Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Brainstorming & Creativity

I took notes on the background of "Brainstorming" and "Creative Writing Prompts." I wanted to first understand what I was going to teach. I knew about brainstorming and writing prompts, but I knew that I needed to have a full understanding of both since I want to teach these concepts. In researching brainstorming, I found that there are several different ways of brainstorming. I think teaching a variety of these strategies is important for my students because not all of them will have the same preference or creativity style. By teaching them different ways of brainstorming, my students will be able to choose which one they prefer, but they will also gain a deeper understanding of what brainstorming is by having it presented to them in different forms. In regards to writing prompts, I found an article that was titled, "7 Good Sources for Creative Writing Prompts." This article presents the 7 websites with a brief description about each one. In addition, the site provides a link to each site. I love this website because it too provides differentiation not only for my students but for me, as a teacher, as well. I believe these prompts will allow my students to remain interested and engaged with writing and the material they are writing about.

I made my own Brainstorming example using bubbl. to show students what brainstorming actually looks like. I will introduce them to this site as well.

The final part of this is the actual lesson. There is an overall lesson plan for Writing Essays. I then created 2 mini-lessons based on my research of writing prompts and the brainstorming process. For these mini-lessons, the other links on this page will be utilized. 

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Creativity and Innovation

Here is my teaching video! I have been learning different ways of viewing subtraction. I believe that learning the traditional algorithm for subtraction is essential, but there are other strategies that can be used as well. These two strategies can help students who are struggling. In addition, students will need to be able to quickly solve subtraction equations for standardized tests, so these strategies can be an aid for them.