Telling Time

Despite recent anxiety about new online assessments, there is certainly no shortage of creativity coming from teachers these days. I recently sampled a group of teachers enrolled in my graduate programs at the University of Colorado-Denver, soliciting some of their best-ever ideas for teaching with document cameras. Here is the first of three postings showing some of the creative ways teachers are using their visualizers in today’s challenging classrooms.

In the case study below, a magnificent third grade teacher working in a Colorado elementary school shows how to use the document camera in a creative fashion. The italics are my attempt to highlight some very thoughtful and creative uses of the classroom visualizer.

One teacher asks her kids to draw a picture of two clocks while sitting at their desks. Working in pairs, they draw one clock with the time 3:50 p.m. and the other showing the hand positions 90 minutes later. The students are then asked to come up and explain their thinking as they view their pictures, which are displayed on the visualizer. This, of course, provides immediate feedback as the students present their work, but the feedback helps the entire class.