Ms. Rodriguez's Classroom

I work at private school. If my readers know anything about private school, it's that they essentially call all the shots. On everything. Today, almost every other district and school in the Twin Cities had a snow day. We did not. It was our Canadian headmaster's call. So be it! To get my students energized first period, we played a little game. What: Played 13 We stood in a circle and we can each say up to 3 numbers in order from 1-13.  Whoever 13 lands on is "out". We play till there's a winner. So What: We got a little competitive and energized! I saw some sleepy faces when I got in the room this morning, but we needed to do a lot of research so I had to get them awake. Now What: I want to do an energizer even when it isn't a crappy weather day outside. I want to find more to be age appropriate, though this was a really quick and fun one.

My action research of pods in the 10th grade classroom has finally been approved! With a few tweaks to fit my school's Exeter style model of discussion, my proposal was finally approved yesterday and I immediately implemented my AR. While it wasn't a huge shift in how my students already discuss in small groups, I wanted to stress that these groups are permanent for the quarter yet their roles would change. Below is the image on the board that I wrote for my students. These were carefully curated groups with students who bring very different strengths to the table. The reason the "questioner" is starred is because only groups with four students in them will have a questioner. I gave students a "warm up" question per usual, yet they were instructed to get in their small groups prior to discussing as a class. My initial observations of this exercise was that students took much longer to actually discuss the question, but not much has changed in terms of w...