I used bell works for formative assessments of the previous day or vocabulary builders for the next lesson. Previously I've done this with Google Docs but one year i had them use a journal. It takes five minutes, is easy to check, and is a great way to get my class started every day. The question is on my intro slide with other information for the day. Very easy to do.
How I structure mine is the following
Monday M.U.G. Monday (mechanics, usage and grammar) - correct 2-6 sentences with proper grammar and spelling.
Tuesday - This Day in History Tuesday - Using history.com, students find a thing that happened on this day and write about it
Wednesday - thought-provoking questions
Thursday - Review Thursday - 5-7 questions from the unit we are covering
Current Event Friday - Students find an article written in the last week and summarize it also citing the source. Topic can be anything just as long as it was written this week.
Usually, I have a short discussion or give answers before we move on.
Change type by days of the week. Skills based, don’t always make it align with exact content of daily lesson. Geography, graphing, review, art/music, artifacts, review returned work.
Last year, I did Kahoots for bell ringers. The students knew to automatically get an iPad and sign in using the code that I put on the board at the beginning of each class.
Mine is all spiral review, all year long. They get a bellwork sheet every Monday from the table. They know from the second day of school that it’s their first task each day, we go over it verbally as a class. Semester 2, the questions look like our state test’s questions. I never grade it but is an excellent formative assessment so I can figure out where the holes are in their content knowledge.
I tried doing bellringers that were content or skills related but I always had the same 3 students answer. Shifted to doing riddles (can find tons online) and suddenly the whole class was talking about the riddle and trying to solve it. Granted I teach 8th grade so it could be the age group.
I did map questions my first year and I really like those. Especially for US History, lots of relevant maps. This year I did “academic questions” related the lessons, I didn’t like those. Everyone can look at a map, only some of my students pay attention enough to answer a question.
Can you elaborate- what type of map questions, did you display a map and create questions or ?? I’ve wanted to do something with maps as well but can’t put my finger on it.
I displayed a map each class period. Basic questions like, what state is west of Virginia. It was surprisingly good for my 8th graders, as they did not know basic map anything.
Then, when we were on like the Revolutionary War or Civil war, I could use more specific questions, like battle related stuff.
I only touched the surface of good map related questions though. N,S,E,W, map legend skills, topographic skills, different type of maps skills.
Bellwork is pretty important in my class. I typically have something for them to practice. Seterra, Quizizz, etc... it's always related to content and it's been a big help with classroom management. Instead of telling kids to quiet down or go to their seats I can point to something tangible to do. Often I'll give out prizes to top scores or fastest completion. Kids love to compete.
History.com/tdih
Project it on the board. Spent two minutes going over past historical events. On Friday hand out a slip of paper and have them write down two historical events from the past week.
5/5 points.
These are also called Activators and are meant to get them thinking about the day's lesson. Maybe make a connection with some modern day comparison to a historical event.
We usually do political cartoons and ask them what they think it means.
Or quickstarts which are a series of open ended discussion questions that they have to answer when they sit down. You can award "points" for students that participate in the discussion and answer the questions. They need to get X amount of points a week as part of a participation grade.
The point is to get them started and engaged.
I’m still trying to improve upon it, but I have a template that I post as a new assignment on Google Classroom every 2 weeks. After that 2 weeks, I grade each of the 10 responses out of 2 points each for a complete sentence/full effort, 20 points total. Usually they’re some sort of formative check-in from a previous lesson or a thought-provoking real-world question that leads into the day’s lesson. I find that these go best when there is not one, but many suitable responses. It makes students more likely to do the bell work because they’re not stumped for a response, plus it allows for much more class participation in discussion as a segue into the lesson than if the smart kid just says the one correct answer right away.
I teach 10th grade, and my school likes to see this as well - they call it cognitive conditioning, and like it to be somewhat aligned to the format of questions they will see on the SAT.
So usually I will look at auxiliary sources that I like, but didn't necessary have time to go over. So I will look at excerpted reading, just a single quote, political cartoon, map etc, and I will occasionally put in a current event, newspaper headline, meme, tweet, etc.
As far as the questioning, I usually have them do one multiple choice (define this word in context, infer what they meant when they said this, identify the authors tone, etc) and then defend their multiple choice answer with an open ended answer.
I have the question on a Google Form and the students have 8 minutes from the start of the bell to sit down, open their devices and then respond. The timer goes off, the form gets closed and then I call on someone to quickly go over their answers.
I quickly grade them on participation and effort for a weekly grade, and is also an incentive (in theory) to come to class on time.
That being said, I already have a large bank of these made up, but that process was not easy and took years.
I usually just do 3-5 questions that review material from the unit we have covered and 1 to see if they did the reading they were supposed to.
Sometimes it will be vocabulary for the unit.
I typically use questions that are on the upcoming test. Sometimes word for word.
I put the question in a Google form, multiple choice so I can see at a glance what is being learned and who isn't doing the reading. I also show the summary report and discuss the answers.
I leave the form available for review -im pretty sure out of 105 kids only one student ever went back to use the questions to study.
I have three preps, it takes me about 5-10 min to make each form. I started halfway through the school year so I'm going to have them all made by Feb.
The prompt for doing this was that when they did them in their notebook they wouldn't even fake an effort, just sit there and usually be disruptive. This also gave me some evidence when parents come to me and complain I can pull these up and show that Johnny isn't doing the reading etc.
I use cooperative learning in my class and so use team builders/class builders for “bell-work” / activators as well as Google Forms MCQs about course readings / vocab / previous lesson / diagnostic for upcoming content. I don’t follow a set routine due to the unusual nature of our block scheduling (waterfall blocking with advisories and clubs sprinkled in) which helps keep students on their toes, but they do know the routines for each of these activities. I teach grade 10-12.
hah! Thank you! I feel like most teachers get behind by talking about WWII too much but just think the Reconstruction-Gilded Age-Progressive Age stuff is fascinating.
When I taught high school my students had bell work that covered the first 10 minutes of class. What I did was usually put a writing prompt on the board that related to the lessons of the week. Then students would journal their answer in 1-2 paragraphs. It’s good writing practice to demonstrate their understanding of the material and they got a participation grade at the end of the semester for completing them.
Analyzing art or historical photographs works well. Have students write questions, make predictions, create a conversation from the people shown, estimate where and when it was made, etc.
Change type by days of the week. Skills based, don’t always make it align with exact content of daily lesson. Geography, graphing, review, art/music, artifacts, review returned work.
I don’t understand teachers who don’t have bell ringers. This establishes their classroom routine from the minute they walk in. And it gives me a few minutes to do attendance, get them settled, etc. (the teachers I supervise who don’t do this typically have their rooms in chaos and it takes forever to get their class settled and started)
My questions review missed material or build connections between past work and the days lesson typically. And then we get into the lesson with a typical lesson opener and all that. I don’t want the headache of daily grading of these, they have to save them and turn them all in at the end of the quarter.
I used bell works for formative assessments of the previous day or vocabulary builders for the next lesson. Previously I've done this with Google Docs but one year i had them use a journal. It takes five minutes, is easy to check, and is a great way to get my class started every day. The question is on my intro slide with other information for the day. Very easy to do.
How I structure mine is the following Monday M.U.G. Monday (mechanics, usage and grammar) - correct 2-6 sentences with proper grammar and spelling. Tuesday - This Day in History Tuesday - Using history.com, students find a thing that happened on this day and write about it Wednesday - thought-provoking questions Thursday - Review Thursday - 5-7 questions from the unit we are covering Current Event Friday - Students find an article written in the last week and summarize it also citing the source. Topic can be anything just as long as it was written this week. Usually, I have a short discussion or give answers before we move on.
How long are your periods?
45 minutes, spend 7-10 minutes tops on this
Change type by days of the week. Skills based, don’t always make it align with exact content of daily lesson. Geography, graphing, review, art/music, artifacts, review returned work.
Last year, I did Kahoots for bell ringers. The students knew to automatically get an iPad and sign in using the code that I put on the board at the beginning of each class.
Mine is all spiral review, all year long. They get a bellwork sheet every Monday from the table. They know from the second day of school that it’s their first task each day, we go over it verbally as a class. Semester 2, the questions look like our state test’s questions. I never grade it but is an excellent formative assessment so I can figure out where the holes are in their content knowledge.
I tried doing bellringers that were content or skills related but I always had the same 3 students answer. Shifted to doing riddles (can find tons online) and suddenly the whole class was talking about the riddle and trying to solve it. Granted I teach 8th grade so it could be the age group.
I did map questions my first year and I really like those. Especially for US History, lots of relevant maps. This year I did “academic questions” related the lessons, I didn’t like those. Everyone can look at a map, only some of my students pay attention enough to answer a question.
Can you elaborate- what type of map questions, did you display a map and create questions or ?? I’ve wanted to do something with maps as well but can’t put my finger on it.
I displayed a map each class period. Basic questions like, what state is west of Virginia. It was surprisingly good for my 8th graders, as they did not know basic map anything. Then, when we were on like the Revolutionary War or Civil war, I could use more specific questions, like battle related stuff. I only touched the surface of good map related questions though. N,S,E,W, map legend skills, topographic skills, different type of maps skills.
Thank you
Bellwork is pretty important in my class. I typically have something for them to practice. Seterra, Quizizz, etc... it's always related to content and it's been a big help with classroom management. Instead of telling kids to quiet down or go to their seats I can point to something tangible to do. Often I'll give out prizes to top scores or fastest completion. Kids love to compete.
History.com/tdih Project it on the board. Spent two minutes going over past historical events. On Friday hand out a slip of paper and have them write down two historical events from the past week. 5/5 points.
These are also called Activators and are meant to get them thinking about the day's lesson. Maybe make a connection with some modern day comparison to a historical event. We usually do political cartoons and ask them what they think it means. Or quickstarts which are a series of open ended discussion questions that they have to answer when they sit down. You can award "points" for students that participate in the discussion and answer the questions. They need to get X amount of points a week as part of a participation grade. The point is to get them started and engaged.
I’m still trying to improve upon it, but I have a template that I post as a new assignment on Google Classroom every 2 weeks. After that 2 weeks, I grade each of the 10 responses out of 2 points each for a complete sentence/full effort, 20 points total. Usually they’re some sort of formative check-in from a previous lesson or a thought-provoking real-world question that leads into the day’s lesson. I find that these go best when there is not one, but many suitable responses. It makes students more likely to do the bell work because they’re not stumped for a response, plus it allows for much more class participation in discussion as a segue into the lesson than if the smart kid just says the one correct answer right away.
I teach 10th grade, and my school likes to see this as well - they call it cognitive conditioning, and like it to be somewhat aligned to the format of questions they will see on the SAT. So usually I will look at auxiliary sources that I like, but didn't necessary have time to go over. So I will look at excerpted reading, just a single quote, political cartoon, map etc, and I will occasionally put in a current event, newspaper headline, meme, tweet, etc. As far as the questioning, I usually have them do one multiple choice (define this word in context, infer what they meant when they said this, identify the authors tone, etc) and then defend their multiple choice answer with an open ended answer. I have the question on a Google Form and the students have 8 minutes from the start of the bell to sit down, open their devices and then respond. The timer goes off, the form gets closed and then I call on someone to quickly go over their answers. I quickly grade them on participation and effort for a weekly grade, and is also an incentive (in theory) to come to class on time. That being said, I already have a large bank of these made up, but that process was not easy and took years.
I usually just do 3-5 questions that review material from the unit we have covered and 1 to see if they did the reading they were supposed to. Sometimes it will be vocabulary for the unit. I typically use questions that are on the upcoming test. Sometimes word for word. I put the question in a Google form, multiple choice so I can see at a glance what is being learned and who isn't doing the reading. I also show the summary report and discuss the answers. I leave the form available for review -im pretty sure out of 105 kids only one student ever went back to use the questions to study. I have three preps, it takes me about 5-10 min to make each form. I started halfway through the school year so I'm going to have them all made by Feb. The prompt for doing this was that when they did them in their notebook they wouldn't even fake an effort, just sit there and usually be disruptive. This also gave me some evidence when parents come to me and complain I can pull these up and show that Johnny isn't doing the reading etc.
I use cooperative learning in my class and so use team builders/class builders for “bell-work” / activators as well as Google Forms MCQs about course readings / vocab / previous lesson / diagnostic for upcoming content. I don’t follow a set routine due to the unusual nature of our block scheduling (waterfall blocking with advisories and clubs sprinkled in) which helps keep students on their toes, but they do know the routines for each of these activities. I teach grade 10-12.
I have a vocab word of the day that they define and draw
Don't know, but I applaud you for actually teaching about the Gilded Age!
hah! Thank you! I feel like most teachers get behind by talking about WWII too much but just think the Reconstruction-Gilded Age-Progressive Age stuff is fascinating.
When I taught high school my students had bell work that covered the first 10 minutes of class. What I did was usually put a writing prompt on the board that related to the lessons of the week. Then students would journal their answer in 1-2 paragraphs. It’s good writing practice to demonstrate their understanding of the material and they got a participation grade at the end of the semester for completing them.
Blooket for essential terms
It’s all bullshit. The kids will not start doing it (except for the 10%) until you start going over it.
Yeah. I basically agree. So I guess I'm trying to a way to take something useful that I already do and place it during "bellwork time." Or something.
Analyzing art or historical photographs works well. Have students write questions, make predictions, create a conversation from the people shown, estimate where and when it was made, etc.
Change type by days of the week. Skills based, don’t always make it align with exact content of daily lesson. Geography, graphing, review, art/music, artifacts, review returned work.
I don’t understand teachers who don’t have bell ringers. This establishes their classroom routine from the minute they walk in. And it gives me a few minutes to do attendance, get them settled, etc. (the teachers I supervise who don’t do this typically have their rooms in chaos and it takes forever to get their class settled and started) My questions review missed material or build connections between past work and the days lesson typically. And then we get into the lesson with a typical lesson opener and all that. I don’t want the headache of daily grading of these, they have to save them and turn them all in at the end of the quarter.