Thursday

Hello! Today students either viewed the Rosco videos or played a review game for the geography challenge facts to start out class. Students then reviewed the directions for the reading notes. They had about 35 min to work in class today to complete 3/4 of the reading notes. Some students will need to finish 3/4 of these tonight. We will only have about 15 min to work on this in class tomorrow. Also, Mr. Hogue has posted a google doc of the handouts but you don't need to redo it.

Also, there is a guide for study over Exploration posted tonight on Edmodo.

Students began work today, continued in Mrs. Cobb's class, on their Reading Notes for chapter 33. We will continue tomorrow and finish up on Friday. If you believe you need more time, you may want to continue some work at home. Monday will be the assessment over Age of Exploration material. I will post assessment tips tomorrow. Be sure to check out Rosco's recap of the first three pages of the textbook on yesterday's posts.

Tuesday

Tuesday students continued working on their Reading Notes for chapter 33. We talked a bit about connecting explorers with the country they represented on their travels. This will make for some important "basic knowledge" and will be required on the assessment. The assessment will come on either Friday or Monday so be warned. There is no homework to complete for tomorrow unless you did not turn in your data chart or Geography Challenge. If you turned them in but did not receive your desired score, add information to them and resubmit them.

Monday

Today students continued work on their Geography Challenge. Students also turned in, for formative assessment, The standards data chart over the videos. The completed questions and map are due tomorrow. They will be graded as a formative assessment. The challenge questions and map are posted on the February 22 post. You may print them by left clicking on the document, right click the enlarged document, save as to your machine, and then print from there. Otherwise, your print may be very small.

Thursday

Today students took part in a Computer Lab information mine. That is we watched some video clips on line and sorted them for information connecting them to Indiana state standards completing a data chart. You were asked to complete the videos and chart at home but I am extending that assignment so that you may complete it by Monday. The videos and data chart are posted on Thursday's post.

Reformation Summary Assessment

Hello! Today we prepared for our assessment. We looked here on Edmodo to check out the great support and study strategies from some of our students. Students also reviewed what a good summary includes and then began the assessment. Once finished, students were able to read from the Reformation Blue Book. Students should bring headsets/ear buds for tomorrow's class in the computer lab.

Thinking Tuesday....Completion of the Reformation

Hello! Welcome back from the 4 day weekend! Today we jumped right back in to it! Students received their socratic seminar self-assessment which had the official grade on it as well. This process was explained to the students who were encouraged to speak with us if there was a difference between the grade earned and the grade expected. Students then continued with the cafe conversations which were started on Wednesday and completed today. Students shared out their answers to the document based questions (DBQ) which included their claim and the evidence from each of their documents. Students then reviewed for the quiz tomorrow. Students were encouraged to check Edmodo for specifics for what to study (handout given with background information also posted on Edmodo, cafe conversation discussion, chapter 31 and 32 over view but not specifics from it...only what we have discussed in class). Students were told they need to be able to explain about the main ideas ocurring during the Reformation. Assessment tomorrow! Practice writing about it!

Thursday

Today students took the ECA pre-test for the second half of the school year. We have cut down the amount of acuity testing for sixth grade social studies as this pre-test will be followed up with an ECA post-test near the end of the year. This one does not count as a grade but as the ECA (End of Course Assessment) is a wrap-up of the entire year it will count as a grade in some fashion.

Next Wednesday will be the assessment over the Reformation:

Assessment Tips:
*The test will be general overview of the Reformation and will consist of one essay question. Your C level will be integrated with the B-A+ level in one assessment.
*I have posted the chapter 31 and 32 text book pages on two previous posts for you to read. Don't get caught up in the many details as I will not hold you accountable for all of them, just the larger picture.
*Do pay attention to the Cafe Conversations we had over the primary source documents. While I am not going to test you over the actual documents they will help you with the big picture.
*I will post the background to the Reformation pages later this evening. You already should have read some or all of it as that is what you did after finishing the pre-test today.
*This assessment is aimed to check for your engagement during class time. As I have been suggesting over the past few days how important it is for you to remain engaged in what we are doing in class and trying your best to keep yourself on track that engagement should help you a great deal on this assessment.
 *If you have missed class because of illness, be sure to read the tips for this assessment. You should be able to put together a valid essay on Wednesday.
*Please ask questions on Tuesday as we share out the primary source documents cafe conversations.

Wednesday

Today students completed most of their work using primary source documents. Tomorrow we will take the ECA Acuity Pre-Test. There is no study required for this as it is a pretest. Wednesday, students will take an assessment over standards covered on the Reformation. Information learned through primary source documents, in-class readings, and class discussions well serve as material for this assessment. I will include, on another post, chapters 31 and 32 of the text book and a copy of the reading article in case you would like to review more material. As details are very important, as always, don't focus on the many little pieces of information the text book has to offer. Focus on the Reformation as the big picture. That would be Martin Luther and events around that period.

