This recurring lesson encourages students to comprehend their reading through inquiry and collaboration. They choose important quotations from the text and work in groups to formulate "quiz" questions that their peers will answer.

Students collaboratively interact with a variety of texts as they define reading and develop their own ReaderŐs Profiles modeled after online social networking sites.

Introduce gerunds and review nouns, adjectives, and verbs through engaging read-alouds; then apply these concepts through collaborative word-sorting and poetry-writing activities.

In small groups, students closely examine one sentence from the Gettysburg Address and create a multigenre project communicating what they have discovered about the meaning and significance of the text.

Students build their understanding of the terms "compare" and "contrast" by participating in class discussions, using Internet resources, working collaboratively, and by visually representing information in a Venn diagram.

As I am far from an expert in track and field, I decided to use collaborative learning in my Phys Ed class to help students explore and apply correct techniques for various track and field events.  To do this, I used QR codes.  In preparation for this, I perused through YouTube to locate videos that were fairly short (under 5 minutes) and age appropriate so the students could easily understand and follow the video.  Once I found these videos, I used Google URL shortener extension on Chrome to create a unique QR code for each of the videos.  I found and created a video for javelin, sprinting, long jump, triple jump, discus, shot put, and high jump.  Our tablets at school have a QR scanner app and I also downloaded and installed a free app called Coach’s Eye which allows slo-motion video capture and playback.  My plan was for students to get in groups, scan a QR code, watch the video, and then practice the skill using Coach’s Eye as a learning tool.

Each of you will be assigned a grade 6 and 8 partner with whom you will work with to create a storybook based on the legend of Jason and the Argonauts. Your story book must be intended for children so you will want to keep your language concise and clear while you tell the story. Requirements of your storybook are as follows:
- Front and back cover - 8-10 pages of story - Illustrations for each page - Complete retelling of the legend, including all steps of the heroic pattern

Students reflect on their school year, creating a digital scrapbook consisting of images and text to present to their school community.

Students write an owner's manual that helps them get to know their classroom, provides them with a sense of ownership, and lets others know about their classroom.

Students take a fresh look at the revision process and help one another polish their written work through a peer-editing strategy that is simple, systematic, and constructive.

The way this assignment is formatted, it is meant to be outside measuring inaccessibly tall. The students already had a very good understanding of the primary trig ratios and how to use them, as they had already taken Foundations and Pre-Calculus 10. We did a quick review of sine, cosine and tangent. If I had a group of students who were unfamiliar with the ratios, I would take a day or two to introduce the ratios. A good understanding of the trig ratios is necessary for them to be able to do a good job with this assignment.

Since we were using apps on the iPad, I took a good 20-30 minutes to explain the logistics behind how to hold the iPad, etc. in order to get accurate measurements with the Tape Measure app and the Clinometer app.

What is Write-Around Discussion?
This strategy provides students with opportunity to either activate prior knowledge on a topic or consolidate recently-learned information. This strategy is for use with small groups of students.

Why use it?
To provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills of communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.
To help students consolidate learning of new material by immediate use of the information.
To help students activate prior knowledge on a topic to be discussed in class.
To provide all students in class with an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of a particular topic.