11/9/2016 0 Comments Transition Method #3: MusicIt's Wednesday again and I am back with another transition idea: music. Last week, I took a music inventory and asked my "friends" what their favorite songs were. I wanted to use their music choices to see how that would affect their transitioning. Since I love listening to music, I was also curious to know what kind of songs and genres they liked. There's a chance that I might even add their favorite songs to my own personal playlist! There were some songs I haven't heard of and I definitely had to check out the lyrics before even playing them in class. I asked my CT if she was fine with me testing out transitions with music and she welcomed it, seeing how she had her own playlist for the class at the beginning of the year. When the day was over, I went home, checked the lyrics of some of the songs, and whipped up a playlist. A few of the songs my "friends" chose were included. I also included songs that were instrumentals only to be played depending on the level of focus required for their activities. Before starting the transitions, I let my "friends" know that I was going to be playing some music in class. When a song started to play, that meant that their time to work was almost over, but they had to continue working. They had until the end of the song to wrap up their work. When the song ended, they had to stop working, clean up, and sit quietly for the next set of directions. For the first transition, I started with a song I knew they all were familiar with: The Star Spangled Banner. Some of my "friend's" faces lit up and said, "I know this song!" I thought it was a good song to use to transition to Social Studies. When the song ended, I timed how long it took for them to transition and it was about ten seconds. As I played music during transitions throughout the day, I took note of my observations. My "friends" were more energetic with songs that were more upbeat, but some of them took longer to wrap up, clear their desks, or moved to the floor. A few of them were also more focused on dancing that I had to remind them that they should be clearing everything off their desks and be ready to go. The upbeat music made them noisier, so it took a little longer for them to settle down. It took almost 30 seconds. With the next transition, I played a piano instrumental. When the song was over, they were calm and much quieter so it was easier for them to settle down. It took around 15 seconds to transition. Again, the quickest transitions were the ones for Science, Specials, and Lunch. The transitions in total took approximately 6 minutes.
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11/2/2016 0 Comments Transition Method #2: TimerIt is Wednesday and I tried out my second idea for transitions, a timer. Before class started, I pulled up an online timer and had it projected onto the Promethean board. I figured since my "friends" will have a visual of the timer, they'll move even faster, right? The first time I used the timer was when they were transitioning from Bell Work to Social Studies. I gave them twenty seconds to clear their materials and head to the rug. They were on the floor and ready to go before the timer even went off. So far, so good!
As we were transitioning from Social studies to Science, my "friends" moved so fast. I gave them twenty seconds, but they were ready in half the time! They love science, so their speed was predictable. I even had to reminded some of them to walk and not run because they were so excited. The day went by and the transitions were moving pretty quickly. However, the transition from Math to Language took the longest. Today, we started using manipulatives during math time because my cooperating teacher told me that the AP was really pushing for manipulatives. We thought the majority of the class didn't really need to use manipulatives since they were doing well in addition and subtraction, but they had to use them. Anyway, after counting their unifix cubes and links one at a time, it was time to clean up. I set the timer for one minute. It took a while because they had blocks and links spread out all over their tables and they had pretty small hands. Some of my friends were still playing with their blocks, so I had to remind them that it was not the time for playing and that they should be cleaning up. I set the timer for another minute because they were still cleaning when the timer went off. It took 1 minute and 24 seconds for this transition. The total time for transitions today took up almost five minutes. I think if it weren't for the manipulatives, the time would have been shorter. Once again, I took a look at the times where my "friends" moved the quickest. They seemed to moved the fastest during the transitions to Science, Specials, and Lunch. I think next week I'll try music for transitions. 10/26/2016 0 Comments Transition Method #1: LightsSo here's my first post to start off my action research project! After coming up with a list of transition ideas to see which ones could get my "friends" to move faster, I thought I'd start trying them out today. On a side note, my placement school refers to the students as "friends," so I'll go ahead and do that here too. Anyway, I figured I could begin with flickering the lights in the classroom to grab their attention or to signal them to start cleaning up. To keep track of how long it took for my "friends" to clean up or wrap up their current activity, I used the stopwatch on my phone. Before I started using the lights as a transition signal, I announced to the class that I was doing an "experiment" to see which method would get them to wrap their activity up faster. I also told them that whenever I turned the lights on and off, I needed them to start cleaning up and to sit quietly when they were finished. I broke it down in 3 steps to help them remember: "1) Stop what you're doing, 2) Clean up, and 3) Sit quietly and wait for directions."
The first time I turned the lights was when we were transitioning from Bell Work, their morning work, to Social Studies. Before I flicked the lights on and off, I asked, "Now class, what do we do when the lights turned on and off?" I raised three fingers in the air and my "friends" were able to repeat the steps back to me. When I flicked the lights on and off, they closed their Bell Work, put them away in their desks, and sat there. My stopwatch was on and it took them about six seconds to have their desks cleared and sitting quietly. Throughout the day, I continued to use the lights as my transition method as we changed from subject to subject. There were a total of nine transitions today. The times varied for each transition because the some of the times that it took for my "friends" to wrap up their work or clean up took longer than others. During the transitions, they were scrambling about the room and chatting each other up. There were a few who took their time, but I had some "friends" who were really good about it. They reminded their peers who were taking their time and said things like "hurry and clean up" because "she's waiting!" or "you have to have your social studies journal out before you can come to the floor!" The total amount of time spent during transitions was approximately four minutes. Out of all the transitions, I noticed that they moved faster during the transitions to Science, Specials, and Lunch. I'll try a different method next week and see if it's faster than today's time |
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