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5 Out-Of-The Box Assessment Strategies Every Teacher Should Know
by Judy Willis M.D., M.Ed., radteach.com & Terry Heick

Most teachers and current textbooks offer varied approaches to the material to be learned so the teaching can be brain-compatible with the varied student learning styles.

It is only logical that respect for these individual learning styles be incorporated into assessment forms and out-of-the-box assessment strategies teachers should know and use when appropriate. For example, teachers responsive to interpersonal learning styles find cooperative group work a way to pull in those learners as well to give students with artistic, computer, dramatic, or organizational skills the opportunities to enter the learning experience through their strengths and interests

It follows that assessments should also provide opportunities for each student's unique learning style to access his or her highest performance success level. A variety of assessment forms and some student choice can bring students to the assessment with less anxiety and increase the positive learning experience as well as providing the opportunity for them to demonstrate what they know (as opposed to what they don't know).

Examples include:
Option 1: Open-Book & Take-Home Tests
This one is fairly straight-forward-allowing students to use resources to create responses to assessment questions. For obvious reasons, many teachers shy away from open-book tests: The answers are all 'right there' in the book and it can seem to teach students to use books instead of their brains.

However, open-book tests can function as a powerful scaffold for more challenging assessment forms, providing a starting point for assessment of standard mastery (i.e., what they can do with the 'answers' at their fingertips).

More importantly, it can allow for higher-level assessment. Books and other digital resources at home give them access to lower-level information (stuff they can Google or ask a friend), but not the higher-level thinking that requires them to synthesize disparate facts and perspectives to construct new knowledge.

This is where the shift of assessment of learning to assessment for learning can begin.
Option 2: Student-Made Tests
These are assessments that they prepare and the teacher can alter so the answers are not just memorized. For example, in history after studying the different agricultural products in the northern and southern colonies, the self-test questions a student writes might be:

What were the crops from the colonies in the north and from the south?

How are the climates, land and water supply different in one northern city and one southern city?

When the teacher rewrites the question it could prompt more analysis and executive function connections if it is rephrased: "Give an example of how the climate, water supply, and soil influenced the agricultural products in one northern and one southern city during the Colonial Era." In this example the teacher knows that the student has reviewed the facts necessary to make the higher-level connection and analysis and therefore has the tools for successful higher-level thinking.

How My Students Create And Study For Their Own Exams
This is the process I use for student-created math final exams in my classroom. Your process may differ depending on grade level, content area, or other local concerns.

1. I give the structure for the tests students are required to create such as, "Include 15 calculations and 5 word problems with 2 from each of the 10 subsections of the chapter"

2. I make a copy of each test and change the numbers, but not the structure of the equations. They knew I would do this and that the numbers will be different than the ones they used

3. Students are assigned homework to make practice tests on their own, using the template of the test they created and changing the numbers themselves

4. In class, for further review, students exchange their practice tests with partners for study and to the confirm accuracy of their answers (as I don't have an answer key to all of their self-created tests)

Option 3: Project-Based Learning!
Projects (pre-approved by the teacher) that demonstrate comprehension or mastery of the material covered in the unit can be ideal assessments.

They can become the packaging that connects the newly learned patterns of knowledge to related, previously stored knowledge. To see if the project assessment achieves this end, consider the questions:

Does this assessment examine understanding and not just rote memory?

Is the student called upon to think during the creation of the project?

These projects can include skits, posters, oral presentations, debates, papers, or demonstrations that assess understanding apart from rote knowledge. For some units the projects can be done in pairs or groups, as long as there is a means of assessing each individual student's participation in the final product. This could be through verbal interviews with students individually after the completion or presentation of the project.

A project example for a unit of study of modern Europe would have students select a country and simulate travel to that country including finding out how to get passports and visas, what the passport oath is, what clothing to bring, what hotels are near the important historic or cultural places they plan to visit, the money exchange rate, a budget, location of cities to visit along their travel route through their country, useful phrases to know in that language, cultural behaviors appropriate to that country, items they might expect to find on menus.

They might also create a menu, a travelogue, cook a meal, or prepare a 'scrapbook' with pictures from the Internet and descriptions of their responses to 'visits' they made to these places.

If standardized testing is of critical importance, each unit can include a test using the form they will experience during state testing. However, letting them know that their grade will be calculated weighting equal or even greater percentage on the more authentic assessment will reduce test anxiety and show them that higher level thinking and reasoning is valued more than rote memory in the big picture, but that they must be prepared to be successful on all types of assessments.
Option 4: Written Response-Or Rather, The Pre-Writing
I almost didn't include this one because it's one teachers have used for eons-the short answer, the open-response, the essay, etc. These forms can also be guilty of assessing the students literacy skills and use of the writing process as much as they do mastery of standards.

But the writing process imposes a cognitive load on students few other assessment strategies and forms are able. It requires students to grasp a purpose and an audience, pre-write their ideas, craft a compelling argument that demonstrates a position, and then revise their writing for power and clarity.

That's a lot of steps for growing thinkers who can often get lost in the steps between the prompt and handing it in.

So for struggling writers-or even the 'distinguished' ones-grade the pre-writing. Accept concept-maps, diagrams, charts, and other forms of pre-writing as at least preliminary evidence of understanding. This part can even be done on an exit slip on the way out of class, and returned the new day with a green light ( go for it), yellow light ( with this change, you can proceed), or red light ( we need to talk) feedback systems.
Option 5: Student-Created Questions As Assessment
The kinds of questions students ask about a topic, standard, or idea can be more illuminating than a dozen traditional multiple-choice questions (and that's the point of assessment strategies -to provide data to revise planned instruction, yes?)

So, take a topic-government for example. Which questions imply understanding, and which do not?

What is government? (Nope.)

What kind of government do we have? (Buzz. Try again.)

Why do we need government? (better, but need more here.)

What are the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of government? (Now we're talking.)

Historically, what government forms are the most enduring, and why? (A good one too.)

Given current cultural trends, what kind of governments might be expect to see 200 hundred years from now. (Eureka! Understanding!)
5 Out-Of-The Box Assessment Strategies Every Teacher Should Know; image attribution flickr user vancouverfilmschool

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5 Out-Of-The-Box Assessment Strategies Every Teacher Should Know

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5 Out-Of-The Box Assessment Strategies Every Teacher Should Know by Judy Willis M.D., M.Ed., radteach.com & Terry Heick Most teachers and current textbooks offer varied approaches to the material to be learned so the teaching can be brain-compatible with the varied student learning styles.

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34 Strategies For The Stages Of Assessment: Before, During & After
by TeachThought Staff
For professional development on assessment, today.
The follow graphic from the infographic-famous Mia MacMeekin offers 34 strategies for each stage of the assessment process-before, during, and after. Rather than simply repeat them from the graphic, we've give a quick primer on the differences between each stage in terms of its purpose/function in the learning process.

Take to the comments with any strategies you find useful in your classroom, and give Mia a follow on twitter and say hello!
See Also: Bloom's Taxonomy (New Edition) Digital Planning Verbs & Cards Before/Pre-Assessment
Our take: The purpose of pre-assessment is to provide data to revise planned instruction.
During
Our take: The purpose of assessment during instruction is to begin to measure progress from the pre-assessment, as well as clarifying individual gaps in understanding to further refine instruction.
After/Post-Assessment
Our take: Sometimes compared to an "autopsy,' we think of the purpose of post-assessment as a way to measure progress from the the first two assessments, as well as a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the planned learning sequence on the student. While the this assessment is often called "summative," the most important question any assessment should answer is, "What now?"
34 Strategies For The Stages Of Assessment

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34 Strategies For The Stages Of Assessment: Before, During & After -

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34 Strategies For The Stages Of Assessment: Before, During & After by TeachThought Staff For professional development on assessment, contact us today. The follow graphic from the infographic-famous Mia MacMeekin offers 34 strategies for each stage of the assessment process-before, during, and after.

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A site for those interested in improving the educational assessment experience at all levels.

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27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding
Checking for understanding is the foundation of teaching.

Whether you're using formative assessment for data to personalize learning within a unit, or more summative data to refine a curriculum map, the ability to quickly and easily check for understanding is a critical part of what you do. (Which was the idea behind 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds Or Less.)

The following infographic Mia MacMeekin offers up 27 additional ways to check for understanding. Some aren't necessarily quick-"Test what you learned in a new situation"-but there are a dozen or more other ideas that are worth adding to your teacher toolbox, many of which aren't content-related, but rather cognitively-related (Locate 3 people who agree with your point of view.)
27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding Image attribution flickr user deepcwind and miamacmeekin; 27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding

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27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding

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27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding Checking for understanding is the foundation of teaching. Whether you're using formative assessment for data to personalize learning within a unit, or more summative data to refine a curriculum map, the ability to quickly and easily check for understanding is a critical part of what you do.

