Embedded Files
Designing Student Jobs that Empower the Classroom Community
We have all seen the job charts that are used in elementary classrooms, but this year’s shift in learning is asking us to review these jobs and how we implement them at all grade levels. In this 35 minute podcast (the first 15 minutes are the most interesting!), John Spencer speaks with a teacher about how he uses student jobs to empower a classroom community.
Reframing our thinking about these classroom responsibilities can be especially impactful now, as more students are transitioning back to brick and mortar. What are your pain points? What are those tasks that must happen every day?
A dilemma that high school teachers are facing this week is figuring out how to adjust their classroom management practices to account for fewer students on Zoom, and more in the room. This transition might provide a good moment to instill new practices that will assist teachers in overcoming this obstacle.
Here are some thoughts that we brainstormed about developmentally appropriate jobs for the secondary (and elementary!) classroom:
Timer: monitors the clock for the teacher (during specific activities or just the general class period)
In-Room Zoomer/Chat Monitor: F2F student who logs into Zoom to monitor chat and assist online students
Padlet/Discussion Board Monitor/s: one or more students who answer questions or comments that pop up on a Padlet or discussion board (this would be most useful if you streamline questions/comments to one platform).
Board Manager: Take a photo of the board (if teacher wants this), wipes down the whiteboard at the beginning or end of class
Class Manager: holds other students accountable for their jobs, so class can continue run when teacher is absent/busy, etc.
Substitute: one or more students who jump into a student job when someone is absent
Researcher: stays up-to-date on current events in the building, community, and greater world, shares it with the class, and explains how it affects the students/teacher in the class.
DISTRACTED: Why Students can't Focus and What You Can Do About It
Dr. James Lang has recommendations in this 13 minute podcast about how we can better understand student and how we can get their attention while we teach - even when teaching onlint.
Feeling Stuck -- Inside and Behind a Screen?
Being stuck in the house during the last few weeks has everyone (adults and kids alike!) reaching for devices more than ever. Click here for an Offline Activities Choice Board that you should check out. The activities could be rewritten and adjusted to almost any grade level or content area. If you want to do some brainstorming, reach out to Evan or Deanna.
Strategies to Ensure Student Engagement
Finding new ed tech tools is not the only way to engage students, especially in this environment. One way is for us to offer multiple opportunities for students to claim ownership in their learning.
Click here to read some ideas about how to do just that! When you click on the link, scroll down to "2. Offer opportunities for ownership and choice." You will be able to learn more about these strategies:
1. Amtrak Learning Cars
2. Virtual Award System
3. Remote Classroom Jobs
4. Remote Choice Boards.
13 Virtual Games to Play in Your Elementary Classroom
Virtual activities and games promote fun and collaboration. Take a look at this article for ideas and resources.
Tapping Professional Actors to Teach Shakespeare Online
Even in "before times," Shakespeare was a hard sell in many 21st century classrooms. Throw the pandemic and Zoom into the mix, well, you know where we are going with this one...
Read this article to gain some insight into how other teachers are putting a modern twist on The Bard, and engaging students in new ways!
Designing Online Instruction: What Makes for Effective Learning
"This model classroom is based on research that has empirically confirmed that participants can learn up to five times more material in an online course than a traditional face-to-face-course (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia & Jones, 2010) and an MIT study that shows that online learning can be as effective as a traditional course regardless of how much preparation and knowledge students start with (Colvin, Champaign, Liu, Zhou, Fredericks, & Pritchard, 2014)."
The above excerpt is from "Designing Online Instruction: What Makes for Effective Learning," which elaborates upon useful methods and tools for delivering content and assessing students in an online environment. Our current educational model can feel overwhelming, but there are multitudes of opportunity for engaging learners in this environment.
"I share this story because of what I have either seen or been told is happening in classrooms at this very moment. Advances in technology and the pandemic have placed a great deal of stress on teachers and schools, and the reaction has led to an imbalance in many cases."
In a short blog post, Eric Sheninger, a former high school principal, shares his insights on how to create balance right NOW in the classroom. Perhaps you have been using too much tech or not enough? He offers some quick tips about how to approach teaching in a pandemic with balance and authenticity. Click here to read the entire post.
16 Tips for Hybrid Learning: By and For Teachers
Eric Hudson, Director of Learning & Design at Global Online Academy, posed two simple questions to teacher Twitter on November 12th:
"For teachers who have done/are doing hybrid: What is one piece of advice you would share with a teacher who just found out their school is going hybrid (from remote)? What should they definitely (not) try?"
