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I'd like to recommend the Modeling program to you guys. http://www3.nd.edu/~nismec/nismec11.htm
It is going so well in my classroom. I haven't stood in front of my class and "taught" the entire 1st grading period. I will use a lesson I recently did as an example of how my class typically goes.
Succession:
I handed each group of students 4 pictures of a pond. Each one was at a different stage of succession. I didn't give them any information. I told them to put the pictures in order from oldest to youngest and explain why they chose the order they did. (at this point we have learned biomes and nutrient cycles, also I have a large white board for each group)Then we have a "board meeting" I didn't participate beyond mediator. They needed to convince each other why they were right or explain why someone else's board made them change their mind. By the end of the discussion they had actually agreed on the correct answer. So I told them at this point that we were talking about succession. I then gave the students a reading about succession that introduced them to the vocab and primary vs. secondary. They keep journals and in their journals they made a venn diagram comparing primary vs. secondary. They also made a flow chart for both.
It starts off with a pre-assessment. I was able to determine what they already knew by how they made their white boards. They taught each other. And I confirmed in the end (or I would get them to the right place if they agreed on a wrong answer). I have never been happier with how my class is going. Although, it is going slowly.
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