Susan Fitzell-Educational Consultant & Speaker
Practical Strategies to Get High Test Scores Now!
Power Writing Supports Long Term Memory and Writing Skills
Pat Murray, from Greater Latrose High School in Latrose, PA uses power writing as a technique to help transfer information from short term to long term memory. She suggests that students power write about what they’ve learned for 3 minutes immediately following a 15 minute lecture. Visual learners could also add stick-figure drawings to provide memory cues and enhance what they write.
Power writing can also be used as a way to improve writing skill. Mr. Smiddy, of Staunton Elementary, defines power writing as “a method of writing designed to improve students’ writing through a three step process.
The beginning step teaches Read the rest of this entry »
The Body of An Essay
Visual Demonstration
1. The Brain – the intro: like the brain, the intro “controls” the body of the essay (especially point out ‘thesis’)
2. The Heart – body paragraph: at the “heart” of the essay are the body paragraphs.
3. The Feet – conclusion: like your feet, Read the rest of this entry »
Visual
This educational video set has earned high praise for it’s ability to blend an irreverent sense of humor with an “educational assisting program designed to beef up students’ language skills before taking the SAT test.” ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Auditory
Who hasn’t had a song stuck in their head, at one time or another? Using the naturally catchy nature of tunes to have your students leaving your classes humming the answers to next weeks test seems to sell itself. The following are a couple of links that offer educational songs for download. There are songs for all grade levels as well as subjects.
SongsForTeaching.com
Kinesthetic
The following was an idea suggested to me by Megan Taylor of Ozark, MO, as a method for getting physical learners to take hold of abstract ideas. kinesthetic spelling: Use your body as the letters on the line. For example: “Political” – P-stand, o-sit, l-stand, i-sit, t-stand, i-sit, c-sit, a-sit, l-stand. When an entire class spells out a word and performs this, it also adds a visual and auditory dimension to the idea.
Gilmanton School Works to Reach All Learners
Last Friday, I did my “Differentiated Instruction Strategy Blast” seminar at Gilmanton School. Not only was a treated to breathtaking foliage on the way to this New Hampshire town, I spent the day with a motivated, positive staff who truly care about helping their students succeed.
Here’s the first indicator: The front tables filled up first! When I saw that happen I knew that I was in for a great day! Ok, it’s true, we presenters are partial to people who are willing to brave the front row.Teachers were also willing to share their best practices and resources with me.
Behavior Management Cue Card Approach!
Here’s a way to quietly cue students to choose positive behavior. Use a cue card!
Behavior management cue card instructions:
1. Print out this card or your own version of the card.
2. Choose your method:
a. Tape a card on the upper right corner of each student desk.
i. Laminate the card Read the rest of this entry »
I spent today at the National Speaker’s Association of New England program in Natick, MA. Steve Mertz, SEO Speaker, presented my kind of seminar: It was loaded with strategies to get my teacher resource website noticed! I’ve been trying to find ways to get my website noticed by teachers looking for co-teaching, inclusion, differentiated instruction, RTI, etc. strategies. My site offers many web resources and down-loadable tools. Today, it was affirmed for me that blogging is a great way to get the word out about websites. For more… Read the rest of this entry »
I recently presented a workshop in Schnecksville, PA. The participants’ challenge was to create a song to help students memorize test taking strategies. They all did such a wonderful job with their rhymes, songs and mnemonics that I wanted to share them with all of you. The memorization & test taking strategies they’ve included are from the book, Umm… Studying? What’s that? By Shivahn Fitzell
The following rhyme explains how to approach multiple choice questions on a standardized test:
First do the easy.
Then do the tough.
Quickly guess the difficult stuff.
Focus on multiple choice, they say later come back to do the essay.
Cross out answers that don’t make sense.
You’ll be done in no time, w/out being tense.
Watch your time and you’ll be fine.
Easy first, then the worst.
Guess the rest try your best.
Multi-choice then your voice.
Please don’t shirk, check you work.
Easy
Difficult
Guess
Multiple choice
Essay
Cross out wrong
Starring: Donna Barone, Tammy Weaver, Carissa Capwell, Kathleen Teay, Brent Herzog.
To the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star….
Calculate the time you need.
If you do you will succeed.
Easy questions first, they say
Difficult next is the best way
Multiple choice before essay
Guess the rest and end your day.
|
W=whisper C=chunk P=paraphrase D= draw it S=snapshot M= mnemonic
|
Time (draw a clock)
Easy EZ
Difficult E=Mc2
Guess ????
Multiple choice ABCD
Cross out XXXX
To the tune of Frere Jacques….
Calculate time, calculate time
Easy first, easy first
Do the harder questions next
At the very end just guess
Then you’re done, have some fun!
Time for testing, time for testing
Easy first, easy first
Then we do the hard ones
Quickly guess the others
Then cross out, then cross out
How to manage time. To the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat…
Try the easy questions first
Don’t waste too much time
Spend more time on harder ones
And you will do fine
Save the essay for the last
You can make it fun
List ideas before you start
Write a sentence for each one.
Response to Intervention is becoming the buzz-word in administrative circles and quickly filtering down to classrooms.
R.T.I is the practice of providing high-quality instruction and intervention matched to student need, monitoring progress frequently to make decisions about change in instruction or goals and applying child response data to important educational decisions. (NASDSE, 2005)
Why do it? IDEA 2004 provides for the use of RTI as part of the process to determine eligibility for learning disabilities. Today, school districts are facing the challenge of sorting out what RTI should look like and how it might be best implemented. 
How do we do it?
To Get There in Practice: We Need to Do Three Things:
- Adopt a three tier intervention system structure.
- Use a problem-solving method to make decisions within the multi-tier model.
- Is there a problem and what is it?
- Why is the problem happening?
- What are we going to do about it?
- Did our intervention work?
- Use scientifically validated teaching practices to the greatest degree possible.
This sounds simple, right? Well, changing our teaching practice is never simple. There is much theory at present about R.T.I. and few simple, common sense and practical strategies. I’ve researched some of the best online resources to support your efforts to implement Response to Intervention in your school or district.
The following links give you 12 outstanding resources to support Response to Intervention in your school or district.
1) http://www.aimhieducational.com/Books/CogentCatalystPublications.html Click on Products & scroll down to RTI Posters
These two posters create a visual flow chart of how Differentiated Instruction, Response to Intervention, Marzano’s Strategies & Susan’s best-practice strategies and techniques are connected.Administrators are saying, “Finally, I have a visual that helps my teachers to ’see’ how all this fits together. This demonstrates how the process can work!”
2) http://www.ideapartnership.org/report.cfm?reportid=238
3) http://www.interventioncentral.org/
4) http://www.lehigh.edu/collegeofeducation/mp3/links/links.htm
5) http://www.nasdse.org/projects.cfm?pageprojectid=23
6) http://www.nrcld.org/research/rti.shtml
7) http://www.osepideasthatwork.org/toolkit/index.asp
8) http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ec/development/learning/intervention/
9) http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ec/development/learning/intervention/rtimaterials
10) http://www.wested.org/nerrc/rti.htm
