In my high school classes I have found that when I go over too many practice questions with my students they easily lose interest. For the past couple years I have been giving my students only 5 questions at a time. We call these "Fast 5's." Over the years I have changed the way I use these.  I used to assign them as homework but I found it was too easy for the students to share the answers with one another. I would sometimes use them as an exit ticket out the door but then I had to remember to check them, hand them back, and then go over them the next day. This didn't always happen as much as I wanted. It's funny how sometimes in teaching we keep doing what we've always done even though we know it isn't as effective as it could be but we just don't know how to tweak it to make it better. Often the change that needs to be made is a tiny change but it makes a HUGE difference.  I've had a teaching revolution this year due to the pandemic. This school...

I want to start off by saying that Partner Games have changed my classroom for the better! Partner games are perfect for practicing science skills. Because there are only two students working together, both students are working, and none are left out. There is also instant accountability as the partners (when chosen appropriately) hold each other accountable. The partner games I use (and the ones I am sharing with you) are very consistent. This allows me to teach my students the directions and expectations for the five types of games at the beginning of the year. Then, I can use those same partner games all year long with different math content and skills, and my students immediately know what to do. Let’s take a look at my partner games. Roll and Calculate To play this game the students take turns rolling the 3 dice and calculating the gradient. Since each pair of students has different numbers they cannot copy from their neighbors. Each student double checks ...

Sometimes as a high school teacher I find myself looking for ideas to use in the classroom that are commonplace in an elementary classroom. One great idea I stole from the lower grades is a word wall.   I have also jazzed it up a bit for Distance Learning by adding a Virtual Glossary and Interactive Notes online. If you have never heard of a word wall then let me explain this to you and show you how I made it interactive in the Digital Classroom.  According to Readingrockets.com:  A word wall is a collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. The word wall is designed to be an interactive tool for students and contains an array of words that can be used during writing and reading. Here are some pictures of word walls in classrooms:     I liked that the word wall is available for students to use at all times in the classroom and is a decorative addi...