Shannon Palmer's Page

Throughout my years in school, I've had several take-home or open book tests, and I was wondering how often other teachers used these methods. I know that teachers have to prepare students for the SOL's, and it doesn't seem like they are doing this if they allow the students to have help when taking a tests. I also know that it doesn't require as great a command of the information that regular tests do, so I was also wondering about the reasoning behind doing this. If/when would you recommend us… Continue

My technology class ends this week, but I'm so glad for the opportunity to have taken it. I was kind of dreading it at the beginning of the semester, since I'm not the most technologically savvy person that ever walked the earth. I thought I would do really bad at all the assignments, but I had a great professor who clearly explained all the technologies that we were going over. Also, since I had very little technology in my own elementary classrooms, it has been great to see how much technology… Continue

I know this is an extremely broad question, but what kind of classroom management do you have in your classes? There's a schoolwide system at my school where if the teacher says "Give me five" then the students are supposed to raise their hand and be quiet with eyes on the teacher. This works most of the time. However, I know the students at my school, or at least in my class, are better behaved than most other students their age. What other types of classroom management do you have? What preven… Continue

My cooperating teacher has told me about a student she has in her class whose parents refuse to be involved. She had to call them numerous times in order to set up a parent/teacher conference, and she's told me since then that this child's mother has started screening her calls and doesn't pick up when the school calls. I know that you can't force a parent to be involved if they don't want to be, but does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with a situation like this?

Hi! In my math methods course, we've been studying simple geometry for elementary students. One of the things we talked about was tangrams. We discussed how they can help students learn about similar and congruent shapes, how they can be used to teach about fractions, and how it can just be used a challenge when students are told to put the seven shapes back together to make a square. I was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions on how to use tangrams. They seem like a great way to help s… Continue