Power Thinking Strategy

This weeks Strategy Spotlight is Power Thinking. Power Thinking helps students to differentiate between main ideas and supporting details. It is an organizational tool for reading, writing, and studying. Power Thinking could be used in any content area. Check out the first video for information about Power Thinking.

The following video shows you some examples of how to teach your students to set Power Thinking up and an example to use.

November Tech Tip - Screencastify

Screencastify is a Chrome extension that allows you to record your screen while also recording your voice.  

There are a lot of different ways this could be used in the classroom. I actually learned about this specific extension from a student who was using it to create a project for Mrs. Ewing’s class.  They used this tool to record their computer screen instead of recording themselves on video teaching their content.

Another use for this extension could be to record notes or lessons to share with the students.  A teacher could record themselves talking through a PowerPoint to provide students a lesson when the student is absent or when the teacher has a substitute.  

There are lots of options with tool, and I would love to help you explore it more if you are interested.

This video shows how to add the extension. You can click here to go straight to the extension in the web store.

This video explains how to use Screencastify.

ABC Brainstorming Strategy

This is my first Strategy Spotlight. I chose the simple but effective ABC Brainstorming Strategy. (Project Criss Manual Chapter 4 pg. 57). This strategy could be adapted for nearly any content area.
Here are some ideas I had, feel free to leave a comment on how you use ABC Brainstorming in your classroom.

English: identify parts of speech; pre-writing tool; synonyms/antonyms
Science: opener for a new unit to see what students already know about the topic
Social Studies: States/capitals; topic review
Physical Education: rules to games; identify different calisthenics and then have them perform so many of each one they list.

Click here to make a copy of my ABC Brainstorming graphic organizer