Tuesday students began working with Primary Source documents on the Reformation. They each have a document which is followed by some questions in the "Source Analysis" method of analysis of documents. We are working toward our goal of preparation for Performance Literacy Tasks. We have completed our make-up Socratic Seminar and any student not able to participate for any reason should turn in their Preparation Sheet. You score will be based on the information that you have provided.

Monday students in Mrs. Cobb's class talked about safe chatting and passwords. Mr. Hogue's class read an article and text coded it on the background of the Reformation. Tomorrow will be the final day to makeup the Socratic Seminar. Please bring your lunch, better for time, and we will discuss in the final 15 or so minutes. I will use your discussion coupled with your research questions to arrive at your grade because of the limited time frame.

TGIF

Hey, it's Friday. Today Mrs. Cobb completed the regularly scheduled Socratic Seminar event and Mr. Hogue's class had a guest speaker from Notre Dame on Cyber Bullying. Hopefully, you all had an opportunity to look at your online usage and safety associated. We looked at good passwords and safe chatting. Mrs. Cobb's class will continue with online safety on Monday. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask a teacher, your parents, or Guidance.

 There will be one more opportunity for students that have not been in a Socratic Seminar "fish bowl" experience over lunch on Monday and Tuesday. If you were absent or not prepared you may be involved on those two days. If possible, please bring your lunch on Monday and Tuesday for that event.

 Once again, if you were in the fish bowl already, you will not be involved during lunch. Have a great weekend.

Thursday

Hey all. Today students completed the third and final "fish bowl" or socratic seminar experience in Mr. Hogue's class and worked on text coding a couple of documents in Mrs. Cobb's class. Once again I have to say that the seminar experience has been a very good one. Mrs. Cobb's class will finish tomorrow.

Any student that has missed their rotation for the fishbowl either because they were absent or had incomplete work will meet in their respective class rooms during lunch on Monday. It is required that you appear even though numbers may dictate that a second day will be needed. Please bring your lunch if possible.

Socratic Seminar

Wednesday we held our socratic seminar discussion. In most classes we held two of three discussions and will hold the last one tomorrow in Mr. Hogue's and Friday in Mrs. Cobb's classes. This was part of our assessment over Renaissance Players and your score will be based on what you said during your discussion and not what your two observers put down on the feedback sheets.

The interaction was a blast and I hope each student found it fascinating because we will hold more of these in the coming weeks.

If you did not have your preparation sheet ready or you were absent you will have one last chance to participate on Monday during your lunch hour. If at all possible you should bring your lunch on that day as your walk through the lunch line will cost valuable time.

Tuesday

Today we completed our work with Renaissance impact players. Each student is required to have researched (C level) and compiled information that will help them draw conclusions to the following three questions:

1. Which category of Renaissance Players had the biggest impact on the Renaissance and why?
2.Which individual person had the most impact on the Renaissance and why?
3. Which one Player from the Renaissance did you find the most interesting and why? The why should be supported by your Internet or other sources.

The B-A+ level of the assessment will be determined by how well you respond to the three questions in your socratic seminar experience. Remember, you must share your information or I will not be able to score you properly. Also, you may find more resources and information to use in the socratic experience, if you like. The better you are prepared, the better you will be able to share and score.

Monday - Jigsaw Groups

Monday we concluded our category groups and moved into jigsaw groups. Students have to collect information for the three groups they were not a part of and share information for the group they were.

After completing the jigsaw collection sheet students will move into the solo portion of the project and answer the following three questions: "Which category of Renaissance Players had the biggest impact on the Renaissance and why?" "Which individual person had the most impact on the Renaissance and why?" and "Which one Player from the Renaissance did you find the most interesting and why?"

The answers to these questions displayed in a Socratic Seminar style of discussion will be the B-A+ level of the assessment. Each student that completed the research collection portion on their Player, including three sources, already has achieved a C on the basic level of the assessment. Any student that did not complete that part or does not complete it by Wednesday will not participate in the Seminar and will only be able to score a C.

Most of the information that students will need has already been provided either by themselves or from their group. If you want to collect some more information to help you with the three questions, giving you a better shot at a high score on the Socratic Seminar, you may do additional research at home. Tomorrow we are offering another BYOD day to aid you in that endeavor. Your B-A+ level score will depend on what and how your share information connected to those three questions mentioned above.

Cold Friday...2 hour Delay

Hello! Hope everyone is keeping warm and safe! We had a 2 hour delay schedule which means that our classes were shortened to 40 minutes. Mr. Hogue's class did not get to hear the speaker about on-line safety but he will try again next Friday. Mr. Hogue's class instead did another lesson on safe on-line talk. Mrs. Cobb's class was able to complete the acuity post test for quarter 2. On Monday we will continue our group discussion on our Renaissance Players.