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GradeCam: The Teacher’s Friend for Assessment

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A sponsored post by GradeCam

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Some think GradeCam is just the modern-day replacement for multiple-choice Scantron machines. I did. But I was wrong. This past week, I took a tour of GradeCam, and in this post, I’ll share with you the features of this system and how it can save you time as a teacher. It will also help you with both formative and summative assessments, and it will enter your grades into any electronic grade book directly from GradeCam. Let’s dive deeper.

GradeCam teacher assessment

This blog post is sponsored by GradeCam. All opinions are my own.

GradeCam free trial

1. Simple Assessments of All Kinds

First, let’s look at the ways you can use GradeCam for assessments.

  • Multiple Choice: This is just the beginning.
  • True False: You can see what this looks like below.

GradeCam true false assessment boxes

  • Handwritten Numeric Assignments: Yes! Students can write in a numeric answer. GradeCam has a new tool called AITA (artificial intelligence teaching assistant) that can grade numeric handwriting. Math teachers should be thrilled!
Handwritten numeric responses can be graded with AITA, GradeCam's Artificial Intelligence Teaching Assistant.

Handwritten numeric responses can be graded with AITA, GradeCam’s Artificial Intelligence Teaching Assistant.

  • Number Grids: A numeric grid looks kind of like the grid that many of us have seen on the SAT. You can use this one, but in some cases, you might prefer the Handwritten Numeric (above).

GradeCam Numeric Grids

  • Rubrics: You can set up and fill in a rubric for student work, and then scan quickly to enter it into your grade book.
  • Rubrics With Capture Area: You can include a handwritten capture area within your rubric. Then you can view what students wrote and score it quickly (without paper) inside GradeCam.

GradeCam Rubric with capture area

  • Credit Assignments: This is a cool option. You can print out a small form and attach it to the front of a student’s journal, vocabulary or spelling book, or another item. This lets you quickly see if the student did the work. If you’re doing what I call a check grade (or what others call a credit assignment), just scan the code to enter the check or credit into the grade book.
Setting assessments is fast and easy with GradeCam.

Setting up assessments is fast and easy. There are many types of assessments in GradeCam including handwritten numeric.

2. Quick Data Feedback for Student Performance

Remember, teachers, that you don’t have to “grade” everything. Some student work can serve as formative assessment checkpoints to help you see how students are learning. You can use this data to adjust your teaching and better teach your students.

One of the advantages of GradeCam is the quick feedback that you get for your assessments. You can look at each item on the quiz or test and see where you need to re-teach or reinforce. First, you can look overall at the class. Then you can identify individual students who are struggling and need some extra help.

Item review makes it easy to see where your class is struggling. If you use several assessments during the class period to see how knowledge is forming in student minds, you can just check for learning. It isn’t necessary to record a grade in the gradebook. (In fact, I recommend that you shouldn’t feel tempted to record these grades even though GradeCam easily does it for you.) This can redirect your attention to teaching better and identifying which students need extra help.

3. Make Laminated Sheets for Student Use and Reuse

While you can print individual forms for student use and reuse, you can also just print a standard form and laminate it. Students can use a dry erase or Vis-a-vis marker to record their answers. After using the camera to enter the scores, they can wipe their forms and reuse them in the next class.

If students have any kind of book that you’re using for a check grade or credit assignment, print out the form and tape it on the front of the book for easy scoring. Make assessment simple.

While you can print off forms for individual assignments, consider creating a standard form and laminating copies for students. They can keep and reuse them quickly any time you assess. And remember, no matter how many questions you put on your standard form (and Gradecam can have up to 1,000), you don’t have to use them all.

GradeCam free trial

4. Remember the Value of Pre-Assessments

Many times, we review content that we’ve already presented to our students. They become bored when we cover “old” material that they know well. But the reason why we review is that some students might not know the material. You can free up class time and teach more efficiently when you pre-assess for prior knowledge.

Again, this is not a recorded grade, but it can help you better use your class time.

I also like the charts and graphs that you can quickly create in GradeCam to see what students are learning. You can link any question to state standards and see standards-based reports as well.

In this graphic,you can see pre-assessment data on a content area that helps the teacher understand the class knowledge overview.

 

5. Any Camera Works… But Practice First

You can use the camera on your Chromebook or laptop, mobile phone or tablet, or document camera. I do recommend setting up your device so that students can quickly position their item for scanning.

If you’re using a laptop, for example, it’s easier to hold the items in a stack and remove the front item for quick scanning. You might also want to have a white clipboard on a stand to cover the background. However, if you’re using a document camera or down-facing camera, laying an item down and then putting the next on top of it seems to work best.

Give students immediate feedback. Here’s what I love about inviting students to scan the document themselves — they get immediate feedback. Part of this, of course, is teaching them to clear the results before the next student scans his or her document. This is a fantastic way to quickly give feedback to students, which is why you want to make it easy for them to scan their own scoresheets. Set up a class procedure that will make it easy to do.

Experiment until you arrive at a system that works for both you and your students.

6. Practice the Transfer to Your Electronic Gradebook

Any teacher is eligible for a 60-day free trial of GradeCam Go! Plus. You can transfer grades to any electronic gradebook, but there are a few steps. You’ll have to open your gradebook and select the assignment and class. Then, after you click in the first student’s cell, you’ll tap F8. This will automatically transfer grades to the gradebook.

Now, for a great feature of GradeCam: Districts and schools that purchase a site license can work with GradeCam to set up SIS-sync for your school. This way, the gradebooks and students are entered and synchronize easily. This means little to no setup for your teachers.

Get started today with your free 60-day trial of GradeCam.

Now you can see why GradeCam is far more than multiple-choice. It’s a powerhouse assessment tool that can save teachers time — their most precious resource!

To help you learn more, here are links to some subject-specific tutorials for using Gradecam. Just click and download the PDF.

Enjoy learning and saving time with Gradecam!

GradeCam

The post GradeCam: The Teacher’s Friend for Assessment appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!


5 Ways to Flip Your Classroom

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Hip Hughes on episode 155 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

History teacher Keith “Hip” Hughes has a massive following on his YouTube channel.Today, he shares his technique for flipping the classroom in engaging, powerful ways.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

  • Clip the video
  • Record your own voice over
  • Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots
  • Add comments, multiple choice or open-ended questions.

And if you click www.coolcatteacher.com/edpuzzle, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Listen Now

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Five Ways to Flip Your Classroom

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e155
Friday, September 22, 2017

Vicki: So today we’re talking with Keith “Hip” Hughes @hiphughes of www.hiphughes.com and also creator of the “HipHughes History” YouTube channel.

And Keith, today we’re going to talk about “Five Ways to Flip Your Class.”

You should know all about this because you make these awesome videos. So how do we start?

#1 Define the kind of teacher you want to be

Keith: Sure! And first, thanks for having me on the program. It’s so good to talk about a subject that I love so much – the craft of teaching!

So basically, flipping your classroom – and I guess this is the first kind of tip is explaining it.

I always explain to people that I’d rather be called a FOLE than a teacher. A FOLE is a Facilitator Of Learning Experiences, and I think we can all kind of understand that analogy. We want to be “conductors” of our classroom. But I wanted more time for my kids to “compose.”

I have a saying. It’s maybe not the most graceful analogy. “Content consumption without content creation may lead to learning constipation.”

Vicki: Oh wow! (laughs)

Keith: I know, it’s not graceful. But I think it gets the point across. It’s basically shifting that content to the homework piece so you can have kids do more real things in your classroom.

#2 Understand what flipping the classroom is (and isn’t)

Vicki: Absolutely. You talk a little bit about flipping the classroom, but not everybody may understand real clearly what it is. Do you want to give us a simple definition?

Keith: The basic idea is to try to reduce the amount of time you’re talking to kids from the front of the room. I think sometimes we have this illusion that the kids are learning in the space between our mouths and their ears, and I’m not sure how much that might be happening.

So “flipping” is saying, “Let’s have the kids get the content somewhere other than the classroom.” Many times, that could be a reader, but many times it could be a really great video that explains a concept that you would normally be explaining in front of the room. You’re probably still going to have to review it. But the idea is to free up time in your class so kids that are working through skill-based activities that might in the past have been done as homework. Now (those) can be doing that in class with your facilitation.

The next step is designing projects and really having kids doing authentic inquiry-based awesome stuff in your classroom, using the content.

So that’s the basic idea of flipping your class.

Vicki: Yes! And you know, I do this. I have to do the in-flip, which means I do the videos sometimes in class, and use tools like “EdPuzzle” to kind of insert that formative assessment and that sort of thing. But we do want to shift to these authentic projects.

#3: Move to product-based learning

What’s our third way to flip our classroom?

Keith: I think it’s really to think about what you want to do with that time. If you’re going to have – let’s say 50% more time where kids are actively engaged and doing things in your class – I think we can shift to think about not just Project Based Learning but Product Based Learning.

I think it’s so important that our kids have time to use content to create new meaning – not only to achieve curricular goals, but also to start using that to form a sense of their own identity about who they are – not only in the real world, but in the online world.

Vicki: So how would you define Product Based Learning?

Keith: Product, to me, is something that exists after the activity, that can live on and have meaning outside of the classroom.

So many times, I’m a techie guy, so I talk technology but it doesn’t necessarily have to be technology. But I’m thinking about students designing websites, creating their own podcasts, making videos, doing community action projects, collaborating with classes around the world tackling problems. Doing real things that real adults do. But the idea is that we can insert our learning. So all the layers of literacy that go into these projects…

Vicki: I love it. So global audience. And we know that global audience does improve our performance, both as teachers and as students.

#4 Understand how students are interacting with your videos

OK, what’s our fourth, Keith?

Keith: So you mentioned it before, and I’m so glad you did. Using these types of things like EdPuzzle or PlayPosit, where you’re using video. And the partial flip or the in class flip. I’ve done that before. You kow, we haven’t closed that digital divide quite yet. So we have to consider that, as to whether we can do a full flip or not.

But if we are showing videos in the classroom, or you’re assigning them – you want to make sure that you’re the one that’s holding the flashlight on that video.

We can talk about what makes a great video, making sure they’re engaging, hitting your objectives. But using EdPuzzle or PlayPosit, I can pause that video, insert that exam question or reflective thought idea, or send them to a website, or give differentiation by offering a different resource.

  • Edpuzzle is a sponsor of this episode. Our sponsors have no impact on the content of the show. However, if you want to sign up for Edpuzzle, use this link as it will give your school access to the 50,000 curated video library on Edpuzzle. (Something you can get by using this link they gave for my listeners and readers.)

But I also can track that data. I can use that information to gauge how I’m using videos in the classroom. And believe it or not, some kids will do it because they know you’re watching.

Vicki: Yeah. And I love it because I can insert my voice. It will pause the video. I can insert my voice! So I don’t have to remake everything. And that’s been such a relief for me, letting them hear my voice but I don’t have to remake it all.

#5 Create content that is exciting

OK, what’s our fifth?

Keith: So I want to talk about content creation, because sometimes – and I think it depends on our personality and our time that we have in the classroom – you know, we want to “be the face” for those kids. Human relationships are so important in our classroom. If we can carry that over, and if we have the time and the enthusiasm to do it – WHY. NOT.

So, you know, I would say, “Jump in!”

That’s my tip. Don’t worry about detail. Don’t worry about how to do it. Just film yourself. Talk to that camera like you have your kids’ attention and no one’s going to interrupt you.

Flipped classroom mistakes

Vicki: OK. What do you think the biggest mistake is, Keith, that people make when they start trying to flip their classroom?

Keith: I think it’s their choice of video, to be quite honest. I think if we’re choosing videos – I don’t want to call them textbook videos, but I’m going to call them textbook videos. (These are) videos that are just primarily concerned with the content. They might have a dry voiceover wit very direct literal imagery. I think those videos need to walk in those students’ world a little bit. Not only with the language that we use – it doesn’t mean you have to be a goofball – you can be an academic. But in the visuals we choose, the music we choose, the pace of it? I think voice is really important because it emotes emotion. And I think if you’re comfortable on camera, a face can make a difference as well.

How to make exciting videos that students will want to watch

Vicki: It can! You know, it’s funny! My students like it when I make them laugh. So I try to put unexpected things in there. It makes them watch it, you know?

Keith: Include those mistakes! If you make a little mistake, do a jump cut. The kids will laugh, and I think that laughter is, in a sense, a little magnet of attention. You can draw them back in.

Vicki: Totally. So you’ve been doing this for a while, Keith, and you know a lot about making exciting videos. Of course, we could do a whole other 10-Minute Teacher on videos.

But as we finish up, could you give us a pep talk about how to make exciting video that kids want to watch?

Keith: Sure, and let’s not talk about the technology. You can go watch a different tutorial. I think Number One is – you need to relax. You need to be yourself. Kids can smell authenticity. So don’t try to pretend.

And if you can do it, try to read off of a script. I know that’s difficult for some people. But you’re allowed to make mistakes. And it’s so important to look at that camera, or use your voice to connect with those kids.

And don’t always be so literal. Sometimes some imagery that draws kids in and makes them laugh a little bit is important.

And use different modes of literacy. You know, there’s nothing wrong with a little “Sanford and Son” with a title in the middle of the video– not only to divide concepts, but again, to make them laugh, draw them in.

Vicki: So teachers…

Flipping that classroom – or in-flipping the classroom, where you show the videos in your classroom — is such an important part of my own classroom.

Remember, we have the bricks (which is the face-to-face classroom) and we have the clicks (which is the online classroom). And the best classrooms these days are blended.

So making those videos and flipping that classroom? That’s kind of what so many of us need to be doing today to be remarkable.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Bio as submitted


Keith Hughes is an educator,

YouTuber and innovator in the field of technology and education. A 16 year veteran of the Buffalo Public Schools and adjunct professor at the University of Buffalo, he has spent his career engaging students as well as fellow educators.

As the producer of HipHughes History, he was recognized in 2012 by YouTube and Khan Academy with a YouTube Edu Guru Award. Keith has also appeared on the History Channel’s United Stuff of America and AHC’s America’s Most Badass.

Currently, Keith is employed as an Instruction Technology Coach by the Buffalo Public Schools and engages with other educators and schools across the world through professional development presentations.

http://hiphughes.com
http://youtube.com/hiphughes
http://hiphugheshistory.weebly.com/teachertips.html
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/teachers-aid/id368754208?mt=2

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post 5 Ways to Flip Your Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Why I Use Edpuzzle: An Edpuzzle Review

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Sponsored by Edpuzzle

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Edpuzzle solves so many of my flipped classroom problems. During the last four years of using flipped classroom techniques, I’ve come to rely on what is called the “in-flip” — I show the videos in class and interact with students to help them do in-class activities with what they’ve learned.

Why I Use Edpuzzle twitter
This blog post is sponsored by Edpuzzle. All opinions are my own. If you use my link to sign up for Edpuzzle, you’ll gain access to a curated library of 50,000 free videos to use with your school.

But I’ve had several big problems with flipped classroom techniques:

  • Just as some students “tune out” a teacher, some would fast forward or skip parts of the videos.
  • Even though I’d ask, students wouldn’t pause the video to do something.
  • I’d like to use videos made by others, but I’d also like to add a few elements of my own.
  • I couldn’t check for understanding during the video.

All of these problems have been solved with Edpuzzle. (And let me add that I was so excited when Edpuzzle contacted me about reviewing their product because I was already a fan!)

Get Edpuzzle and access to the 50,000 video curriculum library

How Does Edpuzzle Work?


1. Import any video.

First, with Edpuzzle, you can import any video. In the resume example shown below, you can see that I pulled in a video from the web. Then, I added voice comments and some quizzes. Try it for yourself.

My Resume Video

I didn’t make this video but used one from YouTube and added my voice and questions.

I upload my videos to YouTube and import them into Edpuzzle. Sometimes I use videos that I find on YouTube as well. However, you can also upload videos directly to Edpuzzle. In a very cool twist, you can have students make their own Edpuzzle. They are, in effect, creating a video just like you would do as a teacher. These videos can be used to teach or instruct others, or to show understanding in a project.

The Start Screen in Edpuzzle

When you start, there are several options. You can add a new video from a source like YouTube, upload it directly to Edpuzzle, or you can create a student project where they create Edpuzzle videos.

 

Search for videos.

Edpuzzle has made it easy to search for videos from some curated channels. For example, I’d never heard of the CrashCourse channel on YouTube, but it’s become a go-to for many awesome videos that I use in my Computer Science classes.

For purposes of this article, I’m going to work on a binary number video. I could “copy it”, which means that if it’s an Edpuzzle, I can use everything that someone else has set up. I could also “use it”, which means that I’m going to customize everything myself. (I typically customize everything because I want students to hear my voice.)

2. Crop your video.

After you bring in the video by clicking either “new video” or “upload video”, you can clip off the beginning or ending of the video. You don’t have to use it all. Remember that, in minutes, the best length for a video is typically the student’s age + 1.

I prefer shorter videos because if a student doesn’t finish it in a class period, they’ll have to come back to it. While coming back to the video is certainly an option, it really is easier to have them finish in one period.

3. Overlay your voice.

If you want, you can remove the entire audio track of the video and record your voice explaining everything students are watching. I don’t typically do this because I’d rather interject my own voice in just a few spots instead of completely replacing what’s already there. The note-taking example below shows what I usually do — I make the whole video myself using Office Mix, adding pauses, instructions, and quizzes whenever necessary.

But if you find the perfect video and you want to do this, it’s an option with Edpuzzle.

4. Add audio notes.

As you can see in the resume video above, I love using Audio Notes. This feature lets you pause the video and add a quick audio instruction with your voice. Personally, I think adding the teacher’s voice to the audio is an important way to make a connection with your students as you use flipped classroom techniques. I also use this because I want to interject the terminology I’ll be using in class.

5. Add “quizzes”, notes, and more.

My favorite part of Edupuzzle is the ability to add “quizzes” to the video. However, the term “quizzes” is really a misnomer. You can pause the video and add any of the following:

Add a comment.

As shown in this video, I can add a comment into the video. Sometimes I want students to pause and think about what they’ve just heard. I can do this by typing in a comment of my own.

Here’s the screen showing where I’m pausing and adding a comment. Just click the ? to add comments, quizzes, or an open-ended question.

In this example, I’ve paused the video and added a comment about the numbering system that my students already know. I think that pausing the video and adding a short comment can help students process what they’ve just heard, especially when it’s a complex idea. You can also add audio notes with your voice, but sometimes I want to include a definition or detail. Usually I use this technique for things that I want added to their notes.

Add a multiple-choice question.

You can add one or several multiple-choice questions. Just make sure that each of these questions has only one answer, as two correct answers will automatically be marked wrong. As you can see in the Introduction to Digital Note-Taking assignment, I’ve added multiple-choice questions at several locations. Also note that I’ve set this video to prevent students from skipping.

Add open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions are my favorite. Students can reflect. They can even ask questions for you to answer later. I usually just read the answers as I’m grading and check them off, but I can also respond back to the student via a comment. I love that two-way communication is a possibility here.

6. Assess the video.

You might want to just use the statistics in the dashboard to see how students are watching and what they’ve done, but I love that it tells me how many questions I have to assess or grade.

You can see if a student has finished the video. Some of these grades look artificially low because I haven’t graded the open-ended questions yet. The aqua colored button in the top right corner shows that I have 32 questions to grade. (The name of this video is Preso Basic computer skills if you’re wondering. It is cut off to hide student names.)

As you click “grade”, Edpuzzle shows you the items you need to grade. You can add a comment, quickly check, or give partial credit. I like how this feature groups common questions together, making it easier and faster for me to grade.

Why Edpuzzle Is an Essential Classroom Tool


If you’re like me, you know that videos are a fantastic way of bringing content into the classroom. However, as teachers, we must check for understanding. Every opportunity that we have for interacting with a student is a time when we can enhance his or her learning experience. Our videos must be that way, too!

Edpuzzle adds the essential interactive feature. I already had this tool on my list from ISTE this year, and I started working with it when I came home from the conference. I love how Edpuzzle makes videos interactive to really ensure that students are learning the content. Teaching can be a challenge, and as we explore each new tool, we often need to find ways of adapting it to our own practice. If you’re using videos (or if you’ve held off on using them because of the problems I stated at the beginning of this blog), now is the time to start using Edpuzzle. And because it links with Google Classroom, just creating an embed code for a video can enroll someone in your class easily. I embed the videos in my LMS and students participate — and we’re good to go!

Add Edpuzzle to your toolkit today. You can get started by clicking this link and you’ll get access to the 50,000 curated videos in their library.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored blog post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Why I Use Edpuzzle: An Edpuzzle Review appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

How to Make Your Teaching Something Special

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Rushton Hurley on episode 166 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Rushton Hurley, author of Making Your Teaching Something Special: 50 Ways to Become a Better Teacher, gives us ideas to build rapport, review for tests, and improve our teaching that will help us be better teachers.

