GENIUS MOMENTS

Fact. …when people open their mouths to speak, they send more oxygen to the brain AND oxygen is essential to healthy brain development.  Our students NEED to brainstorm and discuss ideas! Talking in the classroom is a good thing!!

To be more specific, teachers should be intentionally challenging students by asking a variety of questions that enable students to use their reasoning, critical-thinking, and creative-thinking skills.  An EXCELLENT way to do this is by using Bloom’s Taxonomy of multi-level questioning. If you are a teacher, you probably know all about Bloom’s taxonomy.  …or at least you remember hearing those words once or twice when you were in college.

I spend a lot of my day asking a variety of questions to further understanding, but do I truly ask questions that require a higher level of thinking?  …not always.  I mean, if I am in the middle of giving instruction, I can’t necessarily know if I am actually hitting ALL SIX types of questioning!!

…so what are GENIUS MOMENTS?

In my classroom, I refer to the unexpected “extra moments” that I find within my schedule as GENIUS MOMENTS! You know what I mean, the three extra minutes you have before the bell rings, or the four extra minutes you have because your students finished their center rotations early. If you are like me, you don’t want to waste one, single minute of classroom instructional time! I turn those extra, unplanned moments into GENIUS MOMENTS!

[Mrs. Ehle’s Kindergarten Connections] and I are working together to bring you a variety of tools, all based on best practices, that can help you make the most of those GENIUS MOMENTS!  The Genius Moments: Brain Building Question Cards are one of those super-simple, yet very impactful tools!  Check out the Middle School Edition [here] and find Mrs. Ehle’s Primary Edition [here]. 

…and be sure to check back for more tools that you can use to turn your unexpected extra moments into GENIUS MOMENTS!

WELL SPOKEN

Watch out Summer Bucket List, here I come.

I have already finished reading my first of at least three professional development books this summer. Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students by Erik Palmer is a must-read. Seriously. 

I was hooked before I even finished the first chapter. "Now, let me make a radical statement: the mission of education should not be to make students better at school but rather to prepare them for life."  yes!! Mr. Palmer, I completely and whole-heartedly agree. 

If we are being honest, we spend a lot more of our time as adults communicating orally rather than through writing. ...so we should probably teach a few of those oral communication skills if we are going to prepare our students for life. 

Well Spoken breaks down teaching speaking into two realistic, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-implement parts: building a speech and performing a speech.  Oh, and PVLEGS is the perfect mnemonic for keeping track of those elements of performance and engaging students. "Check out her PVLEGS!!"

Buy it, read it, incorporate it into your classroom. Go to www.pvlegs.com and  learn more about Teaching Speaking to All Students. 

...my quarterly book report projects are going to look drastically different and I cannot wait. 

[no, I was not asked to write a review; these are just my fabulous opinions. You're welcome.]