The answers that he received fell into the following categories:
1. Move your headquarters online
2. Master technology basics
3. Connect in-person and remote students
4. Make clear, intentional plans and share them
5. Make time for remote students
6. Slow down and forgive yourself.
Try It, Talk It, Color It
Read about an instructional coach and math teacher who have developed a powerful model for student collaboration and have tweaked it for the pandemic. Their strategy, "Try It, Talk It, Color It, Check It," utilizes three components that John Hattie and Robert Marzano say are essential to success:
1. structure
2. small groups
3. collaboration.
If you are looking for new ways to entice your students to turn on their cameras and microphones, click here to read about what these two educators did.
How to Minimize Cheating in Online Assessments
Since the onset of flexible/remote/hybrid/virtual learning, teachers have expressed more concern about cheating. "How to Minimize Cheating in Online Assessments" offers useful ideas about how to tackle this age-old problem in our new environment. The article takes a two-pronged approach to tackling cheating:
1. Which LMS tools help you minimize cheating?
2. What can teachers do to minimize cheating in online assessments?
While we highly recommend that you read the entire piece, here are some ideas that might be of interest to you and that you can learn more about:
Use an anti-plagiarism tool (Turnitin!)
Create a policy document
Set time limits on multiple choice or true/false questions
Timed assessments
Randomized questions
Give essay and open-ended questions
Hold debate and discussion assessments
Assign group projects.
Caring for the Parent-Teacher Relationship during COVID-19
Caring for the Parent-Teacher Relationship during COVID-19
Many of us will be hosting conferences next week. In the "before times," conferences were a strenuous endeavor. The chance to connect with the families of your students is a good opportunity to collaborate on your students' needs and goals.
COVID-19 has brought us a new layer of complications, though. As you are preparing for conferences, click here to read "Caring for the Parent-Teacher Relationship during COVID-19." The author addresses the following points in detail:
1. Embracing and co-creating the "new normal"
2. Assuming that certain matters are true
3. Recognizing what is normal
4. Supporting each other in genuine and authentic ways
5. Elevating what is going well
6. Remembering that this a new situation (still).
Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn Their Cameras On
Thank you to Susan Howe, SLMS Counselor, for sending this week's Edutopia's headlines. Among these gems, we found some thoughts about how to thoughtfully encourage students to turn their cameras on during class. The author, Liz Byron Loya, offers a multifaceted approach that encompasses SEE strategies, Zoom tips and Instructional tips. Click here to read the article.
What's Possible with Green Screens in the Classroom
In the October 25th episode of the Cult of Pedagogy, Jennifer Gonzalez interviews educator Justine Bruyere about the why and the how of using green screen videos in the classroom. You are probably thinking, "Using a green screen during an unpredictable school year!?!" 2020 might just be the perfect year to try it out (seriously, can anymore possibly go wrong?).
Bruyere explains how green screens work -- you can use green paper, green sheet, green tablecloth, the list could go on. Then, she elaborates upon why they should be used in the classroom:
they generate embodied learning
they lend themselves to inquiry
they are social
they are often cross-curricular.
Students can use green screens in the classroom, or at home. Hybrid students can take green paper home with them. If you have virtual students, you can drop some paper in the mail.
*Click the graphic to access the podcast.*
Creating Moments of Genuine Connection Online
As we are learning to teach in new environment, many of us, including students, are grieving the classroom experiences -- and relationships -- that we once had. Perhaps more than ever before, we need to build relationships with students, but find it harder. "Creating Moments of Genuine Connection Online" provides quick, simple ways that you can connect, and stay connected, to your students in an online environment. Click here to read the article or listen to the podcast.
Here's an overview of where you can make moments of genuine connection online:
1. In Zoom Waiting Rooms
2. Brief Office Hours
3. Embedded in Feedback
4. Personal Videos
5. Phone Calls.
Check out the link to learn HOW you can use those spaces to make MGCs!
How to Teach When Everyone is Scattered
Thank you to SLMS teacher Katie Malenich for sharing a recent episode of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast entitled, "How to Teach When Everyone is Scattered." In this episode, Jennifer Gonzalez shares six concrete strategies for reaching learners, whether they are in the room or in the Zoom. Click here to listen to the podcast or read the accompanying article.
Here's a quick overview of the strategies:
1. Create Student Cohorts
2. Limit the Synchronous
3. Chunk the Time
4. Build Community Intentionally
5. Experiment with Cameras and Screens.
*Click the graphic to access the podcast.*
During the summer of 2020, several RTMSD teachers researched and designed lessons to incorporate the new iPad initiative. This link highlights those teachers' outstanding work.
*Click the graphic to access the lessons.*
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