CLASS.....(You should be thinking, YES)

I teach MS SS in Willard Missouri, outside of Springfield. I was forced to watch yet another video on teaching methods by my schools teaching specialist...bla! After watching a video on WBT I thought...ehh its cute but wouldn’t work in my class. I thought about it for all of 5 minutes before I figured. What the heck, I’ll give it a shot. I was knocked out of my socks how well it worked from the first try. Of course, being skeptical of such things I decided to try it again the next hour, I had even better results. It’s been only a week and it has completely changed my teaching life. I have gone door to door in my school pushing the WBT. My whole department is using it and a new teacher comes to me every day asking for my help. The best experience so far with teachers trying to understand what I do happened when a "very strict" teacher stuck his head in my class and said, " How can you teach with this chaos?" I replied that if I said one word I would regain total control...besides they were not out of control, they were LEARNING! He did not believe me so I prompted him to say "Class". Immediately the class stopped and looked to the teacher. His jaw would have hit the basement if the floor had not been there. Now he is a power teacher.

For those of you out there that think this cannot work in a secondary setting...1st watch the videos of Chris teaching college. 2. Give it a try, what do you have to loose besides sleeping, bored, and zombie students.

So, to keep posing on my progress I guess this is as good as a place as any.

Its been a full week since I started WBT. And in that short time my class has been amazing. I work with the at risk kids in the school. We do not put them in a separate school if we can avoid it. So they are folded into the regular class but with the 2 "success program" teachers we have. These kids are getting the most out of anyone. They are not bored, zombies, or sleeping. They are learning!

So to give honest reflection....I should have watched more videos before putting WBT into my class. But I was actually excited for class.....something that had been missing for a long time. So we have been changing as we go along. The kids are good with it and pick up on the new rules fast. Dont be like me....watch the videos, get a game plan together and then go for it.

Since I started this almost my whole department has started WBT. I have one "Short Timer" who may retire soon who is holding out but Ive almost got her converted to trying the "Class, Yes". Since I started I have had more administrators in my room and teachers complaining about the noise...I LOVE IT! Normally I would be terrified of an administrator in my room but what they see leaves them speechless.....no easy task.

My immediate concerns are how to make gestures for land forms. In my geography class I have about 20 land forms that the kids have to know. I will probably split the forms into like groups and work in small segments.

If this will work for SS then it will work for every class. We read, explain ideas, vocab, review, and peer teach using WBT. It works.

I don't teach upper grades but looks and sounds like you are headed I the right direction. I would use the 5 step lesson plan teach one land form at a time and you may have to work with your dept. And invent the gestures. I'd find a frame and print them as a power pix if they have to memorize them.
Annette.

Ahh yes, Power pics, I will put those up. There are so many land forms that we have to cover and because of our power standards....only a short time to do them. Ive already planned out my gestures and practices them on my wife and other teachers in the dept. We have established set gestures for common things suchas water, land, people, etc. So it is a matter of tweaking them. There is so much to learn from WBT, It will be a process for sure.

Thanks for the advice.

I teach 9th grade, and yes, it works great with the secondary students. I too quickly realized that if I wanted PowerPix that were specific to my content (especially at the secondary level) I would have to make my own. I have begun to do so, and I have created a PowerPoint template that is very easy to modify. You can view it and download it from www.slideshare.net/flyingms2/power-pix-ch12-9301677 You have to have a facebook or gmail account to create a free account on slideshare, but then you can view it. All you have to do to change the border is click on a slide, then right-click and change the Background color.

Gestures aren't really that hard to develop - and you can even brainstorm with your students to come up with good ones. I would think landforms would REALLY lend themselves to some great gestures....

Good luck,
Jen

Outstanding, Thank you so much.