Today’s Sponsor: WriQ from Texthelp is a new FREE Add-on for Google Docs that helps teachers easily assess student writing and track progress over time by automatically scoring students’ spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. It also incorporates rubrics so teachers can provide meaningful, qualitative feedback to encourage the writing journey.
This handy free Google Docs add-on tracks things like: time spent writing, spelling-grammar-and punctuation error rates and pulls it into a clear graphical view in your teacher dashboard. To learn more about Wriq go to www.texthelp.com/wriq

Listen Now

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

­­­­Making Your Teaching Something Special

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e166
Monday, October 9, 2017

Vicki: Happy Motivational Monday! How Well, we have the author of the book, Making Your Teaching Something Special, with us Rushton Hurley @rushtonh.

So, Rushton, how can we make our teaching something special? Because you know, it’s Monday morning, and a lot of us – we’re just tired. We’re not really thinking about being special, but kind of deep down, I think we want to be.

Rushton: Ahhh, well, I think a lot of it comes down to that tension between how we use time, and the wild coolness that is our jobs that we don’t always focus on because of how we spend our time. (laughs)

Vicki: Yeah!

Rushton: So I think that there are certain things we can focus on that can save us time, that can allow us to make connections that we haven’t made before, those kinds of things get us more excited about what we do. Once we’re more excited about who we are personally and professionally in the classroom, then you know suddenly we’re in a very different space as teachers.

And I believe that that’s not rocket science. It’s not like, “Go and spend six months on the top of a mountain with a guru…”

Vicki: (laughs)

Rushton: “… you know, figuring out how to cross the river just in your mind.” Whatever.

You know, it’s much more about, “What are the little things?” Right? And so the book that I wrote earlier this year called , Making Your Teaching Something Special, is really about that.

There are five areas, and within those five areas a total of fifty pieces of advice in very short chapters. So that’s kind of my hope is that this would be something that allows a lot of teachers to reconnect with the most interesting and the most fun pieces of what they do personally and professionally.

Vicki: OK, so since it’s Monday Motivation, give us some things we should be doing. Just give us a little taste of it.

Tips to Build Rapport with Students

Rushton: Ahhh, sure! So the very first area in the book is about rapport with students. Right? It includes things like “Build a Sense of Community.” Now how do you do that?

So we go into a lot of detail on, “How do you connect with kids, such that they identify themselves as a group and with you in that room in a really powerful way?” And there are lots of little ways.

Tip #1:Take and use pictures of the class and activities

I mean, like I used to take pictures of the entire class, have them blown up like a 11″x17″, print it out on physical paper. It was amazing. And then to laminate those things so that they just went on the wall. Over time, kids would come into the class and they would say, “Oh yeah, I remember that guy,” and, “Oh, that’s my sister,” and that kind of thing. There are lots of little things like that.

Tip #2: Don’t use sarcasm

Some of it is much more focused on how we work with students, so things like, “Use little to no sarcasm.” Because for every one student that understands the sophisticated humor that is sarcasm, there are any number who don’t quite get it. You’ve confused them, or you’ve created a barrier with them that you weren’t intending, of course, to do. There are lots of potholes that we can avoid stepping in when we really kind of look at them more clearly.

Vicki: So, you’ve given us something not to do. No sarcasm. And I’ll tell you, when I’ve had the problems with kids, it’s when I made a sarcastic remark. You learn to kind of steer away from that, don’t you?

Rushton: You do. It’s certainly important for kids to learn about sarcasm, but that can happen within the study of literature. There’s lots of ways to do that without that being a part of what happens in the classroom. Just understanding that you have some number of kids in that room who are in so many different places in terms of their use of language, their understanding of nuance. There are easy ways to avoid potholes that are kind of in that realm.

Vicki: So you said something at the beginning – that how we use time can help us connect with the “wild coolness” of who we are. OK, please give me something… (laughs) … because sometimes I don’t feel wild and cool! (laughs)

Rushton: Well, I will say that having talked with you any number of times, you have loads of wild coolness, so…

Vicki: (laughs) Sometimes… (laughs)… lots of coffee!

Rushton: Caffeine helps.

Making review of class material more interesting

So, the third area in the book is about delivery. One of those chapters is titled, “Review Well By Not Saying Too Much.”

Tip #3: Don’t start class like this

So, you know, saving time… One of the things that a lot of teachers do is start class with, “Alright everybody. Settle down. Alright, you know, we have a lot of important things to cover.”

Vicki: (laughs)

Rushton: “I will now review the key pieces from yesterday’s class.”

And here’s the thing. You say that, “I will now review the key pieces from yesterday’s class,” and you’ve given two messages.

1) “You don’t need to do any heavy lifting. I’ll do it for you.”

Vicki: Hmmmmm…

2) “You really don’t need to listen that hard today, because I’ll just tell you again tomorrow what it is we’re about to cover.”

Vicki: (disbelief, shock)

Tip #4: Start with a picture and have students recall what you did in class yesterday

Rushton: And neither of those are intended messages, of course, right? But imagine starting class where you’ve put some picture up on the screen that has nothing to do with anything. At least it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. And you say, “Hi Everybody. Take a quick look. Alright. With your partner, I want you to connect this picture to what we talked about yesterday. GO!”

Vicki: (laughs)

Rushton: They start looking at each other, and they’re like, “What did we talk about yesterday?” And then they have to talk through that, and “Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah…”

And then once they start making these connections – for which, by the way, there is no correct answer since there’s not obvious connection – they lose that sense of, “I don’t want to say what might be wrong.” Because there’s nothing that’s wrong.

I mean, you know, it’s more about can we pull out of ourselves those really important pieces so that the teacher can only jump in with anything missed.

If it’s coming from other voices, that’s just more powerful for what’s happening in the classroom.

Vicki: What a creative, novel idea! So how do you come up with these ideas, Rushton?

Where Rushton finds ideas (and why we should be sharing our successes)

Rushton: Ummmmm…(laughs)

There’s a lot of reasons I’m a lucky guy. I married way up, for example.

But also, I get to go to places around the world and talk to teachers about cool things that they’ve got going. I talk to school leaders about better ways to bring the staff into a professional place where they’re much more excited about the work they do together. I get to do that.

In doing that, I get to hear a lot of cool stuff. In any given school, there’s all kinds of cool stuff going on, but it may not be part of the culture. This is unfortunately true for lots and lots of schools – that not everybody talks about these kinds of successes, because they seem like bragging, and people are now upset about someone bragging, and blah-blah-blah.

Tip #5: Sharing success isn’t bragging!

What we need to do is say, “Hey, this amazing thing happened in class today, and I’m really excited about what this kid seemed to connect with.”

“Oh, that kid… I had no idea that that kid was interested in that. Tell me more.”

“Oh, you know, I tried that thing you mentioned last week? And it went really well, but we changed it in this way.”

Those kinds of conversations make for a far better environment for teachers. And once you’re in that space where teachers really feel comfortable getting excited talking about ideas together? Then everybody starts thinking not just, “My classroom’s getting better,” but we start thinking about the school becoming a better place.

We all want to work in a place where at the end of the day we go home and we go, “That’s a cool place where I work.”

Vicki: Yeah. You also have another book, Making Your School Something Special. I think as teachers, we want to work somewhere special, where we really get along with those colleagues.

So, Rushton, as we finish up, could you give us a 30-second pep talk as teachers to get us motivated to go in there and really do something special in our classrooms today?

Pep Talk to Make our School and Classroom Something Special

Rushton: So, the first thing you need to know is that this thing that you’ve been wanting to try? If it doesn’t work out, nobody really cares.

Vicki: (laughs)

Rushton: So give it a shot. This is just like, give it a shot, and see where it goes. And if it doesn’t go as cool as you had hoped it would go, turn to the kids and say, “Hey guys, we just tried this. It wasn’t quite as cool as I’d imagined, but do any of you guys have ideas on how we could make it cooler or make it better for your learning?”

They’ll come up with ideas, and in the process they’re learning that you’re someone who listens to them. There are so many cool opportunities when we communicate with kids about possibilities in class. We just need to open those doors.

Vicki: Love that. So let’s get out there. Let’s be remarkable. We’ve gotten some fantastic ideas to build rapport with students, to really connect with kids.

  • Blow up those pictures and put them on the wall. I love that one.
  • Review well by not saying too much, which is really cool.
  • But also, I think this whole challenge of “Let’s start celebrating each other’s success more, and start competing with each other as teachers less,” so that we can not only have remarkable classrooms, but have remarkable schools.

Rushton: Yes.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Bio as submitted


Rushton Hurley has worked and studied on three continents as a high school Japanese language teacher, principal of an online high school, a teacher trainer, and a speaker. He founded and is executive director of the educational nonprofit Next Vista for Learning, which houses a free library of videos by and for teachers and students at NextVista.org. He is heavily involved in service efforts in his community and holds masters degrees in Education and East Asian Studies from Stanford University.

Rushton regularly keynotes at conferences and has trained and worked with teachers and school leaders around the world His fun and thoughtful talks center on inspiration and creativity; the connection between engaging learning and useful, affordable technology; the power of digital media; and the professional perspectives and experiences of teachers at all levels. His first book, Making Your School Something Special, was released by EdTechTeam Press in January of 2017. His second book, Making Your Teaching Something Special, was released in June, 2017.

Blog: http://www.nextvista.org/

Twitter: @rushtonh

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.) This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post How to Make Your Teaching Something Special appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Hyperdocs: How to’s and Tips for Teachers

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Lisa Scumpieru on episode 187 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Lisa Scumpieru, 10th-grade Literature Teacher, gives us a crash course in Hyperdocs. She shares lesson plans, ideas, and tips for getting started quickly without hassle

Got 5 minutes? That is all it takes to enter the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. If you’re a US public school teacher of grades 6-12, you and your students just need to come up with a STEAM idea that can help your community. If you’re selected as a finalist, you’ll win technology and prizes to help your STEAM project come to reality.The entry period ends this week – Thursday, November 9 is the last day! Go to coolcatteacher.com/samsungsolve to learn more. Good luck!

Listen Now

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Hyperdocs: How to and Success Tips for Teachers

Vicki: Today we have Lisa Scumpieru @LScumpieru, who’s a first grade English teacher from Maryland, and we’re talking Hyperdocs.

What are Hyperdocs?

Lisa: Hyperdocs are normally a doc or slide that you build for the students. They give an ability for the students to work collaboratively. They can then work through the topic or problem at their own pace and you can give them choices within it so that they can evolve around that central question or concept or problem.

Vicki: Okay so how is this different from just a normal doc? Is it that you’re giving them an assignment? Is it an activity? Are you making templates for them? Do they each have their own personal copy? What’s it like?

Lisa: Well, usually what they do is when somebody builds one, you have the introduction for the students. It gives him some background information. When I used to teach it, I used to almost do the same thing I do in a Hyperdoc in a lesson. I would give them some background information. Sometimes in the Hyperdoc then, you can do like a flipped classroom type of thing, where they can access the Hyperdoc. They watch something prior to coming to class, and then they can do something with it.

They can reflect on it. They can prepare some questions for the actual class. Then when the teacher has them go through the Hyperdoc, they’re basically walking them through the learning process, so that students…

For my type of teaching now, I don’t do a lot of “sage on the stage,” talking the entire time. I walk around and I make sure that they’re not confused, that they don’t have questions. But I’m more of a facilitator, making sure that they understand what’s going on. That Hyperdoc helps them through it, because it goes from where they’re just beginning to be introduced to the topic. Then they delve into the topic. And we even have things at the end of Hyperdocs, usually, that are extensions.

Vicki: OK, so is it like… I learned to use a learning management system. And i’ll have these long pages. So is it almost like somebody’s in Google Classroom, and the doc is like a page or a webpage you would have in your LMS? Or are kids actually editing and writing on the page?

How Do HyperDocs compare to a Learning Management System

Lisa: They can edit and write on the page. Now, what I do is in Google Classroom, I will give them the Hyperdoc, and then I will make a copy for each student. Then they’re able to access the material that I want them to. Maybe, let’s say on the left. Then on the right, they have an opportunity to either take notes or reflect, or with a Hyperdoc what’s nice is that they have the things hyperlinked for the students.

So they’re only going to one doc, but everything is hyperlinked the videos, the other activities they have to do, the choices that they have — whether they do an iMovie or a FlipGrid or they go to a GoFormative — everything is in one. They see the process and where it’s leading to, and they see the end before they get to it, so they feel a little more confident about what they’re doing.

Vicki: Can you give me an example of a recent Hyperdoc lesson?

A recent Hyperdoc Lesson in Lisa’s Classroom

Lisa: Yeah. So today I teach tenth graders, and they had a narrative that they’re writing. I made a Hyperdoc for them to make it easier for them. I told them that we were going to “Mad Man Write,” which is just writing really quickly something down for 15 minutes and seeing if that’s going to be your narrative.

I have the link for them to know what a Mad Man Writing was, and I had what dialogue looked like. I also had the rubric that I was going to use, but I showed them today and tomorrow they’re writing. On Monday, they’re going to peer edit. I showed them the entire thing and told them, “If you want to go in and see what the peer editing looks like, so that you know where you’re going to go with your writing… Nothing is a mystery. Everything is there for you to look at and see where you want to go with this.

One Click to Find Everything

Vicki: I totally agree with this. One click. Everything should be right there. Kids should never have to hunt for it. They shouldn’t have to navigate for it. It should all be right there.

Now you’re excited about how Hyperdocs and this interactivity is being built into other tools. Give me an example.

Hyperdocs interactivity is being built into other sites

Lisa: I use it in docs and slides, but I also use it in Google Sites. I’ve done it for a digital breakout with kids. I had them read a story that was a mystery, and then they had to crack codes and figure out everything. It was fun!

I’m building one right now on a Google site for students where each page is going to be something that they can go to if they choose. There’s going to be choices, so if they choose to go to the next part of the adventure, they’ll go to that page. So it will sort of build out on that Google site.

Also FlipGrid is evolving so that teachers when they create their grid, they can embed docs in there. I’ve embedded entire Hyperdocs in there, so the kids can access the Hyperdocs as they are on FlipGrid. You can embed video. You can also embed images, or even like a prompt in there so kids are being steered in the right direction.

So you just don’t have to have everything on your board. I used to have kids take a picture with their phone or with their iPad of the board of what they were supposed to do for FlipGrid that night, and they’d then have to access that at home. Now when they go home to do their FlipGrid, they have all of the directions right there.

Vicki: So, Lisa, is there a mistake that many educators make when they start using Hyperdocs?

Lisa: When I started making Hyperdocs, my mistake was that I tried to do it from scratch. I didn’t really look at any. I looked at some and said, “OK, I think I get the basic premise. Let me start from scratch.”

When I made my first one, it was for The Great Gatsby. I did it with my students, maybe two-and-a-half years ago. I remember that they were looking at me like, “Wow. This is a lot to do. We did it for two days. They were very impressed with it, but then they also said, “This was a lot for us to do.” They gave me some suggestions.

Then, what I did the next time was I started looking at some. Lisa Highfill @lhighfill has a wonderful Hyperdocs site. I also used my Google Keep, and anything that is shared out on Twitter with Hyperdocs — there’s Padlets and all kinds of stuff — I put it in my Keep. I look through them, and I’ll sometimes make a copy of them, strip them from what they have, and work from there — because I like the layout, or I like how it looks.

Vicki: So you’ve given us the suggestion to look at other examples. What is the most wildly helpful suggestion you have for teachers who want to use Hyperdocs?

Tips for Getting Started

Lisa: I would say, “Make sure when you use Hyperdocs that you are OK with failing forward, because the kids might need a little bit of help. This year what I did, prior to even doing anything within Hyperdocs with them, is we did a Hyperdoc together.

I said, “What do you think this thing that’s underlined in blue is?”

And they’re like, “A link?”

For some classes it was dead air, and I was like, “This is a link…”

And we actually did a Hyperdoc together, and that gave the students the comfort level that they needed.

So I would say, make sure the kids are comfortable. Don’t expect that it’s going to be perfect the first couple times, because they’re getting accustomed to it. But eventually, they’ll appreciate the extra effort that you’re making.

Vicki: Last question, Lisa. Some people have to go to their administrators or curriculum directors and convince them that it is worth trying something new. What is the elevator pitch for why educators should be using Hyperdocs?

Lisa: I think educators need to use Hyperdocs because the whole thing in our building is the UBD, the design planning with the end in mind. I’ve even Hyperdoc’d all of my units. I make sure that I know where I’m going with everything. I Hyperdoc all of the ancillary materials I’m going to use during that unit. It just helps me see the end in mind, plan for a purpose, and be able to see where I’m going with the students.

Vicki: Well, educators, we have something new to try for this Ed Tech Tool Tuesday. Hyperdocs! Check the Shownotes and take a look. Tweet out your Hyperdocs, so that we can all share!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


I have taught for 23 years at North Hagerstown High School in Hagerstown, Md. I am originally from north of Pittsburgh. I have always looked at myself as a life-long learner and Twitter has helped me strengthen my PLN and my teaching. I am a Google Certified Trainer, Flipgrid Ambassador, Formative Educator, and CommonLit Advisory Board Member. Our school is 1:1 with I-pads and I am incorporating a lot of project-based learning, hyperdocs, and diverse seating. I am a fan of not teaching the entire book, but giving students the meat of the text and reading Shakespeare from the middle. My inspirations are: Matt Miller’s “Ditch the Textbook”, Dave Burgess’ “Teach Like a Pirate”, and Joy Kirr’s “Shift This”. I love to share my work and help others improve their teaching.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.) This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Hyperdocs: How to’s and Tips for Teachers appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Personalizing the Curriculum with the Learning Journey Model

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Mark Engstrom, Episode 188 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Mark Engstrom shares a personalized model for learning that he calls the “Learning Journey Model.” After students accomplish a core competency, they personalize their learning journey much like the “game of LIFE” board game.

Got 5 minutes? That is all it takes to enter the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. If you’re a US public school teacher of grades 6-12, you and your students just need to come up with a STEAM idea that can help your community. If you’re selected as a finalist, you’ll win technology and prizes to help your STEAM project come to reality.

The entry period ends this week – Thursday, November 9 is the last day! Go to coolcatteacher.com/samsungsolve to learn more. Good luck!

Listen Now

 

 

 

 

 

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Improving the Curriculum with the Learning Journey Model

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e188
Date: November 8, 2017

Vicki: Today we’re talking to Mark Engstrom @markaengstrom Head of Middle School and Upper School at Allen Academy in Bryan, Texas.

The Learning Journey Model

Mark, you are passionate about helping students have control over their learning. Give me an example. What do your students do?

Mark: So… my students know which components of my classes are foundational and what components are collaborative, what components they will have choice on and what they’ll get to choose from when it’s time for assessments.

I think of the Learning Journey more like the game of life and less like a traditional syllabus where teachers dictate what’s going to be taught, when it’s going to be taught, how you’ll be graded, how you’ll be penalized, the resources you have to use. I prefer to give kids a path, and let them choose from within that path what works best for them.

Vicki: OK, did you say that they get to choose their assessment?

Assessment in a Personalized Classroom

Mark: So they do get to choose. They have a variety of passion-based projects they get to pick from. Within the assessments, there are six questions, and they do three of them. They have five different chances to take the assessment, so the idea is that there’s choice within the assessment, and there’s choice about when they want to take the assessment.

Vicki: Okay, so are all the assessment tests, or do you assess other ways?

Mark: I assess in other ways as well. We’ve got MAP quizzes, we’ve got content-based knowledge assessments, so there are some other some other ways.

Vicki: OK, so there are some teachers sitting here saying, “OK, so you’re coming up with four different ways to assess? That sounds like a whole lot of work!”

Mark: It is! But once you get your kids trained to sort of think, “OK. I’m learning for learning’s sake. I’m going to be assessed in a whole bunch of different ways, and I will have choices,” then they are really feeling empowered.

It becomes less about “playing school” and more about, “How much can I learn? What more can I learn? What don’t I know? Who can help me? Where can I go online to get better? Who in the class can help me? What do I need to ask the teacher?” It makes them the agents of their own learning, and it is fantastic!

Vicki: Do you have a learning management system that helps you keep up with all this?

How does this relate to your Learning Management System?

Mark: We do. It’s called PowerSchool. The reality is that it’s a round-peg-square-hole kind of situation, because I don’t want to manage their learning. I want to inspire them, I want to spark inquiry, I want to answer their questions, I want to give them resources. So the whole idea of a learning management system? I just think it’s flawed. We shouldn’t be managing their learning, we should be sparking it.

Vicki: OK, but you use that to track it and hold it all together? I use PowerSchool Learning as well. I think I’d have to say that they do sponsor some of the work that I do, so I do have to say that.

So, OK. So what class in particular… You’re Head of School, but are you also teaching a class, or is this the model in all of the classrooms for your students?

Mark: So I’m the Head of our Middle and Upper School. We’ve got a Head of School who’s in charge of the kit and kaboodle of Pre-K through 12. So, in my two divisions, Middle and Upper School, we’ve got five classes that now use the Learning Journey model.

Vicki: OK. So is this something that you invented, or where’d you find it?

Mark: I went to some professional development that made me rethink the way we do school. And I kind of landed on the Game of Life that I wanted to use. So, yeah, I came up with it.

Vicki: OK. And we’ll share in the Shownotes , you’ve got some infographics about how you structure your syllabus. (See above.) You completely changed the syllabi for these courses, haven’t you?

