For this week’s resource blog post, I decided to go with another website I found. The organization that runs the website is called Freckle Education, formerly known as Front Row. It targets kids kindergarten through ninth grade, and is free for teachers separate from some fees for different upgrades you can buy. I think this website is a good resource for students because it allows kids to practice math at their own level and pace. It has more than 30,000 math questions and starts with a diagnostic that starts the students off at just the right level. This allows the students to get the appropriate level of instruction and lessons that fosters the right amount of growth that is good for the students. Front Row also features lessons, assessments, and reports to help teachers come up with different material and research different strategies for teaching. The website also has a dropdown bar titled “resources” that has case studies, research, webinars, and blogs to help teachers share ideas and learn new ones from different teachers. I think this website is a great resource because it gives the students the right amount and level they need to really engage with learning. At the same time, teachers are able to check on a students work and see what areas they might be struggling with, as well as provide very useful information, giving teachers an advantage when it comes to teaching and adapting to students.
https://www.freckle.com
Word count: 241
Chapter 6 of Subjects Matter titled, “How to Use a Textbook” offers much insight into how a textbook should be used in a classroom and the importance of variety of instruction when teaching your classroom. It brought up many points I found particularly interesting and some different ideas to figure out what’s really important in the textbook. A lot of the time, teachers think it is a good idea to go through the whole book thinking that it will help the students in the long run. Many of us already know from experience that skimming your eyes over the text just to say that you did it does not help the students remember the information. Instead, the chapter talks about being selective when picking out topics to teach your students, and it also gives you questions to ask yourself when going through the information such as does the idea, topic, or process represent a big idea with enduring value beyond the classroom? Questions like these allow us to really delve on the concepts we are teaching and determine if they are REALLY important to the students’ learning. Going along with the textbook, this chapter also provides a few activities that help you as a teacher divide the textbook up or provide alternative activities rather than just assigning reading. One activity that stuck out to me was the idea of finding out what’s on the big tests our students have to take. I believe this one stuck out to me because I always felt that my teachers already knew what was on the test, but when it came down to it, they were off by a good bit. It never occurred to me that finding out what was on the big test and basing my teachings and lessons around that would help my students better.
Word count: 304
For this week’s resource blog post, I decided to research helpful math websites that teach students new and fun ways to learn math. I came across a website called “Prodigy”, a roll-play game that teaches students math lessons along the way. From what I read and observed on the website, it seems like a very helpful source for elementary and middle school math teachers. Some interesting things I read on the website included it has curriculums and skills for students to learn from first to eighth grade, motivates students to learn outside of the classroom as well as in the classroom, and offers incentives in-game that help keep the students interested and engaged in learning. Not only does it help the students, but the teachers as well. At the bottom of the page is a link to teacher articles that help make lesson more engaging and effective. These articles include tips and tricks to help keep your student engaged, but also they have more websites and games that teachers can use to change things up in the classroom. The amount of potential sources and articles this website has as well as the potential for learning provided for the students is astounding. This website is a special tool available to both students and teachers, which is very hard to find. Overall, this website is very useful and a great source of learning and engaging with students and connecting modern technology with traditional learning.
https://www.prodigygame.com
Word Count: 244
The biggest struggle for teachers is students that do not want to read or give up because certain lessons are too difficult. Although it is our job to make sure that the students learn the material, it makes if far more stressful and difficult when the students do not even care about learning. So how are we as teachers supposed to motivate students to want to learn? There has been extensive research on this topic, and it has produced amazing results in the classroom. Different strategies such as “building engagement with the text” and modeling thoughtful reading have created new opportunities for students to become more interested in the reading. Chapter 11 also discusses different types of approaches from teachers that have been extremely successful. One example that I found to be more interesting to me was one proposed by Lisa MacArtney in her classroom. She had the students fill out a profile that helped her define the various types of intelligence found in her students. The four types were, “students who are strong on social relationships, those who are well organized, those who are analytical, and those with high energy,” (Daniels and Zemelman, p. 282). She then had them form a “human graph” in the hallway to see where the students fell in each type. Often she would have them work in groups, and it was evident that they encouraged each other and were more patient. It also showed how there different strengths worked together well. I thought this example was particularly interesting because I have never thought of trying to distinguish the types of learning my students might be the strongest at, and I feel like this example as well as the rest of this particular chapter will be extremely helpful with struggling readers in my classroom.
Word count: 299
For this week’s resource blog post, I decided to go with another website I found. The organization that runs the website is called Freckle Education, formerly known as Front Row. It targets kids kindergarten through ninth grade, and is free for teachers separate from some fees for different upgrades you can buy. I think this website is a good resource for students because it allows kids to practice math at their own level and pace. It has more than 30,000 math questions and starts with a diagnostic that starts the students off at just the right level. This allows the students to get the appropriate level of instruction and lessons that fosters the right amount of growth that is good for the students. Front Row also features lessons, assessments, and reports to help teachers come up with different material and research different strategies for teaching. The website also has a dropdown bar titled “resources” that has case studies, research, webinars, and blogs to help teachers share ideas and learn new ones from different teachers. I think this website is a great resource because it gives the students the right amount and level they need to really engage with learning. At the same time, teachers are able to check on a students work and see what areas they might be struggling with, as well as provide very useful information, giving teachers an advantage when it comes to teaching and adapting to students. 