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by Terry Heick

The above is the latest draft of our self-directed learning framework, version 1.1.

It is based, in spirit, on our Inside-Out School: A 21st Century Learning Model. It is intended to function as a guide for students-likely with the support and facilitation of teachers, parents, and mentors-to help students become expert learners.

The goal of the model isn't content knowledge (though it should produce that), but rather something closer to wisdom-learning how to learn, understanding what's worth understanding, and perhaps most importantly, analyzing the purpose of learning (e.g., personal and social change). It also encourages the student to examine the relationship between study and work-an authentic "need to know" with important abstractions like citizenship and legacy.

It is therefore built around the central concept of self-knowledge-better understanding one's self, and using work and study to inform one's interactions with the world. It sounds very hippie, we know, but that's part of the reason it exists-to offer an alternative to standards and content-focused and institutionally-centered "delivery" of information.

Application: Teachers and learners in grades 6-12+
The Context Of This Model
The theory here is that the 21st century is characterized by access, networks, digital media, and connectivity, which immediately dates old learning models and focuses.

In a progressive learning environment, students should constantly be generating original ideas from multiple sources of information-and be doing so guided by teachers, mentors and communities, all in pursuit of self-knowledge and self-created meaning and creativity.
Coming Updates
We'll be creating an updated version soon as we put this version into practice with students. (Update: we still need to do this!) Collaboration, creativity, and existing exemplar models probably deserve a role. As does some kind of support to help students see things critically (critical thinking).

We'll also take a look at making the font bigger, and maybe expanding this to two pages and offering it as a pdf for download. And add some color to make it easier to grasp at first glance.

TeachThought Self-Directed Learning Framework Draft 1.1
1. Begin With Self-Knowledge
What's worth understanding?

What problems or opportunities are within my reach?

What important problems & solutions have others before me created?

What legacies am I a part of & what does that suggest that I understand?
2. Analyze Context
What is the modern and historical context of this topic, issue, etc.?

What do I need to understand about this issue to grasp its significance and scale?

How do pathos/ethos/logos factor? What patterns are apparent?

What do experts & non-experts know/believe they know about it?
3. Activate Existing Knowledge
Roughly brainstorm what you already know: Make true/false statements; give examples & non-examples, or otherwise organize your existing knowledge in some useful or elegant way

Concept map your knowledge in a given context

Interact with relevant media, resources, & networks

Analyze for both the obvious & the nuance; the implicit and explicit
4. Design Learning Pathway
How can I learn what I need to know?

Of what I need to know, what can I gain quickly, & what will require more in-depth study?

What technology resources can offer me access to relevant content, resources, & communities?

What learning forms or models makes the most sense for me to use?
5. Clarify Knowledge
Analyze need for creativity, innovation, & information

Form new questions based on learning

Establish what is or isn't within your present reach of understanding

Revise future learning pathway based on your learning experience, and/or the interaction with mentors & community members
6. Apply Understanding
What are my standards for quality?

What scale does it make the most sense for me to work & study?

What change in myself should I expect as a result of my work & study?

What related actions do the citizenships of which I am a part suggest or demand?
A Self-Directed Learning Model For Critical Literacy

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A Self-Directed Learning Model For Critical Literacy

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by Terry Heick The above is the latest draft of our self-directed learning framework, version 1.1. It is based, in spirit, on our Inside-Out School: A 21st Century Learning Model . It is intended to function as a guide for students-likely with the support and facilitation of teachers, parents, and mentors-to help students become expert learners.

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Our Online Learners Need More Empathy and Less Criticism

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Our Online Learners Need More Empathy and Less Criticism

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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I love teaching online. I love the challenge of moving a student from, "I am really nervous about this class!" to "Thank you for your support this semester-I made it!" I love thinking of novel ways to connect with my virtual learners and make them feel cared for and part of a community, even though we will most likely never meet face-to-face. I love being active in removing their roadblocks to achievement.

I also love helping a struggling student make it successfully to the end of a term, like someone coming alongside a marathoner, putting their arm around them, and helping them cross the finish line in a moment of exhaustion or despair.

I admit, though, the online environment can lend itself more often to criticism than to empathy.

If you have ever taught in a residential classroom, bearing the hurts of a student is not terribly difficult when you see the look of anguish on their face and hear the heaviness in their voice over a real-life situation. And when they come to you with a request, it is easier to come alongside them and assist.

But online? The only sign that something may be wrong is that a student does not submit an assignment that week, or they may have been absent from a discussion post. What you may not know is that this student works full-time. They have been mandated to work 60-hour weeks at their job due to COVID and being an essential worker. Perhaps they are caring for an aging parent or have a spouse who has lost their job. Or they may be struggling through the slow process of a dying grandparent. Our students are living in stressful days.

If we are not careful, it is easy to think critical thoughts about our online adult learners when they are not performing well. It is easy to dismiss them and their credibility, thinking the solution is simply to be more disciplined in their work or be more organized in their schedule. I can reach out with a cursory, "I am sorry. Your work is late. There is a 20% penalty to your grade," and never ask what is going on in their life. I quickly read over their email asking for help, never noticing the timestamp at 4:00 a.m. because they just got back from an overnight work shift. In hearing enough excuses of, "My dog ate my homework," it is not too difficult to become calloused to the pain that seems virtual to us-out of sight, out of mind.

It is inevitable that I will have students who probably should not be taking a class due to poor life habits. But I would say from experience that most of my online students genuinely want to succeed and are willing to put in the effort.

Has life ever unexpectedly gotten in the way of your plans? It does for our adult learners as well. A tornado passes through their town; COVID has struck their family; a hurricane has forced them to evacuate. It is likely that none of these circumstances were on the horizon when they enrolled in your class.

Our learners are not in need of our criticisms or quick judgments. They do not need our assumptions about the unknown details of their lives. They do not need our labeling of them as a certain type of student. What they desperately need and desire is our identifying with them in their circumstances. They need our empathy. We must feel the weight of their burdens as if they were our own; we must try to place ourselves amid their grief. We must listen, lament with them, and show the care, concern, and love that they might not be getting from anyone else.

Empathy is more than just a response. For empathy to have deep impact, there must first be a relationship of trust-that the student is important to us as their instructor (Fuller 2008). It is the realization that our course is more than mere content; rather it is a platform on which to model life skills that are woefully lacking in our society: empathy, pity, concern, and grace.

Empathy is not just a desire to help; it is a response of action.

John Hattie, in a meta-analysis of over 800 studies on student achievement, concluded that variables of empathy, warmth, and encouragement were all significant factors in impacting the performance of students ("Why Empathy Should Be in Your Virtual Classroom Management Toolbox." 2020). Yet in the busyness of a large class or our own lives, these can quickly go missing.

There is another piece of this narrative that we must understand: Our life is watched as much in an online classroom as it is in a residence classroom. Our virtual presence is either saying, "I want you to succeed in my class and I am committed to help you!" or our lack of presence is just another frustrating reminder to a student that no one wants to engage in their messy life. I certainly hold my students accountable for their work, but I realize that I must do it in context. I owe it to my students to read between the lines of their emails. I owe it to my students to ask questions of care and concern when I see trigger words that speak to grief, frustration, or sadness. I owe it to my students to teach them more than just what is in my syllabus.

I owe it to them to enter their story and see their circumstances through a lens not my own.
Antone M. Goyak, EdD, currently serves as an associate dean at Bob Jones University's School for Continuing, Online and Professional Education (SCOPE). He loves the online platform for teaching and learning and enjoys finding techniques that help facilitators build transformational community and presence with their students. References
Fuller, Richard D. "11 Practice Priorities to Promote Empathy in Online Classes." Eastern Illinois University | Official Website | EIU. Last modified February 2008. https://www.eiu.edu/adulted/docs/empathy_online.pdf.

"Why Empathy Should Be in Your Virtual Classroom Management Toolbox." Learning Management System | LMS | Schoology. Last modified April 21, 2020. https://www.schoology.com/blog/why-empathy-should-be-your-virtual-classroom-management-toolbox.

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Our Online Learners Need More Empathy and Less Criticism | Faculty Focus

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I love teaching online. I love the challenge of moving a student from, "I am really nervous about this class!" to "Thank you for your support this semester-I made it!" I love thinking of novel ways to connect with my virtual learners and make them feel cared for and part of a community, even though we will most likely never meet face-to-face.

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Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources

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Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources

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Sponsored by World101 and Listenwise

Disclaimer 1: This post was written in the Spring of 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak, so a lot of the information here is discussed through the lens of distance learning launched by a global pandemic. I have attempted to broaden the lens beyond our current situation to take other distance-learning situations into account.

Disclaimer 2: I recommend quite a few tech tools in this post. Before you proceed with them, please check with your district to make sure the tools comply with your specific use policies for age, privacy, etc.

