David Curlette

Motivating Students to Achieve More …. Test Point System Motivating students to achieve at their maximum potential takes keeping them on task and encouraging them to support their fellow classmates.   A strategy I use to keep my students participating and helping others in class by rewarding them for their test grades.   The reward system I created gives points associated to the letter grades on tests, and the points cumulative throughout the semester. How is this done?   After all tests a graded I count the number of A, B, C, D, and F test scores.   Each letter grade scores points such as an A = 4 points, B = 3 points, C = 2 points, D = 1 and F =   - 6 points.   Yes, a grade of a F is worth negative 6 points.   This makes a grade of a F equal to an A and a C, and a grade of a F is equal to a B, C, and a D.    Now you will need to create you reward system based upon the number of points needed to get the reward.   I created a system based on 100 points which rewards the class ca

Many teachers use word walls to help students remember learned vocabulary.  Tipically, each word on the word wall contains the definition and/or examples of how to use the word within the subject that it is being taught.  Here is a technological way to create a word wall using QR codes.  Each vocabulary word contains a QR Code that is linked to a webpage with an example, a YouTube video, or a lesson video from my website.  An advantage for using a QR Codes is to allow more information to be associated with each word.  Also, the QR Codes are a quick way for students to access and store the voabulary words associated with your course.   How to create this word wall? Choose the words for your word wall. Google each of these words Choose the website or webpage for your QR Code Create your QR Code with a QR Code Generator such as  www.qrstuff.com     or    http://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/  Now place the QR Code with the vocabulary word...  Your Done !!     

This activity will allow you to quickly assess how well your students are understanding the your material just by looking at their worksheets… Yes, it is just this easy.   How to assess this quickly and make it fun for your students? Imagine a typical matching worksheet with two columns and either drawing lines or writing the letter next to the problem number.   Now let’s create the matching activity where each question needs more than one answer such as a math question asking for the domain, range, graph, etc.   by having students cut out all of the possible answers of a worksheet and then pasting them into the correct places on the answer sheet.   I used this activity with my twelfth grade students and found it very effective as a formative assessment as well as very engaging for all of my students.

As a math teacher, one of the most common questions I get from my students is, “When are we ever going to use this stuff in real life?” I have found that a great way to answer this question is through the Future Channel videos, which are excellent at bridging the gaps between math concepts learned in the classroom and their real world applications. These videos are short, so I can quickly show one during a class period without it interfering with instructional time. Additionally, the lesson worksheets that accompany the videos provide an extra resource that helps reinforce the concepts and relate them to various real life topics. The best part of the Future Channel videos is that my students pay attention throughout the entire duration, and this engagement naturally leads to a class discussion about how the videos relate to the concepts I am teaching.

Formative assessments made easy, just use a student response system such as Smart Board clickers or eInstruction Clickers .   Instantly find out how well your students are learning the concept s you are teaching.   Instead of wondering when you will have time to grade a quiz or any other type of formative assessment to gage your students understanding, create a lesson using a student response system which will instantly tell you the percentage of students that mark, choose, type, and input their answer choices.   Are there student response systems apps?   YES !!       IPad   --   Socrative        http://www.socrative.com/                                      C an you use cell phones?   YES !!      Poll Everywhere       http://www.polleverywhere.com/

I have just created my own YouTube Channel - CurletteMath (www.youtube.com/user/CurletteMath). It is a great way for my to teach and/or reteach my students my math lessons. I find it very easy to upload the videos and to organize the page by play lists to categorize my videos. I am finding that many of my students are loving the ability to re-watch the math lesson while completing their homework. They are asking me after each lesson, "Is this going to be online?" Recording lessons can be easy using your smart phone, document camera, camcorder, and interactive white boards. 

Play a ten minute activity that incorporates the entire class to participate, talk, and work together to reach the outcome or goal of the activity.   Students will have to solve problems, communicate with other students, and stay on task to finish the game in a set amount of time.   This activity works by placing an answer and question on an index card.   The questions have the phrase “Who Has” and the answers have the phrase “I Have.”   The answers and questions are not located on the same cards which makes the students have to ask “Who Has” to find the solution to their question and in turn calls on the next student to participate in the game.   I have found that this activity takes about 10 minutes to play depending on the difficulty level of the questions and how well your students communicate with each other.   Below is an example of the cards and how possibly to make out the problems.          

Technology is the world of our students. Elementary students have the  ability to read books without turning a single page, search instantly any  thought they may have and get several if not hundreds of possible responses, and  can instantly watch videos of other teachers teaching the same concepts they are  learning at school on with the click of a few keys and a mouse. Technology  has embedded itself into all of our lives and to teach without using it leads  students feeling disconnected in the learning process. I am not saying  that teachers must use technology, and I am not saying that learning can only  happen with technology. I am saying that technology enhances the learning  environment and helps teachers to design lessons that can produce instantaneous  formative assessment feedback, videos created by students or teachers, and  interactive games. Technology is a tool to enhance the learning  experience, it cannot replace teaching. The technology I use in class give  me th

The integration of technology in the classroom will help to enhance the learning for students.  Students use technology on a daily basis with cell phone, smart phones, computers, and MP3 players (the new name for a cassette player).  The days of listening to music on a CD or tape is out dated much like caring around a boom box while listening to music, so are the days of not incorporating some type of technology into our lessons.  Technology can be simply Incorporated by using a document camera, interactive white boards, or graphing calculators.  Too many younger teachers these types of technologies are common and they are technologies that they may have grown up using.  For example, the graphing calculator was not used many until around 1990 and the Internet showed around this time too.  So how do we teaching with technology - easy.. one step at a time.   I suggest finding one type of technology you seem to link, play with it, then find another teacher, Internet resource, or class