Announcing My Classroom Blog

Room 755 is my blog for my classroom.  It is not necessarily meant to be a though-provoking blog, but rather a recording of daily events in my classroom.  Each day will be posted at 5:30 A.M. (I love this feature in Blogger).

My students, parents, administrators, and possibly other teachers (especially 7th grade Social Studies teachers in Georgia) might be able to find material here, add to the material here (through comments), and critique the material here (again, through comments). 

Our Standards are new - as I've mentioned before.  As teachers, we are not very sure what is expected of us as we prepare our students for the CRCT in the Spring.  Last year was such a fiasco, we know it can't get worse...can it?  The state threw out the scores for 6th and 7th grade.  The concern this year is (for me at least) will the test writers pay any attention to the INTENT of the Standards, or will they simply pick and choose random facts that might or might not be understood to be important by any given teacher...which appears to be part of the problem last year.

Room 755 is a record of my understanding of the meaning of the Standards.  Currently, we have spent time learning the Concepts [pdf file] and as part of the Concepts - the 5 themes of geography (since Human/Environment Interaction, Location, and Movement are 3 of the 5 and expected to be covered in the first Unit [pdf file].

Anyway, if you have an interest in following my class on our journey through Africa, the Middle East, and Asia stop by.  Leave a note to my students.  Many of them do not believe I know anyone through my network.  A comment might convince them.

You can also check my personal portal at Professor-Marvel.com

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Word Cloud of Proposed Standards

The state of Georgia had an issue with the Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT) in 2008. It seems either the students weren't competent, the test did not reference the standards, or the criteria was askew. The real issue, is that the state knew (so they claim) that there would be problems as far back as July 2007, but did nothing about it.

So the state "threw out" the results.

Regardless, one of my colleagues missed the last three days of school to attend a "let's get it right" session to rewrite the Social Studies Standards (again) so things are not quite so vague in the future.

She brought back a hand-written copy of the proposals from the teachers and state department honchos who were present. We looked at what was discussed, and were told the Draft would be online soon.

The draft came out a few days late, but it was there. It looks very little like the proposed changes the 12 teachers thought they would be seeing, and more like what was already there.

Regardless, the word cloud (from wordle.net) is actually practical for seeing what I am expected to focus on in class next year.

My question - as I teach my Student(s) to Describe and Explain Will a multiple choice test really be able to assess my kids' abilities to do so? Or will I have some state DOE folks come to listen as my students Describe and Explain what someone else thinks is important for a 13-year-old to know about life in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia?