This document summarizes a presentation about using team-building activities to teach Common Core standards in advisory classes. The presenters introduce themselves and their backgrounds in special education. They describe their advisory classes which meet daily for 30 minutes with 15 special education students each. They discuss their educational beliefs about arousing curiosity and giving students a voice. They provide examples of linking standards to team-building activities focused on perseverance, collaboration, and problem-solving. Students reflect on the activities and how they show perseverance. The presenters explain how the activities address Common Core speaking, listening, and math standards while building community.

1. Communication,
Connection,
and Common Core
Mamse Presentation By: Kattie Hogan and Aimee Carbone

2. Overview
• Introduction of Presenters
• Overview of Advisory Class
• Theoretical Framework, Beliefs That Guide Our Work
• Try It Outs and Debriefing
• Walk Away-How Can You Transform Your Classroom
Instruction?

3. Presenter Introductions
Aimee Carbone Kattie Hogan
Degrees in Special Education-Cognitive Impairments
Learning Disabilities and Reading Specialist
Degrees in English, Special Education-Learning
Disabilities, and Reading
Current Placement: 6th
through 8th
grade, primarily
in language arts co-taught classes and
Reading Intervention
Current Placement: Primarily Resource Room and a
co-taught math class
Current Challenges: Students lack vocabulary and
skills to interact appropriately with peers
Current Challenges: Students’ difficulties with
language-based activities makes reading and writing
tasks slow-paced and often painful

4. Advisory Overview
• About 30 minutes long-5 days a week
• Both classes are filled with about 15 special
education students (variety of impairments
including: E.I., L.D, C.I.)
• Time for reviewing school expectations/events,
finishing homework, and community building
• A balancing act of supporting academic and
social needs

5. What We Believe About Education
•“Education {should} arouse curiosity, strengthen initiative,
and set up desires and purposes that are sufficiently intense to
carry a person over dead places in the future” (Dewey, 1938, p.
28)
•“Behind their fearful silence, our students want to find their
voices, speak their voices, have their voices hear. A good
teacher is one who can listen to the voices before they are
spoken-so that someday they can speak with truth and confidence”
(Palmer, 1998, p. 46)
•“It is in speaking their word that people, by naming their
world, transform it, dialogue imposes itself as the way by which
they achieve significance as human beings” (Freire, 1970, pg.
69).

6. teach Common Core!
I don’t I have time for
creativity and insightful
independent thinking when my
effectiveness is judged on
students’ performance on
standardized tests.
Solution: Link Standards with Team-Building Activities

7. Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1.C
Pose questions that elicit elaboration and respond to others’
questions and comments with relevant observations and
ideas that bring their discussion back to the topic as needed
Have You Ever?
Ice Breaker Questions

8. Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the
course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
Individual/Community
Text: The Giver
Activity: Marshmallow Tower
Discussion Question: What is the significance of an individual in a community?
TRY IT OUT!

9. MARSHMALLOW ACTIVITY REFLECTIONS

10. MARSHMALLOW ACTIVITY REFLECTIONS

11. MARSHMALLOW ACTIVITY REFLECTIONS

12. Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text; provide an
objective summary of the text.
Perseverance
Text: Dear Mr. Faulker, Article on Liz Murray From Homeless to Harvard
Activity: See Packet
Discussion Question: How do you show perseverance in your own life?

13. Student Samples:
Attacking the Challenge Images
“

14. Student Samples: Perseverance
“Perseverance is when you get scared that
you can’t do it”-Emily
“Perseverance is brave and not scary”-
Aaron
Perseverance is when you keep trying even
if it was hard. Never give up.-Elizabeth

15. Student Samples: Perseverance

16. BALL
Combining Perseverance and
Community
Toss the ball without dropping it to all of the members in the community.
Count the number of times you catch it.
“Everyone go easy. Toss it
to the person you are close
by.” –
Strategies and other
language emerges as
students negotiate a task
with one another.

17. BALL
Common Core Connection
“CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups,
and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues,
building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1.B
Follow rules for collegial discussions, track progress toward specific goals and
deadlines, and define individual roles as needed
BALL IS A BUILDING BLOCK: STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT COLLABORATION
COMMUNICATION, AND SHARING IDEAS AS THEY WORK ON MEETING A
SPECIFIC GOAL.
TRY IT OUT!

18. SAVE SAMMY!
The boat has capsized and Sammy’s life
preserver is trapped inside the boat. He
doesn’t know how long he can hang on to the
boat. Help save him.
Connection to Common Core:
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP1
Make sense of problems and persevere in
solving them.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.3
Follow precisely a multistep procedure when
carrying out experiments, taking
measurements, or performing technical tasks.

19. SAVE SAMMY!

20. SAVE SAMMY!

21. Walk Away-How Can You Transform
Your Classroom Instruction?