The use of a daily check in sheet adapted from a session with Niall Cooke on Deeper Reading of Text. It is a endlessly adaptable way to get students to check for understanding, form and defend an opinion, or do some critical thinking. The other tool is using a combination of Google Classroom and a rethinking of sketchbooks to engage students in more self-directed independent work.
DAILY CHECK IN
Every day starts with a question on a "Daily Check In Sheet" in my grade nine classroom.
On this sheet the daily questions were:
Monday: generating ideas for what are responsible and irresponsible reasons for not handing in work on time. This led to a critical analysis of different situations a student should find themselves in and problem solving what would be a positive and useful response.
Tuesday: Check in about how much of an upcoming assignment was finished so both teacher and student are aware of how much is left to do.
Wednesday: If you were moving to the lab, and needed to do "x" task when you got there, what materials do you not have that Ms. Collins should load on her cart?
There are also areas to say how they are feeling and ask a question of they want to. The boy on the front page always asks a question, even if it is just "How many seconds are in a year?"
Because it is flexible, and sometimes a fun topic, they stay engaged with it and ask where it is when it is gone. They are now conditioned to think, reflect, and communicate at the start of each class.
RETHINKING SKETCHBOOKS WITH GOOGLE CLASSROOM
Issue: with increasing regularity students are not completing sketchbook homework, or if they do it is well below grade level expectations. Their hearts are not in it for most of them and it becomes a chore for both of us. This year I broke out of the old tradition.
1. Half the sketches would be teacher directed drawing problems to solve.
2. The other half were not ISPs and could be done in any artistic media and handed in as a sketchbook or on the Google Classroom. They could do as many as they wanted and I would record the best ones. The result was a much wider, and more innovative creative product. Here are a few:
A digital painting
A drawing done on Fire Alpacha
I also got:
a suit of armor made from pop can tabs
photography
and traditional drawings that a boy had forgotten to hand in but he got them to me through Google Classroom from home with a note of apology.