If you've found yourself teaching in a distance-learning situation, especially if it's been foisted upon you by circumstance, you'll discover pretty quickly that distance learning offers different challenges from face-to-face instruction. And if you look online, you'll find tons of ideas and resources that can help you tackle those challenges, so much that it's easy to get paralyzed at the volume of it all. This is especially true if you're expected to hit the ground running with very little notice.

To help you, I'm going to take my best shot at sharing clear, carefully curated information on distance learning. We'll do this in four parts:

In Part 1 I'll address your head and your heart, the very real, valid emotional and psychological factors that may be preventing you from doing a decent job with online learning.

In Part 2 we'll get into the nuts and bolts of distance learning, options for content delivery, different ways students can demonstrate learning, and some of the tech that can make it all work.

In Part 3 I'll share some general tips and advice I've gathered from teachers in the field.

And in Part 4 we'll talk about troubleshooting, solving some of the more specific problems that come up often when we talk about online learning.

PART 1: START WITH YOUR HEAD AND YOUR HEART

None of the practical stuff is going to do any of us much good if we're in a distracted, panicked headspace and haven't tended to the ways our current situation has impacted our emotions. Here are three things you can do to get your head and heart in a better place.

Get Perspective

There will likely be times when the people in charge of you start to expect too much, or you expect too much of yourself. If you're in a situation like the one we happen to be in right now, in the spring of 2020, you may need to regularly step back from what's right in front of you and remember that we're dealing with life and death circumstances right now. None of this is normal, and there really is no precedent to follow. Most people are doing the best they can on any given day, and that means things will not go smoothly. And by "people," I mean everyone: students, parents, your colleagues, your administration, your family members, and you. YOU. Giving yourself plenty of grace is key at times like this.

If you need something to help you regain perspective and cut yourself some slack, read Carolyn Todd's editorial, Is Anyone Else Just Barely Functioning Right Now?

Now if you personally have a cool, level head at the moment, but someone else is pressuring you to do more, keep in mind that they are feeling their own unique pressure to perform, and they're passing that on to you. It may be an opportunity to validate their feelings, or it may be time to push back on expectations that are simply unreasonable.

Get Physical

When things start to feel like too much, start moving. Decades of research has pointed to the link between physical activity and brain function, but most of us don't need research to know that some of our best ideas come to us when we change things up and go for a walk, a run, or a bike ride. This is especially important during times when we are more likely to be cooped up in our homes, such as, say, a quarantine imposed by a global pandemic.

Get with Other People

One of the things that has really overwhelmed me in the process of putting this post together is knowing that everyone's situation is a little different and not having the tools to address each situation.

One way to alleviate this is to get in touch with others who are more familiar with your specific needs. Apart from collaborating with your colleagues, a great way to share ideas is to find and join online groups. Two I'm recommending here are on Facebook. If you're not on Facebook, I strongly suggest you set up an account just for the purpose of collaborating with others.

Dealing with Educational Inequities in Distance/Online Learning: This group was created "in response to the growing list of resources and practices during the COVID-19 shutdown that further increase the educational divide as it relates to accessibility; race; socio-economic status; gender; and other marginalized communities. We want to demonstrate real solutions in distance/online learning that can provide solutions for all learners."

PART 2: THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF ONLINE LEARNING

Online learning has so many components to it; each one could honestly get its own whole blog post. Since I can't go too in-depth all at once, I'll just do an overview of all the pieces and link out to a few resources that can help you learn more about each one.

1. CONNECTING AND COMMUNICATING WITH STUDENTS

It's essential that you have clear, consistent, accessible channels for communicating with your students. Different pathways for communication will need to be established. The first two are essential and asynchronous, meaning participants can access the conversation whenever it's convenient; they don't need to be present at the same time. The third pathway is optional and is usually synchronous, meaning participants must "attend" the conversation at the same time.

Must Have: Outgoing Communication asynchronous On this pathway, you give instructions, post announcements, and generally inform your students about what's going on and what's expected of them. Some teachers are creating daily or weekly videos for this purpose, while others are writing out instructions in places like Google Docs, and others are doubling up-pairing short videos with written instructions so students get the information through different modes.

It seems like one of the most important considerations with outgoing communication is that you keep it consistent: Pick one place to deliver and store outgoing messages and stick with that, so students know where to look, nothing gets lost in the mix, and no one gets overwhelmed with information overload.

Must Have: Incoming Communication asynchronous This pathway is for students and parents to reach out to you with questions, feedback, and updates on their ability to complete required work.

Nice to Have: Two-Way Communication
synchronous OR asynchronous On this pathway, you and your students can communicate back and forth in a more open dialogue, where you broadcast yourself live and students attend as participants in one-on-one, small-group, or whole-class sessions.

Video conferencing: For this pathway, many teachers are using video conferencing tools like Zoom, Google Hangouts Meet, and Microsoft Teams. These can be great for community-building and giving students a sense of connectedness with you and each other.

It's important to note that these platforms also have their pitfalls, one of which is that they may directly violate your school's privacy policies, so be sure to check with the people in your district who are in charge of compliance with those policies to make sure you're ok. This article from Edsurge does a good job of explaining the potential problems with video conferencing; it focuses specifically on Zoom, but the concepts would apply to any video conferencing tool.

This infographic, created by the Celina High School SWAT Team in Celina, TX, and their advisor, Tisha Poncio, offers tips for students when participating in video conferences:

Alternatives to Video Conferencing: If you've decided not to go the video conferencing route for now, you can still set up text-based discussions that can get students interacting:

Discussion boards: Many platforms, like Google Classroom, Blackboard, Edmodo, and Microsoft Teams, give you the option to set up ongoing, text-based discussions on individual topics. You can make these optional, open for students to ask questions on their work, or make participation a required part of students' grades.

Backchannel discussion: If you'd like something that feels more dynamic and "live," try a backchannel discussion, which can happen at a set time (synchronous) or stay open for a longer period of time to allow students to participate when it's convenient for them (asynchronous). You can open up a text-based chat room in YoTeach (which is very similar to the now-defunct TodaysMeet). If your students are 13 years or older, you could also set them up on Voxer, which allows them to use voice or text to carry on discussions.

2. KEEPING EVERYTHING ORGANIZED

Ideally, you and your colleagues will have chosen a single platform for storing and delivering assignments, collecting student work, posting announcements, and so on. Many schools are already set up on a learning management system (LMS) like Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard, or Edmodo. If you don't already have something in place, and you don't have time to learn a new platform, it's probably not a good idea to jump into anything new.

But creating a central hub should be a priority. What parents and students are saying most often is that it's incredibly stressful to have to keep up with multiple platforms and multiple streams of information, with some pieces coming through email, others through Remind, others through an LMS, and so on. With more than one child at home and more than one teacher per child, things can get out of hand very fast. It's perfectly fine to use different tools as part of your instruction-you might assign Quizlet flashcards, Edpuzzle lessons, Newsela articles-but for communication, keep things as streamlined as possible.

One simple approach taken by some schools is to maintain a single document (usually a Google Doc) for the whole school. In that document are links to individual documents for each teacher.

This type of document-which is just a really simple hyperdoc -creates a central hub where parents and students can start every single time, then click over to the places where they can find updated information for their classes. Even if you don't use this specific model, setting up something like it will make your whole school run more smoothly.

Individual teachers can then replicate this type of hub for their own classes, creating a central folder or file where students can find daily or weekly assignments and other communications.

3. LESSON DESIGN

Entire degree programs have been created to show teachers how to design lessons for online learning, and I wasn't able to delve into this enough for this post. What I did find are two resources that you might find helpful without getting another master's degree:

One principle that I've seen in several discussions of online learning is the idea that it works better when you give students some choices, choices in how they take information in and choices in how they demonstrate learning. The next two sections will share some possibilities for both of those.

4. OPTIONS FOR DELIVERING CONTENT

One of the main things you need to do when setting up online instruction is figuring out how students are actually going to take in the content. You have a few options, and it's a good idea to not just stick to one avenue, since you ideally want to give students multiple modes of intake.

Readings

Google Docs or Microsoft Word Files: As long as you remember to manage the security settings on these so they can't be edited, these kinds of files are perfectly fine to use as reading materials.

Regular PDFs: One advantage of using PDFs is that you generally don't have to worry about them being altered by the student, and things like fonts and other design elements will be preserved no matter what device a student is using.

PDFs with Annotation Tools: Several tools like Edji and Kami allow users to annotate PDFs, which would make a great close-reading assignment.

Websites: There's a ton of outstanding free content online that would make excellent reading material for class assignments. On CommonLit, Newsela, and Actively Learn, you can find good reading material for many grade levels and subject areas. NewseumED offers fantastic primary sources for history and social studies.

