Lately I have been inspired by a company called TheThirdTeacher+ and have been reading about "hacking" my classroom to meet the learning needs of my students.  Many classrooms are very noisy even when the students are quiet. They spend so much of their time in school sitting, the last thing I want to do is say "stop moving" but the screeching of the chairs and desks on the floor is unbearable especially when there is a lot of humidity in the air. So I think I found a solution online.  I am really excited about this!  We tend to move our chairs and desks quite a lot in my classroom to create different learning groups and centers. Now multiply that by 24 chairs and 24 desks. It is really loud in my classroom and nobody is to blame. The more moisture there is in the air the louder the screeching sound is.  Some of my fellow teachers have used tennis balls on the feet of the chairs like this: I have wanted to use them but I couldn't get...

Charlotte Danielson's 2007 Framework for Teaching  and Index of posts from BallinwithBalling.blogspot.com Domain 1 - Planning and Preparation 1a: Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy (Knowledge of content and the structure of the discipline, Knowledge of prerequisite relationship, Knowledge of content-related pedagogy) BallinwithBiology posts:      Oneonta Biology Listserve 1b: Demonstrating Knowledge of Students (Knowledge of child and adolescent development, Knowledge of the learning process, Knowledge of students’ skills, knowledge, and language proficiency, Knowledge of students’ interests and cultural heritage, Knowledge of students’ special needs) BallinwithBalling posts:       Blood Model       Protein Model made with a baby toy 1c: Setting Instructional Outcomes (Value, sequence, and alignment, Clarity, Balance, Suitability for diverse learners) BallinwithBalling posts:       Kinesthe...

     To save time in class and to get my students started right away I created a mailbox for each of my students. This is a quick way to hand back papers and a nice easy place for my students to store the headphones that they need in class everyday.     Each student has been assigned an "Alpha Number" which is a number that helps me put their papers in alphabetical order by class. So my first student in my first class has the number 1, second student alphabetically in the same class is #2, etc. So every time a student puts their name on their paper, they also write their Alpha Number. This saves a LOT of time when you need to alphabetize over 100 papers. These are pictures of the students' mailboxes where they will get papers that I want to hand back. This is where they turn in assignments to me Each "basket" is for a different class A bit of advice: If you are going to make your own mailboxes, staple them together or else...

Many of you may know that I am a Biology teacher and in today's society it is a very stressful and demanding job. Constantly (even during vacations and weekends) I am working to improve the entire school experience for my students and to streamline the entire grading, learning, and evaluation part of my job. Very soon I will be evaluated as a teacher with the use of Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching (2007).  The framework places an emphasis on four different domains of teaching... http://www.roe13.k12.il.us/Services/KeriKorn/HND12/Trover/FrameworkTeaching.pdf Even if you are a great teacher, most of the stuff you do isn't always visible in a 40 minute observation especially if you are teaching online or using technology in the classroom. In these blog postings I hope to document all of the different techniques and tricks that I use as a teacher and to help give others ideas that can be implemented in their own classrooms.  We are much better te...