Hot Seat Jeopardy

I'm not a huge fan of playing PowerPoint Jeopardy games in my class. I think this is mostly because of lack of management of the game on my part, and in turn, lack of participation by my students. Recently the planned lesson by a member of my team was another Jeopardy Review. This was the best Jeopardy Review we've done in my class because of the structure that was added.

Students were placed into teams of 3-4 students and sat in a line (one behind the other). The person at the front of the row was designated as being in the hot seat! Each student had a recording sheet which matched the Jeopardy categories and point values to show their work for each problem.

As we selected a problem, all students worked the problem on their recording sheet and as they finished could pass their paper up to the team member in the hot seat to offer their solution and help. As the team member in the hot seat decided on a solution (only with the work of his teammates, but without talking), he then passed their papers back. I then took answers for the team only from the hot seat.
After we finished the problem, students rotated up a seat, putting a new team member in the hot seat! The front student went to the back of the team line.

I really enjoyed this structure and so did the kids. All students were working. Accountability came from me taking up individual recording sheets and using their work to help their team! I think I will continue to do any Jeopardy lesson this way and not dread them so much now!

{Recipe} Deep Dish Taco Pie

Okay, this is by far my new favorite recipe! Imagine a taco in a flaky, buttery pie crust. If that sounds delicious to you, then this recipe is a must try! The hubby was intrigued the first time I made and ecstatic the second time!

In a 9 inch cake pan, you start with a refrigerated pie crust, followed by a layer of cheese.

The next layer is a meat mixture of ground turkey (recipe calls for beef), taco seasoning, onions, rotel tomatoes, and chopped green peppers.

That's followed by enchilada sauce, black beans (recipe calls for refried beans), and a final layer of cheese.

 Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes...

...and voila! Deep Dish Taco Pie!

You can get the full recipe from Julie @ This Gal Cooks! Her blog is a great one to follow if you love trying new recipes! Enjoy!

I Hate When This Happens...

...when I start thinking about how to do things better next year. I still have about 12 weeks left in this school year and I'm already thinking about Day 1 for next year...ughh!!! But, I think all good teachers probably do this!

Tonight, I've been perusing my twitter PLN, browsing old hashtags I used to frequent and came across @shareski and a tweet that really intrigued me...

If students own the learning the only assessment that matters is "What have you learned?" Our job is to help them articulate the answer.
— Dean Shareski (@shareski) March 1, 2013

This tweet led me to another and eventually to a blog post about assessment by Bill Ferriter...more specifically having students assess their own learning.

Students can and should be doing more assessment of themselves. Ask @plugusin shareski.ca/y/27d
— Dean Shareski (@shareski) March 5, 2013

Something I've implemented lately is a unit test reflection. My students go back through their math test identifying if they missed a problem due to a simple mistake (which they can fix on their own) or a lack of knowledge (and need more instruction). I then set up structured tutorials based around the concepts students have identified that they need more instruction for. In addition to identifying areas for improvement, students also identify their successes. You can download a copy of the document I've been using here.

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Bill Ferriter has a very similar  form he uses after tests which can be found on his blog here. I love his form and will probably change a few things about mine based on the sample Dean has provided.

This is a great reactive approach, but I've been trying to be more proactive in my approach to supporting students. Well, Dean has an answer for that too! I love his Unit Overview Sheet which can be found here! His students refer to this page at the beginning of most lessons to to focus on the objective for the day and then again at the end of a lesson to evaluate where they are in terms of mastery of the objective. He encourages students to update their position of mastery as they learn more and become more confident with the material.

I can't wait to try it out myself in my math class. I just spent an hour developing one for an upcoming 7th grade math unit on 3D geometry. Here's a little preview...

And you can download the full document here. Now that it's made, Bill has left me some insight to making it work!

@kdhoward2 : I love it!Well done.Now the key is giving the kids chances to refer back to the document on a regular basis.
— Bill Ferriter (@plugusin) March 6, 2013

You should definitely head over to Bill's Blog to check out his thoughts.

Fitness Friday + Steamer Action

I'm a couple of days late, but better late than never. I am amazed at the weight loss I've seen in the last week. I had gone up a bit during my birthday weekend and traveling the next week...but, I added some supplements, deleted carbs, and upped the protein in my diet this week.

This week's weight is...

I love this little graph of my weight loss over the past two months...from 177.6 to 161.0!

Woot! Woot! If you remember my post about the motivation to lose weight and my 2013 Resolutions, you'll recall that I set a goal of losing 5 pounds a month for 5 months! I am well on my way to reaching that goal! I'm super excited and so motivated by the progress I see to keep going!

I've been walking around the house all day grabbing the seat of my pants because I'm so amazed that there is some fabric back there to grab. Those same pants were cutting off my circulation two months ago...and yes, I still wore them! I started to post a pic of my butt, but when I saw how they were sagging, I decided not to...not attractive, but I'm still happy! It means I need to go down a size! Woot! Woot!

My diet has been transformed this week by my latest purchase...a food steamer!

In my T-Pain voice...I'm in love with a steamer! Ha! The first day I got it, I cooked broccoli better than any that had ever been cooked in my home and salmon, which has never been cooked in my house!

The next day was tilapia and asparagus! And both were ready in about 20 minutes and required nothing from me after seasoning the food to my liking.

It was quite a chore to find the right steamer for me! My friend Misty almost had me sold on a rice cooker that had a steamer tray. It seemed like a great combo, but when I evaluated why I wanted a steamer, I decided to to go with this one instead. The steam starts immediately when you plug it in and I love how it has two levels! You place the longest cooking item on the bottom. When your top basket is done, you remove it and place the lid on the bottom basket and let it continue to cook.

I'd say that the steamer has beat out the crockpot as my new favorite kitchen gadget! This week I plan to get back in the gym hard and keep up the veggie and protein full diet!

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