African Animals - A Picture Slide Show with Music using Photo Peach

African Animals slide show using photopeach

Graphic Organizer

I used bubbl.us to create my example of a graphic organizer. It was VERY easy to make, but it still looks nice and looks like it took time to make. I feel like it is a colorful and exciting way to give students information about how things relate to each other. This particular example, that I made, would be a good chart to give students when teaching about the different types of sentences. It shows the three different types of sentences and then tells what they actual are and gives an example.

I would like to continue to use bubble.us to create these easy bubble charts in my future classrooms.

Are tests the best way to measure learning?

Testing has always been a debate amongst teachers, students, and others. Is testing the best way to figure out what/how much students know? There are many problems that have been brought up and debated about. One of the biggest problems is that some students are test takers and some are not. It is just that simple. Some students are better at certain type of test questions better than other, example: better at Multiple Choice than Fill-In-The-Blank or Essays (and vice versa). Another issue is test anxiety. Some students have really bad anxiety which also causes them to not do so well on their tests.
So I guess that I believe that tests are not the best way to measure learning. I think the best way is probably discussion. Students usually feel less stressed when the just talk to you rather than being tested. Another thing that may be a good idea (if you had to test them) would maybe give them a blank piece of paper and just tell them to write down as much as they understand about what you talked about for the day and if they liked/disliked certain things that you talked about or things that they are curious and want to know more about.
After reading my thoughts, what are your thoughts on the topic?