Mark: Correct. Can I just talk a little bit about how the Learning Journey works, so it’s clear to people?

Vicki: Yeah! Help us

Mark: So, if you’re looking at the infographic, (see above) basically the top left is Goal Setting. You can follow the white arrows all the way down. It kind of forms maybe two “S”-shapes. Along the way, there’s Artifacts and Reflections and Goal Setting. Kids are always thinking about, “What did I do that’s awesome?” or “What did I do where I struggled?” or “What do I do when I want to do it better?”

And “What did I do that was collaborative? Where can I get an artifact that sort of encapsulates this segment of my learning?”

And then they write a little paragraph about it. I comment on that.

So it’s not just about the learning. I tell kids, “The hidden curriculum is YOU.”

We talk about geography, and I care about geography. But what I really care about is, “What are you learning about how you learn best?”

And so, the first part is foundational learning. That’s the blue part. In every class around the world, teachers could identify the non-negotiable pieces that lay the foundation for deeper thoughts. Those pieces are in my Foundational Learning segment.

Then there’s Collaborative Learning, which looks like what you would imagine it should look like for any collaborative project.

Then we move into a personal segment where they do a Passion-Based Learning Project.

The final segment of the class is getting ready for the assessments.

Vicki: Are all the kids operating at a different speed?

How the personalized approach works

Mark: We work on trimesters. The first trimester we kind of all go at the same pace. But then in the second and third, I really let them loose. Some kids really fly, and you realize that they’ve been shackled by the traditional methods of teaching and whole-class instruction. And it is awesome to see kids just take off on their learning.

Vicki: What happens, though, when you have some people who’ve covered a lot more material than others, and then you go back to this, “OK, these folks have class rank.”

Class Rank and Traditional Grading in this model

Is it fair if somebody covers eight more chapters than somebody else?

Mark: What do you mean by “class rank”?

Vicki: Well, in high school, do you have first, second, third, fourth in your class, or do you not do that at your school?

Mark: We have to do that for the state of Texas, because it affects admissions policies. But other than that, we don’t need to.

I mean, I see your point. There are kids who go above and beyond. But this isn’t a system that’s geared to satisfy other components of traditional education.

Vicki: Ahhhhhh….

Mark: I’m trying to drill down to what does research say about agency? Like if you look at Daniel Pink, Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose… the Learning Journey is full of autonomy and purpose options. That’s kind of the driving force.

Vicki: So… you… are just reinventing school!

Mark: That’s what we’re trying to do.

Vicki: Do you get any pushback?

What pushback do you get with the Learning Journey model?

Mark: I’ve presented this at conferences before, and I’ve written about this. Some people will write in and say, “Wow, that’s great!” But I get very few people who actually want to jump in. I think right now there aren’t enough incentives for teachers to take the time to overhaul their class. Whether their principal wouldn’t appreciate it, or they team teach with people who aren’t interested — I just think there aren’t enough incentives out there right now.

But I would say that any teacher out there, who’s really looking to get re-energized around student learning and the experiences that they’re offering their kids? They’re more than welcome to reach out to me. I’m on Twitter, and I’d be happy to talk through the first couple steps of the Learning Journey.

Vicki: Mark, the truth is that we’re going to end up where you are at some point. We can either aggressively go after it and become part of the change, or the change can be done to us.

You’re either a victim or a victor when you’re dealing with change.

This whole personalized learning approach is really where we’re moving. I mean, would you agree with that or disagree with that?

Mark: Amen. I think you’re spot on.

30-second elevator pitch for the Learning Journey model

Vicki: But it’s just hard. I’m trying to get my arms around it. What do you think… If you were stuck in an elevator with someone who was in charge of the curriculum for one of the biggest districts in the country, and you had one minute to sell this approach of the Learning Journey model. What would you say?

Mark: I’d probably start by asking them, “What’s the number one thing they want to change about student learning in their school district?”

And, depending on their answer, I would chime in that there are different parts of learning journeys, or personalized learning, or digital tools that can accomplish what they’re hoping to accomplish.

And if I had a whiteboard or my infographic at the ready, I would kind of walk them through how the Game of Life — which allowed you to make choices about going to college, having a wife and family, investing in stocks — I mean, that same sort of board game path is applicable to giving students agency over what they want to learn and how they want to learn.

Vicki: So what’s your greatest, “AHA!” moment from this whole process?

Greatest Aha Moment

Mark: ASo I think the “AHA!” moment is that we don’t need to move students through the old industrial model of teaching. It’s easy to do flipped class learning and see how that works. It’s easy to do Project-Based Learning and see how that works. But all of those things feel to me like piecemeal or part of the answer. Whereas I hope the Learning Journey is more of a holistic approach to giving students control. I think that would be my “AHA!” moment.

Vicki: What do you think is the biggest mistake you’ve made in this journey?

Mistake in Personalizing Learning

Mark: The first step I made was to get rid of all content as a requirement. I gave kids too much choice to start. I got a lot of pushback from parents saying, “We don’t know what to study.”

I wish I hadn’t started there. I wish I had started smaller, and given kids choice and trimmed back the content instead of giving them total choice over what they study.

After the Foundational Learning piece of the journey, they really do have total control. So I’ll have some students who only do politics. Or only do environmental stuff. Or only do economics. And I didn’t do that well the first time.

Vicki: I love that you admit — I think that this is important for the transparency — saying, “This is what I did right, This is what I did wrong.”

Your Learning Journey model really is a journey, for you.

Educators, you’re definitely going to want to check the Shownotes for the infographics and the links to Mark’s site.

We love to feature brave, remarkable educators on the 10-Minute Teacher to really provoke your thinking. This is the direction that I think that we’re all going to be heading.

It sounds complicated. It sounds hard.

But I’ll tell you this — we cannot let the fact that something is challenging keep us from doing it, because we’re talking about lives here.

If it works, we need to consider it.

So let’s take a look at the Learning Journey model, and see what we can learn from it.

 

 

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Mark Engstrom is an Educational Consultant, Blended Learning Designer and the Head of MS/US at Allen Academy in Bryan, Texas. He has presented on digital and personalized learning through Independent School Management, Association of American Schools in South America and Association of International Schools in Africa. He has also written for EdSurge, Getting Smart and Teachers Matter. He has helped teachers from all over the world make learning more engaging for their students. Feel free to connect through Twitter @markaengstrom

Twitter:@markaengstrom

Author of

Blending Alone- http://www.gettingsmart.com/2014/01/blending-alone-blend-non-blended-environment/

Redesigning the syllabus to reflect the learning journey- https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-09-10-redesigning-the-syllabus-to-reflect-the-learning-journey

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.) This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Personalizing the Curriculum with the Learning Journey Model appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Different Schools for a Different World

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Dr. Scott McLeod on episode 189 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Dr. Scott McLeod, co-author of Different Schools for a Different World, has a frank conversation about the change that needs to happen, how long it will take to happen, and the next steps for promoting creativity in schools.

Got 5 minutes? That is all it takes to enter the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. If you’re a US public school teacher of grades 6-12, you and your students just need to come up with a STEAM idea that can help your community. If you’re selected as a finalist, you’ll win technology and prizes to help your STEAM project come to reality.

The entry period ends this week – Thursday, November 9 is the last day! Go to coolcatteacher.com/samsungsolve to learn more. Good luck!

Listen Now

 

 

 

 

 

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Improving Schools By Killing Boredom and Promoting Deeper Learning

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e189
Date: November 9, 2017

Vicki: Today we’re talking to my friend, Dr. Scott McLeod @mcleod about his new book, Different Schools for Different Worlds, that he co-authored with Dean Shareski.

Now, Scott, what are some of the things that you think are preventing kids from learning?

What is preventing kids from learning?

Scott: I think they’re bored out of their minds, most of the time. I think that we see that manifest physically, in terms of those kids who are chronically absent, tardy, those who drop out, etc.

But then there’s the ones who are compliant and show up, but they’re mentally checked out. I think that’s probably our biggest failure to powerful learning right now.

Vicki: But there are some people who would say, “Kids have been bored forever. I was bored when I was a kid, and it didn’t hurt me.” Well, what do you say to that?

Scott: (laughs) Well, again they’re compliant, but I don’t know if they’re learning much. If you ask most of those people how much they remember, or what kind of powerful learning they experienced when they were in school, they often struggle to articulate what that looked like.

Vicki: OK, so what do we do to tackle this problem?

Scott: So, I think we can do a couple things. Obviously, schools as systemic structures need to change quite a bit.

4 Big Shifts in Schools

I’ve been trying to talk to schools about four big shifts:

  1. The shift from low-level recall and regurgitation to deeper learning,
  2. The shift from teacher-directed to greater student agency,
  3. The shift from isolated-disconnected classroom work to more real-world authentic work,
  4. And then finally, using technology in robust ways to facilitate those first three.

Those four shifts seem to resonate with folks because they have seen the power of those, at least in small doses within their systems.

Vicki: They do resonate. They make sense. Why is it so hard to make those shifts?

Scott: (laughs) Because schools have incredible inertia, and they were set up for a different time. Right? So Lauren Resnick, who did this wonderful study for the federal government, said that our schools were never designed to prepare large numbers of critical thinkers and problem solvers — which is exactly what we need now.

They were designed to prepare a large number of compliant people who would go into the basically automatable-type manufacturing jobs and office jobs, where they were basically a replaceable cog in the wheel.

Now, all of a sudden, for a variety of reasons, we need kids who can do that higher level, complex, analytical, interpersonal work.

Schools were never designed to do that, so we basically have this massive paradigm shift that we’ve got to figure out how to go through. Right now, we’re in that transition period.

Vicki: We are. Now we have of course the ESSA Act here in the US that lets states have different measures. So we’re talking about wanting to scale creativity. If lawmakers or policymakers ask us, how do we measure that?

How can we adopt creativity standards that are scalable and translate between schools?

We know, for example, say we did portfolios. You know, it’s really hard to have a standard measure of portfolios between schools. How can we measure and encourage and create an environment where we have creativity?

 

Scott: Right. Well, we went down this road before, right? We saw some movement in the 80’s and 90’s around portfolio development, around performance assessment, and other sorts of indicators of authentic work. We were figuring out ways to scale that up at the state level.

And then, when No Child Left Behind came along, it kind of cut all that off at the knees.

We’re sort of returning to that loop now, rediscovering what we had started to make progress on before, figuring out to make that happen.

You know we have a number of states, particularly in the New England, that are figuring out some kind of competency-based student exhibition or portfolio requirements as necessary for graduation.

One of the more interesting initiatives that we’re seeing is coming out of New York, a consortium of schools called the New York Performance Assessment Consortium. That’s gotten some waivers from the state department, where they’re trying to figure out what common performance assessments look like across districts. These could be used for assessment purposes.

So, there are lots of sort of interesting things happening.

Vicki: In other words, we’re just not there yet.

The Frustration of Transition

Scott: No, no, no. We’re in this massive, messy, transition period that’s going to take much longer than you and I want it to. It will probably be a decade or two or more before it all shakes out.

Vicki: But what about all these kids now? Doesn’t every child deserve to have the opportunity to be more creative and innovative and — to invent and to make and to have deeper learning?

Scott: Absolutely. You and I feel and urgency around that. Other folks either don’t feel that urgency, or at least have some inkling that that’s the direction we need to go, but they don’t have any ideas of how to accomplish that.

Vicki: Oh… but I don’t want to feel hopeless, Scott.

Scott: I’m not hopeless. I’m just trying to feel more patient. (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs) Good luck with that! You know, these children are just here. They’re now. I just think that we can do better.

How many years do we have to wait, with people saying, “But they have to take the test.” I mean, really. How long do we have to live this?

Scott: Well, until we gain critical mindset with our communities… and our educators and our policymakers… we’re going to have to wait a while.

Unfortunately, systems change slowly.

It’s easy to change at the individual level, right? You and I can make a mental shift, garner some resources, and go. But getting while systems to move is a whole ‘nother matter.

So, yes, I feel that urgency like you do. I battle it every day, and I try to find ways to “infect” people with different kinds of urgencies and mindsets. But the reality is that it’s going to take some time.

Vicki: OK, so let’s look at this one about student agency. Do you have some best practices and thoughts for really helping improve student agency in their own education?

Scott: Yes. My colleague Julie Graber @jgraber and I created a technology integration protocol. It has this horrible name called Trudacot. But it has a set of questions around agency that we’ve been having a lot of success with, with classroom teachers. Basically, the idea is that if the teacher has the interest or goal of increasing student agency in the day-to-day work, or maybe for a particular lesson or unit, there’s a set of questions that you can ask yourself about how you’re doing that or accomplishing that purpose. And it’s basic questions, like:

  • Who gets to decide what is learned?
  • Who gets to decide how it’s learned?
  • Who gets to decide what the work product is, and how it’s assessed?
  • Who gets to pick the technology?
  • Who’s the primary user of the technology?
  • Do students have the ability to be entrepreneurial, self-directed, and go beyond?

Questions like that, right?

  • Read about Trudacot and use it to evaluate your classroom

And so if your answers are always, “Teacher, teacher, teacher,” then what we’re doing is we’re using those same questions as pivot points for redesign.

So we’re saying to teachers, “OK, so you have this goal of student agency, and you have this unit in mind. Right now, your answers are primarily, ‘Teacher, teacher, teacher…” or “No, no, no, whatever…”

What if we took this question around, “Who gets to decide what the student work product looks like?” What if you wanted the answer to be “Student” instead? How would you redesign this to get there?

What if you wanted to take that question around, “Do students have the opportunity to be self-directed and go beyond?” Right now the answer is “No.” What would the lens look like where the answer was “Yes.” How would you redesign this to get there?

And we’re having great conversations with teachers around what seemed like fairly basic questions, but it’s the structured process of it that I think really moves them in desired directions.

How do we make to the change to deeper learning?

Vicki: So one more. We don’t have time to go deep into all of these, but “Deeper Learning…” How do we make that shift? And I know you can’t give that answer in a minute, but just point us in a direction.

Scott: Sure. I think we’re starting to make some movements in this direction. We’re just not there yet.

We’re looking at,

  • What kind of questions are we asking?
  • Are they of greater cognitive complexity?
  • Are we asking students to do meaningful, real-world tasks that require students to apply what they’re learning in new directions and at new depths?

Anything that gets us beyond the regurgitative multiple-choice item or fill-in-the-blank item — is all good.

Vicki: Yes, beyond regurgitative multiple choice, because you know many years ago… I can’t remember who it was that was on Facebook. I think it was Alec Couros. He asked, “What did you used to think about education that you found is not true?

Pretending that test measure learning

When I first got in, I thought that the tests actually meant something — until I realized that the kids actually forgot it the day after. Then I started doing projects. Years later, even now that they’re in their twenties and dare I say some are in their thirties, they come back to me and talk to me about these projects and concepts that they’ve applied in their real life.

And I’m like, “Oh yeah. That was teaching. Right?”

Scott: Yeah. I continue to be baffled by the game playing that we all engage in where we pretend that students care about and remember the thing we covered four weeks ago.

Vicki: And I would say that that is somewhat of a game. And do they understand it, or do they just memorize it?

Scott: Yeah. And they don’t even hang onto it for very long. Right? Nut in this pressure to cover stuff, we know in our hearts that they don’t remember and hang onto this, but we continue to proceed as if they do.

Vicki: Yeah. So I think that Scott’s blog — every time I talk to hi, I’m like, “Yep. His blog’s named well, ‘Dangerously Relevant’ because he is an instigator, a question asker. I hope that we all feel a little unsettled and dissatisfied because we can never be complacent.

I think the enemy is complacency and stagnancy. We need to make progress for these children. How can we scale creativity? I mean, that is what we need to have in our world today, particularly in more developed countries. We need that creativity.

This has been a fantastic conversation. I hope that you’ll take a look at the Shownotes and follow the links.

I’m definitely going to be asking some of these agency questions, Scott!

Scott: Cool. Thanks, Vicki. I’ll get you a copy of the whole protocol. Maybe you can share that, too.

 

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


An Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Colorado Denver, Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on P-12 school technology leadership issues. He also is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only university center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators.

Blog: dangerously ! irrelevant

Twitter: @mcleod

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.) This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Different Schools for a Different World appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Book Creator for Chrome: Product Review, Tips and Tricks for Teachers

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Sponsored by Book Creator, All Opinions My Own

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Book Creator has long been a favorite app on the iPad, and now it’s available for Google Chrome. Students who use Chromebooks, PCs, Macs, iPads, or any other device can now create books with this versatile, easy-to-use app.

Post sponsored by Book Creator. All opinions my own.

Right now, my students are creating books about their heroes. We’ve been using Joseph Campbell’s model of “the hero’s journey” in our class, and each of my students will be creating a six-page book on his or her hero. They’ll be adding photographs, videos, audio and text about their hero.

Standards: I’m using this project as a summary of all the graphic design lessons that I’ve taught my students, everything from color to fonts. I’m expecting them to use these principles in their books, but I’m also hoping that they’ll create a great keepsake commemorating why their hero is so special to them. Many of my students have chosen to write about their parents or grandparents, so the results could (and should) be outstanding.

Book creator covers

Students are loving writing their own books for the world with book creator. So excited!

Interactivity: Book Creator is different from many other tools because you can actually record your voice with it, as well as linking to videos in these fully interactive books. Kids can create them in a snap and use them as portfolios of their work.

Collaboration: With a click of a button, we can combine the books and publish them as a class. So when this project is over, each of my students can proudly point to their work in a combined book called The Book of Heroes.

Audience: Remember that audience improves student learning—nobody wants to do wastebasket work. Students will be able to download their books as PDFs and print them. They can also send them as eBooks that people can read on their mobile devices or computers. They’ll be able to do this with their individual books as well as with the class hero anthology.

Book Creator Features

Some of my favorite features include:

  • Many different book sizes
  • A range of styles from traditional books to comic books
  • Each classroom gets 40 free books
  • Customizable font, colors, shapes, and background images
  • Ability to add video and audio (Note: these won’t be interactive when you print, but they’re powerful additions to the 21st-century book.)

How Does Book Creator Work?

I made the above tutorial to show you how to set up Book Creator, but honestly, you don’t really need it. All you have to do is go to the Book Creator landing page and click the “I am a teacher” button. They’ll set you up with a free teacher account, and you’ll be ready to go! You’ll have your 40 free books, and you’ll also get a demo book that will guide you through using Book Creator. Just follow the instructions in the book, and you’ll know what to do.

The demo book is a great place to practice—you can’t hurt anything, and everyone gets their own individual little practice book. Call this a sandbox, and let them play there to learn about all of Book Creator’s features.

Possibly the best way to introduce students to this tool is by having them understand that they can put their best work on display for people to look at. Kids want an audience, and Book Creator for Chrome gives us that. This fantastic addition to your class lets students create audience-facing works for authentic assessment that can also be keepsakes from their year in your classroom.

Book Creator classroom library

Here’s a class library for an elementary classroom. Book Creator is an awesome tool for classrooms of all ages. From my high school classroom to this elementary classroom.

Vint Cerf, one of the “fathers” of the internet, often talks about something called “bit rot.” We put so much online yet we’re not really making an effort to preserve it.

Well, Book Creator is a great way to preserve student work because you can print these books to create an archive. However, you can still keep them in easy digital reach on your phones, digital ebook reader, or any electronic device. This tool is the best of both worlds.

Who Can Use Book Creator?

Book Creator is perfect for kids of all ages. I’ve seen books made by kindergarteners, college students, and special needs kids. I’ve mentioned it in many of my podcasts, and I’m excited that such a useful, versatile app is coming to Chrome.

Get started. So set up your Book Creator for Chrome today, and tweet me a link to your books when you get them done.

Privacy Settings. Remember that the privacy settings can be adjusted. You can have the students see just their own book and share them only with you. But after you’re done with the project, it’s possible to share these books with others—and even publicly if you choose.

As the teacher, I can publish the books I choose to share and that have parent permission.

Let your students’ imagination and expertise run wild. Give them a chance to proudly own their work. See what they can create when they know their work truly matters.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored blog post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The post Book Creator for Chrome: Product Review, Tips and Tricks for Teachers appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!


She Hired Me! Betty Shiver, the woman who convinced me to become a teacher

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Betty Shiver on episode 194 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

In today’s show, Betty Shiver, my former curriculum director and the person who convinced me to become a teacher and I talk about teaching. We discuss hiring, inspiring, and having conversations that inspire people to change and improve their classrooms.

FlexPath – only at Capella University – lets teachers work at their own pace to earn their MEd in a competency-based learning format. This subscription-based tuition model doesn’t limit the number of courses you can complete during each 12-week period, enrolling in up to two courses at once, for one flat tuition rate. Go to coolcatteacher.com/flexpath to get your free FlexPath guide and see if Capella’s FlexPath option is right for you.

Listen Now

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure.For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

The Person Who Hired Me to Teach

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e194
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2017

Vicki: This week for the 10-Minute Teacher, we are running a couple of extended episodes. I wanted to talk to some people in my life for who I am really thankful for their presence.

Who is Betty Shiver?

