Cooperative Learning Tools - Training, Training & more training

I'm sorry for being MIA, I packed most of my summer training in the past week and this week! My head is still spinning from all of the wonderful ideas I got. I attended trainings on iPads, writing with Barry Lane & Gretchen Bernabei, and Kagan cooperative learning. They were all fabulous!!

I really enjoyed the Kagan training. I have never been to an official Kagan training before, but it is all we used during undergrad. I was fortunate to have a professor who is a Kagan trainer. {If you have a chance - I highly suggest going!} The one I went to was a 2 day conference that focused on ELL's.  It is amazing how well cooperative structures lend themselves to students acquiring a new language!

While I really love Kagan and all of their materials, a lot of their things are EXPENSIVE!!! I highly suggest to spend the $$$ on the trainings & books - they're worth it. However, for tools, I borrow their ideas and come up with alternatives.

Timers & Selectors

For timers, I love to use online-stopwatch, they have very cute timers! They even have an interval timer, that you can set up for teams and have 4 different timers going {similar to Kagan's bar timer} There are also tons of timers for Smartboards.

Selectors are another really fun tool! If you have your students set up in groups of 4, I always have each student numbered {#1-4}, with these selectors, you can either put students names or just the numbers 1, 2, 3, & 4 {similar to how Kagan's work}

• Random Name Selector - you can either put your Ss name in there, or you can just put #1-4 and it will select one. It also has a stopwatch on the same site. The best part, it saves your student's names!

• Dart Selector - is another cute one, but it doesn't save your list of names or numbers, so you may have to keep it up on your screen at all times. 

• Super Teacher Tools - You can create a class (either by name/#) and use it as a name selector, but you can also use it to randomly creates students into groups. It saves your info too!

• Random Name Picker - This will allow you to enter student names/#'s and it uses a slot machine to choose the name/#.

• Stick Pick - iPhone app. This one is pretty fancy and keeps track of correct responses by students. 

• Smartboard - name generators & group creator.

• Kagan also has some apps that are pretty inexpensive {2.99 each} for selectors & timers!

I have lots of ideas for some of their other tools - and I will share with you as I make them! Here are some other great resources that I have found that are either free or very inexpensive!

• Kagan Free articles - This section is full of free resources!

• Cooperative 365- A blog dedicated to cooperative learning and has amazing resources!

• Cooperative Learning Seating chart

• Laura Candler's resources - tons of great ideas and resources!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway - there are LOTS of great prizes!!!!

Summer Reading

I love summer! I love to read! And I love to read during summer! Every time I turn around, I find a new book to add to my reading list! Here are my top 5 (really 6) professional books that I plan to finish reading this summer! Would anyone care to join me?

#5 Barry Lane  But How Do You Teach Writing  I'm excited about this one! My principal is sending me to the Barry Lane & Gretchen Bernabei training at the end of the month. I used both of these authors' books during my graduate and undergrad courses. Would love to find others to bounce and share ideas with this one.

#4 Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I missed the book study last summer, but I've heard nothing but amazing things about this book! I've been told this will be a quick read! I will probably start my reading with this one first.

#3 Choice Words by Peter Johnston. We are doing a book study with this book as a school. Our focus next year will be vocabulary & questioning. This is another quick read and very short book! I'll probably read this closer to start of school so it will be fresh in my mind for our discussions.

#2 Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. This is an oldie but a goodie ;) I've ready it and used it in several of my undergrad classes. I really want this to be my focus for spelling/phonic instruction next year. I will do a quick read, just to refresh!

#1 Daily 5 & CAFE  - I plan to be part of the blogging book study over on We Read, We Blog, We Teach in July. I have read parts of Daily 5, but have never "dissected" it. I also plan to use CAFE and adapt it to my classroom.





Here are my BONUS books! All of the others are pretty quick reads and won't take me long. So I actually have 7!!! I can do it ;)

Guided Math Instruction  I will be behind, but I plan to chime in when I can with the book study over on Primary Inspired. With all of this language arts....I needed some math in there too!

               

How the Brain Learns - This will also be another book study I do with some of the teachers on my campus. I'm very intrigued with the topic!       

It's going to be a BUSY summer! I'm not going to sweat it if I don't finish all of these books. I will just continue reading them into the year. So - what are you reading this summer?