Everyday Uses for Illuminate

---

Everyday Uses for Illuminate By: Maggie Mabery and James Locke Manhattan Beach Middle School 7th-8th Grade Science Teachers

Beginning of Class •  Students are always required to have their Illuminate laminated sheets on their desks. •  We provide the vis-à-vis markers to each student.

Laminating Answer Keys 1. To make an answer key log onto Illuminate. 2. Go to Assessments and select Grade Cam. 3. Select Pre Slugged Answer Keys. 4. We made our answer keys with 60 questions, this gives us the ability to use the sheets over and over. 5. Print and laminate!

#2

#3

#4

Ideas for classrooms •  Questions of the day •  Check for understanding •  Homework check up •  CST release questions •  Writing Rubrics •  Assessments

Question of the day •  Class begins with a question that begins the lesson. •  This question is an objective that will be covered throughout the lesson and unit. •  This can be used to determine prior knowledge or how the lesson addressed individual objectives.

Example •  1. Approximately how far is an astronomical unit? –  A. 1 light-year –  B. 93,000,000 miles –  C. 1,000,000 miles –  D. 500,000 kilometers • 

We are know the answer is B:).

Illuminates Role •  I have students fill in question one on their answer key to begin the lesson. •  Depending on your lesson, students can turn in their sheets to the scanned immediately or hold them until the end of class to add other questions to it. •  This can show you understanding of the lesson and what areas were not understood.

How to administer •  I use PowerPoint/ Keynote to ask the questions, but there are numerous other forms to use. •  You could write it on the board or put the questions onto a piece of paper that includes the answer key. Questions

Answer Key

Checking for Understanding •  Throughout a lesson present questions to check for students understanding of material. •  These can be throughout a lab, presentation, video or activity.

Uses •  One way we have used Illuminate is with the Brainpop program.

Brainpop Cont. 1. I give each student a copy of the Brainpop Quiz and have them fill in their Illuminate sheet. (this would work with any type video) 2. Or walk students through the “Review Quiz” online and have them fill out their Illuminate sheet as the quiz is presented.

Homework Check Cont. •  Students are given a direction sheet, or even easier, write A=correct and B=incorrect on the board. •  Pick out the number of problems you want to access and have the students fill in their Illuminate Sheet with the answers.

Homework Checks

Here is the rubric used for lab reports

Illuminate Rubric for lab reports We still use our rubric, we have the students bubble this form in once they get their scores for data purposes.

CST Release Questions •  We add CST release questions to all formal assessments.

Exit Questions •  At the end of each lesson, design questions to access understanding of the students. •  We teach middle school and tell students this is the most important part of a lesson, it is a quiz for how we did that day.

Physical Science Exit Questions •  1. What did I burn in class today? •  A. water •  B. Mg •  C. wood •  D. glass

•  3. What unit do we use to measure a solids volume? •  A. grams •  B. meters •  C. liters •  D. none of the above

•  2. What must you wear in all labs in class? •  A. goggles •  B. backpacks •  C. lab coat •  D. beakers

•  4. What instruments measures mass? •  A. cylinder •  B. triple beam balance •  C. scale •  D. spring scale

End of class •  Once all questions have been posed, students bring up their own Illuminate forms to be scanned. This is their “ticket” out of class. •  If time is an issue, we will collect them, or if it’s an activity where we use the data for a grade, we keep the Illuminate sheet until all students have answered the questions.

Data •  Once all the data is collected we proceed to the Response Frequency Report. This gives us the grade on our delivery. •  We decided our cutoff for understanding was a 70%. This was decided among our department members. So question #4 needs to be revisited.

The more data the better •  Since we have been using Illuminate for two years, we have access to more data. •  We have been able to compare previous years scores to help better design units.

2011DNA Test Results

2012 DNA Test Results

Two Year Comparison

What to do with the data? •  As noted on the Response Frequency Report #4 only 25% of the students answered correctly. •  We use this data to design our upcoming lessons, labs, and questions of the day. •  We also look at why some answers were chosen. This leads to great class discussions about students interruption of questions. •  All data is saved from previous years.

"Numbers don't lie in education." Kim Linz Pacific Elementary Principal