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TenMarks
I love being an instructional coach because I meet so many great teachers and learn so much from them. Thank you teachers on this National Teacher Day. It's exciting to be in a school on Teacher Appreciation Week. There are many great ways to treat teachers and it is so great to see teachers being appreciated by administration, parents and students. I always love when I am working with students and teachers finding something totally brand new and FREE. So instead of a Teacher Appreciation "tuesdays", I couldn't wait a whole week to share this gem.
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Brand new to me (maybe not to you) is TenMarks, an automated workflow for teachers and students. It actually is FREE and a solution to embracing Common Core keys shifts in mathematics. I am brand new to the site myself as I write to you, but have been super enthralled by the depth of content, assessment and encouragement for student success. Our educational system has become so data-driven that this is the first time that I can see how beautiful it is to collect data for the encouragement of the students. They get immediate feedback, video tutorials on how they may have done the problem in another manner and constant access to practice and every type of question that can possibly be posed on any type of test. Whether we like it or not, our students are being tested to death. Why not give them a tool that can help them feel successful rather than defeated?
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I realize it's the end of the year and many of you are finished with mandated testing, but the end of the year offers us greater opportunity to experiment. I want to encourage you to let your faculty know about TenMarks. Someone will run with it and see if it's as good as it looks. Personally, today is the first day I learned about it so I can't make an evaluation, but the 1st grade teachers I was working with today feel that it is the best thing that has ever happened to them in teaching. That's pretty huge since they have a vast toolbox of resources. I encourage you to browse their well-designed website with many helpful videos that explain the ins and outs of a workflow for math education. These are exciting times we are teaching in!
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How do you begin with TenMarks? You create a FREE account. They will ask you for your school and you can enter your students to begin the process. As any good program, there is always a premium account in which you can get more bells and whistles, but their FREE service is outstanding. As a math teacher, I have never had a way to truly differentiate with a workflow that organizes data for me in a non-threatening manner. TenMarks is designed by teachers for teachers. I think it's a great way to enjoy Teacher Appreciation Week. My favorite part on the website is that they describe TenMarks as "teacher amplified." Very cool. Check it out.
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| What is "tuesdays with Karen"?
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"tuesdays with Karen" is a weekly newsletter/blog designed to encourage, equip and empower teachers to be creative with educational technology. Please add your technology comments to my "tuesdays with Karen" blog. |