Today, we have Ms. Betty Shiver. She was my curriculum director for many, many years. She also convinced me to go into teaching. If you want to know the secret behind who I am, it’s really because Ms. Betty has been there all these years. You would not see anything that I have on my blog without here. In fact, when I started blogging I went to her and said, “I’m doing this crazy thing called blogging. Will you read my blog?” She was kind of my accountability partner here on campus.

So, Ms. Betty, first of all… I was in the business world and you saw me and somehow you convinced me to try out teaching for a year. You’re kind of known for finding people who would make great teachers. I’m trying not to compliment myself, but there are other people that you’ve found who have just gone on to win all kinds of awards as well.

What do you look for to figure out who would make a great teacher?

Betty: Woooo. I guess I look for people with enthusiasm, people who like people (especially children), somebody intelligent, somebody who has energy and passion… Somebody who wants to do something and is excited… Somebody who is… I don’t know, it’s just that “something” and that gleam in the eye.

It’s not something you can put your finger on, but you can just see it — that “it” in people who want to do something special. They want to give. They want to effect.

And where in the world can you do more than teaching children? How can you effect the world more than in shaping the next generation? I don’t know. If you look at enough people, if you talk to them, you can just see it. You can just see it there.

Vicki: Now, you’ve been teaching for more than thirty years, and you love kids. But also, I just remember for example, when Flat Classroom happened. So many of the projects in my classroom happened because I went to you, and we had conversations.

You’re kind of famous for having conversations that spark change, and this is a difficult thing in many schools.

What’s your strategy for helping us teachers change and innovate?

I really don’t know how you do it. It’s kind of like I woke up one day and realized that all of the big things I’ve done have kind of come from a conversation with you. It’s like, What’s your secret? I want to know it, too!”

Betty: I guess it starts with listening to people. One of the things I do best is go to people and listen, “What are you doing? What do you want to do?”

“Well, if I can’t do that, why don’t we try something out…” And that’s where it starts.

Ideas. I got so many ideas from you. Then I just kind of took the ideas and ran with it.

It’s all in the approach with people. You approach, then you listen, then you suggest, and then you say, “Why don’t we try…” It’s kind of a gradual thing, that you get people to try new things or new ideas.

But the main thing is that you do it with them. You get them to buy in if YOU buy in. You become part of the process. If you do, then people will just about follow you anywhere if you’re with them. If you do it with them.

Vicki: So how do you make people feel like you’re with them? Because you know… I don’t know how you are where you are to have these conversations happen. (laughs)

DO you have habits? Do you like to walk the building? Do you like to pop in on people? How do you allow this, and nurture these conversations?

How do you nurture change-making conversations?

Betty: Yeah… Drop in whenever they’re free — before school, after school. You kind of become part of their personal lives in a way. “How’s your family? What’s going on with you?” You listen.

“What’s going on with your projects?” You know, what’s going on in their classroom. In so many ways, teachers are isolated. They like to talk about what they’re doing, and so sometimes you just listen.

When you listen and they know you’re interested and they’re open to what you have to say — because you’re’ open to what they have to say. So it’s kind of a two-way street.

Vicki: What do you think some of the biggest mistakes are that school leaders make? I mean it might be a curriculum leader. It might be whoever.

What are the biggest mistakes that people make in schools that make it hard to help teachers change?

Betty: Again, I think it’s (not) listening to them. I think the smartest people in our schools are the people in the classrooms, because they’re in the trenches.

I think sometimes big decisions — big sweeping decisions — are made that don’t concern the teachers, that don’t concern the children, and aren’t in the best welfare of the bottom line, (rather than) the children themselves. I think that’s a huge mistake.

When I think about why… “Why don’t kids read? Why can’t kids read?” That’s a big mystery to me. “Why do kids that can’t read come out of schools?”

We can teach children to read. It’s a lot of work. But I can’t understand WHY (laughs) those things don’t happen! They should.

Vicki: So, it’s listening. It’s really paying attention.

Betty: I think it is. I mean, there are a lot of good answers out there, if somebody’s willing to listen, and then try to make them happen.

Vicki: So, when you think back over thirty years, what do you think one of your biggest mistakes was? And you have to be careful, because we’re both at the same school, and we don’t name names, and all that. But just big picture, “I wish that I had done this differently.”

What are your biggest mistakes?

Betty: My biggest mistake was in my early years, when I just didn’t know any better.

I didn’t know anything about learning disabilities. I didn’t know that there were children that couldn’t learn normally. I mean, somewhere in the back of my mind, I had to have known something. But I look back and see the way that I treated some children, and… and… I hate it!

I feel so guilty about what I didn’t do for some children. I think that’s my biggest regret… the things that I didn’t know when I was younger, when I was in the classroom. Things I didn’t do.

Vicki: You know, learning differences or learning disabilities are just so hard, and that’s near and dear to your heart and my heart both. We’ve seen the kids who overcome and go on to do great things.

Do you have a moment that you think, “OK, this is one of my proud moments…” Like, “This is awesome. This is why I do this job.

What is a proud moment?

Betty: I think… maybe… when I got an email from a student who had left. She’d been gone 15 years. Oh, it was Facebook, and I got a message from her. She told me that she was getting her Masters Degree in Special Ed.

And she said, “Ms. Betty, I wanted you to know. I’ve been meaning to send this to you for years. You’re the reason that I’m in education. You’re the reason that I’m doing what I do.”

I taught her in middle school, and she was one of those kids… I always picked two children every year, wrote their names down, and I was going to give special attention to. She was one of my kids that year. I went to her ballgames, and I took her home because she had struggles at home.

But then when she graduated, she had troubles, she had lots of issues that I heard about through the grapevine. And then, you know, I wasn’t in touch with her.

And then out of the blue… that message came.

So I think, yeah. I think that’s one of the most wonderful things about being in education or being a teacher. You never know who you’ve touched, or how you’ve them.

And so, yeah. Those things kind of keep you going.

Vicki: So as we finish up, you said, “You give me so many quotes. And I quote you all of the time.” One of them is that, “Great teachers are repeaters.”

Betty: (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs)

Because we just have to repeat ourselves so much and it’s ridiculous, but we do. We have to remind kids, “Why are you here? How do you act?” and that’s just one of the things that you do.

But what do you think makes a great teacher? What’s your word, to all the teachers listening, about, “OK. Do this. Because that makes you a great teacher.”

What makes a great teacher?

Betty: Respect for each child, regardless of their ability, regardless of their temperament. You respect them as a person.

Fairness. There are a lot of definitions of fairness. But you treat each child fairly.

I think if you can respect them and treat them fairly, you’ll get that back. And if you do that, then you can teach them.

Vicki: OK, I have to do one more question. This is already an extended episode.

What makes you furious?

Betty: When kids aren’t treated fairly. When their needs are not put first in the classroom. When teachers just don’t look at kids as people with feelings and needs and lives outside of school. They just don’t “see” them. I just think that’s so sad. And it hurts as much as it makes you angry. And there are some things that you just can’t fix… and that makes me furious.

Vicki: Yeah. Because life is a bear, and it’s tough. But you know, teaching’s worth it.

I really don’t know how you convinced me to become a teacher.

Betty: (laughs) I don’t either!

Vicki: (laughs) But I will go on the record and say that basically, what I remember is that you said, “I think that you would make a great high school teacher.”

I was teaching some college classes at the time, and I had my own business. It was totally not on my radar. But I will say that at the time, I knew that one of my three kids had a learning difference, and I knew that there was technology to learn. So I think that was a part of the equation.

What I remember is that Ms. Betty said, “Give it a year, and let’s see what you think.” (laughs)

That was 16 years ago. (laughs)

Betty: And I was desperate at the time, too! (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs)

Yeah. She had kind of been left without a technology teacher at the last minute. I think it was about a month before school started or something. And we did a year. And we traveled the world together. We’ve been to Qatar and Mumbai…

Betty: And Dubai.

Vicki: And Dubai.

We’ve been a lot of places together. It’s been exciting.

One thing that we’ve done is this whole immersion thing… when we travel. The kids back home immerse. And I think that’s kind of been neat, hasn’t it?

Betty: It has.

Vicki: Yeah.

Betty: And we did the Flint River Project, which was a great curriculum project, maybe one of the best we’ve ever done.

Vicki: I think the Flint River Project is probably the single best project I’ve ever seen in my life.

Describe that for us a little bit.

What was the Flint River project?

Betty: We took the whole ninth grade and broke them up…

Vicki: Actually, it was the whole high school, wasn’t it?

Betty: Yeah. The whole high school. We broke them across class groupings into science and social studies and English and math, and…

Vicki: I had a technology group.

Betty: We had — what was it? Four days? And we did the science group who canoed the river, did water testing and biology. We tramped through the river.

We had the history group who did a dig.

The English group wrote poetry on the river and did photography.

And the math group… and the technology group… I don’t remember what all we did. They all had to blog, and they had to post pictures. Then everybody did presentations. Everybody participated. All of the teachers participated. Well, it was just a great project.

Vicki: Yeah. It was hard work.

But a lot of the kids from that time say it was one of the greatest projects.

Well, this week, as we talk about things that we’re thankful for, I am very thankful for Ms. Betty Shiver… and for her mentoring all of these years… and all that she’s done for students, because it’s all about the kids. She’s helped me adjust my thinking when I messed up. I have messed up a lot.

I just appreciate that — and this is for all of you school leaders out there — if you’re the kind of person that you can go to with your problem, and not feel condemned for having that problem? (If you can) actually feel like, “Let’s try this,” or “Let’s try to do that,” instead of just making you feel — I hate to say — like an idiot.

Ms. Betty has never made me feel like I was dumb or couldn’t do it. But she was a fellow traveler on the journey. I think that school leaders can learn a lot from her. Honestly, if you look at all of my stuff? Her fingerprints are everywhere, because she’s tried a lot of stuff with me, and she’s encouraged me, and helped me become a much better teacher.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey into someone I’m thankful for.

And I look forward to sharing other episodes.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Betty has been in education since 1968, first starting as a language arts teacher. She has been teaching at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia since 1980 and served as interim headmaster from 2001-2002. Betty Shiver has been the curriculum direct at Westwood Schools for many years. Although she recently “retired” from that job, she still teaches composition to ninth graders.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.) This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post She Hired Me! Betty Shiver, the woman who convinced me to become a teacher appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Metaverse for Augmented Reality: Program and Breakout in Augmented Reality

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A sponsored review of a tool I'm using to teach programming

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Augmented reality is here. Finally! When Google Docs came out, I stopped everything and let all of my classes experience it. Also, I learned about Twitter, I did the same thing. Well, several weeks ago, I stopped everything and took all of my students into Metaverse. Augmented reality is going to be huge — I think it will be even bigger than virtual reality. Until now, however, we haven’t really had apps to help us see the possibilities of this technology. I think Metaverse will be an app to watch in this space. Today I’d like to explain augmented reality and how Metaverse works. I’ll also share how my students are using it to program.

In previous blog posts and shows, I’ve talked about augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). It’s important that we understand the difference.

Metaverse is the sponsor of this post. See their article, Create Magic in Your Classroom. All opinions are my own.

Virtual reality is where you put on some goggles and visually immerse yourself in an activity. You feel like you’re there. There are many exciting things about VR, but one of the drawbacks is that it’s really easy to forget where you are. There can be some inherent dangers in not knowing your actual location in the physical world.

How does Augmented Reality compare to Virtual Reality?

However, in some ways, augmented reality has far more potential than VR ever could. While we’ve all heard about (and maybe played) Pokemon Go, most of us don’t really understand what AR can do for us. So imagine this: Now you have the ability to overlay digital objects throughout the physical world, and your phone or tablet lets you peek into that “augmented world” and interact with these objects. Suddenly, there are an infinite number of ideas about the things you could interact with.

This gif shows what augmented reality looks like through the Metaverse browser.

So, for example, on a computer screen you can put objects in different places.  But it’s a 2D experience, so it’s flat. All you have is the screen.

But AR lets your physical world becomes the screen. Right now, we can look at and interact with these digital items through our cell phones. Eventually, our glasses or contact lenses will be AR-enabled, and we’ll be able to see these types of things without a handheld device, and they’ll just appear in front of us as if we were looking at a hologram.

What is augmented reality?

But the reality is that places will be augmented. The word “augmented” means “to add to something,” so we are adding another layer to reality. We are adding the digital world to our real, physical world.

Every experience has a barcode. When you download Metaverse onto your mobile device, click the “scan” button to launch the experience.

To me, this technology leap is similar to when Marc Andreessen programmed Mosaic, the very first web browser, and showed us how we could “browse the web.” All at once, we understood that we could see all of these things on the Internet — and we had graphical objects at our fingertips.

The same thing has happened with augmented reality.

Metaverse: The Augmented Reality Browser

Now there’s a battle to see which augmented reality browser our world will use. Metaverse might just be that AR browser.

I’ve been looking for others, but haven’t really found anything else that can do what Metaverse can do right now, although this is sure to be a hotly contested space.

Digital breakout boxes have a new form

You’ve heard of breakout rooms where people had to solve puzzles to get out of a locked room.

But in schools, you can’t lock students in a room, so people invented breakout boxes. Using their knowledge of history, science, or other subjects, students had to solve the combinations for the boxes to open them and receive the prize inside.

Well, now you can breakout in augmented reality. Here are five examples of simple breakouts, but you can find many more by downloading the Metaverse app and browsing them.

But even better, students can create their own breakout experiences.

Breakout Tutorial Playlist for Metaverse

Programming in augmented reality

Recently, while I was in Dubai, I had my students program in Metaverse. One group made an augmented reality tour of the school. Others made fun games and activities to teach about topics from pet care to comedy.

Metaverse has many different “triggers.” Like a regular video game or program, it can ask you to input a name that it will call you throughout the experience. Students can follow different paths through the experience based on your responses. They can take quizzes, answer questions, and earn points. Students can even “receive” virtual inventory items and “give” them to characters that you interact with on screen.

Here’s a sample of the first experience that a student and I created. She and I went into the app and had an experience up and being used in the Metaverse Augmented Reality browser in ten minutes.

Just look at the screen of your phone

All of this is done while you’re looking through the camera on your phone. The virtual objects display over your real world so that you can interact with them without losing track of where you are.

Think about it this way. Every single area of space around you could hold a virtual object. You could browse different objects based on the “experience” that you launched. So at one moment, you could be going inside the cells of a plant or animal. In the next experience, you might be walking through the planets.

One note: The location boxing feature is currently in development. This means that when you launch an item, it will appear right where you are. For example, if you wanted someone to open an experience and see a tour guide by the front office and another one standing by the computer lab, that capability isn’t quite there yet — but it’s coming. Instead, use the scavenger hunt feature and put QR codes in the locations where you want to launch the intelligent “tour guide” or character.

Metaverse is a fantastic way to teach programming and augmented reality. Launch it today and take a look.

Try Augmented Reality Scavenger Hunts

You can also make scavenger hunts with Metaverse. So, for example, you could take the QR code from different experiences and put them around your school or location. People launch them to get the clue or information. You can also add some programming to have them enter a code or number or solved puzzle in order to get the clue. So, these aren’t just augmented objects but they have intelligence.

You can also bundle experiences into groups to use in scavenger hunts as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEINxJTjX5Q&feature=youtu.be

How are teachers using Metaverse?

There’s a curated list of tutorial videos from teachers about how they are using this tool, but here are some of my favorite highlights.

Imagining an Augmented Future

This is much bigger than Pokemon Go. For example, imagine that you’re in a big city looking at ten restaurants across the street. You could look them up on Yelp to see what people say about them, or you could check current availability on OpenTable. However, that takes a lot of browsing time.

What if you could look through your glasses and immediately see the rating of each restaurant floating over the door? Or think about asking your glasses to tell you what kind of food each restaurant serves, and the answers would appear? Then you’d narrow your options and ask your device for the wait time. You could say, “I want a table for 8:00 at John’s Restaurant.” As you walk, everything is reserved.

The experience doesn’t have to end there. When you walk in, a digital representation of John appears and takes you to your table. He’s either a hologram, an overlay appearing on your glasses or contacts, or — at least with current technology — on your cell phone. When you get to your table, an AR waiter appears to take your order.

Eventually, of course, you’ll need a physical person to bring your iced tea or dessert. However, many of the initial interactions in a restaurant could easily take place with an AR object — one with a little bit of artificial intelligence, but it wouldn’t be that difficult to do.

Let your students imagine and augmented future

As we programmed in augmented reality, we also had possible discussions of our augmented future. You can have some amazing invention assignments as students envision and dream of a future with intelligent digital objects overlaying our physical world. Let’s augment our reality and learn!

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored blog post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The post Metaverse for Augmented Reality: Program and Breakout in Augmented Reality appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

23 GSuite Ideas to Excite Kids About Learning

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Eric Curts on episode 214 [A special encore episode] of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Eric Curts @ericcurts  teaches us twenty-three ways to use Gsuite tools in our classroom. With ideas for Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drawings for all subjects and ages, you’ll want to scroll down and follow the links in our enhanced show notes.

eric curts 28 ways to use gsuite

Today’s episode is sponsored by JAM.com, the perfect last minute holiday gift for your kids or grandkids. The creative courses at Jam.com are project-based, creative and FUN. Use the code COOLCAT50 to get $50 off your course. And remember that you can sign up for a 14 day FREE trial of any course with your child aged 7-16. Drawing. Minecraft. Legos. And more!
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Transcript of Episode 214: 23 GSuite Ideas to Excite Your Students about Learning with Eric Curts

Download the transcript

VICKI:          It’s back to school and so many of us are getting ready to introduce the G-Suite of tools in the classroom for those of you who don’t know what that is. That’s all these Google tools. And Eric Curts @ericcurts from Control Alt Achieve   and co-leader of their higher Google Educators group has so many fantastic ideas. You’d definitely want to check the transcript and show notes for all of these ideas.

This blog post is being added to 100+ Great Google Classroom Resources for Educators. This resource has a curated list of Gsuite resources, books, and tips.

You’ll definitely want to go to Eric’s website Control Alt Achieve and his YouTube channel.

VICKI:                    So Eric, give us some cool ways that we can use G-Suite to start of the school year with a punch.

ERIC:               What I’m going to take a look at here as we run through these today are just some of the common Google tools that we tend to use but maybe look at them from a different angle and some fun ways they can be used. So why don’t we start off with Google Docs. http://www.controlaltachieve.com/docs

Today, Eric goes through some engaging ideas for using 4 of the Gsuite apps:

    ERIC:               Most people think of that as Google’s word processing program which obviously it is and that’s a fantastic way for students to write reports and wrote stories on all the normal things. But some fun twists that you can put on this, some folks don’t know that Google Docs support emojis. You can actually insert emojis right from the ‘insert special characters’ menu and it’s going to open up a lot of really fun activities for students.

gsuite ideas to excite kids about learning

Idea #1: Write Emoji Stories

Idea #2: Summarize Something You’ve Seen or Read Using Emojis

If you’re looking for a way to get them engaged and excited early on in the year, they can write emoji stories or they can summarize a story or a movie or something they’ve seen recently using emojis.

See: 5 Emoji Activities for Google Docs  where Eric describes how to do all of these emoji activities including the emoji math picture shown below.

Idea #3: Use Emojis to Explain Math Variables

ERIC: They can also incorporate this into math. Yes, I used to be a math teacher so I just have a soft spot for math.

[00:02:00]

Emojis can be a great way to replace variables to bring a better concrete understanding of what you’re doing when solving math problems. And then there’s a lot of other possible neat examples. And like you said in the show notes, there’d be links to all of my blog post that go into the specific details on those. But that’s a fun thing.

Emojis help variables come alive and make sense. See Eric's blog post on emojis in Google docs to learn how to do this.

Emojis help variables come alive and make sense. See Eric’s blog post on emojis in Google docs to learn how to do this.

Idea #4: Black Out Poetry in Google Docs

ERIC: While still on the topic of docs another neat thing to do is to use the highlight tool but not for highlighting. Let’s turn it on its head and use it to black things out. In Google Docs you can use the highlighting tool to do blackout poetry where students start with some text and then remove all the words except what they want to leave for their found poem, you can also use the exact same tool to do summarization.

Idea #5: Article Summarization with Black Out in Google Docs

It’s a process called text reduction strategy which is typically done with a big black marker and an actual piece of paper or an article, but you can do it in Google Docs as well, you can take an article from one of the many excellent websites like DOGO News, throw that in there and have the students go through and remove everything that’s not critical so that they end up with their summarization of the article. It’s a great way to help move students toward those summarization skills.

Read More: Improve Reading Comprehension with Google Docs “Black Out”

Idea #6: Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

Beyond that, lots of other fun things you can do include creating choose your own adventure stories. Create one for students to work together in a group where they write a story and use hyperlinks inside of the doc to jump to different pages as they write their choose your own adventure stories.

Those are just a couple of Docs ideas.

Read More: Choose Your Own Adventure Stories with Google Docs

Idea #7: Teach Anchors and Hyperlinks

VICKI:          And plus, choose your own adventure, we give you the ability to teach about anchors and teach about hyperlinks. There are so many things you can do with these ideas. I love them, Eric.

