed question or a suggestion of how to find their answer. Make sure students are still the ones who are researching or creating, but be available to them when they get stuck. 

6.) Start with group work - Group projects provide their own set of challenges, especially the meshing of different personalities. However, group projects also allow higher level students to model good study skills for their peers. This is true even in a "low level class" because you will always have a few students who are higher in level than other students. Often the first few projects of the year will be group projects with the work broken up differently each project. This way students learn what is expected of them and have a chance to have someone other than you help them out. 

Group projects can also help out the teacher because instead of having 20 different projects going on you might have 4 or 5 to focus on. This means less resources to gather and less chances of a project needing you to prop it up. Eventually you will want your students to work on individual projects so that they have the chance to find an individual area of interest but as you are starting out, group projects can ease the work load both for the students and for you.

7.) Develop procedures for projects - Just like any other activity you are going to do in your classroom, you will need procedures. In my classroom some of the project procedures include: 
 - Students who are working on projects have first priority on a computer or tablet.
 - Students work on their projects at the same time every day. (Country study gets done first thing in the morning. Math projects get done during math centers. Research projects get done during our literacy block.)
 - Students are encouraged to take their projects to the floor in order to spread out, especially with poster making.
 - "In progress projects" can only be stored on one table.
 - All materials must be cleaned up and stored when we move into another activity.
 - Projects must be edited by a peer before I will do a final conference. 
 - Projects must be checked by the teacher for spelling, grammar and conceptual mistakes before they can be published. (ie. typed in a blog post or hung in the hallway)

Project procedures may differ from project to project, but as with everything else students will respond better to procedures that stay the same. So think carefully about how you want projects to look in your classroom for the school year. Then you can teach procedures once instead of each time you start a project.

8.) Allow for plenty of time - However long you think a project SHOULD take, double it. Especially with low level students, projects will take longer than expected, so allow for that time. This might mean starting a project before you start a unit. Or you might continue working on a project from one unit while you move into another unit. This is okay. Call it preview or review. Either way, I'd rather allow plenty of time for a project and have my students (and myself) feel we succesfully completed the project, than to rush through it just to be done "in time". In fact most teachers that I know who get frustrated doing projects are frustrated because the students don't finish in the time they allotted. The teacher often then throws the project out, leaving both teacher and students feeling like they didn't accomplish something. Prevent this feeling by allowing plenty of time. If students finish early, awesome! That gives you more time for revising, editing, publishing and sharing. I'd always rather my students feel like they finished too early than to have them rushing because I didn't allow enough time.

9.) Start out slowly - I've been doing student projects for 10+ years. Right now in my classroom I have three different projects going on simultaneously. We are almost done with our Be an Architect Math Project where we are designing our dream school. We are right in the middle of our Ancient Civilizations project (which is a small part of our larger, year long Country Study Project). And we have just begun the research for a City Comparison Project. My students started doing projects during week 2 of the school year.

However, my first year in teaching we did 4 projects during the entire school year. For a long time I never had more than one project going at the same time. You don't have to try and do what I do or what any other teacher does. If you've never done projects before, choose one small project and try it out. When you're done, take some time to hash out what worked and what didn't. Then choose another project that's slightly bigger and try it, maybe even after you've taken a significant break. Use your reflection to build better procedures or guide your students differently.

Don't overwhelm yourself, just give projects a good solid try. Eventually you (and your students - no matter their level) will find your groove with projects. Projects can and should be fun for you and your students. They should also make your job easier, not harder. Projects that are working well will allow your students to begin to "teach themselves". Projects should also decrease the amount of grading you need to do. I'd always rather grade one solid project, which integrates several skills than ten seperate worksheets.

10.) Celebrate the results - No matter how the projects turn out, take time to celebrate. End projects will often look different than what you dreamed about when you were planning. However, that final project is the result of your students' learning and persistence. Take time to celebrate that learning with your students.

Allow students to share their projects with someone else as well. This could be their own classmates, another class, their parents or even administrators. Students DO NOT have to stand in front of the class to share out their projects. Check out this old blog post on 4 Ways to Share Projects Without Standing in Front of the Class. No matter who your students share with, watching them get excited about the work they did is one of the best parts of doing projects with students, especially low level students.

If you're ready to start projects in your room, but you're not sure where to start, consider one of these projects from my Teachers Pay Teachers store:

10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. Online Book Report





10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. Rock Research Project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. Biography project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. holiday recipe math project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. plants needs experimentation project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. create your own cookie science inquiry project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. earth day video project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. african folktales online poster project



10 Tips to making projects easier for elementary students and lower level students - classroom suggestions from a seasoned teacher at Raki's Rad Resources. Amazing Americans technology project




Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Silly Songs Boost Memory

Using silly songs can help books your students' memories and improve their test scores. Raki's Rad Resources will be hosting a Facebook Live Video on this topic on February 23, 2017.

Memory tricks, mnemonics, hand movements, dances; every teacher I know has a few tricks up her (or his) sleeve to help their students remember things. For me it's silly songs. Some songs I find online, some songs I've learned from other teachers and some songs I make up (often on the spot in front of my kiddos). Each year I seem to add more songs to my repertoire. Now that I have been teaching over 10 years, I feel like I should have a song for everything, and yet I've added 3 more just this month!

