Trying my hand at blogging...again.

With 2 of 3 completely inspiring and motivating (seriously) In-service days under my belt, I've decided it's time to get into this blogging thing for real.....


Ok, so that is the blog post I started LAST YEAR!!!  I never finished it.  So, I guess it's always a good thing to try and try again, right?

The start of the school year for me is about two weeks away with student day one in three.  I have so many ideas swimming around in my head that I thought blogging about at least one of them might get me on the right track.  So, here goes.

I've been teaching Honors Geometry for quite a few years and have been thinking about how to go about the vocabulary I teach during the first week of school.  I've tried several ways to go about it, but I really hate that it becomes a lot of teacher-led lecture at the beginning of a year that I really want to be focused on collaboration and student-centered instruction.  So, I had an idea.  I have a list of terms from the first chapter that I think are important for students to know, especially the notation.  I created this form for student notes.  I want the students to focus on coming up with an understandable definition and the notation for each term.  After doing the first one or two with them to show them what I have in mind, I had the idea to divide the terms up and assign each group of students a few of them.  Then, using their book, the internet, etc, each group will come up with a way to fill in the information in the chart for each term.  They will put their ideas on post-it chart paper (LOVE this stuff!).  Then, I want to have a gallery walk where each group will have an opportunity to see what has been done for each term.  They will have an opportunity to add or comment on each term via post-it.  After all is said and done, the students will have an opportunity to fill in each of their charts with the information.

I don't know how it will go, but I think that giving the students this voice and ownership at the beginning of the course will set the tone that I'm looking for for the rest of the year.  Does anyone out there have any other creative ideas for vocabulary terms?  I'd love to hear from you!