Mills Saturday Meeting - October 19, 2013

I have a new focus of inquiry this year. I want to weave in elements of puppetry from last year's inquiry but this year I want to focus more on the use of student response systems. The concept has lots of steps and may seem difficult at first, but this year I introduced them to the class (not my TK's) and I feel as if I've already had some success. They have all of my students engaged and excited about learning. I still need to figure out in what curricular area I plan on using them.

The format I might use with the puppet is a game show. As of now I have 5 focal students in mind (3 boys and 2 girls). I have a mix of boys/girls, advanced/benchmark, talkative and blurters/quieter students. Because there is minimal writing in Kindergarten, the purpose of this assessment is more for oral participation.
 

My current question is:

·        How can I use a response system with my kindergarteners to assess what they quickly understand and then push them to explain in a manner that’s organized so that they are not blurting out and stealing that opportunity to learn from other students?