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   Education Rocks! Air Guitar! Expressing Natural Kid Energy! |
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Note to Pre-Service
Teachers - How I structured my 4th grade class: The students featured on smithclass.org were expected to be creative, hard-working, responsible, and team players. They inhabited a classroom with 10 computers, 3 digital cameras, a Smart Board, a science area with bones and fossils, and a great view of Hannibal, Missouri from our third floor windows. Also in this class kids worked with the Quest Atlantis multi-user virtual environment program from Indiana University (it completed it NSF funding period), performed Book Talks, wrote a Weekly newspaper, socialized in Learning Centers four days per week, played International Chess games, interacted on a regular project basis with Taiwan, Turkey, England, and Africa, participated in Kidlink projects, had blogging buddies via Classblogmeister, conducted math and science experiments, raised Monarch butterflies, and enjoyed their favorite Internet activity - the Monster Project. All of this combined to make a very very busy year. Kids were engaged in everyday learning, whether the teacher was talking in front of the class, or the kids were in Learning Centers - the basic feel of the class was Project Learning - always doing something. We had standardized tests each year, but we did not practice or drill for the tests (and we always did okay at test time). Overall, the students focused on social learning, practicing how to work together and share. See the video links below for active learning in the lives of 9 year-olds. |
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Audio Tour of Hannibal, Missouri by 4th Graders
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Kid Photos from other years... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