A hyperlink links to another web page. (Just go to insert –> Hyperlink.) However, an anchor links within the document. This lets you skip down a long page. I do this an easy way in a long document by making headings. Then, insert a table of contents. The headings automatically become anchors. You can also insert anchors manually.  they are a big time saver for students and teaches on long documents, for example, if you’re writing a book.

ERIC:           Absolutely.

VICKI:          Okay, what’s next?

ERIC:            Sure. Let’s jump over to Google Slides. http://www.controlaltachieve.com/slides

A lot of times we think of Google slides as the presentation tool, which of course it is, and there’s nothing wrong with that, please don’t get me wrong. It’s fantastic for kids to just do a presentation. Stand up in front of the class, do a book talk or talk about their explorer or their animal. But there’s a lot of other fun things you can do with slides.

Idea #8: Comic Strips with Google Slides

[00:04:00]

ERIC: One way to do is to create comic strips with Google Slides.   And what you can do is think of each slide as a different panel of the comic strip. And students could then insert clip art and animations and speech bubbles. And when they then published that to the web you’ve got an online animated comic strip, whether it’s to explain a vocab term or science concept or retell part of a story.

Read more: Creative Slide Uses for Students

Idea #9: Create eBooks or Storybooks with Google Slides

In the same vein you can create eBooks or storybooks with Google Slides   where each slide is a page of the eBook and you are allowed to change the page dimensions, it doesn’t have to be the normal landscape. You can make it portrait, you can make a square to make it whatever size book you want.

Read: Google Slides for Student Created Storybooks

Idea #10: Create Stop Motion Animations in Google Slides

Other fun things include stop motion animation. This is a fun trick you can do with slides where basically you just speed up the slide show by hacking the URL just a little bit on the presentation so that you get each slide going by maybe a quarter of a second and you can either take actual photographs using the built-in webcam of your Chromebook or whatever device you have or you can just add images and move them around from one slide to the other.

Read: Stop Motion Animation with Google Slides

Idea #11: Dr. Seus Manipulative Slide Show

But, again, it’s another great creative way for kids to tell stories or express their understanding. Beyond that, some other fun things you can do especially with the little ones – I do have a bunch of manipulative type slide shows. We’ve got a one-fish, two-fish, red-fish, blue-fish sorting activity,   that’s great when you’re doing Dr. Seuss stuff.

Read: “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” Sorting with Google Slides

Idea #12 Build a Snowman Creation and Writing Activity with Google Slides

I’ve also got a Build a snowman one.    You may want to hang off on that a little bit further into the winter month, there’s great template that allows students to build their own snowman with a wide collection of eyes and noses and mouths and ears and hats and all sorts of other things. And so they copy and paste those onto their snowman and then there’s a box where they write a little story about what their snowman has done that day or what he’s going to be going off to do.

So lots of real fun things that you could do with slides besides just a traditional presentation.

Read: Build a Snowman with Google Slides

Idea #13: Pixel Art in Google Sheets

VICKI:          Now, all these hacks, you have cute little videos and tutorials and things to help us. So we’re just giving you teachers an overview and then you could pick what you want. So do we have time for another?

[00:06:00]

ERIC:                Sure. Google Sheets  is another fun one. We usually think of Google Sheets as something for math or for doing charts and graphs and it certainly is. Don’t forget that it’s always great for that. But it’s also a great way to do things like pixel art.   I have a template that you can use where you simply put in some letters there and it creates a colored in box for each one of those and you can make pixel art.

Read: Pixel Art Activities for Any Subject with Google Sheets

Idea #14: Random Writing Prompt Generator with Google Sheets

ERIC: Or how about language art with Google Sheets? Absolutely. Sheets are great for randomization.

So I’ve got two templates for random writing prompt generators.  One gives works being randomly put together…

Read: Random Writing Prompt Generator with Google Sheets

Idea #15: Random Emoji Writing Prompt Generator

ERIC:  …another one is random emojis being put together.   And both places, it allows you to generate a whole bunch of random writing prompts that will be great for journal entries, short stories or poems.

Read: Emoji Writing Prompt Generator with Google Sheets

Idea #16: Create Graphic Organizers with Google Drawings

ERIC: Beyond that, if we can still squeeze something in I’ll throw in Google Drawings. http://www.controlaltachieve.com/drawings

One of my favorites, I think it’s overlooked a lot of times because it’s kind of hidden down in the menus there but Google Drawings is a great way to do loads of things including graphic organizers…

Read: Language Arts Graphic Organizers with Google Drawings

Idea #17: Create Interactive Posters with Google Drawings (These are like Thinglink)

ERIC: …interactive images which is like ThingLink, people are familiar with that.  You can use Google Drawings to make images and put hyperlinks on that branch out to videos and websites and additional information.

Read: Googlink: Creating Interactive Posters with Google Drawings

Idea #18: Magnetic “Drag and Drop” Poetry

ERIC: Google drawings is a great way for creativity with magnetic poetry, drag and drop poetry.   It’s also fantastic for math.

Read: Eric has two articles on magnetic poetry

Idea #19: Use Manipulatives and Tangrams in Google Drawings

ERIC: A lot of great manipulatives and interactives you can do such as teaching congruent figures and similar figures,  partitioning shapes…

Read: Pattern Block Templates and Activities with Google Drawings

Idea #20: Download Templates to Teach Shapes and Algebra So You Don’t Have to Create Them Yourself

ERIC: we’ve got algebra tile, pattern blocks, lots and lots of templates that I’ve created that you can just hit the ground running with those.

Read: 11 Ways to Teach Math with Google Drawings

Idea #21: Create Greeting Cards Using Google Drawings

ERIC: But Google Drawing also services well as a desktop publishing tool because it really isn’t something built into Google Suite that quite does what Microsoft publisher does. And so Drawings is a nice stand in for that for things like creating greeting cards, I’ve got a couple of templates for that…

Read: How Your Students Can Use Google Drawings to Make Greeting Cards

Idea #22: Make Motivational Posters in Google Drawings

ERIC: as well as making educational, motivational posters.  We’re used to those big black posters with the big picture and word at the bottom with a neat saying. Those can be done for actual motivation topics or you can pick a vocab term of the week and then add an appropriate image to go with it and a definition in your own terms.

Read: Have Students Create Educational “Motivational Posters” with Google Drawings

Idea #23: Explore Templates on Eric’ Site

[00:08:00]

ERIC:                    And all of those again, those templates are all available on the control of the ControlAltAchieve.com website.

Read: Here is an index of templates on Eric’s site. What a fantastic resource!

VICKI:          Teachers, I know your mind is blown but here’s the thing, you’ve all got great ideas, whether it’s emojis for variables in algebra there’s so many ideas. So one of the greatest things to do with kids is to show them something they’ve never seen before. And the best time to do that is in the first week or two of school. Blow their minds.

Follow the links in the show notes and I love Eric website particular because he shows us how to do stuff but also all the free templates. I have been tweeting out and sending out stuff of his all day, the day we’re taping here just because I love it. It’s great resource for G-Suite. And good luck with back to school. And get in there and use these tools and have some fun.

Thank You, Staples, for Sponsoring Episode 112 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast!

Staples is my go-to back to school shopping source. Check out coolcatteacher.com/pro for my ten ways to tackle back to school like a pro. And remember to sign up for Staple’s Teacher Rewards for free shipping orders over $14.99 and 5% back. Staple has everything we need in stock all season long and ready to go for school. Go to staples.com/backtoschool for more information and great deals. Good luck with back to school

Thank you for listening to the Ten-minute Teacher Podcast. You can download the show notes and see the archive at coolcatteacher.com/podcast. Never stop learning.

[End of Audio 0:09:43]

[Transcription created by tranzify.com. Some additional editing has been done to add grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors. Every attempt has been made to correct spelling. For permissions, please email lisa@coolcatteacher.com]

Bio as SubmittedEric Curts


Eric has been in education for 25 years, and is currently serving as a Technology Integration Specialist for the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium in Canton, Ohio where he oversees Google Apps for Education implementation, training, and support, as well as online learning and other technology integration initiatives.

Eric is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator and provides Google Apps training to schools, organizations, and conferences throughout Ohio and across the country. He is a co-leader of the Ohio Google Educator Group (GEG) at tiny.cc/geg-ohio and runs the award-winning blog www.ControlAltAchieve.com where all of his Google Apps and edtech resources can be found. Eric is married with four children.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 23 GSuite Ideas to Excite Kids About Learning appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

7 Tools Improving Learning in My Classroom Now

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A Global Bloggers Special Topic

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Teaching is about the relationship. But there are tools that improve that relationship and help us teach better, faster, and have more fun as we’re doing it. As part of Cathy Rubin’s Global Search for Education, I’ve been asked to write this month on the tools that have dramatically supported and improved learning in my classroom over the past few years.

improving my classroom now

This could be a very long list, but I’m selecting a few of them.

Disclosures: I’m also so glad that the edublogosphere is finally really understanding the importance of disclosures. I tend to “over disclose” and now that more people are doing it, I guess in some ways it doesn’t make me feel like I stick out so much. so here it goes. Some of these companies have sponsored my work in the past. All of them I was using prior to the sponsorship and am still using now, however, I always disclose, so I’ll note that as appropriate. This article, however, is not sponsored by anyone.
Blended Learning: PowerSchool Learning

I use PowerSchool Learning as my classrooms Learning Management System (LMS). This is the startup page for one of my classes

1. PowerSchool Learning LMS

This used to be called Haiku Learning. I had tried lots of tools to bring everything together, however, this platform is the home of my digital classroom. Everything is together and we communicate and learn on this platform.

Read 5 Essential Effective Blended Learning Best Practices for more.

PowerSchool is a sponsor of my work.

Google Drive Document Merge

Document Merge will let you merge documents into new Google Docs or into email and can be a handy tool for the more tech savvy educator who has to customize things for others.

2. Google Docs

My classroom has been using this tool since it was “Writely.” (way back in 2005!) But now, with Hyperdocs, we’re going to the next level. Google Docs makes it lightning fast to give a detailed assignment and receive it back. It really makes things pretty paperless. I use this in conjunction with my LMS.

I also use plenty of Add-Ons with my students. They learn how to research, check work and more.

Read 100+ Great Google Classroom and Gsuite Resources for Educators

Read/ Listen to Hyperdocs: How to’s and Tips for Teachers

3. Edpuzzle

I’ve been an in-flipped classroom for some time. Edpuzzle has become indispensable in the last six months. Edpuzzle lets me insert questions, directions, and even my own voice into videos from anywhere. I can make sure students are grasping the content, let them ask me questions during the video, and just make sure the whole process is going as planned. Edpuzzle is a fantastic tool.

You can see above a video I made with digital notetaking tips.

Read Why I Use Edpuzzle: An Edpuzzle Review

Edpuzzle sponsored a week of podcasts and a blog post this year.

4. Nearpod

When I give presentations to students and want interaction, I always use Nearpod. In fact, this is an example of a tool I learned about while doing interviews for the 10-Minute Teacher. I was looking to use PearDeck but Nearpod has all of the features that I need. For example, students can see the presentation on their phones. I can pose questions. They can write on a scratchpad and it is shown on the board. It is an incredible tool for presenting and sharing content and assessing formatively. I couldn’t live without it.

5. YouTube

My students all have their own YouTube channel. You can see in our 2017 “Invent This” Project that students embed their videos that they all create. Every student shoots video, makes video, edits it and creates it. When my students traveled to Dubai, several of them shot videos instead of blogging their trip. (See Good Bai by my student Perry as an example.)

I use YouTube for so many reasons, it is an essential tool. I upload videos to YouTube before putting them into Edpuzzle.

6. Hemingway and Grammarly

I’m combining these two tools together because I use them as one. Here’s a quick video where I share how I use these tools and a few others. Hemingway makes writing more simple to read and understand. I use it to help my students learn how to make their writing more readable (particularly for the web.) Grammarly is indispensable. I pay for my son to have the pro version of Grammarly and also I have it too. I couldn’t live without it.

7. My Personal Organization Tools

Admittedly, I need to blog more about my own organization system. I have my Amazon Echo Dot communicating with my iPhone and OmniFocus and Google Calendar. I use Evernote in there quite a bit as well as Apple Notes. I also write out my daily plan on my Happy Planner so I have it on paper. The Apple reminders goes into Omnifocus.

I think the key is to have the list one place (it all ends up in Omnifocus) and the calendar in one place (It all ends up on Google Calendar) and then to have a plan of action for the day based on those two things (it all ends up on my personal forms I’ve created and the forms in my Happy Planner.) And I love my Frixion erasable pens on it all.

Without an organization system that works for me, I couldn’t get anything done. I think every teacher needs to have a simple system that works for them.

So, these are my seven “tools” improving my classroom now. Sure, I’ve given you a few more than seven, but consider it a bonus.

What do you use in your classroom every day?

The post 7 Tools Improving Learning in My Classroom Now appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Google Classroom Top New Features to Learn with Alice Keeler

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Alice Keeler on episode 217 [A special encore episode] of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Alice Keeler @alicekeeler shares the must-try new features of Google Classroom. She also teaches us how we can learn Google Classroom features and hacks even when we don’t have students. A must listen for people using Chromebooks or Google Classroom. This was originally aired over the summer but mentions many features that many people haven’t tried yet. If you’re into Google, take a look at the 100+ Google Resources for Classrooms.

google classroom top new features alice keeler

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Enhanced Transcript

Transcript for this episode


 

[Recording starts 0:00:00]

The Ten-minute Teacher podcast with Vicki Davis. Every weekday you’ll learn powerful practical ways to be a more remarkable teacher today.

VICKI: Today, we’re talking with my favorite Google Classroom guru, Alice Keeler. @alicekeeler

And, Alice, you know, there’s some features or some awesome things in Google Classroom https://classroom.google.com/u/0/h that teachers really kind of need to get familiar with over the summer. But how do we start? I mean, how do we know what to look for? Because there’s so much in Google Classroom?

ALICE: There is so much in Google Classroom, and at the same time there is so little in Google Classroom; which is really the genius of Google Classroom is that it’s so simple. So the first thing to look for is three dots. And that’s really true in any practice. I mean, you get excited when you see a tiny triangle or three dots, because that’s going to tell you there’s more features or more things to look at. So when you create an assignment in Google Classroom, one of the things you’ll notice is up in the upper hand corner of that assignment are three dots. Now, this is a nerdy brag. When you click on those three dots, the bottom option on there is to copy link. And that was my idea. And so, of course, I think it’s a really good idea to help explore Google Classroom because it allows you to connect outside of Google Classroom a little bit more easily. If you’re not strictly using Google Classroom, that’s how you can combine, say, Schoology and Google Classroom is by copying the link from the assignment and pasting that link into, say, Schoology or whatever other platform you’re using.

[00:02:00]

Or, when you want to send out an email or invite others to look at it, that copy link is really perfect. And it also loops students right back into like, hey, let’s come back and look at this assignment again.

One of the things that we noticed is that students perceive a lot of their work as busy work. Well, it’s not busy work, but why do they think it is? Because we do the assignment, we get points, and then we move on to something else. And, really, with the logistics of paper, that’s how we had to do it. So when you look at Google Classroom like, how can I keep coming back? How can we make this a cycle of learning, that students feel like they have an opportunity to make a mistake, get some feedback, and come back and work on it some more? Because students really do want to learn. So a great way to do that is to copy the link to an assignment that students have worked on and later ask students to go back and revisit it, now that feedback has been posted. So look for those three dots in Google Classroom as places where you can get more options.

VICKI: Awesome.

ALICE: The other thing is in Google Classroom, in the bottom left-hand corner is a little question mark. And when you click on that question mark, it says some awesome things. It says, what’s new? That’s the very first thing. So if you want to know new things to explore, Google makes it really easy for you to find some new features and things for your trial. But I have to warn you; a lot of things are kind of hidden and they don’t announce them, and they’re just kind of sneaking a few features here and there. And all the features are always teacher-requested.

VICKI: Shameless plug here. Tell us where we find out your Google Classroom resources. Because I’m telling everybody they’re awesome, so it’s not a shameless plug; it’s really worth it.

ALICE: Thank you. Appreciate that. Well, first, obviously, I have books. So if you go on to Amazon and look up either Google Classroom or Alice Keeler, I have 50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom and 50 Things to Go Further with Google Classroom. But if you just go to my website, alicekeeler.com, right up at the top, I have a link that will filter for my Google Classroom posts. Or you can go alicekeeler.com/googleclassroom.

VICKI: Cool. Okay, what other features do we need to try out or learn this summer?

ALICE: I’ll tell you; my new favorite thing, really, is the return count in Google Classroom.

[00:04:00]

Now, it’s been a feature on the app for a little while, but they finally brought it to the desktop version or the Chrome version. And so what you see is it says done and not done when students have or haven’t completed work. But now when you return work, it now shows you the number that you have returned, the number that is done, and the number that’s not done. And why that’s particularly awesome is I don’t use Google Classroom to save trees. I didn’t get into teaching for trees; I got into it for kids. And so what makes learning better is feedback and interacting with students. And the faster I can interact with students, the more motivated they are, the more they care about my class. So when I return work, I know that I’ve looked at it, or I’ve at least seen who’s done something, whether or not I’ve graded it or not.

If students look at it after that point, then it’s marked as done, and it counts on the done count. So I know that those two students, if the number was two for done, need to have that worked looked at. And it’s not mixed in with students I’ve already looked at. That was always a little bit of a frustration; I look at a list of student work, and then I have to try and figure out later, well, who’s done it since I looked at it? So if I return first, I can click on that too and it shows me only those two students who have done it since I last looked at it. And that helps me to respond to students faster. And that makes learning better.

VICKI: Oh, and it just makes life easier, doesn’t it?

ALICE: It so does. So when today they ask me, why are you returning this? Because I’m telling you; I have seen it, I looked at it, I care about it, I’m not ignoring it.

VICKI: Awesome. And then you can have that back in fourth. Because, honestly, I mean, when teachers grade a first draft, I kind of wonder, well, what’s the point? Because the real learning goes on between draft one and draft seven or eight or nine, you know.

ALICE: So true. Hands down; my favorite feature of Google Classroom is private comments. And I notice a lot of teachers aren’t aware that that’s there.

[00:06:00]

So the way to find it is to click on the assignment title of any assignment, and on the left hand side you’ll see a roster of students, and click on any student’s name, and you’ll see on the right hand side is a place to do private comments. But, Vicki, it’s not a comment; it’s a conversation. And that’s where learning really happens, is when students interact with you. And let’s look at the research. Really, one of the most important and valuable things in the classroom is a highly qualified teacher. And so when you are interacting with students, that is going to be some of those things that really impact learning the most, because, again, it’s a conversation not just a comment that I’m writing on the side of a kid’s paper. And that allows students to say, I don’t understand this, or can you explain this further, or for you to give some really detailed information that students can then build on.

VICKI: I did not know that feature was there. So do we have any other features that you think they should try this summer?

ALICE: Well, there’s a new feature that I just discovered. And, again, I’ve mentioned there’s like some little hidden things. So when I go into the question mark and it says what’s new, this is not on the list. In the class comments; so when I post an assignment, what’s really cool is that we’re able to be a community of learners. The burden of feedback is not always on me. When a kid asks a question, he can ask the class. So there’s that class comment on every assignment where students can write a comment or a question or something like that. Now, when you hover over another student’s comment, a little reply swoopy shows up. And when you click on the reply swoopy – I don’t know if that’s a technical word; so it’s called a plus mention. And you can do plus mentions in comments in Google Docs and things you’ve been able to do that. And it’s lesser known maybe in Google Classroom. But it puts plus, and then that person’s email address for you so that the reply is directed towards that specific person who posted the question. Now, it’s always been an awesome feature, but my problem always has been, I don’t have everyone’s email address memorized. So how do I do a plus mention when I don’t know their email?

[00:08:00]

So this has now solved that problem for me so nicely, is when I see a comment, or when a peer sees a peer’s comment and they hover over the comment in the class comments, the reply swoopy will automatically add the plus mention. So another great way for us to continue interacting.

VICKI: So as we finish up; you know, one of the challenges that teachers have is they want to play with these features over the summer, but they don’t have a class to play with. Do you have a solution for that?

ALICE: That one is a toughie. But, you know, we all have a hobby or something we’re interested in, and a new feature in Google Classroom is now people can create a classroom with Gmail and people can join classroom with Gmail. Now, that means it’s @gmail.com. Even though our school accounts are Gmail accounts, they’re not @gmail.com accounts. So go to gmail.com and log in and then go to classroom.google.com; and if teachers would create a Google Classroom through their Gmail account, they can actually invite peers and friends, just people on Facebook that they know, to say, I’m doing a little training, just trying some stuff out over the summer, who wants to join in. And so now all their friends can try it out with them in a safe environment, because they’re not damaging kids trying to figure something out. I’m just joking; of course, you wouldn’t be damaging kids by trying something out. Try something out. But you’re not doing grades and some new things on that. So using the Gmail account is a really nice way over the summer for teachers to try out some new assignment types with people they know and love.