Websites with Customized, Added Layers: With any website at all, you can use Insert Learning to layer on your own instructional content, such as notes, discussion questions, quizzes, and other embedded content.

Videos

Video is a very popular way to deliver content online, because it has the potential to restore the voice and visuals that are lost when we move away from face-to-face instruction. Once you have a good video, you can share it directly with a link or use a tool like Edpuzzle or PlayPosit to build a complete lesson around that video.

You have two options for sourcing your content: use videos that were created by someone else, or create the videos yourself.

Created by Someone Else
Obviously, the internet is absolutely loaded with videos, and using them means you don't have to make them yourself. What's challenging is finding videos that (a) are appropriate for student viewing, and (b) accurately represent the content you want to deliver, in a way that's succinct and maybe even entertaining. Finding videos that meet these criteria can be really time-consuming if you don't know where to look.

To save time, it helps to go to sources that have already proven themselves as creators of high-quality educational videos.

Khan Academy offers a massive library of videos on math, science, and arts & humanities, including history and government, so that would be a great place to start.

Look for YouTube channels created by organizations that already have a strong reputation for good content, like National Geographic, the History Channel, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As with anything else, your colleagues are going to be one of your best sources for finding good stuff, so ask around at school, or find a group on Twitter that can recommend something for you.

Created by You The good thing about creating your own videos is that you have total control over the content. Probably the easiest way to create instructional videos is with screencasting software, which simply records whatever is on your screen while you narrate into a microphone. So you could, for example, create a PowerPoint-based lecture, then just deliver that lecture on your screen and use screencasting software to record it.

Here are two affordable, popular options for screencasting:

Screencastify
screencastify.com
This recorder is built right into Google Chrome, which makes it an incredibly convenient tool for creating on-the-spot screencasts. As of right now, the editing tools are still kind of rudimentary, which means you're not likely to end up with a very polished end product. Still, for many purposes, this tool gets the job done quickly and easily. Watch this video to learn how to use it.

Screencast-o-Matic
screencast-o-matic.com
This popular recorder is one that you download onto your computer, which is slightly less convenient than one that's built into a browser, but the editing features available with the paid plans might make it worth it for you. This video gives you an overview of how it works.

Static Slide Presentation

Slideshows that combine text with appealing visuals can be a nice alternative to text readings. They're also much quicker and easier to create than videos, and viewing them requires a lot less internet bandwidth.

These kinds of slideshows, which students would click through on their own, should ideally be designed with that independent experience in mind. Unlike a presentation that you give live, these would not be simply a support for a speaker; they'd need to stand completely alone, with all the necessary text on the slides, rather than in the speaker notes.

Rather than sharing these as a file, which would require you to adjust editing permissions and would likely result in the student looking at it in editing mode, you can share it in presentation mode so the slides take up the full screen and it feels more like an experience, like in this sample presentation. Learn how to set this up with a Google Slides presentation in the video below:

Audio

Content can also be delivered via audio, which can be a nice change of pace for students who are used to text or videos only, and because audio files are much smaller than video files, they're less likely to strain home internet capabilities.

Listenwise houses a fantastic library of curated, standards-aligned podcasts.

You can find lots of other podcasts on pretty much any topic imaginable. Here are some good ones that are produced specifically for student audiences.

Recording your own audio instructions, reflections, or lectures is simple and quick. You can use a voice recording app on a smartphone or a web-based tool like Online Voice Recorder to create MP3 files, which are just audio files, then upload those files right into whatever platform you're using to distribute information to students. In many cases, students will be able to play them right on that platform.

Interactive Learning Experiences

Some tools have come along in recent years that allow you to create interactive online learning modules, where students click through various instructional components, play games, take interactive quizzes, and so on. Although some activities may not justify the time it takes to put these interactives together, they can offer something different and more fun than the standard fare. You can find these on sites like GoConqr, Deck.Toys, BookWidgets, and Wizer. The one platform that seems to have the most robust collection of options is Genially. Take a look:

5. OPTIONS FOR DEMONSTRATING LEARNING

Just as there are many different ways to get the content into students' heads, you can also offer choices for how students demonstrate their learning. Probably the quickest, most traditional way to measure whether students learned the material is to give them some kind of test or quiz, but that may not be the best way to get students to experience the content in a deep way. Sticking only to tests also favors students who work well in that mode, rather than allowing other students to shine in areas they might be stronger in. Beyond all that, it's not much fun.

On Twitter, I asked teachers for some fresh ideas for "end products," and got tons of ideas back. Below I've listed some really good ones. Before you jump on these, be mindful that these end products still need to align with your instructional goals and are not what we call Grecian Urn assignments, creative-looking projects that don't ultimately have much instructional value.

Book: Students create a children's book, mini-textbook, handbook, comic, or other kind of book. These can be done on paper or created with apps like Book Creator.

Google Tour: Using Google Tour Builder, students can create customized tours that combine photos, text, and targeted locations on Google Earth. These could be used to create tours that explore current events, historical periods or phenomena, science or geography topics, global research topics, students' personal histories or future plans, or completely fictionalized stories that take place in various locations around the world.

Infographic: On paper or using a tool like Piktochart, have students create an infographic to represent or teach about an idea or set of data.

Lesson: Have students write their own lesson on a chunk of your content. Provide them with the basic structure of a lesson to follow, including objectives, direct instruction, guided practice, and some sort of assessment to measure their success.

Model: Students can create a physical model representing some aspect of your curriculum, then photograph it from various angles or create a video tour of the model with their own narration.

Museum or Multimedia Collection: Have students curate a collection of artifacts representing a curricular concept, along with their own written captions, in a Google Slides presentation. Two fantastic resources for gathering these artifacts are the Smithsonian Learning Lab and the Google Arts & Culture website.

Podcast: Have students use the recording tools mentioned in the "Audio" section above or an app like Anchor to record a podcast where they express an opinion, tell a story, or teach about a content-related topic. If students have a lot of material, they can break their podcast into multiple episodes and do a series instead.

Scavenger Hunt: Have students participate in a content-based scavenger hunt and take photos to record their findings. An app like GooseChase can make this even more fun.

Sketchnote: Have students create a sketchnote to represent a content-related topic using paper or with a drawing app like Sketchpad.

Video: Students can create their own videos as creative, informative, persuasive, or reflective pieces. These can be public service announcements, commercials, mini-documentaries, instructional videos, short feature films or animations, or TED-style talks. Tools for creating these can range from quick response platforms like Flipgrid, to screencasting tools listed in the previous section, a tool that creates stop motion videos like Stop Motion Studio, or simple online video creators like Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Website: Using tools like Weebly, Wix, or Google Sites, have students develop a website to document a long-term project or teach about a particular idea.

PART 3: GENERAL TIPS AND ADVICE FROM TEACHERS

Begin again.

If distance learning has been introduced suddenly, where it takes the place of face-to-face learning rather than being the standard from the start, treat the beginning of the shift the same way you'd treat the beginning of a school year, by establishing routines and protocols before digging deeply into content, and giving extra energy to rekindling culture and relationships on the new platform even if they were already established in the face-to-face setting.

Keep home responsibilities in mind.

When schools are closed district-wide, all children are out of school and under one roof. This means older kids may be shouldering some responsibility for caring for their younger siblings, and that could impact how well they are able to keep up with deadlines, log in for synchronous events, or respond to communication in a timely manner. Letting students know up front that you get this, and maintaining flexibility with deadlines, can go a long way toward keeping lines of communication open and avoiding misunderstandings.

Make social interaction a priority.

When we are kept apart from one another for whatever reason, our need for human interaction increases. So if you're teaching a distance learning course that was set up that way to begin with, it's important to build in structures to keep students interacting with each other and with you.

This principle is even more vital in situations where distance learning is coupled with large-scale social isolation.

Some of the tools and systems I mentioned earlier, like video conferencing and discussion boards, can meet this need; even your own outgoing video, audio, and written communication can be used for more "human connection" reasons. A good general rule to keep in mind is that you don't need to use 100% of your time for instructional purposes; allowing space for regular conversation, venting, and laughter can be incredibly important.

Keep messaging to a minimum.

I mentioned this earlier, but it's important so I'm repeating it. If kids and parents are receiving multiple messages from multiple teachers every day, and families have multiple kids, they can become overwhelmed really quickly, and things will start slipping through the cracks.

Try to limit the number of platforms you and your school are using for distributing information. Ideally, you'll have one clear channel for sending out announcements and messages, and those will be limited in number. Parents and students will have one place to look for all important information, and that "place" will be clean, simple, easy to navigate, and updated regularly so that all users can count on the information being current. The closer you can get to this ideal, the more smoothly things will go.

