Weekly Plan Implemented to Help Keep Students Accountable For Their Academic Commitments This Best Practice was implemented to help students improve failing or low grades from the mid-term grading period to the end of the semester. A Grade Improvement Plan (GIP) template was designed to aid students and teachers in tailoring strategies for improvement to […]
Category: Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities
Game Based Learning in Science Classes
In-Class Games Help Students Apply Key Concepts In my high school science classes I attempt to keep lecture time down per each one hour class. The remainder of the time is spent applying the class concepts to various content related problems. I break students into groups every class for collaborative learning. In an effort to […]
Jigsaw Activity in the World Language Classroom
Interactive Activity Helps Students Create Their Own Learning During our unit on travel and transportation, I wanted to design an activity that was more interactive than simply finding information from an authentic French website. I know that the “jigsaw” technique is a cooperative learning strategy that allows students to create their own learning. I found […]
Using the Spanish Subjunctive Mood in the Real World
Students Get the Opportunity to See the Spanish Subjunctive Mood Applied to the Realities of Their World After a thorough introduction to and MANY practice activities with the uses of the Spanish Subjunctive Mood in Noun Clauses, students then read a cultural unit on Central America and watch a video about the growth of tourism in […]
The Roots of Rap
Students Learn About Slavery and How its Effects are Still Present Today in Rap Music This project is intended to help students draw connections between the history of oppression (slavery) in the American south and contemporary issues that plague the African-American community today. Students begin researching the oppressive nature of colonization and subjugation and then […]
Use of Quarter Courses to Increase Curriculum Diversity for High Ability High School Students
Quarter Length Courses Allow Students the Choice Between Multiple Narrowly Focused Subject Matters Throughout the Semester Quarter courses were developed to increase the diversity of courses available to high ability students. Courses last for half a semester and are usually developed in pairs taught by the same instructor. Topics for quarter courses are usually more narrowly […]
Hands-On Projects in AP Physics
Students Apply Concepts Learned in Class to a Real World Environment Each project was implemented to provide students opportunities to directly test physics concepts in a real world environment. Egg-Drop Ships – This is a first semester project given to students after a discussion on kinematics and forces. Students are given a specific material list […]
Placement
Placement Testing We test new students with a 32-question placement test. This is combined with the student’s mathematics SAT score and adjusted based on the courses the student has already taken to determine the placement in junior-year mathematics courses. Developing the placement process included determining the weights for each input (placement test, SAT and previous […]
Solar House Activity
Construction of a Solar House Promotes Sustainability Education This is a Solar House construction activity originally from Wendy Van Norton developed for College Board AP Environmental Science but can be used at both Middle School and High School levels successfully. The activity engages teams of students in the design and construction of a passive solar […]
High School Social Studies
Exercise to Encourage Students to Embrace Politics Teaching the American Presidential election of 1960 using the commercial simulation “1960: Making of the President” (Z-Man Games: 2007). This is a relatively sophisticated simulation that uses familiar board-game concepts (turns, cards, mapboard, marker cubes, etc.) to examine the classic — and close — Kennedy vs. Nixon electoral […]
Reading and Writing Across Subjects
Writing Enhances Student Achievement This is an assignment that would benefit most a high school level 3 French class. However, it can be altered to fit other levels and other languages. At the end of the first semester, for the final of their second year in French, students are to write a children’s story. Students […]
Studying World Language in High School
This is an assignment for 1st or 2nd year students of Latin who are in high school in grades 11 or 12. This project revolves around culture as it is an integral part of the study of any world language. The Romans are known for their great works of architecture and engineering. Some of these are the amphitheaters, temples, baths, aqueducts, military camps, streets, to list just a few.
Lost Generation Literature: Parisian Salon Simulation
Simulation of Literary Characters Sparks Higher Level Thinking This literary salon simulation is the final exam and major scholarly project of the Lost Generation Literature class I teach at the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities. Students who take this course not only read the great literature written by such twentieth-century literary giants as […]
Analyzing Poetry
Students Find Elements in Poems I teach students to analyze poems by introducing them to a list of elements that appear in many poems and helping them learn to find these elements themselves and think about how they work together. Rather than asking them what the poem means, or inviting them to respond only in […]
ABCDEF Card Voting
Multiple Choice Voting Sparks Classroom Discussion and Debate This best practice uses ABCDEF voting cards as a method of increasing student participation among all students in the classroom. Students are presented with multiple choice questions based on material discussed earlier in class. Students work individually to start, then vote for what they conclude is the […]