Well the ripples are being felt a little more than I had thought in my school. Several teachers are pretty irritated at me...apparently I am forcing them out of their comfort zone....AWESOME. Also, this friday we are having a PD 1/2 day and I was infomred that 23 teachers so far wanted to learn more about WBT so I guess I will be an instructor....not sure how I feel about this. But I will do my best.

hey! My name is Lisa hall and I teach Spanish
k- 8. I use TPRS ( Total physical Response). I do a unit on both south America and central, we Start each unit by making the shapes of each country in the air and repeating the country(s) before it. Multiple reviews this way. The students then are sent back to seats and they draw what they visualized. the students had not been given any map as reference before starting the exercise. it is amazing how close and accurate most of the are. I start with a little story about how we are going to take a trip on a beautiful yacht and we are going to travel to s. a. we are starting in Columbia and move along the coast. One hand is in a fist the other traces with finger and around the " coast". We continue sw and under Columbia we find Ecuador. other hand and with points of fingers form the country and place them under your wrist and say we find a Ecuador is a small country under Columbia. Start hand actions over and review the two countries and there placement . Use target vocabulary. Continue through all of the countries. Take side trips down the amazon to get to uruguay and Paraguay. use circling to check back in for comprehension retell also works well have them tell a friend where they've been. Then after there is a great rap de Los capitals for both s and central. They are able to do the rap and the hand motions at the same time. Warning the rap is highly addictive and you are guaranteed to annoy all because the kids get it stuck in their heads. Sorry the explanation is a hit choppy. if you are interested maybe I can find out more info for you.

Iwiester,

I think you should hold off on presenting WBT if you are this new....instead guide your colleagues to this website and encourage your admin to contact Chris B to arrange for one of the long-time experts to come do a PD for your school. I know that is what the WBT folks would prefer, and they don't charge much for PD - after all, this is a non-profit outfit.

Also, I can say that, even though this is my second year implementing WBT, I am by no means an expert, and could not hope to answer the questions that come up...and that's with a bit more experience than you have....

I think you admin will understand if you tell them you are not yet the expert...

- Jen

I agree, and I think they are wanting a classroom teacher to show them this instead of a teaching specialist or administrator. I told them I was not an expert but they wanted someone to explain how it changed their class. I had planned on showing them some videos, helping explain the basics, class yes, teach ok, the scoreboard and gestures then giving them the website and some of the titles that I liked and then turning them loose to research and figure it out for themselves.

WBT in Middle School is the toughest to master of all our systems ... please do not go through with your plan of being a guide to other teachers ... send them to the website ... let them post questions here ... better to have individuals off on the wrong path than to have the whole school hear a version of WBT from someone who is just beginning ... we love your enthusiasm ... but please don't start presenting in any way until you've completed the intern program ... and right now, we're full!

Sounds good to me. Ill speak with my admin and have them go to the WBT website and learn from there.

Eough of the political side of things....back to the class. I gave a chapter test on friday and was observed by the principal. She came in and observed my class that is a CWC. I have some kids that really strugle with things like vocabulary or putting ideas together in History. I was giving a computer based test and when the kids needed help with words or questions I didnt have to say a word. I went through our gestures and about half way through the gestures the kids would recognize what the answer was. It was awesome to meet modifications through gestures.

My 7th grade geography kids are eating WBT up. So much of SS is vocabulary and the kids are racing to class and waiting for the first Class Yes. They love teaching eachother and being rewarded for talking and screaming in class.

If you want to have a middle school resource to contact they I would be happy to help out for anyone that has questions. I teach 8th grade science. People can contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

You are doing a really good job, particularly to be early in your use of WBT. For now your focus should definitely be on developing your own facility in using it. Your updates are a good idea, and a great way to get feedback and get your own questions answered.