PART 4: TROUBLESHOOTING

Two specific problems tend to come up more often than any others when it comes to distance learning. Although neither one is completely solvable, here are some of the ways schools are addressing them:

1. Students Who Do Not Have Home Access to Tech

The whole notion of distance learning becomes a problem if some of your students don't have devices or reliable internet access. Here are some ways to address this problem:

Get more students connected. In a 2017 post, When Your School is Short on Tech, I showcased some ways that schools are getting unconnected families online, including information on how some schools partner with organizations like Kajeet to loan WiFi hotspots out to families. Although some of the solutions may not be relevant to a distance-learning situation, you may find some resources that can be helpful in your community, even if they can't be implemented right away.

Offer non-digital options. Some districts are working around the problem by offering paper resources for pick-up and drop-off. This is how we did distance learning in all the years before the internet, so it's certainly possible to do it again.

Use the phone. If you've tried other avenues and still can't get a hold of some families, a regular phone call might be your best option. If you want to keep your number private, you can set up a Google Voice account, which allows you to call, text, or message another phone without sharing your personal number, or use some of these phone settings to block your regular number. If you are reaching out to families that don't speak your language, try the free TalkingPoints app, which allows you to communicate with them in their language.

Use the mail. Although not ideal or cheap, it may be possible to mail materials back and forth (if you have office staff still going to school each day, they may be able to help with this). Even if instruction isn't possible this way, consider the impact it would make if you took ten minutes to mail a hand-written letter to an otherwise unconnected student, just to let them know you're thinking about them.

Consider home visits as a last resort. This isn't out of the question. And if you're deeply concerned about reaching students who can't be reached in any other way, it may be possible to just drive to their neighborhoods and, maintaining all precautionary measures and social distancing, check in with them. One visit might be all that's needed to at least establish a phone connection that you can maintain from that point on.

2. Meeting Special Education, RTI, and Language Learning Needs

So many of our students have individual needs that we have figured out how to meet in a school setting. When school moves to a distance-learning model, both teachers and parents are often at a loss for how to continue working with students with IEPs, those who receive RTI support, English learners, and other students who get one-on-one time with educators specifically trained to meet their needs.

Since this one is really far out of my wheelhouse, I reached out on Twitter for help. Really, your best bet is to read the replies to see what might work for you. You'll not only get some good ideas, you're likely to connect with people you can reach out to for even more good ideas.

Apart from that, I have a two more resources to share:

Microsoft has a growing suite of tools made specifically to make online learning more accessible for all learners. One or more of these may make it easier for you to meet more students' needs from a distance.

The TalkingPoints app enables teachers to communicate with parents in the parents' native language, and it even works if parents only have text-based phones.

As I neared completion on this post, I opened up my inbox and found five other resources that had been sent to me for possible inclusion in this post. Looking through them made me realize I had missed gobs and gobs of information here. I felt completely deflated and overwhelmed all over again, but then, as I have often had to do in the past couple of weeks, I took a deep breath, closed up the things that were distracting and upsetting me, and said to myself, "Today you have done enough."

I hope this has helped you in some way. If not, tomorrow is another day.

Come back for more.
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Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources for Teachers

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An overview of the nuts and bolts of distance learning, including general tips, advice on tech, and troubleshooting some common problems.

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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10 Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies for 2023

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Some teaching strategies have more impact on your students’ results than others. Discover this core list of 10 evidence-based teaching strat…

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BookWidgets - The perfect content creation tool for teachers in the classroom

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BookWidgets - The perfect content creation tool for teachers in the classroom

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by Terry Heick

What are the different types of questions? Turns out, it's pretty limitless.

I've always been interested in them-the way they can cause (or stop) thinking; the nature of inquiry and reason; the way they can facilitate and deepen a conversation; the way they can reveal understanding (or lack thereof); the stunning power of the right question at the right time.

There's a kind of humility to questions. Someone who doesn't know asks someone who might. Or even someone who does know (rhetorically) asks someone who doesn't to produce an effect (rhetorically). There's a relative intimacy between someone asking and answering questions, one that says, 'We need one another.'

It's from that kind of perspective that TeachThought was founded, so it was surprising to me when I realized recently that, after years of writing about questions and questions stems and the power of questions and so on, I hadn't ever written about the types of questions.

After doing some research, I realized that identifying clearly what the 'types of questions' are isn't easy because there isn't a set number. Much like when I wrote about types of transfer of learning or types of blended learning, it was clear that although I kept seeing the same categories and question types, there really wasn't a limit. When I asked myself, 'What are the different kinds of questions?' I was asking the wrong question.

A slight adjustment: What are some of the most common types of questions? What are the categories of questions? What are the most common forms of questions? This led to many dozens of answers. There are dozens of types of questions and categories of questions and forms of questions and on and on and on. An entire book could be written about the topic (if not a series of books).

But we have to start somewhere, so below I've started that kind of process with a collection of types of questions for teaching critical thinking-a collection that really needs better organizing and clearer formatting. Hopefully I can get to that soon.

Let's start out with some simple ones.

Common Types Of Assessment Questions

Multiple-choice/Single: A question with multiple available answers for the responder to choose from but only one correct solution

Multiple-Choice/Multiple: A question with multiple available answers for the responder to choose from and more than one correct solution

See The Problem With Multiple-Choice Questions

True-or-false: A statement that the responder must decide is 'true' or 'false'

Fill in the blank: A statement with a key piece of information missing that the responder must add to make the statement complete and true

Matching: Most commonly, Matching Questions have two columns and each column has items categorized by a clear rule that must be matched to items on the opposing column. For example, the column on the left can have words and the column on the right can have definitions. Other possibilities:

Left Column/Right Column: Inventors/Inventions; Forms of Government/Strengths and Weaknesses, Geometric Shape/Formula to calculate area; etc.

A variation of the Matching Question has one column holding more items than the other. This generally makes the question more complex-or at least more difficult-as the responder can't be sure all items are used and must be more selective. Deductive reasoning (process of elimination, for example) is less accessible to the responder.

Short-Answer: This is less close-ended than the above common assessment questions types. In a short answer, the responder must answer the prompt without the benefit of any additional information or possible answers.

Analogies: These aren't exactly a type of 'question' but analogies excellent assessment tools and can be used in many of the other forms of questions-multiple-choice for example.

Pig : Mud :: Bird: _____ (simple)

Pig: Mud :: Mitochondria: ___ (less simple)

What Are The Different Categories Of Questions?

This one isn't simple or standardized either. There are simply too many different ways to think about inquiry.

You could, for example, use every level of Bloom's Taxonomy and say that there are 'Evaluation-level questions' and 'Analyze-level' questions and 'Remember' and so on. A lot of this comes down to function: as a teacher, what are you wanting the question to 'do'? With that in mind, let's look at just a few examples (this is by no means an exhaustive list).

The Definition of Factual Questions: Questions with unambiguous, more or less universally accepted objective answers based on knowledge.

The Definition of Interpretive Questions: Questions meant to interpret something else -a comment, work of art, speech, poem, etc. The emphasis here is on the thinking process and will often result in an improved understanding of that 'other' (rather than demonstrating knowledge as is the case in a Factual Question. Responses to Interpretive Questions should be evidence-based but are inherently subjective, open-ended, and ongoing.

The Definition of Evaluative Questions: Questions that emphasize one's personal opinion-of the value of a law or the strength of an author's thematic development, for example.

Analytical Questioning and Didactic Questioning are common forms of questioning and inquiry whose role is simple and whose patterns are clear and plain enough to see and follow.

The Definition Of Analytical Questions: Questions meant to understand-to identify the 'parts' and understand how those parts work together and depend on and affect one another. Analytical Questions depend on other higher-level thinking skills like classifying, attributing, and organizing by rules or other phenomena.

An example of an Analytical Question might be to ask a student about character motivation in a novel or how science drives technology-"What is the protagonist's motivation in the story and how do we know?" or 'Why was this event important?'.

The Definition Of Didactic Questions: Structured, formal questions commonly about facts and knowledge at the recall and comprehension level, including remembering, describing, explaining, naming, identifying, etc.

Examples Of Didactic Questions: 'Who, what, where and when' can be examples of Didactic Questions while 'Why' tends more toward an Analytic Questions (see below).

Sidenote: Questioning And The Socrative Method

The Socrative Method is among the most well-known version of the Didactic approach, where students are (or can be, depending on how the seminar is structured) guided by 'more knowledge others' (MKO) personalized and extended reflection through inquiry. This, of course, can result in the thinker shedding their own dogma and reaching enlightenment.

It's not very scalable in a classroom with one teacher and 34 students, which is where the Socrative Seminar comes in-a 'built-for-the-classroom structure to bring learning-through-questioning' into traditional educational spaces. This Socrative Seminar (or 'Method') is a formal approach to inquiry-based conversation where open-ended questions are used to facilitate discussion by students who respond to prompting from the teacher or comments and questions from other students. It's not exactly a 'type of question' but is a format to use questions to promote understanding in a classroom.