VICKI: So we’ve gotten lots of wonderful ideas of things to try. We’ve got a new resource for you. I’ll put her books in the show notes. Follow Alice Keeler. I learn from her. She’s kind of my Google Classroom go-to person. So we’ve given you lots of ideas for the summer. So get out there, try some new things, and be remarkable.

ALICE: Absolutely.

VICKI: On June 16th, we’ll finish up season one of the Ten-minute Teacher. So to celebrate, we’ve partnered with one of my favorite robots for teaching coding – Dash and Dot from Wonder Workshop.

[00:10:00]

Go to coolcatteacher.com/wonder and enter to win your very own Wonder Pack from Wonder Workshop. And to learn more about how you can use Dash and Dot to teach programing to kids, aged, kindergarten and up.

Thank you for listening to the Ten-minute Teacher Podcast. You can download the show notes and see the archive at coolcatteacher.com/podcast. Never stop learning.

 

[End of Audio 0:10:32]

 

Bio as submitted


Alice Keeler taught high school math for 14 years and now teaches teachers in the credential program at California State University Fresno. Alice is a Google Certified Innovator and co-author of the books “50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom,” “50 Things to Go Further with Google Classroom: A Student-Centered Approach,” “Teaching Math with Google Apps,” “Ditch That Homework,” and “Google Apps for Littles.” Alice has a popular EdTech blog http://alicekeeler.com and her Google Classroom posts can be found at http://alicekeeler.com/googleclassroom

Blog: http://alicekeeler.com/

Twitter:@alicekeeler

Disclosure of Material Connection: I mention an affiliate in the podcast episode. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Google Classroom Top New Features to Learn with Alice Keeler appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study

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Mark Wise on episode 223 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

A district is assessing itself with a massive project for 800 eighth graders. No grades. Just learning and sharing. Despite worries that it wouldn’t work – it has been working for years and is just getting better. Learn about the Global Challenge Project with Mark Wise.

Jennifer Gonzalez is updating her Teachers Guide to Technology for 2018. With more tools and updated information. Sign up now.

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***

Enhanced Transcript

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project is an Example

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e223
Date: January 3, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with Mark Wise @wisemancometh about the Global Challenge Project. He’s an educator in New Jersey.

What is the Global Challenge Project?
So Mark tell us, what is the Global Challenge Project?

Mark: The project is a week long experience with eighth graders who try and solve a real world global problem basically in four days, present their solution to an outside group of adults who then judge their performance. The winning teams get to Skype their solutions to real experts in the field the following day.

Vicki: Wow! So you just run this at your school? Or are your students collaborating with students in other schools?

Mark: It’s just within the school, but we have 800 eighth graders across two schools.

Vicki: Wow.

Mark: All 800 are taking part in this, during this one week in June that takes place after the math final and before the class trip to Hershey Park.

Vicki: Wow. So this is a full day thing. So it’s sort of cross-curricular?

Mark: This is cross-curricular. It takes place during Team Time. Our middle school, like many other middle schools, have teams made up of Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math. During that time, students are working on this project.

Vicki: So about how long is that time, at your school?

Mark: Give or take, about four hours a day.

Vicki: Wow! So you literally pretty much have half a day for four days for the students to come up with these challenges and present.

Give us an example of one of the winning projects.

How the “winning” works

Mark: Well, first of all, winning is with a small “w” and what we do is this:

Everyone gets their first choice of what they want to work on. We have lots of different options for kids, depending upon their area of interest or the kind of medium that they want to work in.

You know, we have kids who are really into social media, and they have an opportunity to work with clients to design their website or Twitter campaign or Facebook page or text outreach.

And we have kids that are kind of into the Makerspace movement, and if they want to design a water filtration system for Nepal, or design something to help Syrian refugees in any part of their journey whether they want to make them more comfortable or safer or to better acclimate to new surroundings, they can design something.

Or for those kids that are interested in hunger, or women’s issues, or child nutrition — they really have a myriad of options with which to pursue their own particular passion for helping people.

Once kids select that, we then randomly group the kids into teams of five. The teams are mixed across different teams, so they might be working with kids they’re very familiar with.

Again, we include every single kid, so we have children who are Resource Room kids, and Gifted and Talented kids, and kids who love school, and kids who hate school, and kids who “this is their passion,” and kids who never thought of social studies or any kind of global development as an interest. They’re all working together on a team.

So the adults only see the end product. They have no idea who these kids are, and they’re scoring them on several different rubrics, and ultimately deciding which group project or development plan or website or whatever it may be, that they would want to fund or hire and those teams go forward to actually Skype with the real world experts.

How Has the Project Evolved?

Vicki: So Mark, how long have you been doing this project, and how has it changed over time?

Mark: We’ve been doing it about nine years. It started with a pilot team in each school, and it’s grown to now it’s every team in the eighth grade is doing it. We started with only having one choice, and now we have, you know, eight sort of “big buckets” of choices, and within there, there are thousands of choices that kids can make. So it’s really expanded.

We also started with a few experts that were able to Skype, and now we have close to 250 students Skyping across ten time zones with sixty Skype sessions all in one given day.

Vicki: Wow. It sounds like so much to coordinate, Mark.

Mark: It’s a lot to coordinate. Yep.

Vicki: (laughs)

But it’s grown over time. You didn’t start at the level you’re at right now.

Mark: That’s correct. It’s grown over time.

How the District Uses This Project to Assess Itself

The other sort of interesting thing about this is that in and of itself, it would be a cool project but what we’re doing is using it really as an assessment of the district, not of the students.

In fact, the students aren’t graded for this. This was a big leap for our teachers. They thought that students wouldn’t be motivated to work if they weren’t being graded, especially the second-to-last week of their eighth grade experience.

So that was a big lift, but we found out that kids will work, and kids will be excited about their learning, especially if they feel that there’s an authentic audience in mind. They’re doing it not only for the judges that come in, but also for the opportunity to Skype and share their research with people in the field.

How Do The Teachers Feel About the Project?

Vicki: Now I’ve seen some schools that have done big projects at the end of the year, and sometimes the teachers say, “You know what? I’m too tired to do such a big project.”

How do your teachers feel about it?

Mark: There are probably folks that feel that way.

The nice thing about this project is that it’s totally student-run. In fact, there’s no teacher scaffolding whatsoever.

All the work is in the up front. We have a website that has all the tasks, all the rubrics, all the websites, tutorials — all that kind of stuff.

Students are totally self-directed. So once they hit the ground running, let’s say on Monday morning, teachers are sort of stepping out of the way. All they’re doing, since they’re not grading, is looking at how well the students are collaborating. Each year we get data on that.

The Data That is Collected And How It Is Used By the District

We also collect data on their problem-solving skills, their research skills, their communication skills — things that we’re interested in as a district to see how we’re doing and how we’re improving or not improving over time.

Then we use that data to then inform our other programs and our other types of assessments to see how we can improve those. So this acts almost like a physical for the district, more than anything else.

What Has the District Learned?

Vicki: So Mark, what’s the most shocking thing that you’ve learned through your data collection through this process?

Mark: Wow. Shocking, huh?

Well, I think it’s shocking to me — I was a believer, but I think more to other teachers — how hard kids will work without a grade, and how motivated they’ll be if they feel invested in the learning. That’s one.

Two is that we need to step back and not over-scaffold students. One of the questions you asked in the beginning was “How has this changed over time?” In the beginning, we used to do a pretty heavy lift in terms of mini-lessons and guided instruction to the students of how to do PowerPoints, how to present, all these little things in terms of how to make their presentation better and more palatable to the judges. And while we got good results, we realized that it was very heavily coached… and we weren’t getting REAL data.

So we stripped it back completely to the point now, where there’s almost no teacher involvement whatsoever unless there’s some kind of interpersonal flare-up. But other than that, the kids are totally on their own. The students really appreciate having the project and the content and the final product be 100% produced by them and within their locus of control.

How Can a School or District Take and Adapt This Project?

Vicki: So Mark, what is a way that a school could get started quickly, implementing their own Global Challenge Project?

Mark: Well… that’s a fair question. The one thing is that we could provide the website for folks because one of the nice things about the website is that all of the materials are here.

You know, part of it is that in creating this, and so many options, and the rubrics — it was somewhat of a heavy lift. But after nine years, I feel like it’s in a pretty good shape. Teachers or administrators could grab this on their own and start to “just add water.” You know, use it as they see fit.

The larger step is to get it to be something more than just a cool project — in that, is it something that the school or the district is interested in doing to get the results and to look critically at how they’re teaching and how they’re assessing to really make some changes district-wide.

If not, it’s a cool project, and it’s easily adoptable and adaptable.

But to me the real power is looking at the results to then drive some other changes in the district.

So for example, in the grade below we used to do a traditional research paper, and now we realized that to sort of help prepare them for this kind of project, we switched over to kids creating documentaries and making presentations about their documentaries.

That’s been a lot more powerful for students, and it’s also helped prepare them for this kind of performance assessment. Those kinds of things have been happening across the board, both below eighth grade and above eighth grade because they see what eighth graders are capable of, left to their own devices. They also see where the holes are, in terms of what our kids are capable of, or are able to perform. We want to make some changes so that they’re better.

So it’s really been more of a stake in the ground for the kind of assessment that we want to see, that has then had the ripple effect of impacting other assessments and teaching and learning K-12.

Vicki: This is a remarkable project, a great topic for Wonderful Classroom Wednesday, this Global Challenge Project. You’ll definitely want to check the Shownotes for this.

Let me just challenge you, “How are you assessing your district? How are you assessing your school?”

Take a look at this, the website, and discuss this fantastic case study for all of to discuss in staff meetings to determine how we are truly assessing our school. It’s not just about the test.

So, remarkable educators, I think we have a great project for us to think about.

 

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Mark Wise serves as the K-12 Supervisor for Curriculum and Instruction for West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey. Previously, he taught high school history and government in New Jersey as well as in Washington D.C. Mark did his undergraduate work at UMASS Amherst in political science/history and received his Master’s in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mark’s work led to his being recognized as the 2010 Visionary Supervisor/Director of the Year for New Jersey along with receiving CTAUN’s Best Practices Award in 2007 and 2010. Mark is committed to prepare students for success in the 21st century by designing and implementing curriculum that forges interdisciplinary connections, embeds global competencies, and requires students to utilize technology in a meaningful way in order to solve real-world problems and address authentic audiences.

Blog: http://markwise8.wixsite.com/globalchallenge

Twitter:@wisemancometh

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some links in this show are affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase that a small commission will be paid to me at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

iPads for Masterful Math: Randomizing Formative Math Assessment

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Dr. Sean Nank on episode 228 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Dr. Sean Nank’s research shows that the single biggest method for improving learning with iPads is to use online formative assessments. However, his formative assessments have a twist — students are all answering DIFFERENT math questions. This intriguing research is a must listen for any school with access to technology. You do not need iPads to implement and learn from this research.

Opening Graphic

Middle School Science teachers should get the FREE Xplorlabs Fire Forensics kit.Solve a mystery. Meet Next Generation Science Standards. Have fun!

Go to http://www.coolcatteacher.com/firelab today to get your Free Fire Forensics Kit.

fire forensics kit middle school stem

Sean’s book is Teaching over Testing. Enter the contest to win a copy of the book. Just go to the show on iTunes and leave a review and your Twitter handle. We’ll draw one random winner.

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***

Enhanced Transcript

Masterful Math: Randomizing Formative Math Assessment

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e228

Date: January 10, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking to Dr. Sean Nank, @Sean_Nank.

He is a Presidential Award winner for Math and Science Teaching.

But he’s really quite unique, in that he teaches for two universities, and he also teaches high school math.

Now, Sean, you’re currently working with iPads and some online formative assessments for STEM classrooms.

What kind of research are you doing right now?

Sean: About seven years ago, three colleagues and myself wrote a grant proposal for a quarter of a million dollars to implement iPads into math and science classrooms.

Honestly, when we started it, we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know what was going to work, what wasn’t going to work. So we started doing research.

In the past seven years, I’ve found that the single biggest factor for student success with the iPads is being able to use online formative assessments. More so than any apps or anything else.

Vicki: So, what kind of formative assessments are you doing on the iPads?

Formative assessment on the iPad that Works

Sean: We decided to code certain assessments ourselves.

Quite honestly, the first time I coded the first test, it took a little bit of time, and I thought to myself, “I’m never spending this time making an assessment again.”

But then, seeing the students’ results after the first test, I thought, “There’s no way I can’t do this.”

So what we do is use randomization. We use Moodle as a Learning Management System. We created Assessment Items.

So what happens is that the students can take tests as many times as it takes for them to achieve and show mastery.

And I was quite surprised at the results. I had a ton of students coming in every single day after taking a test, if they weren’t successful, getting help from me, getting tutoring, and trying to take the test again and again.

Vicki: So… formative, typically, you don’t give a grade. It’s while while you are forming knowledge, right?

Formative Assessment and Grading

Sean: Right. Some people think that formative assessments cannot happen if you give any type of grade at all.

I think that formative assessments can happen with grades, as long as you give students the protocol and the opportunity to learn from that assessment, and to continue on and maybe get a better grade as a result.

So for me, it’s less a matter of giving them a grade, and more a matter of giving them feedback, giving them help, giving them opportunities to improve.

The Frequency of Formative Testing

Vicki: So they’re actually taking these daily…

Sean: Right.

We coded for warm-up activities, for exit activities — which was wonderful because we just go to our computer, refresh your menu, and you can see real time exactly how students are performing.

So those, they take every day. When we take any type of quiz or test, then all they need to do is…

The trick was that we didn’t have any type of protocol to start out with. We just let students retake assessments. That didn’t work, because they would keep re-taking it, and keep getting the same grade.

So, we started doing things like telling them that they needed to have all of their work completed, they needed to come in for…

Different teachers make different decisions, but usually it’s at least one or two sessions of tutoring so that they can learn from their mistakes, so that they can re-take it again.

Student and Teacher Feedback from Formative Assessment

Vicki: So, are they getting instant feedback on each question as they answer it, or are you the one giving the feedback after you look at their results?

Sean: You can do both!

And that was one of the amazingly wonderful, unforeseen circumstances.

So you’re giving a warm-up in class. And instead of just going through the three or four questions for the warm-up, and asking students if they have trouble, I can look at the data. I can say, “Number 1 and 3 you did great on. Number 2? Ahhh, 72% of you didn’t do well. So we’re going to go over this before we can continue with the lesson.”

But also, you can code in responses. So if somebody’s solving something like 2x + 4 = 8.

Then you know what the three major misconceptions are probably going to be, if they’re having trouble with this. So when they input that answer, you can not only code “Partial Credit” but you can also code “Hints”… so it will blast out hints to them.

So maybe they added 4 instead of subtracting 4.

So you could have the hints like, “Did you subtract the 4?” or something more vague, like “Watch the signs.”

So you can code in the major misconceptions so that they can get instant feedback, and they can know the right answer. Or you could block that. Like you could give them hints as well.

Vicki: Sean, it sounds like your view of excellent math teaching has evolved with using formative assessment.

How Sean’s Views of Excellent Math Teaching Has Changed

Sean: It has, quite a bit.

There’s actually a few things that have made it evolve.

One is that over the years, I’ve passed probably 40 more students per year than I should have, if I was the average math classroom.

And it’s not me. It’s not that I’m a wonderfully excellent teacher that’s reaching all the students.

It’s that I’m giving them a chance. And if you give them a chance, then it’s not that they take the first chapter assessment, they get an F, and they have to ride through with tha F for the rest of the semester. Students start giving up.

They never have to give up, up until the semester ends. They can always try again.

Another thing that’s changed my perception a lot is teaching at American College of Education and Cal State San Marcos.

I see a lot of credential students and Masters students and Doctorate students. With the papers they write, quite honestly, we borrow a lot in education.

A lot of the things that I’m doing in my classroom come straight from them, from their Master’s theses, from papers they’ve done in my class, because people have a lot of wonderful ideas out there.

Vicki: So if you could condense this down. Math teachers across the world are listening to this show.

It sounds like you’re saying that having formative assessment with instant feedback to you as the teacher, right at the beginning and ending of class… and then the opportunity to retake questions, the opportunity to have hints…

Does that summarize it, or are there other things that you want them to take away from what you’ve learned?

How Formative Assessment Changes the Conversation

Sean: Most of it is how it changes the conversation, because when you give them feedback and they have a chance to do it again…

Let’s say two students are sitting right next to each other. They’re doing a warm-up activity. Instead of one student being able to turn to the other and say, “What did you get for #2? The answer is 17,” and then people just move on. They have to turn to their partner and say, “How did you get that answer?” They could have a similar problem, but the numbers will change from the bank and from the randomization of the testing items.

So it absolutely changes the conceptual and procedural conversation that happens between you and students, and between students as well.

Testing for Concepts but Using Different Numbers and Problems for Each Student

Vicki: Oh, wow! So I think I missed that.

So what’s actually happening is, they’re having a warm-up activity, but each student is being asked a similar conceptual question but the numbers are different.

Sean: Right. So like for the problem 2x + 4 = 8, you can set up the parameters to where the student next to them has 3x – 9 = 16.

Vicki: Ahhhh.

Sean: So it’s not much of a difference, but it’s enough to where they can’t just copy off of each other. Some of it’s procedural, but you can also design conceptual questions, so they can talk about the question behind it. They can talk about the misconception.

So that’s one of the biggest things. Whenever I design any of these, I always have the three most major and common misconceptions in mind. Conception and procedural misconceptions. Then that helps to catch them before you send them home for the day.

Vicki: Wow. So where can people access what you’ve done? This sounds like a whole lot of work. I totally understand why having them do similar problems, but not exactly the same problem. That actually blows my mind. It makes sense that that would work. But how can the everyday math teacher apply this and use this in their classroom?

Sean: I would try as much as possible to find resources that are already out there. As teachers, we have a ton of work. There’s not enough hours in the day.

So I’ll go to different sources. One of the sources I use a lot is learnzillion.com — or any other type of resource that already has test banks. That will give you a good idea for which lessons and what types of assessments can go well with them.

There are some outlets that are starting to give you access to already-randomized assessment items. But honestly, my biggest concern — and the biggest consideration — is that it’s all contingent on what your district’s doing.

So you can have these types of assessment items on a Moodle platform. You could have it on Canvas. You could have it on Haiku. That’s what you would need to find out first, is what system is your district using?

Otherwise, you would have to spend your own money, which I don’t want any teacher to do. And you would have to get a website, and you would have to house it on your own website.

Vicki: (sighs)

So I think the important thing concept here is that we’ve got a lot to re-listen to, and to learn from Sean. This whole idea of randomized formative math assessment, and assessing on concepts,and encouraging students to have that conversation.

I know, Sean, that for me the lightbulb has really gone on. I’m even wondering how I would apply this into the subjects that I teach, because it really makes a whole lot of sense to test for the concept — and to make it so that it becomes more about the process of solving the problem, and less about the right number to answer. Right?

Sean: Right.

And I think, overarchingly, I’m glad you said that… because I hope people don’t think that this has to be just for math, or just for science. You can use this in any subject matter. I think one of the biggest things is realizing that we talk a lot about growth mindset now. But all of that tends to stop — and I was just as guilty as anybody else — when we give assessments.

“Let’s grow as students. Let’s have the conversation. Here’s your test. This is it. You either pass or you fail, and we’re finished with it . And you have to live with that consequence for the rest of the semester.”

So I think what it really boils down to is giving students multiple opportunities, and doing something I call Grading for Learning which is letting them retake assessments until they achieve mastery.

Something I talk about in my first book is something that concerns me — especially with standardized assessments — is that we try to boil schools, students, teachers down to one test result. Just one score, and that determines how good or bad they are.

There’s nothing wrong with standardized assessments. It’s just the meaning that we’re making, and the way we’re using them — concerns me.

If I had it my way, one of the major thing I would change is to always look at the student as a whole, and always look at multiple measures of how the student is doing.

So assessments are important, but they’re no means the only thing.

Vicki: So we’ve been listening to Dr. Sean Nank.

We’re also going to be doing a giveaway, of Teaching Over Testing.

He has a lot of other resources, so check the Shownotes.

This is a fascinating conversation about excellent math teaching.

This whole idea of randomized formative assessment is definitely one that I’ll be investigating more.

I think it’s one that all math teachers should be discussing, as well as teachers of other subjects.

So thank you, Sean!

Sean: Thank you!

 

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Dr. Sean Nank earned a Ph.D. at the University of California Riverside. He received the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) in 2009 for mathematics from California. He has published two books titled Testing over Teaching: Mathematics Education in the 21st Century and The Making of a Presidential Mathematics and Science Educator, has published numerous articles, was a lead in writing the world’s first cloud based open source CCSS-M aligned K-8 texts (www.learnzillion.com), and is currently working on his third book.

He has worked in leadership positions with the United States Department of Education, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Science Foundation, California Department of Education, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. He was appointed to represent the USA at the International Congress on Mathematical Education in Korea as the mathematics assessment expert, which culminated in a congressional address as to the current state of mathematics education in the USA. Sean Nank is the President and Program Chair of the Greater San Diego Mathematics Council.