Sounds like you are doing really well with WBT and that is fantastic. Starting the first time is the hardest part. As far as the gestures goes, since you teach middle school, explain what the terms mean and let the kids come up with it. You have 20 land forms so give each period 3-4 to create. Then you reteach it to the others. That's what I love about teaching upper grades; you can put them in charge of so much more. They will feel more ownership with the gestures and feel less silly doing them if they got to make them up.
-Angela

Sound like you are doing great! This is my first year teaching and obviously with WBT to. I am going to start a chapter on landforms and would love to hear about some of your gestures. This seems to be the hardest for me. Thanks and enjoy the rest of your year.

I started by setting up some "Generic Gestures" as I called them. These gestures for for land, water, big, small, etc. Some things that would be used over and over again and would need to have the same gesture.

Land- I pat the ground 3 times (standing of course just move hands up and down 3x with palms facing the ground.)

Water. I use my hand to go from right to left in a "wavy" motion.

Small- I pinch min fingers about an inch apart

Big- I do the "Y" in the YMCA dance.

The rest is made up of kid ispired gestures of what I came up with. The most fun part of vocab day forme with gestures is when we do our formative assesement and I use the gestures and they have to write what I am describing. When I get good at this I would like to have the kids read a passage and then I would explain using only gestures, a kind of "Geography Sign Language" I was able to do this with my advanced class of US History. It was pretty amazing.

Back to gestures. Here is an example-Harbor- our text has it as "A sheltered area of water deep eough for ships" So I made the water gesture, then brought my arms together in a 3/4 circle then placed my hands palm togther and dropped my bottom hand as our symbol for "deep" (the opposite is used for mountains for elevation) and made a motion like I was driving a ship on the old wodden wheels. Then for Bay which is the same defination but not deep enough for ships we made an X with our arms and made the rest of the gesture as to say "not deep enough for ships"

Ive done many with US History covering ideas like, renaissance, Islam, Muslim, Crusades, Reformaiton etc. To me those are easier than the land forms.

Its been a few weeks and Im still going strong. Test scores are up and so are my spirits.

Ive run into some trouble with a small group of independents in one of my hour, so we will go by the manual and see what happens. The hard part is these 3 girls are all alpha girls outside of my class but they shut down in my room. I wonder if the class is too hard for them? I dont know for sure. Their behavior does not fit into the typical alpha female or mean girl bully. There is a dynamic that I am not able to see, possibly I am too close to the situation. I will go by the book and work the independent scoreboard.

On the super positive side, I am using a lot more american sign language in my gestures and the kids really enjoy that. They like learning the signs.

I need HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a super busy 2 weeks. We had a big ol' helping of parent teacher conferences and some state assessment going on.


Im getting to the point in my class where the novelty is still there, the kids enjoy it and we have fun with it but.....I teach social studies and not all activities lend themselves to WBT....or do they? I am doing the micro lectures, partner teach ok, class rules etc. Social studies does not have "state standards" in the way other contents do. We still use grade level expectations. Are these what I should be using for power pix? I have been using gestures for our vocabulary terms and the kids are scoring off the charts with vocabulary and on tests....because they know the content. Side note: we play a game in the hall, if a kid sees me and stumps me on a gesture for vocab they get candy. I teach 3 different ss classes so at any time there are 30 gestures in my mind....its fun.

I guess what I am asking is in the secondary level,does anyone have any ideas how to keep wbt and some of the more traditional methods of instruction? I realize this question is not specific but im at a point where I will loose the kids or power teach through and make it work......all advice is welcome!

I think you have a couple of questions combined in this post. First, about the vocabulary: you're in the same boat as I am as a Science teacher. We don't necessarily have standardized tests for our content. (At least I don't). But in my department (high school science) we have agreed on certain "mastery vocabulary" the students need at each grade level. So that's what I develop my PowerPix and gestures around. I tend to color-code the backgrounds (I use PowerPoint and just change the background color) by unit or chapter. I posted my Chapter 1&2 PowerPix Powerpoint file on SlideShare. If you have a FaceBook or gmail account, you can create a free account and go view or download it:

www.slideshare.net/flyingms2/power-pix-ch12-9301677