Discovery Education

Have you ever heard of or used Discovery Education? 

I am very fortunate that my district has purchased the rights for all teachers and students to have access to this amazing site. 

On the surface Discovery Education appears to be a streaming site where one can stream videos for viewing.  At least this is what I believed for several years, however, I was completely wrong.  I have learned over the past year or so that Discovery ed has so much more to offer than just videos. 

There are images, ebooks, reading passages, interactive activities, virtual science labs, songs, audio clips, a world atlas, encyclopedia pages, and so much more.  I really can't name them all. 

One of my favorite aspects of Discovery ed is the portion dedicated specifically to elementary science.  In this section, all of the science materials are sorted by category: life science, earth science, and physical science.  I love the glossary aspect of this section.  For each science term, there is an animation, definition, short video clip, and image.  These really help students gain a firm understanding of the vocabulary words. 

I also really enjoy the activity builder portion of the site.  This portion allows the teacher to assign specific activities for students to complete.  Each student in my district also has a log in to Discovery Ed so once an assignment has been assigned by the teacher, it will appear on their student page.  For example, my scholars are currently doing research projects.  If I come across a video clip that might be beneficial for one of my students, I could assign that video to her to watch.  I could also assign activities to the whole class. 

What I like most about Discovery Education is that by using it I can take my students anywhere without leaving the classroom.  Many of my students have a very limited view of the world outside of their neighborhood, so teachers at my school have to help them make a lot of connections and provide them with experiences that they don't get with their families.  Discovery ed is a resource that allows me to provide them with the visuals that can help them make connections to what they are reading or what we are learning in science or social studies.  I am extremely grateful for this amazing site because of this.

This site has been a life saver for me at times and I always refer to it when I am creating my lesson plans to see if there are any materials that would fit what I'm teaching.  I can almost always find something that matches. 

I would like to add that I was not asked to do any kind of review for Discovery Education.  Last Friday, I went to a professional development on challenge based learning that was hosted by Discovery Ed.  (I will post about challenge based learning at a later date.).

After the training, I started to think about the various resources that I am fortunate to have access to. Discovery education is a site that I'm not sure that I could do without.

What are some resources that you could not do without?

Data Wall

I can't believe that it is already the middle of February.  Where has the school year gone? 

I also can't believe that I haven't written a blog since November, but I'm finally back.  A lot has happened over the last few months in both my professional life as well as my personal life that has kept me extremely busy, but I am finally able to find some time to blog.  I have definitely missed it.

Well, now on to my post...

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I wanted to have a place in my classroom to show our classroom data.  All year this area has remained blank because I couldn't figure out exactly how to display it.
In December, my assistant principal completed my first evaluation and she told me that I needed to find a way to track data based on subgroups to see which groups are showing growth and which were not.  The easiest subgroups to begin tracking would be by gender; boys and girls.

Last school year, one of my colleagues, who is now the literacy facilitator for my school, had a data wall so I had a conversation with her.  She explained how she used her data wall and I decided to follow her lead.

This is how it works.  I created cards with each of my scholars names on them for each of our core subjects; reading, math, science, and social studies.  After they take a quiz or test, I pass out the cards and their graded assessment.  (We are currently working on fractions, so I have been recording their grades as a fraction and having them use a calculator to calculate their own percentage.) They record their percentage on the top of theory paper.  If they have a passing grade, 70 or higher, they place their name card face up.  If they have a failing grade, they place their card name down.

As a class we then calculate three percentages; whole class, girls, and boys. 
We then have a classroom discussion about the data.  After the third set of data collection, my students saw a trend that the girls always scored higher than the boys.  This led to a discussion about why this was a trend.  I love the fact that my students are analyzing their data. This is definitely requiring them to reflect on their work. I love it!!
Since I started using this data wall, I have noticed that my students have put more effort in their work, especially the boys, who desperately want to beat the girls, which hasn't happened yet.

I also like this idea because it will be a great addition to my data binder and it doesn't require me to do a whole lot of extra work.

I plan to continue to track data this way for the rest of the school year and look forward to using it starting at the beginning of the year next school year.

Here are some pictures of the current status of the data wall.  The boys and girls have different color cards so that it is easy for us to distinguish between them.

Here are the charts with my scholars' names. If the name is facing up, then the scholar passed the assessment. Girls are represented with either yellow or purple cards and boys have blue cards.

Here are the graphs of our data. Green=whole class, red=girls, blue=boys.