For Now

Current Discussions and ASSIGNMENTS are going on RIGHT NOW. Check out what you can find under RIGHT NOW.  ALERT All comments are moderated. Be advised that I will deny offensive material you attempt to post. Happy posting! When Summer is upon us, you need to take care of some summer responsibilities in order to be prepared for NEXT year!!

My Hope

My hope is for you to be or become a successful learner and ally to other learners. I think and believe that through true companionship born of compassion and an active courageous intent to grow, each individual can change the world one person, one day, one community at a time.

If you are a current or prospective student of mine, take a moment to get acquainted with this website and the resources and tools available through it. Visitors are WELCOME, but please mind the students. This is a live classroom. All comments are moderated for safety and security. This page will greet you on a daily basis. During the academic school year, you will need to check out current and semi-current posts concerning what is going on in the classroom and what should be going on at your house in the right-hand column section entitled RIGHT NOW.

MY Website

Home Page From here on down (on this page), students enrolled in one of my classes must know about anything italicized and in blue. Right NOW: Practically every assigned task will be posted as new posts in the section entitled ‘Right Now’. Classes will occasionally have similar assignments.

OH! The Things People Say.: When a contributor posts a comment to a discussion, a note about that fact will be listed in this section.

Posts By The Day:  The month’s calendar will be available for you to see what has been assigned on any given day. Dates on which assignments have been assigned will appear underlined, off-color, bolded, or italicized. That was Then: The section called ‘That was Then’ is where you can find an extensive archive of the things I’ve done with this site, and what students have worked out with it. If you’d like an idea of how things work, check out the archives. This is also where you can find out what work you’ve been missing, and need to make up.  Resources: This section is where you will find an extensive tree of pages I’ve created over the years to help me help you better. Be sure to make Essential Resources a favorite of yours. You will need some of these pages in order to get through the year. Go through them in your spare (as frequently as possible, that is) time so you know where to find what you need when the time comes. Main page categories can be found at the top of the home page. Other Possible Side Bar Items The Known Audience: This is a small map of the world that illustrates where visitors have come from.

Translations Anyone

• This feature will translate the page you are on into the language you require.

• Esta característica traducirá la página en la que se encuentra al idioma que necesita.

• 此功能將翻譯的頁面.

• 你就到您需要的語言.
• תכונה זו לתרגם את הדף שאתה נמצא לשפה שאתה צריך.
• Αυτό το χαρακτηριστικό θα μεταφράσει τη σελίδα που βρίσκονται στη γλώσσα που επιθυμείτε

Avatar: An image will appear occasionally in the upper right corner of the page called the ‘avatar’. It is likely to change periodically. Many bloggers offer an image visitors can associate with the blog owner.

RULES & GRADING

Classroom Rules In order to see how I determine the Classroom Rules, you’ll have to take a good look at my Classroom Rules Project. I may or may not use this project to determine the rules we will live by in the classroom. Grading Procedures Grading is aligned with the school/district-adopted grading procedures. More on this will be revealed in the coming weeks or months (or so). The Grading Scale – under scrutiny.

• A –  90 – 100

• B –  80 – 89

• C – 70 – 79

• D – 60 – 69

• F – 0 – 59

Assigned Task Weights and Percentages: details on assigned tasks you will be responsible to complete are on Canvas.

When assignments are late, assignments lose 10 percentage points a day until the assignment reaches a maximum of 50% possible. Anything submitted after that day can earn no more than 50% of the grade if on time. Students who do not submit anything for an assignment will receive a “0” for that assignment.

Planning Teaching & Learning

Bloom’s Hierarchy of Cognitive Domains – References will be made to Bloom’s Hierarchy. Look into how Bloom’s Taxonomy  works. In an ideal world, a middle school classroom will primarily be concerned with levels 4, 5, and 6 of the hierarchy.

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom created a learning taxonomy in 1956. During the 1990s, a former student of Bloom’s, Lorin Anderson, updated the taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st-century students and teachers. I believe that this newly expanded taxonomy can help instructional designers and teachers to write and revise learning outcomes. Bloom’s six major categories were changed from noun to verb forms. The new terms are defined as:

1. Remembering	Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
2. Understanding	Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
3. Applying	Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
4. Analyzing	Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
5. Evaluating	Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
6. Creating	Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.

References

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational outcomes: Complete edition, New York : Longman. Cruz, E. (2003). Bloom’s revised taxonomy. In  B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology. Retrieved August 22, 2007, from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/bloomrev/start.htm Forehand, M. (2005). Bloom’s taxonomy: Original and revised.. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved August 22, 2007, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Something More

In addition to local school district standards of education, units and lessons found on this site meet global recognized authoritative education standards as well. Check out how Mr Moshé’s projects measure up. I align with many NETS/ISTE standards.

Thank You !

This website is ever-evolving to serve students, parents, teachers, and visitors in any way necessary. Please leave comments and criticisms on any page or post you’re on. Just be kind and gentle – as only you can be. Thank you.