Posts on “ FYI ”

With the large scale adoption of the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics, the education world is preparing for impending assessments beginning in 2014.  The 2014 assessments are being developed by two organizations: PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers  and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  The exact formats for the assessments are currently undetermined as the organizations work with various stakeholders to create them.  However, we do know that the assessments will continue to include “selective response” or multiple choice and open-ended, “constructive response” questions that require students to share processes and demonstrate understanding in ways rarely measured before on standardized tests. Fortunately, BrainPOP’s Mixer™ tool allows you to find or create your own “open response” questions, perfect for capturing “evidence based” answers that are more difficult to assess via standard multiple choice.  Using the Mixer, you can explore pre-written open-ended questions by clicking the filter and selecting “open-ended,” or write your own.  Either way,  the open-ended question format can elicit higher order thinking from your students – the kind that will be assessed on the future tests. Looking for good question prompts? Take a look at the FYI section on each of our topic pages. Full of high-interest… Read the Rest»

Wednesday, February 15 6:30PM: Rejoice for BrainPOP’s Researching Resources! Lisa Parisi, 4th grade teacher at the Denton Ave School in New Hyde Park NY, hosts this session full of tips and ideas for using BrainPOP as a non-fiction research tool. Lisa takes you beyond our movies, delving into our Q&As, FYIs, and other supporting features. You’ll leave wondering how your students ever researched without BrainPOP!  

Guest Blogger Laura Candler was a teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina for over 30 years. She has presented educational workshops to teachers around the country for over 12 years. She’s the author of 10 books for teachers, and her Teaching Resources website is jam packed with ideas galore! We are thrilled to have her contributing her timely ideas to BrainPOP Educators.  Be sure to click and check out her newly minted MLK lesson plan with a free 13 page teaching packet, just in time for the holiday. Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Laura Candler, Teaching Resources, www.lauracandler.com Many students across America will take time this week to reflect on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his impact on the civil rights movement. Yet as a former teacher, I know how difficult it can be find appropriate resources for elementary students on this topic. How do we teach our students about the incredible challenges Dr. King faced and the social injustices of that time period? So a few days ago when I discovered the BrainPOP video, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I knew I had found an amazing resource! In this four-minute video, the animated characters Tim… Read the Rest»

Kids need to relate to real life experiences to learn and as a teacher I strive to make those connections when introducing new concepts. This week in math we are working on conversion; learning the basics of converting gallons to quarts, to pints, to cups, and vice-versa. Before I even think about introducing the math involved, I want students to be “prepped” by building their background knowledge. So, we begin our introduction to the lesson with our class friends, Tim and Moby, from BrainPOP.   Together we watch the Customary Units movie and pause as needed to discuss. This adventure with Tim and Moby gives us solid mathematical information and a real life historical perspective; we learn that customary units are older than the metric system and that the U.S.A. never converted over from the older Imperial System. Students also learn that customary units were originally used in agriculture and trade, long before the metric system came into use. The information provided on measurement and volume activates their knowledge, so they are ready for the remainder of the lesson.   To provide reinforcement of what we just learned and to prepare students for the meat of the lesson where we… Read the Rest»