This method is dialectical and dialogic, depending on the ability of students and teachers to be able to verbalize often complex and abstract thinking. A 'good' question in a Socrative Seminar would be much different than a 'good' question on a criterion-referenced assessment. What is a 'good question'?

The quality of a question, then, is highly contextual-and to answer it with any clarity, you have to be able to answer: For that student in that situation at that time, what did that question do? What was the effect of that question?

See also 'The Relationship Between Quality And Effect.'

Types Of Questions For Teaching

Clarifying Question: A question meant to clarify something-either a question asked by the teacher to clarify the answer a student gives or what the student thinks or a question asked by the student to the teacher to clarify something (a statement, a task, a question, etc.)

Probing Questions: A probing question does what it sounds like it might: Serves as an inquiry tool to explore a topic or a student's thinking and existing understanding of a topic. Probing questions also have different forms, including Emphasizing, Clarifying, Redirecting, Evaluative, Prompting, and Critical Analysis.

Thinking Over Time Questions: Questions that reflect on an idea, topic, or even question over time. This can emphasize change over time and lead to cause/effect discussions about the changes. This can also focus on metacognition-one's thinking over time and how it has changed, etc.

Extending Questions: Questions meant to continue to lead a discussion, assessment, or 'learning event,' often after a 'successful' event immediately prior. For example, if a student is asked a question about adding fractions and they answer successfully, the teacher can ask an 'Extending Question' about adding mixed numbers or decimals.

Deepening Questions: Similar to Extending Questions, a Deepening Question increases in complexity rather simply extending what's been learned. In the scenario above, after answering the question about adding fractions, a teacher could ask how exponents or the order of operations might affect adding fractions.

Transfer Questions: Questions meant to 'laterally' extend an idea without necessarily becoming more complex. If discussing the orbit of Saturn, you could ask an 'Extending Question' meant to take knowledge gleaned from that discussion and apply it

Contextualizing Questions: Questions meant to clarify the context of a topic/question/answer rather than to elicit an 'answer.'

Perspective-Based Questions: Questions focused on the effect perspectives have on answers and/or 'truth.' Perspective Questions can also be asked from specific points-of-view-a student could answer a question about government from the perspective of a modern citizen, citizen of an ancient culture, famous historical figure, specific political party, etc.

Concrete Questions: Usually a 'close-ended' question, Concrete Questions ask students to provide 'concrete' answers-names, quantities, formulas, facts, characteristics, etc. See the following item for an example.

Metaphorical & Abstract Questions: The opposite of Concrete Questions, Abstract Questions intended to draw attention to or more closely understand abstract ideas or the abstraction in non-abstract ideas.

These can also be thought of as Thematic or Conceptual Questions. For example, asking a student to identify the three branches of the US government would be a 'Concrete Question' while asking them to describe, from their perspective, the virtues of democracy or how 'freedom' affects citizenship are examples of Perspective-Based Abstract Questions.

Compare & Contrast Questions: Questions that-you guessed it-ask students to identify the way two or more 'things' (concrete or abstract, for example) are the same and different.

Claim/Critique & Defend Questions: Questions (or prompts) that ask students to make a claim or issue a 'criticism' (e.g., of an argument), then defend that claim or criticism with concrete evidence.

Cause & Effect Questions: Another more or less self-explanatory category, Cause & Effect Questions require students to separate cause from effect or focus on mostly causes or mostly effects. These can be Concrete or Abstract, or Perspective-Based as well.

Open-Ended Questions: Often subjective questions meant to promote conversation, inquiry, etc. Open/Open-ended questions are central to Socrative Dialogue (though closed/yes or no questions can be just as effective at times because questioning is an art).

Closed Questions: Questions with yes or no answers generally used to check for understanding, emphasize an idea, or uncover information

Leading Questions: Questions meant to 'lead' the thinking of the responder in a specific direction for an intellectual or psychological effect

Loaded Questions: Questions embedded with an underlying assumption-one that might contain faulty reasoning, bias, etc. This question is characterized by those faulty or otherwise distracting assumptions rather than the assessment or answer.

Dichotomous Question: A type of Closed Question with only two answers (generally Yes/No)

Display Questions (Known Information Question): A way to check for understanding; a type of question that requires the answerer to 'perform' or demonstrate their understanding by answering a question the questioner already knows the answer to.

Then there are Referential Questions: An inherently subjective question, Referential Questions produce new information and can be either open or closed-ended questions.

An Example of a Referential Question: Which character in Macbeth would be most likely to be a successful YouTuber (or 'streamer') today?

Rhetorical Questions: A question asked to create some form of effect rather than produce an answer. These are useful in discussions but can also be used in writing as well. After all, who is going to answer a question posed by an author in an essay?

Epistemic Questions: Questions about the nature of knowledge and understanding. This is more of a content-based category rather than a universal 'type of question,' though asking students about the nature of knowledge in math or science-how we form it, how we know if it's accurate, the value of that knowledge, etc.-can be used in most content areas.

Divergent Questions: According to Wikipedia, a divergent question is a "question with no specific answer, but rather exercises one's ability to think broadly about a certain topic."

Inductive Questions: Questions meant to cause or induce the responder to form general principles theories based on observation, evidence, or data. In inductive reasoning, the conclusion or argument becomes more general than the premises that prompted it.

Deductive Questions: Questions meant to support the responder in forming a the given theory based on continued testing. In deductive reasoning, the conclusions drawn are less general (i.e., more specific) than the premises given and in a valid deductive line of reasoning, the conclusion must be true if the premises are true.

5 Ws Questions: Wonderfully simple and devastatingly effective questions: Who, What, Where, Why, and When? And you can add 'How' to the list, too. These include Who, What, and Where questions? These can be useful in guided discussion, reflection prompts, the formation of essential questions, and more.

Examples Of Using '5 Ws Questions' For Critical Thinking

What's the point?

What's the big idea?

What's the purpose?

What is the process?

What's more important here? Less important?

What crucial information are we missing?

What did they think or believe and how did that belief change over time? What contributed to that change?

Why should I learn this?

What should I do with what I've learned?

What is the author, speaker, write, or artist 'saying' here? What are they underlying assumptions of that message?

What is the author's point of view? What do I believe and how does that affect what I think others believe-or how does it affect what I think about what they do believe?

What should I ask about this?

How can I improve the questions I or others have already asked?

Is the answer wrong or is the question 'wrong'?

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20 Types Of Questions For Teaching Critical Thinking |

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by Terry Heick What are the different types of questions? Turns out, it's pretty limitless. I've always been interested in them-the way they can cause (or stop) thinking; the nature of inquiry and reason; the way they can facilitate and deepen a conversation; the way they can reveal understanding (or lack thereof); the stunning power of the right question at the right time.

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11 Practice Priorities to Promote Empathy in Online Classes

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11 Practice Priorities to Promote Empathy in Online Classes

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Why Empathy Should be in Your Virtual Classroom Management Toolbox

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Why Empathy Should be in Your Virtual Classroom Management Toolbox

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They don't care how much you know...

...until they know how much you care. This phrase simply and accurately summarizes a great deal of what makes the educator-student-parent relationship successful. It's all about relationships. If anything, the overnight shift to distance learning amid COVID-19 has made this more, not less, apparent. Kids don't care about your advanced degrees, your expertise in solving quadratic equations, or your virtual classroom management skills. However, they will care about you-and each other-if you consistently demonstrate that you care about them. In a distance learning environment, it will pay off now more than ever.

Virtual classroom management, Real people, Real feelings

The paradigm of American education has undergone a massive shift in the blink of an eye. Brick and mortar institutions have been shuttered and stay-at-home orders are in place in most states. A return to some sense of normalcy could be months away. But despite the move to virtual classroom spaces, the interpersonal relationships are as real as ever.

We definitely don't have all the answers; in just the last few weeks I've spoken with families where students are struggling to maintain good mental health, where one or both parents have lost jobs, or situations in which the whole family has been admitted to the hospital. We are not only here to educate, but to listen relentlessly and provide some semblance of stability and hope for kids and families. It's a virtual classroom but the people are real. Sharing our feelings during a time of crisis and encouraging students to do the same can help us work better together. Focus on acknowledging and taking care of people first and your credibility with your students will never be higher.

Empathy builds a great virtual classroom culture.

Institutions of higher education have a lot of experience with blended hybrid learning and fully online classroom environments, and almost without exception they first promote an empathetic sense of environment online. In one example, Eastern Illinois University promotes virtual classroom management with 11 Practice Priorities to Promote Empathy in Online Courses, that includes the following tips:

Establish a relationship with students and provide tips for student success in an online environment at the beginning of the course. Personal introductions, a detailed syllabi with week by week class schedule, and providing multiple ways to easily contact the course instructor are all crucial to getting the classroom culture right.