He has been a coach, Domain Specialist, and is currently a Facilitator and Ambassador for LearnZillion. He also continues to consult for various districts across the country at the elementary, middle, and secondary level training teachers and administrators. Topics include transitioning to CCSS-M while aligning classroom and district curriculum, pedagogy and assessments in a coherent manner using technological resources.

His current research agenda includes how teachers negotiate the balance between the procedural, conceptual, and application via technological resources. Sean has been on numerous conference planning committees. He is currently the chair for a national educational summit in Washington, DC which will include Presidential awardees and members of various state and national educational agencies.

He has authored several articles:

Nank, S. D. (2017). Seven steps for adapting technology to the classroom. Southeast Education Network (SEEN) (19, 1).
Retrieved from: http://www.seenmagazine.us/Articles/Article-Detail/ArticleId/6500/Seven-Steps-for-Adapting-Technology-to-the-Classroom

Nank, S. D. (2011). Editor of The making of a presidential mathematics and science educator. Volume 1. Chicago, IL:
Discovery Association Publishing House.
http://www.seannank.com/Presidential_Book.html

Nank, S. D. (2011). The present moment. In S. Nank (Ed.), The making of a presidential mathematics and science
educator. Volume 1 (pp. 77-84). Chicago, IL: Discovery Association Publishing House.
http://www.seannank.com/Presidential_Book.html

Nank, S. D. (2011). Testing over teaching: Mathematics education in the 21st century. Chicago, IL: Discovery Association
Publishing House.
http://www.seannank.com/Testing_over_Teaching.html

Blog: www.SeanNank.com

Twitter: @Sean_Nank

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post iPads for Masterful Math: Randomizing Formative Math Assessment appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!


Inquiry-Based Learning in the History Classroom

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Josh Eby on episode 238 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Josh Eby shares how he uses inquiry-based learning in his history classroom. He also discusses how he’s become a better teacher after returning to the classroom after 12 years in administration and why it was one of the best decisions he’s ever made. Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday — teachers of all subjects will learn some ideas from this one. (Including how long we need to wait when asking a question!

Josh eby history teacher california

PowerSchool is my SIS and LMS and is the sponsor of today’s show. On January 31, they have a free webinarPreparing Students for Success: Measuring What Matters about preparing students for success and measuring what matters. Jake Cotton, a superintendent from Virginia, will be sharing.

Listen Now

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Inquiry-Based Learning in the History Classroom

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e208
Date: Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking to a Seventh and Eighth Grade History Teacher from California, Joshua Eby @EbysHist.

Now, Josh… You’re doing some exciting things right now in your classroom. Describe what you’re doing this week.

Constitutional Convention Simulation for Teaching History

Josh: So this week we have been working on the Constitutional Convention.

What I was able to do was (assign) each of my students a different role at the convention, playing someone who was actually there. They have a background speaker card, and actually a mask and everything that shows.

We start with a “Meet and Greet” where they actually get to know each other and know who’s at the convention, the various people.

The we work through the various compromises that went through the convention. Each student gets to vote. The get to deliberate. They get to discuss. They get to debate. All based upon the actual person that was at the convention.

Vicki: So they have to play the role.

Josh: That’s correct.

How it works

So they are given, again, a background card for each person that was at the convention. They play one of thirty-two people. If I have more than 32 students, I have to invent some other roles for them. (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs)

Josh: So they have kind of their personal background in each card — their views on different topics they get. And then they have “points of contention” that they need to raise throughout the convention.

Vicki: How do you make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak?

Josh: That’s through the idea of giving their points to raise. So at some point we just do a piece where it’s almost a Socratic piece, where everyone says their role. Everyone says their viewpoint on at least one topic. So I monitor that, as the teacher, and we make sure that throughout the three to four days that we of that, all 30+ students get an opportunity to speak.

Vicki: What do the students think about this?

How Students Give Feedback to the Process

Josh: I’m waiting…

Actually, tomorrow we’re doing a Google form in which they are going to evaluate their place at it.

Just off of my viewpoint, they just seem so much more excited to come into the classroom each day. Not only are they playing the roles, but I re-create and make the classroom to look different. So they’re sitting by state each day. They have to pick up their card. They pick up their mask.

I saw some students that weren’t normally participating as much — getting involved in discussing.

Looking at some formative assessments I’ve done thus far, they definitely are getting the material and the curriculum in a more advanced level than they would be, say through direct instruction or note taking or reading strategies.

Vicki: Josh, are you always this “hands on”?

Why Josh Gets Students Involved in Hands On History

Josh: I try to be!

As oftentimes as we can. I just feel that when students get to LIVE the history and be a part of it, they definitely benefit more. I think changing into looking at inquiry-based styles, there is also that place for role-play as well within that.

I think that at least my students aren’t as shy in many times as we do that. They get a little more involved. Part of it is using those masks that we have. It’s just nice because they get to hide a little bit, too, if they’re not as comfortable being out front.

Vicki: Oh, I like that.

So, if you look at your whole school year, what is the greatest “knock it out of the park” activity you do with your students in history class?

A Lewis and Clark Experience

Josh: Wow. That’s a good question.(laughs)

One of the things we do — and for me, it’s more something that I love as a teacher — is when we study Lewis and Clark, again they take the role of someone on the travels. They write a journal as if they were either Lewis or Clark or someone else as a part of the expedition.

I think, for me, the value in it is not just the learning about what happened on their travels, but the exploration of America.

I travel all across our country in the summer. I RV with my family, and getting my own students to just see the expansiveness of our nation, and the diversity that we have… I think it comes out in those journals. Along with the writing and just getting to see how they think, as well, and kind of their own reflective process.

Vicki: So are you in a different place each day when they’re journaling, to kind of introduce it, or do they study this on their own?

Josh: It’s a little bit of both. Sometimes they read on their own and kind of gather where Lewis and Clark are. Then we have a map that we follow through their travels all the way to Oregon.

What Mistakes Has Josh Made in Inquiry Based Learning?

Vicki: Have you ever made a mistake with this inquiry-based learning approach?

Josh: Oh gosh! All the time!

I would say the biggest mistake that I’ve realized is (that) sometimes letting the kids go before they have solid background foundation.

Even what we’re studying now, in California, they’re supposed to have studied the Constitutional Convention in 5th grade. It’s a large part of our 5th grade social studies curriculum. So i’ve made some “jumps” for them, thinking that they have that foundation.

And they struggled early on. So, again, scaffolding their reading and their background information — for me — helps lay that groundwork so they can really get to the inquiry and the higher order thinking skills we’re looking for.

Vicki: How long has it taken you to get to this approach? Do you ever look back on how you started teaching at first, and how you’ve grown?

Josh: Yes. I think the amount of direct instruction that I used to give in my early years is almost negligible, compared to what we do now.

I think part of it is for me having my own grasp of the material as well, and the curriculum as well, and feeling comfortable with that, knowing that I can change and adjust on the fly as we go.

Josh Moved from Administration Back into the Classroom

And then, previously, I actually spent 12 years as an administrator before the classroom. Again this year, I went back to teaching this year. I think sitting on the other side of the room has really helped me see that kids can inquire. What are different strategies we can use to get that done?

Vicki: Are you glad to be back?

Josh: I love it! Yes. It is amazing. Best decision I’ve made.

Vicki: To come back from administration to the classroom… You don’t see that happen very often, do you?

Josh: No. No. I think I’m one of the few. I only know of two others, and they were at the very end of their careers, actually, and I think that they wanted to finish their last couple of years in the classroom again.

I enjoyed my time in administration, but I really really missed working with the students each day. And I’ve seen that benefit again. It really has re-infused my passion for education and my passion for teaching.

What About Being An Administrator Has Made You a Better Teacher

Vicki: Is there anything you learned as an administrator that’s made you a better teacher?

Josh: Yes! One thing I saw as an administrator, sitting on the other side and observing classrooms, is the importance of “wait time”…

I don’t think, as a teacher, I saw this.

Because you know, I’d ask teachers, “How long do you think you just waited?” And they would give me anything from say, a minute to a minute-and-a-half. And I’d be like, “It was only 20 seconds.”

So realizing that bow as a teacher, and using wait time to let kids process, and realizing that your time as a teacher — you don’t realize how much time you’ve actually taken to wait.

Really getting to value that now, knowing that sitting back and giving kids time to process leads itself to better thinking for them and better responses as well.

Slowing Down When Asking Questions

Vicki: So when you ask a question now, you are in less of a rush than you were before you were an administrator?

Josh: Absolutely. And I think a lot of that is just (laughs) age, as well? Just time?

I started teaching at 22 years old. I think everything went fast.

Vicki: (laughs)

Josh: But I think again, being an administrator and realizing how sometimes teachers were… I saw that teachers were rushing… and didn’t realize they were.

Having that mindset now to know, “I can get to what I need to get to, even if I just wait a little longer for kids to process the question that they’ve asked.”

Or… even a project we’re doing, or an activity we’re doing. Just wait. Let them have time before we start getting to work, so they really know what they have to do.

Vicki: So much great advice here we’ve gotten from Josh about being a remarkable teacher.

This one issue of wait time? You know, that really hits home to me. Sometimes I think I don’t wait long enough.

So many wonderful ideas here.

Let’s get kids up. Let’s get them moving.

And off of this idea of having masks for role-playing — so marvelous! I think it can really do some things in the classroom.

I hope you’ll take this and apply this to your classroom, whether it’s history or any subject!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Josh Eby currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Social Science at Redwood MS is Thousand Oaks, CA. For the previous five years, Josh was the Principal at Newbury Park HS and Sycamore Canyon School. This year he returned to his true passion: Teaching.

Blog: History Teacher Thoughts

Twitter:@EbysHist

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.) This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Inquiry-Based Learning in the History Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

XplorLabs Fire Forensics: A Free STEM Module for Middle School Science

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A Next Generation Science Standards Aligned Lab Activity (FREE)

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

UL Xplorlabs is making the world a safer place through science. For example, their Fire Forensics: Claims and Evidence unit is a safe way to educate middle school students about fire. This unit teaches about fire while meeting Next Generation Science Standards. Generally speaking, this free interactive STEM lab takes 2-4 days to complete and includes extension science experiments that you could add to the unit.

This blog post is sponsored by UL Xplorlabs.

Fire Forensics: A Free STEM Module for Middle School Science

The Fire Forensics: Claims and Evidence module is designed to

“provide students with the understanding of fire, fire dynamics, and fire behavior so that they can read a fire scene and build a claim for the fire’s location of origin and cause.”

As it has been noted, UL (Underwriters Laboratories), the creator of Xplorlabs, is a global safety science company. Consequently, they work to foster safe living and working environments for people. (Not only are the UL Listed safety marks for many of the appliances in your house from this company, but they also are creating free science-based modules that promote safety like this one.)

Each learning module is designed to connect classrooms to real-world science and engineering. After testing it, I found this middle school science unit to be full of interactive video, online experiences, classroom activities, and challenges. For this reason, I think kids will love the real-world interactivity of this unit.

Data analysis is part of the second step of this online, interactive middle school science lab from XPLORLABS. This online, free STEM Lab is interactive and engaging and is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

Data analysis is part of the second step of this online, interactive middle school science lab from Xplorlabs. This online, free STEM module is interactive and engaging and is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

How to Get Started With Fire Forensics

As I demonstrate in the Unboxing video (above), before clicking the “Getting Started” button in the Fire Forensics Module, download the Teacher Guide and take a look at the science experiments that go along with the module. This Guide includes:

  • Rubrics
  • Fire Lab Safety Instructions
  • Safety Data Sheets for each activity including PPEs (personal protective equipment)
  • Supplies and summaries of labs, including outcomes and assessment tips

You can have students watch the video module on their iPads, Chromebooks, or other devices, or you can project it on your board and go through it as a class. After you download the Teacher Guide, I recommend that you go through the entire unit on your own to prepare.

What science standards are taught in this unit?

  • MS-PS1: Matter and Its Interactions (MS-PS1-2 and MS-PS1-3)
  • MS-PS3: Energy (MS-PS3-5)
  • Common Core State Standards (See more on the Fire Forensics Site)
    • RST.6-8.1, RST.6-8.3, RST.6-8.7
    • WHST.6-8.1, WHST.6-8.7
    • RST.6-8.9
    • MP.2
    • 6.SP.B.5

Cost: FREE

Time Required:

2-4 class periods minimum for the online activities (but additional extension investigations will take more time).

The Stages of the Lab

1 – Fire Investigators in Training

Students start by becoming “fire investigators in training.” They prepare to identify and analyze fire scene evidence.

2 – Examination of Evidence

Students check out two UL Fire Lab burns of full-sized structures that were conducted under different experimental conditions. After the experiment, they’re able to examine different burns side by side while changing only one variable — ventilation. Additionally, UL fire scientists share what they can observe in each burn. Students will also use charts to learn how to analyze the burns.

3 – Learning From an Expert

Students will walk through a fire scene with a burn investigator. They’ll learn to build a claim as they understand the cause of a fire and where it started. At this stage, they’ll understand the scientific method for analyzing the clues. Then students will prepare to create their own investigation.

4 – Solo Investigation

Students are now ready for their own investigation. Using the online interactive experience, they’ll work their way through the burned structure seeking the evidence to determine the fire’s cause and place of origin. Students are building their claim for how the fire started as they seek four or more pieces of evidence to enter into the notebook.

5 – Submit Your Claim

Finally, students submit a claim from their independent investigation of what they think happened in the kitchen burn.

6 – Compare Results

After students complete the experience, research engineer Dan Madrzykowski will share the fire’s origin and cause so that students can see where they were correct. They can also compare their own claims with other students’ claims.

Additional Experiments

This unit includes additional extension experiments:

  • The Fire Triangle: Understanding oxygen, fuel, and heat — the needs of fire.
  • Heat Transfer and Ignition: Students learn how different materials ignite and burn.
  • Fire Lab Data Analysis: Students learn about the impact of ventilation on a fire.

There are additional extension activities associated with the other module available via UL Xplorlabs, Portable Electrical Power, which focuses on lithium-ion batteries and “explores how batteries convert energy, introduces the phenomenon of thermal runaway and inspires students to think like a scientist to identify essential construction and performance requirements that address the inherent risks a product could present.

  • The Bologna Test: Students observe the energy from button cell batteries and can understand the dangers from child ingestions with this experiment.
  • Tensile Test and Durability: Students learn about the types of testing that safety engineers put materials through.
  • Thermal Test: Students will learn some typical ways that batteries can experience “thermal runaway.” Students assume different roles as they conduct this experiment.

Download the Fire Forensics Teacher Guide and Get Started

In conclusion, UL Xplorlabs has created a fantastic science module for teachers on a key topic for middle school science. I also like the fact that you can mention the importance of fire safety and talk about the UL labels that we all have on our appliances as well. This can be a challenging topic to teach and discuss because of the dangerous nature of fire. I think Fire Forensics: Claims and Evidence is a must-use module for middle school science teachers everywhere to use. Enjoy!

Fire Forensics Screenshots from the Xplorlabs free STEM lab for middle school science

Screenshots from the Fire Forensics lab. This is a great free STEM lab activity for middle school science teachers and a safe way to teach about fire.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored blog post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services that I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies that I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The post XplorLabs Fire Forensics: A Free STEM Module for Middle School Science appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

iPad Magic: 6 Ideas Every iPad Teacher Needs to Know

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Tony Vincent on episode 247 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Want to show your cursor on the iPad screen? Want to find the cents button? Want to help a student with a unique character spell their name? There’s a trick for these things and more on the iPad. Today, Tony Vincent shares six ideas every iPad teacher needs to know.

ipad magic ipad tips every teacher needs to know

Sponsor: The US Matific Games are coming this February. Try Matific free now and sign up to join their Math games.

Matific is a fantastic site full of math manipulatives and customized playlists of activities to help students at every level master math. This fun, gamified site is sponsoring Math games this February and students can compete to win prizes for themselves and your school. Set up is easy, send them their class rosters and they’ll have you set up in 24-hours. This is a great way to try out Matific, help your kids boost their math skills and have fun. And it’s free!

Listen Now

***

Enhanced Transcript

iPad Magic: 6 Ideas Every iPad Teacher Needs to Know

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e247
Date: February 6, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my friend Tony Vincent @tonyvincent from Learning in Hand about iPad Magic.

So what is your first magic idea, Tony?

Tony: Well, the iPad is packed with things that you may not even realize are there or that can be used in different ways.

So one tip I really like is that I use my iPad and I project it up for students, for audiences to see, and it’s great. There are different ways to project, but you’ve got it up on a screen. The problem is that they can’t see where you’re touching on the screen.

Vicki: Ahhhh…

Tony: So in the past, I’ve carried around a laser pointer. In one hand, I’m manipulating the iPad, and the other I’m pointing at the screen. It worked OK.

However, I have re-purposed the iPad’s zoom controller. You can turn that on in the Settings,in the Accessibility Settings. When you turn on the zoom controller, iOS puts a little circle on your screen that you can move around.

Idea #1: Repurposing the zoom controller to use as a pointer

Now you can also tap it and adjust the zoom level, which is an extra added benefit, but I use it as a pointer. I have it right there on screen. I can move it, and I can drag it around, and show my audience what I’m talking about and about what I’m actually touching on the screen.

Vicki: Oh, what a fantastic idea!

We are going to link to the blog posts that have a lot of these magic tips so that you’ll be able to get all of these tips.

I love that one! What’s next?

Tony: That tip really goes into the next one. With iOS 11, the newest version that came out in the fall, you can actually screen record everything that’s happening on your iPad.

We’ve wanted this for years, and we finally have it.

Idea #2: Screen record everything that’s happening on your iPad

You have to turn it on, and if you go to that blog post, you can get step-by-step directions. But in the Settings, you get it tuned on, you can record your screen along with the narrations. You can make tutorials. Or students can go through and show you what they’ve done in any app, or in multiple apps, because it records everything that’s happening on your iPad.

If you turn on that zoom controller, then you also have a pointer. That zoom controller/pointer will show up in the video that’s saved to your camera roll.

Vicki: Oh, that is so nice! Teachers everywhere applauded when that feature came out. It just makes life so much easier, because we can record everywhere!

So wonderful! OK, what’s our next one?

Tony: Yeah.

Well, not as exciting, but this has been around for a while, but it’s always a good reminder. Apple has hidden some characters on the onscreen keyboard.

Idea #3: Hidden characters on the onscreen keyboard

For instance, I live in Iowa, and the other day it was just 2 degrees. I wanted to type out the degree symbol.

If you look right away at the keyboard, you don’t see it initially. But the trick is, if you hold down certain keys on the keyboard, then above the key appear some alternate characters.

So if you want to type the degree symbol, you hold down the zero key and slide up. You’ll see the degree symbol.

Vicki: Hmmm. That just makes sense, too, right?

Tony: Yeah! You skipped ahead. If you want different currencies, you hold down the dollar sign and then you’ll get cents and pounds and yen and a few others.

You also can hold down “e” or “n” to get accented characters.

I know in one workshop, this was a tip that really changed the world of one of the teachers and one of her students because she said, “Oh! Finally, my Zoe can type her name the way that it’s supposed to be typed, because it had an accent on the “e”.

Vicki: Awww… Yeah. Kids really — those accents are important when they have them in their names. I mean, it’s their name!

Tony: Yeah! It is possible to type them on the iOS keyboard. You just have to know how to “reveal” them by kind of trial and error. Hold down some keys and see what happens.

Vicki: So how do we know what happens, or what is going to be on there?

Is there any easy to see that, or…?

Tony: There are a few. You can do some Googling and see what’s on there. On my blog post I put the most popular ones, the ones I see that I’ve used the most.

You probably won’t need it until you say, “Oh, I need an accented ‘e’…” So then hold down the “e’ and see what’s there. Chances are that they put it in a logical place.

Vicki: So cool! OK, what’s next?

Tony: Sticking with the keyboard, this was introduced in iOS 9, but it’s still a surprise to a lot of people.

When you have your onscreen keyboard showing on an iPad, if you touch the keyboard with two fingers — and it’s weird because the letters on the keyboard disappear — then you can drag those two fingers around in the keyboard area. You actually have a trackpad area, and that moves your cursor.

Idea #4: Using the onscreen keyboard as a trackpad

I find myself using this quite a bit to position my cursor just to where I want. It’s a little faster, sometimes, than trying to tap and get your cursor into the right spot, because you don’t even move your fingers from the keyboard. You just press two of them down.

Vicki: Oh, cool! Awesome! OK, what else?

Tony: Well, you know those apps that keep asking you to rate them?

Vicki: Yessss?

I’m trying not to get too excited, because I know what this one is!!!

Tony: (laughs)

Vicki: Go ahead!

Tony: In iOS 11, Apple realized that app developers just asked for ratings too often. If you have an app that you like, please do rate it. But we don’t like to be bugged. We don’t want this to pop up during lessons for our students, or for us as we’re just using our device.

Idea #5: Turn off app ratings and reviews

So you can go into settings on your iPad or your iPhone with iOS 11 and tap iTunes and App Store. You can actually turn off In App Ratings and Reviews.

There are still a few ways that this might pop up, but it greatly reduces the number of pop-ups that ask you to rate and review and app.

