Dimension 2.2

Note: Utilizing a particular resource does not indicate Dimension 2.2 is being addressed. The administrator must examine the level of rigor at which the technology is incorporated.

•BreakoutEDU

Spice up instruction in BreakoutEdu, an immersive game platform for learners of all ages. BreakoutEdu offers student teams a series of critical thinking puzzles. The object? Decipher clues collaboratively, and open a locked box of treats, instructional materials, or whatever you choose.

•Classroom Help Board

Train your students to help each other - while you facilitate the discussion. Created and hosted in an online discussion board, a classroom help board allows students to post questions throughout a given week or for the duration of a particular academic unit. Fellow learners give helpful tips and provide links to beneficial resources. You monitor the discussion to ensure all questions are answered correctly in a timely manner.

•Gamification

Gamification incorporates game-design elements into lessons and academic concepts. Gamified instruction typically allow students to select a challenge and then cycle through an attempt-fail-succeed cycle until the challenge is overcome. In each attempt-fail-succeed cycle, well-designed gamification provides students valuable experience needed to triumph over an obstacle to advance. Participants are typically rewarded for selecting more rigorous tests. Rewards can be something as simple as an online badge.

•Learning Centers/Stations

Also known as learning stations, learning centers offer numerous benefits - from giving students voice and choice in the ways assignments are completed to maximizing classroom productivity. A teaching technique that hits all 16 dimensions of T-TESS, centers are perfect for interest-based, skill-level-centered, learning-style-focused, and collaborative-group assignments. In addition, they can be incorporated into elementary, middle-school, and high school classrooms.

•Project Based Learning

Project-based learning, or PBL as it is more commonly known, is a teaching method in which students investigate and respond to a real-world challenge, question, or problem. Project-based learning does not involve completing a project at as an end-of-unit cap. Rather, the project takes center stage in all or most classroom activities - with content lessons geared to help students address various parts of the project.

•Teacher Reflections on Pedagogy

Good points and places for improvement: Every lesson has them. Within blogs and online portfolios, teachers can record their thoughts on what went well in a lesson - as well as areas to address for professional growth.

•SAMR

Evaluate the technology use in your lesson to determine what level of thinking, collaboration, and mastery your lesson addresses.