3b: Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques

• Quality of questions • Discussion techniques • Student participation

2019-2020 School Year: Increasing Rigor in Staff PD

When asked to develop some staff PD centered around Distance Learning this spring, my idea was to take frequently asked questions from staff and deepen their level of understanding surrounding these questions. I developed a module containing six topics. Learners were asked to choose two to explore in depth. I used a learn/reflect/apply format within each topic to encourage learners to transfer learning from their short term memory to long term memory. Please see the description of this module below:

2018-2019 School Year: Facilitating An Asynchronous Professional Book Study

Over the summer, I facilitated a professional book study for our staff using our Schoology LMS. Approximately 20 of our staff members chose to participate in this book study, some for DS credit, some to become more familiar with Schoology and some simply to engage with their colleagues in professional discourse. Our book study group chose the book Drive written by Daniel Pink as our focus. This book focused on motivation through autonomy, mastery and purpose.

The objectives for the book study were:

Engage with and reflect upon evidence-based ideas that focus on promoting high levels of achievement to accomplish 21st century tasks.
Use Schoology features to engage in an asynchronous professional book study, thus building confidence with these features and a feeling of ease using them with students in our classrooms
Build collegiality between high school, middle school and elementary staff members

I am happy with the results of this project. Since the book study has finished in late August, I have had several staff members ask me to come and work with them on setting up and facilitating an asynchronous discussion assignment in their own classroom. These teachers are additionally encouraging their peers (who were not participants in the study) to also speak with me about how this might work with their learners. An additional success from this project was the ability to share thoughts and ideas between grade level and content area experts. We had staff ranging from grade 3 through grade 12 working through these concepts and questions together. It was both enlightening and encouraging to get a glimpse into the struggles and challenges that others face and know that many of those challenges are similar to our own.

Below is one post and some sample comments from this study:

Example Post and Comments

2017-2018 School Year: Asynchronous Online Discussion Thread

The following is a copied portion of an asynchronous discussion thread in the Nearpod Online Professional Development module that I have created for our staff. The initial question posed to students is at the top and several student interactions are posted just below. Online discussion forums can be very powerful for several reasons: The first is additional time for participants to formulate quality well-thought out responses; additionally learners who are, by nature, shy or anxious about speaking publicly have a voice in this format; and finally, online discussions can be returned to and referred back to often for clarification or the refinement of ideas. Discussion assignments are an interactive learning activity that I try to include in each one of my online modules.

Initial Post by Instructor:

The attached link will take you to a 20-30 minute self-paced webinar. Please watch the webinar and practice each feature using a separate tab opened to your Nearpod account. Once you finish the webinar, respond to the following in a short 2-3 sentence post.

What aspect(s) of getting started with Nearpod are still unclear for you?
Suggest a way that you might like to be supported while learning to use this new tool.

Participant Interactions:

--After playing with NearPod I understand how to use it and what it can do. I just need to figure out the best way to incorporate it in my classroom. I am thinking about using it as my whole group lesson and the "self paced" lessons I have created in Schoology as my enrichment or absentee lessons. Just not sure.

--I like your idea to use this tool for whole group lessons. You will be able to control the presentation even though all the students will view it on their own screens. I think it could also be very useful to house your completed Nearpod lessons in Schoology for absent students to access or for your students to use as study reviews prior to a test.

-- 1. Getting feedback/completion if I do post student-paced lesson to G.Classroom...will still get completed notification and/or students have to submit?

2. Adding virtual reality into media inputs for lessons.

--I am also interested in adding the virtual reality into the presentations. When you get to that portion of your presentation, please contact me, I would love to work on it with you.

-- 1. The set up and launching of a lesson seems fairly clear from the webinar. However, it isn't clear if it's beneficial or necessary for students to have an account (for data collection, later reflection, etc.).

2. As usual, the best facilitator would be time--time to learn and experiment with Nearpod. Also, having Heidi or someone else well-versed in the program, will be a helpful resource in facilating the first steps of implementation.

--If you embed your Nearpod presentation into Schoology, the kids do not even have to login. The data will be collected under their name and is visible in the teacher Nearpod dashboard.

-- Not unclear at all. Interactive slide presentations used as lessons with teacher reports. Got it. I'm sure there are loads of teacher tricks and tips. Of course, integrating with Schoology will require 30 seconds of help.

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