Vicki: OK, remarkable educators, remember that if you’re on that morning commute like many of you are when you listen to the show, so this when you get to school, Don’t do this while driving. (laughs)

But it is REALLY very exciting! (laughs)

OK, do you have another one for us!

Tony: Well, another one that you certainly can’t do while you’re driving — is rearranging your Home Screen.

Idea #6: Reorganize your Home Screen QUICKLY

I have so many home screens. I think I have fifteen, which is the total number of homescreens you can have while on your iPad or you iPhone.

I organize pretty much meticulously the first two pages, and then I’ve given up on the rest.

Vicki: (laughs)

Tony: It’s just too hard to move those app icons around. You can take all day to move them from page to page and put them in the folders. If you don’t have that many apps, I guess, it’s not too bad. But it can take a while.

So in iOS 11, Apple’s made it slightly easier. It’s a little complicated, but once you get the hang of it, this is a pretty nice way for making folders.

Apple allows us now to take one app icon (you know, when it jiggles), and then with a second finger, you can tap other icons and it stacks them behind that one icon. So you can stack like six icons from one page, drag that stack from one page to the next, add a few more, drag and then finally put them on their own screen or home folder.

Vicki: Ohhhhhh…

Tony: So you can go and find all your math apps, pluck them from every page, add them to the stack, and then put that stack into a folder.

It’s so much more efficient than…

Vicki: YES! One at a time…

Oh, I just like… Oh my goodness. I don’t have words for that one! (laughs)

With all the wasted (time)… because I do like to organize things.

OK. So we have time for one more?

Tony: One more…

Well, one that’s been in iOS for a while that people don’t realize it, is that you can annotate over a photo.

BONUS: Annotate over a photo on your camera roll without using an app

Anything that’s saved in your camera roll, you can draw on, you can add shapes, you can even add magnifiers. This is sitting right there. You don’t need an app at all to make this happen.

When you’re in the Photos app, viewing anything, you can click Edit. In the More button which is the three little dots. Then there will be this marker icon. That’s for the markup tools. And then, popping up from the bottom you have a pen, you have a highlighter, you have a sketch pencil, you an eraser, you have a lasso. Then you have several tools, including a text tool. You can add your signature and arrows.

You have this complete suite of drawing tools that’s available to you to use on any picture. You click Done, and then your annotations are saved right there on that image, which then you can use in a project, or share, or just keep there in your Photo Library.

Vicki: Teachers, we’ve gotten six fantastic ideas of iPad magic, things that we all needed to know.

Now if you want to know lots more, you can go follow Tony’s blog and Twitter and all the places he shares. Learning in Hand. He is one of my Go To people for iPads. He just knows everything about them.

I know that now, Tony, you’re learning everything about Google Classroom, so you know lots about really cool things.

These are little How-To things that are actually a really big deal when you’re using iPads. Get to know these tips and tricks with iPads.

Get out there and learn some more. You may just save a whole lot of time!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Tony Vincent used to teach fifth grade in Omaha, Nebraska. Today he is self-employed and does what he can to help teachers be even more awesome.

Blog: https://learninginhand.com/

Twitter: @tonyvincent

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post iPad Magic: 6 Ideas Every iPad Teacher Needs to Know appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

10 Ways to Use Screencasting for Formative Assessment

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Screencastify and Screencasting for Formative Assessment (a sponsored post)

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Screencasting is a useful assessment tool. While I use it for my video tutorials, I also have my students make their own screencasts to help me assess their progress. In this blog post, I’ll share how I use screencasting to assess student work. I’ll also give some suggestions for using screencasting in formative assessment. Specifically, I’ll mention features of Screencastify, the tool I recommend for students to use for Google Chrome or Chromebooks.

screencasting screencastify

(If you’re unfamiliar with screencasting, see the “Getting Started” section at the end of this post.)

This is a sponsored post by Screencastify.

Why Screencasting Is a Useful Formative Assessment Tool

For their assessments this week in my class, my students are demonstrating the process they use to code their video games. They’re explaining their code and how it works. They’re also running their video game and letting me see how that works.

What I Learn When I Can Look “Under the Hood” of Student Projects

When students are showing me their code, I sometimes realize that they don’t understand what they’ve done, or that they haven’t actually set up their code correctly. Therefore, by seeing how students are displaying their code, I can actually determine whether they understand coding at all. I make a note so that I’ll have a list of things to discuss with each student.

I’ve also noticed when students aren’t doing the assignment correctly. As we program in Scratch, the video game is supposed to start and the commands are supposed to run. However, some students will just pick up the mouse and move it manually. That’s not really a program, just something that they’re doing on the screen. When students are screencasting, I can very rapidly catch these types of things that I might otherwise miss in the busy noise of my classroom.

Bandwidth Savings when Uploading to Google Drive

Also, saving screencasts to Google Drive is an advantage because I don’t have to download those large video files. I can just go to the link and see what the students have done.

So, when you’re teaching programming, a tool like Screencastify is so useful because you can understand exactly what students are learning. Therefore, it’s pretty much my daily formative assessment tool when teaching programming of any kind.

Screencastify is to Chromebooks what Explain Everything has been to iPads all these years — a formative assessment tool well-suited to any device running Google Chrome. So, in addition to being able to capture screencasts, Screencastify can also let you write on the screen and do a variety of other things with the toolbar.

10 Classroom Uses for Screencasting for Formative Assessment

1. Assessing code

Students explain how their code works and show what happens when they run it. (We’ve already discussed this one above.)

screencasting formative assessment chromebook screencastify

When students do work on projects, they can make a quick screencast and send the link to their teacher in Google Classroom or their LMS for fast formative assessment.

2. Demonstrating a skill

This practice fits with the old adage:

“If you want to understand something, teach it.”

For example, you might want to make sure that students understand how the advanced Google search works. Have them demonstrate it in a 20- to 30-second video. You’ll notice that when you give students a time limit, they may have to record and re-record. (The Screencastify restart button helps with this.) Working through the steps and explaining them out loud will cement their knowledge.

3. Explain a math problem

Often in math, the right answers aren’t enough. We need to know that students understand the process. To help with this, you can bring up a white screen and then use the screencasting tools to write on it while giving an audio explanation of a math problem. This is great for math teachers and can turn your Chromebook into a very simple way of ensuring that you understand how students are working problems.

math formative assessment screencasting

Since chalkboards were invented, teachers have had students work problems on the board to see their process. Now, using screencasting, every student can work on their board at the same time and be seen by their teacher and evaluated.

4. Peer review for writing or other online work

Students often prefer verbal feedback, but it can require quite a bit of your time as a teacher. Now you can use this technology for peer feedback. Have students bring up another student’s Google Doc and record a screencast about what they find as they’re going through it. Now, admittedly, sometimes Google commenting is best for small snippets of feedback. 

However for longer verbal peer review feedback in a blended or online classroom, this technique can be useful.

Give students specific things to look for. For example, if you’re focusing on comma use, then have them find three issues. Or have them talk about three things that they like about the piece and perhaps explain three places where it’s unclear.

When they’re finished, students can just attach the link from their Google Drive and the other students can listen and understand exactly what the issues are and where in the document to find them. This has advantages over the even face-to-face conversation the specific problems are easy to spot in the screencast.

Remember that this is a useful tool for evaluating both the student receiving feedback and the student giving it.

peer feedback formative assessment screencastify

Screencasting of writing or online projects is a fantastic and quick tool for peer feedback in blended an online classrooms

5. Reading and translating languages

If a student in your class learning a new language, they could go to a website that uses their new language and translate some of the content. They could also read the different language aloud and then translate it for their teacher. This is an authentic way of assessing whether students are able to comprehend and translate another language.

6. Explanation of student work

With the webcam enabled, students can display an artifact in their screencast. Or if they’ve created a website, a portfolio, or something else that a teacher uses to assess their learning, they can record a video as they’re looking at their artifact and explain what they’ve done and their thinking process. So instead of the teacher looking for things, students can show you. It saves time!

7. Virtual exit slips

Class Tech Tips blogger Monica Burns uses screencasts as virtual exit slips. You can do this by setting aside the last three to four minutes of class for students to explain how to do what they learned in class. Then they turn in the link to their short screencast on Google Classroom. This is a quick way to make sure that they understand the concepts of class without just repeating what another student has said, which can be the case with class conversations instead of exit slips.

8. Book reviews, journals, or opinions

Screencasts are fantastic way to have students speak their opinions. This is particularly helpful if a student struggles with the mechanics keyboarding or handwriting. So, for example, they can display a book cover on the screen and explain about the book or give their review. They can also bring up an artifact, a piece of art, or another item on the internet and share a journal entry or their opinion about that object.

This is a great way to see if students can express their thoughts and summarize their thoughts without requiring them to write. Speaking on a screencast lets them analyze and share what they know while meeting some of the standards without struggling with the mechanics of writing. This is very helpful for students and teachers.

9. History artifacts

Students can bring up a historical document on their screen and analyze the artifact. As they show it on the screen, they can narrate and write on the screen. The teacher can understand if they’ve effectively analyzed the nonfiction text. You can also make a gallery where students can share their analysis with others in the class.

10. Fluency in reading assignments

Sometimes, you may just want the student to read a book excerpt or a part of an article. Maybe you want him or her to identify and explain vocabulary words in context. Or you might want to verify that a student is able to find a word and look it up. So whatever aspect of literacy you’d like to see the student demonstrate, screencasts are a fantastic way to assess for this fluency.

 

Screencastify: A Valuable Addition to a Teacher’s Toolbox

As a teacher, you always need a quick way to create and share a video when you’re using Google apps or G Suite in your classroom. Now it’s easy to upload a screencast to Google Drive, copy the link for sharing — and you’re done!  

Screencastify is an easy-to-use tool saves many steps, and if you’re using the pro version of Screencastify, you can get unlimited recordings, more editing features, and even more capabilities.

(If you want a quote, let them know that Cool Cat Teacher sent you for a discount.)

If you currently have Chromebooks or use Google Chrome in your classroom, I highly recommend Screencastify Lite, but really suggest that you consider Screencastify Pro for your classroom.

You’ll be glad you did.

Getting Started With Screencasting

Step 1: Install Screencastify

Students need to install the Screencastify Google Chrome plug-in.

Step 2: Set Up Screencastify

Once a student starts to record, Screencastify will give three options: save to youTube or Save to Google Drive. (You can also download the video.)

I like my students save into their Google Drive. This means that they’ll be able to access their Screencastify videos from whichever computer they use. Also, when a student clicks “link,” it will copy the link to the video so they can give it to me in our Learning Management System (LMS).

A Note about Publishing: Remember that students could publish directly to YouTube if it’s enabled on the device they’re using. While my students have YouTube channels, I typically don’t want these screencasts posted to YouTube, so I just have them post to their Google Drive. If you’re an IT Director, however, and you’re often posting tutorials, this could be a handy feature for you.

Also, remember that a screencast is unedited video. This means that my students will just be explaining their work and their process to me without editing. I like this because it’s as if the student is sitting at my desk, and I can hear everything in their voice and how they’re feeling about this project.

Screencastify is an excellent tool for formative assessment in the classroom. Get your students started today.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post 10 Ways to Use Screencasting for Formative Assessment appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

5 Formative Assessment Strategies to Help with Classroom Management

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Mike Roberts on episode 250 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

We need more strategies than fist to five or thumbs up thumbs down. Teacher Mike Roberts give five strategies that can help us with formative assessment AND classroom management.

formative assessment strategies

Sponsor: The US Matific Games are coming this February. Try Matific free now and sign up to join their Math games.

Matific is a fantastic site full of math manipulatives and customized playlists of activities to help students at every level master math. This fun, gamified site is sponsoring Math games this February and students can compete to win prizes for themselves and your school. Set up is easy, send them their class rosters and they’ll have you set up in 24-hours. This is a great way to try out matific, help your kids boost their math skills and have fun. And its free!

Listen Now

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Enhanced Transcript

5 Formative Assessment Strategies to Help with Classroom Management

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e250
Date: Friday, February 16, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with Mike Roberts @BaldRoberts, eighth grade English teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, and author of Hacking Classroom Management: 10 Ideas to Help You Become the Type of Teacher They Make Movies About.

Now, Mike, you have five ideas for us today, to do formative assessments. But these are also strategies that help with classroom management.

So give us the first one and help us understand how great formative assessment can help us better manage our classroom.

Mike: Yeah, like anything else in our classroom, I think we have to take a variety of approaches in how we do our formative assessments.

I think a lot of us fall back on the “thumbs up, thumbs down” or the “fist to five” concept, which — you know — I think is good.

But I think the more engaged you can get your students in that process — and really get them to think about the learning rather than just respond to it — I think that helps keep classroom management a lot more interactive for the student and a lot more engaging for them throughout the class.

Vicki: Yeah. What’s the first example?

Mike: First example. Real easy one. I call them High-Five Hands.

Formative Assessment Idea #1: High-Five Hands

On their way out the door, I just have some hands up on my door. And this is a good one for self-assessment. I think a lot of times, teachers don’t think self-assessment can play a role in formative assessment.

I will sometimes ask students to critique themselves with their effort today. Or we’ll have a learning target for the day, and I’ll say, “OK. Assess how you did on that learning target today.”

There’s a green hand, a yellow hand, and a red hand. They’ll just real informally as they walk out, just high-five that on the way out.

You could also use emojis if you want to. Put some big old emoji faces up there.

And I also sometimes use this as a prior knowledge assessment as they’re walking out. If we’re going to be talking about irony the next day in my class, I’ll say, “OK. Tomorrow, we’re going to be talking about irony. Slap your hand up there, and let me know what your thoughts are on how you feel about irony.”

That way, when they come into class the next day, I have an idea of where the conversation should be going, if I’ve seen a lot of kids slap the red hand, I know, “Ok, I’ve got to start this ‘down low’.” If a lot of kids have already slapped the green hand, though, I know that they may have some background on it.

Vicki: Oh, fantastic. Love it!

OK, what’s your second?

Mike: That first one was what I call a One Minute Assessment. And now I’m going to go into a couple of Five Minute Assessments. These are assessments that you can do either as an exit ticket, an entry ticket, or sometimes just in the middle of class.

I’m a big fan of summarizing and using literacy in the classroom.

So two of my favorites are Twitter Summary, where students have to summarize what they’ve learned in — usually 140 — but now it’s 280 characters.

Formative Assessment Idea #2: Twitter Summary

And I require them to include a hashtag or two in there. This is where you really find out which kids get it, and which kids don’t. Those kids who are nailing their hashtags? It is unbelievable how cool it is when you see that kid really think through what they’ve learned and come up with this hashtag that just hits it right on the nail.

Vicki: Can you give me an example of what that would say with a hashtag, and how you would know?

Mike: Yeah! So we did one on Lord of the Flies a couple years ago. This kid was really going through. I had them summarize, I think it was Chapter 11. It’s a chapter where a big rock falls on a kid. And their hashtag was #watchforfallingrocks.

Vicki: Ohhhh. Cool!

Mike: Yeah, so it was really cool to see them think through it. They didn’t just go through it, they tied something from their life into the reading. It was really cool to see something like that play out.

Formative Assessment Idea #3: Haiku Review

The other one I really like for the Five Minute Assessments is called a Haiku Review, where students summarize or review the learning target for the day in a Haiku format — so 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.

And a lot of you are like, “I know. My students would not do that.”

Vicki: (laughs)

Mike: They will, I promise.

Vicki: (laughs)

Mike: And it’s really fun to see them counting out syllables. You see them patting their hand or tapping their jaw. And again, you get these kids who might be quiet or might not be that engaged. Here’s your chance to kind of share some of that creativity.

In both of these Five Minute Assessments, I like to always have them present it as well, so you might want to add a little five-minutes extra onto the back end of both of those.

Vicki: Awesome! OK, what’s our fourth?

Mike: Then we go into what I call Fifteen Minute Assessments.

A big part of classroom management, I think, stems from the fact that students just sit all day long.

They sit in their one class, they come to the next class, they sit in that class. They get a little break here and there, but there’s just a lot of sitting.

So I’m a big fan of incorporating a lot of movement into my classroom management approach.

So for these quick assessments, I do what’s called a Walk and Talk.

Formative Assessment Idea #4: Walk and Talk

Rather than sitting up and having a lecture or having a discussion where they’re in small groups and things like that, we will leave the classroom. We’ll go walk around the neighborhood.

I will give them a question, and they will pair up. We’ll have a big old line on the sidewalk, and we’ll start walking. You know, you set this up with, “Here are the requirements, and here are the parameters, and are are the expectations.” So they know all this. Then I ask that question, and they start walking and discussing this.

That is a great formative assessment, because I’m just kind of hanging out in the middle, walking up and down, and all I’m really listening for with each question are a couple keywords. If they’re saying those keywords, then I’m feeling pretty confident that they’re getting this concept.

Walk and Talks are great because it gets them out and moving. Any time you can leave the classroom, it’s a fun thing for kids. They really get excited about it.

If you’re not quite ready to leave your classroom, another one that I would throw in there would be what I call Musical Chairs.

Musical Chairs

Again, they’re in their small groups, but they’ll discuss a question and then I’ll play music for about 15-20 seconds while they walk around randomly. When the music stops, they sit down and then discuss the next question.

And again, my role as the teacher in that, I’m just listening for those keywords, seeing which kids are really engaged, seeing which kids are passionate about it, which questions I missed the target on. Sometimes I’ll ask a question, and it will just be super quiet. That one falls on me.

And then the last one is what I call a Vocab Story.

Formative Assessment Idea #5: Vocab Story

Again, this one incorporates a little more literacy into it. You’re going through, you’re throwing out some vocab words and key concepts. And I’ll just write five or six up on the board.

I’ll say, “Alright. I need you to write me a story incorporating these words into your story.”

So for 10-15 minutes, they’ll just write a story about whatever they want. Again, you really get to see which kids get it, by how they are using those words and how they incorporate those words into their everyday lives, or something we’re doing in school, how they manipulate the words.

You get a really good understanding of “Are they getting that concept?” without smacking them on the summative assessment.

Like I said earlier, I think there are a lot of different ways that we teach, and I think that our formative assessments should do something in those same line.

You give that active kid the chance to move, you give that quiet kid that chance to show their artistic talent,ad you’re just trying to throw out as many different option as possible.

Vicki: So, Mike, what’s one thing you wish that every teacher understood about doing formative assessment right?

Mike: Whoooh! That’s a GOOD question!

That there is no “one size fits all.” It’s a lot like teaching.

Like I said, the “thumbs up, thumbs down” — I think a lot of us fall back on that. But I think that every time I’ve done one of those, I think it’s like 85% of them give a thumbs up.

And as much as I’d like to think I’m that great of a teacher, I don’t think that 85% of these kids have this mastered.

I think that’s just the easy approach. And I think a lot of us like to say, “Look, I did a formative assessment, and they said they were understanding it,” rather than letting them SHOW you that they understand it.

Rather than taking a passive role in the process, let your students take an active role in the formative assessment process.

Vicki: And I totally agree with that, because when my formative assessment really started informing my teaching, is when I was teaching binary numbers.

I used to say, “Give me a thumbs up, thumbs down.” The kids would say, “Yeah, I get it or I don’t.” And I would quickly understand that they totally did not understand.

They just wanted to move ahead. (laughs)

They just didn’t want to do it anymore, because they thought it was too hard!

But when I actually started saying, “OK, let’s do some problems, and let’s do a quick formative assessment,” so I actually know what their answer is… Then, it’s like, “OK, Now we’re really getting somewhere.”

These are some great tips.

And I love linking together formative assessment with a form of classroom management, because they really do go together. If you do a formative assessment and your kids aren’t engaged in the formative assessment, then you really need to look at everything, don’t you?

(laughs)

Mike: Yeah, absolutely.

And one of the things about the book is I know a lot of schools differ in how much technology they have, so I tried to incorporate ideas that anybody can use. Regardless of whether you’re a kindergarten teacher or a 12th grade teacher, whether you have tons of technology or limited technology. These are just good strategies to help get you kids engaged in what’s going on.

Vicki: So, remarkable teachers, remember… we need to be checking for understanding –pretty often! Every 15-20 minutes at least, in our class periods. That’s 2-3 times per class period if you have a 50-minute class period like I do.

So let’s do this. Let’s be remarkable. Let’s be amazing teachers.

 

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted


Mike Roberts has taught middle-school English for the past twenty years. In that time, he has received numerous awards, including the 2014 Utah English Teacher of the Year. Beyond the classroom, he has been a featured speaker at dozens of state, regional, and national conferences. He has served on many educational committees, is an adjunct education professor, and has had his work published numerous times. His latest book, Hacking Classroom Management – How to be the Type of Teacher They Make Movies About, is scheduled to be released in December of 2017. Mike loves sharing his ideas with others, and he still is a bit surprised when people actually show up to hear him speak. When he’s not teaching or presenting, Mike can usually be found running ultra-marathons in the mountains. And even after all these years, he’s still not sure which takes more energy…a week with 8th graders or running a 100 mile race! You can follow Mike on Twitter @baldroberts

Twitter: @BaldRoberts

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 5 Formative Assessment Strategies to Help with Classroom Management appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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