Minimize synchronous chat in favor of purposefully-facilitated asynchronous discussion boards. Encourage the deeper thinking that is possible in an asynchronous format; don't just try to re-create the traditional classroom in an online format.

Establish trust and a consistent presence throughout the course. This involves everything from timely, respectful correspondence to active, but not overwhelming, participation on the discussion boards.

Check not only for learning, but deep understanding of course content, and do it regularly.

Following all of these best practices demonstrates that you will create and sustain an empathetic, supportive, caring classroom environment and culture that is set up for student success. Just like in a brick and mortar classroom, the culture is everything. Involve the students in the process of putting their hands into the wet cement of that culture and great things will happen.

An empathetic virtual classroom culture leads to engagement and achievement.

John Hattie, in Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Related to Achievement, demonstrated that one of the most powerful ways to impact student achievement is the teacher-student relationship. Specifically, the variables of empathy, warmth, and encouragement all saw significant effect sizes across a range of studies. When combined with other factors such as high-quality instruction and high expectations for students, student achievement improves tremendously.

So what does this look like in the virtual classroom? Again, get to know students and help them to know each other by having them "introduce" themselves virtually-and not just with words. Have them post a favorite family picture or talk about a hobby and engage them in the discussion. Encourage students to respond to one another. Check in with them regularly via e-mail or course message. Maintain virtual "office hours" and standing tutoring opportunities via video conference through your learning management system (LMS). When students know that you are available and actively listening, high attention and commitment to learning can follow. In other words, you will have set the stage for high student engagement in your virtual environment.

Empathy empowers students to apply their learning.

Empathy may be defined as "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another..." What better way to prepare students to apply what they have learned beyond the bits and bytes of the virtual classroom than to help them see the world from the point of view of others?

Empathy and social emotional learning (SEL) empowers students by helping them develop the skills needed to identify, analyze, and actively solve problems. For example, in a virtual history classroom, the instructor might have students argue a historical event from multiple viewpoints on a discussion board on the LMS-traditional/consensus, feminist, Marxist, etc. This is stimulating to the intellect and also helps give students the tools they will need to transform raw theory into practice. If a student is able to empathize with the women workers who were trapped in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, they are better equipped to understand and make an intelligent argument about the labor issues and policies of today.

As Peter Weiss' characterization of Jean-Paul Marat famously said in Marat/Sade, "The important thing is to pull yourself up by your own hair, to turn yourself inside out and see the whole world with fresh eyes." Even better to be able to see the whole world through the eyes of others. But these are skills that can and must be actively taught, through modeling by the teacher as well as learning activities that require students to empathize with the subjects of the learning, as well as each other.

Empathy - No Matter the Setting

"I think the teacher's role is to engage the student and find what makes the student interested in the subject. It's about finding passion..." That quote from a 2017 article in The Atlantic easily transposes to the virtual classroom environment, because it's still all about empathy and building relationships with students to empower them to find their passion in life. Now more than ever, students need adults in their lives who will listen to them and prioritize showing them how much they care over attempting to adhere to curriculum requirements.

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Why Empathy Should be in Your Virtual Classroom Management Toolbox

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until they know how much you care. This phrase simply and accurately summarizes a great deal of what makes the educator-student-parent relationship successful. It's all about relationships. If anything, the overnight shift to distance learning amid COVID-19 has made this more, not less, apparent.

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Tips for Fostering Students’ Self-Regulated Learning in Asynchronous Online Learning Environments

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Tips for Fostering Students’ Self-Regulated Learning in Asynchronous Online Learning Environments

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Tips for Fostering Students' Self-Regulated Learning in Asynchronous Online Learning Environments | Faculty Focus

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For students who lack self-regulated learning skills, asynchronous, online learning can be extremely challenging and overwhelming.

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While the professors wanted to respect student privacy, the lack of ambient feedback when the Zoom camera was off put a real damper on learning. "Instructors benefit from receiving nonverbal cues from their students such as smiles, frowns, head nods, looks of confusion, and looks of boredom, so that they can evaluate their teaching in real time and adjust accordingly to improve student learning," Castelli and Sarvary write-emphasizing the value that comes from being able to read students' faces.

Students, too, benefit from being able to see each other onscreen. In the study, a majority indicated that "using videoconferencing helped build trust and rapport with other students and helped them to develop a sense of identification with others in their group." The social context of living classrooms-the often-invisible human connection that reinforces learning-was missing for students, who insisted "that being able to hear and see each other in real time helped construct a 'more complete picture' of their peers."

If both sides of the educational equation were losing out, then a middle ground needed to be found, the professors thought-one that respects the rights of students but supports the social dynamics of learning, at least in some situations.

To refine their strategies around camera use, Castelli and Sarvary surveyed hundreds of students to identify their main privacy concerns. The students, it turns out, weren't staying off-camera for the anticipated reasons. Forty-one percent of students said they turned their cameras off because they were "concerned about [their] appearance": They had messy hair, were wearing pajamas, or hadn't yet showered, the study reported. Relatedly, 17 percent of students felt that everyone was watching them, creating a sensation of unbearable self-consciousness.

Equity-related issues also cropped up. Underrepresented minorities were twice as likely to be concerned about their homes being visible and were 12 percentage points more likely to cite a weak internet connection-perhaps a reflection of how the pandemic can exacerbate the digital divide.

QUICKLY ESTABLISH A NORM

Being proactive about cameras early on can be an easy first step to establishing the norm-more so than during the school year, if a camera-off culture has set in.

That's because virtual classrooms-and the expectations that follow-may be new to most students. In the study, one in 10 students didn't turn their camera on simply because they felt that was the norm. "If you don't explicitly ask for the cameras and explain why, that can lead to a social norm where the camera is always off," Castelli and Sarvary warn. It can quickly become "a spiral of everyone keeping it off, even though many students want it on."

To counter this, Castelli and Sarvary recommend including the camera policy in the class syllabus and explicitly encouraging camera use on the first day of class. A camera-on norm can also help address the main reason why students turned their cameras off: concerns about their personal appearance. If students anticipate being seen on camera, they'll be more likely to brush their hair and dress appropriately.

TEACHER-TESTED STRATEGIES TO ENCOURAGE CAMERA USE

Addressing norms doesn't mean that students will turn the camera on daily-you'll still need to make accommodations for students, and you'll need to encourage camera use contextually.

For Liz Byron Loya, a visual arts teacher in Boston, encouraging students to turn their cameras on has its roots in building a positive community, not in expecting compliance from students.

"Focus on trust, both teacher to student and student to student," writes Byron Loya. "Students who know they are safe and cared for by their community will be more comfortable having their cameras on."

Icebreakers and games-Pictionary and charades come to mind-can help ease students into turning their cameras on, especially if they feel that the focus is less on them and more on the activity.

Byron Loya also offers specific tips for encouraging students to turn their cameras on:

Survey students to identify barriers preventing them from participating.

Remind students that they can use a virtual background if they don't want to show what's happening behind them.

Encourage students who have social capital to use their cameras.

Enable the waiting room and greet students one by one as they enter your virtual class.

Use Zoom's "Ask to Start Video" feature to invite students to turn their cameras on.

For students who are reluctant about giving a live presentation, provide an option to submit a prerecorded video.

For students who request to keep their cameras off, high school teacher Katie Seltzer holds camera-optional Socratic seminars. "Students in the outer circle, who typically would be evaluating the participation of their peers in the inner circle, used the chat feature to echo powerful comments they heard and ask questions of the inner-circle group," writes Seltzer. There's no stigma associated with having their cameras turned off, since the activity allows them to fully participate in a way that mirrors the activity in traditional in-person classrooms.

Alex Shevrin Venet, a community college teacher and former school leader at an alternative high school in Vermont, believes that the key to encouraging students to turn their cameras on starts with the teacher. Model mistakes and try to be authentic, she suggests, and let students know that it's OK to be themselves on video.

"Don't worry about sounding rehearsed or making your space look Instagram-perfect," writes Venet. "Embrace the fun and silly moments when pets and family members make guest appearances. Create an environment where students recognize that turning cameras on means laughter, making silly faces at friends, and being seen for who they are."

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While the professors wanted to respect student privacy, the lack of ambient feedback when the Zoom camera was off put a real damper on learning.

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If you read the latest books and blogs on inclusive education, you've probably heard a lot about the potential benefits of universal design for learning (UDL). Stronger student engagement. Sharper executive function skills. Increased access to the general curriculum for all students.

The UDL framework holds such great promise-but with so many myths and misconceptions floating around, those three letters can seem a little mysterious. What is UDL, really? Is it just differentiation in disguise?

To answer these questions, let's check in with UDL expert Loui Lord Nelson, whose book is making a big splash in the world of inclusive education. In Design and Deliver , Nelson takes on 6 stubborn myths about UDL and debunks them one by one. Whether you're a newbie weighing the benefits of implementing UDL in your own classroom or a UDL devotee hoping the change the minds of skeptics, this post gives you the fast facts you need to move forward.