I tell my students that these songs are meant to get stuck in your head like the commercial songs that you sing without really meaning to. My explanation is that on test day I can't give them hints, but they can remember the songs and that will be like me giving them a hint. The songs help them remember specific things, and so we focus on making sure they know what the song MEANS and not just memorizing the words. For this reason, I have found that the simpler the song the more helpful to the students.

Some of my favorite copyrighted songs are the grammar songs by Shurley English. They are catchy and get stuck in your head so bad I am often still singing them while I'm cooking dinner! But the ones the students remember the most are silly things like "A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, that is where you're comma should be!" which I learned from my mentor teacher while I was student teaching. This song is sung to a Jackson 5 tune and used when we are trying to figure out where to put a comma in a number with at least 4 digits.

I can promise you that often when I am singing these songs I feel like an idiot. I really hate when my instructional coach decides to walk in while we're singing. But then on test day I love watching the students sing these silly little songs in their head. I love seeing the "aha!" moment when the song actually helps them. This makes all of the silly embarassing moments completely worth it.

Since it's hard to really share these songs in a blog post, I have decided to try out my first Facebook Live Video. Tomorrow evening (Thursday, February 23, 2017) around 6pm MST/ 8pm EST I will share a video with you of all kinds of silly songs that I use in my classroom. So even though I know I'll feel silly, please tune in at my Facebook Page and see if any of these songs could be a good memory jog for your students. 


Saturday, February 18, 2017

Math Fact Quiz Updates

So it's that point in the year for me that my supplies are slowly starting to run out, including copy paper. One of the biggest uses of copy paper in my classroom is math fact quizzes. We started out the year taking addition and subtraction mixed quizzes and now we have moved into multiplication quizzes. After years of doing these quizzes, I had "Duh!" moment this week and realized that if I made the quizzes two per page they would still be big enough for the kids, but I would save a bunch of paper. So I've just gone through and revamped all of the fact quizzes in my All Inclusive Math Fact Quiz Bundle so that now all offer 2 quizzes per sheet, as well as the original 1 quiz per sheet.

Math fact quizzes - you have the choice one quiz per sheet or two quizzes per sheet - with a level to meet everyone's needs - math fact all inclusive bundle from Raki's Rad Resources.

On Wednesday, I printed my first set of half sheet quizzes and the kids looked at them and said "Why didn't you do that a long time ago Mrs. Raki?" Good question kids, good question!


Saturday, February 11, 2017

Low Level / Low Income Students Need Projects Too

Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.

In my experience, I have found that low level / low income students often don't get access to the same projects and higher level thinking activities that their higher level / higher income peers do. Mainly this is because teachers feel like there isn't time for those things when students are behind in basic skills. So instead, we spend a lot of time drilling and skilling low level students in hopes that they will remember those basic facts because of the repetition. 

Now I'm a big fan of repetition. I use it in certain ways in my classroom. It's great for building math fact fluency or memorizing site words. It can also be helpful for building classroom routines. But, it's not the end all and be all of education. In fact, it often leads us to the quote "Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results is the definition of insanity."  Understanding content and using critical thinking skills to solve a problem do not come from drill and skill repetition. Those types of understanding come from making connections between what we already know and what we are learning.

Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.

Brain based learning research shows us that students need to be able to connect what they are learning with background knowledge in order to understand and remember what they are reading. One thing that many of our low level students are lacking is background knowledge. So realistically the best thing we can do to help our low level students is to build their background knowledge. Student will more background knowledge learn faster. As teachers we know this to be true because we see it in our classroom all the time. I can personally think of multiple students in my classroom right now who do better not because they have better processing skills but because they have more background knowledge to connect to. 

Projects are a wonderful way for students to build their background knowledge. They are also a wonderful way for students to make connections between different background knowledge that they already have because projects ask them do work with multiple different skills and concepts simultaneously. 

Another thing that brain based learning research shows us is that students (and people in general) remember things better if they are invested in them. The choices that projects allow students make it more likely that they will be invested in these learning experiences. For example, my students who are working on country study projects have chosen their countries for their own personal reason. This gives them buy in and personal investment in their learning, ownership if you will. How many students take ownership for drill and skill worksheet learning?

Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.

Maria Montessori is famous for developing a hands-on curriculum that gets students engaged in learning through real life projects like cooking meals. Few people remember that her first famous schools was in a poor, inner city area of Rome. She saw unprecented growth in students of low income, low background knowledge and low academic levels. Why then are our American Montessori schools private and geared towards middle to high income students? Why are we not using the Montessori methods, or at least project based learning, in our low income/ low level schools with the kids who need these methods most?


I teach in a school like this and I try to incorporate as many projects as I can. Here are a few of the projects I have used this year with my 3rd graders:

Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.


Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.

Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.


Why we should use project based learning with our low level students - a research based presentation from a teacher in a low income school - Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.

What projects are you going to do with your low level/ low income students?