[INFOGRAPHIC: Grab and share the infographic version of these 6 mythbusters below this post!]

MYTH #1: UDL has no research behind it.

FACT: The UDL framework is solidly grounded in brain research and other empirical data. (To see the research behind UDL principles, guidelines, and checkpoints, explore the National UDL Center's archive of articles .)

Quantifying the positive effects of UDL is a little challenging: though UDL guidelines stay the same, implementation will look different from school to school based on each teacher's knowledge and available resources. But early UDL research has been promising. In two recent studies, Nelson points out, students performed better on standardized measures when they used resources designed with the UDL framework-and had teachers who used UDL guidelines to craft their lessons and design the classroom environment.

MYTH #2: UDL is another word for differentiation.

FACT: Differentiation is just one component of UDL. Nelson describes the difference this way: Differentiation is a strategy that helps you address each student's individual levels of readiness, interest, and learning profiles. UDL is an overarching approach that addresses the environment first, including the physical location and the lesson, unit, and/or curriculum. When you address the whole environment up front, you make sure all students have full access to everything in the classroom, regardless of their needs and abilities.

MYTH #3: UDL is only good to use when you have students with IEPs.

FACT: It's true that UDL grew out of accommodating the individual needs of students with disabilities. But because every student is a variable learner, UDL is a helpful framework to use in any classroom, especially one that includes students of all ability levels. When you design your lessons based on the UDL framework, you create an accessible learning environment where all of your students have the best chance to learn.

MYTH #4: If you purchase a UDL product, then you're doing UDL.

FACT: UDL isn't something you buy or "do"; it's a set of principles and guidelines to use as a decision-making framework. True UDL implementation begins with the learning environment first-creating a classroom and lesson plans that meet all students' needs. UDL-aligned products and strategies can be valuable tools, but they're just a part of your journey toward UDL implementation, not a one-stop solution.

MYTH #5: UDL is just good teaching.

FACT: A person implementing UDL might be described as a good teacher-that part is definitely true! But simplifying UDL as "good teaching" is misleading. Good teaching has no single, agreed-on definition, whereas UDL is a framework with clear principles, guidelines, and checkpoints. Teachers who work hard to include all children in their classrooms and remove barriers to learning are doing a lot of things right, but unless they're referencing the UDL framework to make decisions, they aren't implementing UDL.

MYTH #6: To make UDL work, you have to use technology.

FACT: Tech can be a great way to enhance lessons and engage students. But if your school doesn't have the funds for fancy technology, that doesn't mean UDL is out of your reach. "For centuries teachers have used the resources available to communicate ideas to students," Nelson says. "UDL helps teachers look at available resources and potentially identify new ways to use them."

Nelson suggests that teachers collaborate with peers to identify no-tech or low-tech options that support students' learning outcomes. (A good place to start is #udlchat on Twitter, a hashtag for sharing UDL tips and tricks. UDL experts also use the hashtag for a regularly scheduled professional development chat-check #udlchat for the date and time of the next one!)

What do you think? Have you heard any other stubborn UDL myths? What's the #1 misconception most people have about UDL? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

is an amazing UDL primer. Check out the reviews and sample a chapter .

Here's a neat infographic that sums up the key points in this post. Share it around and help spread the word about UDL (click twice to view at full size):

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6 UDL Myths (and the Facts Behind Them!) - Brookes Blog

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If you read the latest books and blogs on inclusive education, you've probably heard a lot about the potential benefits of universal design for learning (UDL). Stronger student engagement. Sharper executive function skills. Increased access to the general curriculum for all students. The UDL framework holds such great promise-but with so many myths and misconceptions [...]

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Under the Table - The Importance of Presuming Competence | Shelley Moore | TEDxLangleyED

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Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

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Outlines the principles that support academic integrity, expectations of conduct related to academic integrity, and sanctions for academic misconduct.

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https://padlet.com/alisonmceachern/csiyktqwe1kygjhf

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https://nscc.sharepoint.com/sites/TeachingCommons/SitePages/Faculty%20Advising.aspx

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As people in the United States, and here at home, take a knee and rally to protest anti-Black racism and police brutality, many are looking for additional ways to educate themselves on the issues at hand. Here is a list of resources - many free to Canadians - that can help.

Podcasts and Interviews

Podcasts and radio interviews are another great way to expand your horizons and spend time listening to Black voices. Here are a few suggestions on where to start:

Books

The Halifax Public Libraries has compiled an "Antiracist Reading List for All Ages". You'll be able to find many of these titles at your own local library or bookstore. Although many stores and libraries are closed due to COVID-19, it's still possible to borrow ebooks and audiobooks, or to purchase hard copies online.

If you're interested in reading more from Black Canadian authors, CBC Books shared these six recent works by Black Canadian authors.

If you're a parent, you might be looking for kid-friendly books that feature Black voices. Nova Scotian author Shauntay Grant's 2018 book Africville is beautifully illustrated and tells the story of the vibrant Black community in Halifax that was demolished by city officials in the 1960s. Last year, Grant took CBC Arts' Amanda Parris on a tour of the area.

Local TEDx Talks

TEDx events have been held across Atlantic Canada for several years. If you haven't had a chance to attend one in person, take the time to catch up now by watching a few talks on YouTube. Watching TEDx talks by local Black folks is an opportunity to learn about topics that are not only interesting, but are important to Black Canadians.

Educational Docs and Films

These documentaries and films highlight different Black experiences in Canada, and are free to stream on CBC Gem in Canada.

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As people in the United States, and here at home , take a knee and rally to protest anti-Black racism and police brutality, many are looking for additional ways to educate themselves on the issues at hand. Here is a list of resources - many free to Canadians - that can help.

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https://www.nscc.ca/services/index.asp

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It's a big decision to choose to become a college student. You have a goal in mind, a vision of your future, and we want to help you get there.

Whether you're coming to NSCC:

right out of high school,

having studied at college or university before, or

with some life experience under your belt

We know this is an important opportunity and that you have a lot on your plate. NSCC Student Services offers programs and one-on-one support throughout the year to help you learn how to get the most out of your experiences at NSCC and prepare for what comes next.

Services for students

Accessibility

Students with barriers to learning are encouraged to contact Student Services prior to starting classes so that their specific needs may be identified, faculty informed and accommodations considered. Campuses are wheelchair accessible with accessible telephones, photocopiers, and TTY phones.

Our Accessibility Services team provides services and supports to help students when a disability impacts their learning. The Learning Strategist at your campus can help you identify barriers, request academic accommodations, use assistive technology, arrange physical access, apply for funding, explore additional resources and practice self-advocacy skills.

Information/counselling/advising

The staff in Student Services is committed to working with you to ensure that your choice of academic program meets your needs and goals and that your experience at NSCC is a successful one. The following services are free and confidential.

Personal and academic counselling and support

Experienced staff members help you tackle personal and academic challenges

Peer tutoring can be coordinated through the Student Association and Student Services

Benefit packages, financial assistance, and help with finding accommodation

Help getting you started

Learn more about getting started at NSCC by attending an online information session

College 101 classes are available if you feel the need to brush up on some rusty skills or get information on stress and time management and balancing school and personal life

Email and online services

As a student, you have your own NSCC email account and personal mailbox and you can access personal and academic information using NSCC's online services

Career services

Career counsellors help you select the program that best fits your interests and discuss future employment

Sign up on careeringear.nscc.ca and explore occupations and NSCC programs through a series of fun, interactive games and videos

Sessions are available on resume writing, interview skills, and networking

Job posting boards are at each campus and on our website for the exclusive use by NSCC students and employer partners

Embracing diversity

Student life

As a student at NSCC, you automatically become a member of an amazing organization - your Student Association (SA). The SA organizes fun social events like the annual winter carnival, campus newsletters, and holiday parties and also encourages giving back to community and local charitable causes. It's a great way to meet new and interesting people...so, get involved!

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It's a big decision to choose to become a college student. You have a goal in mind, a vision of your future, and we want to help you get there.

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AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic brainstorm tool for online brainstorming, real time audience participation and classroom feedback.

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why media matters

Key facets of identity - like gender, social class, age, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, religion, and disability - play prominent roles in the media we consume and create, determining how we see, understand, and experience the world and those we encounter in it.
Learn More

praise for critical media project

"

The Critical Media Project gave me an opportunity to really be able to think. The project helped me remember my past and analyze myself. By being able to think I was able to rediscover what it was that I was fighting for, what it was that motivated me. What I found most valuable about this project was that I was able to present in class and let out all the things, my life story, the hardships, and my motivation, that I had bottled up inside.

Luis Hernandez Batres
Student, Canoga Park High School

More Testimonials
Keep Critical Media Project Going!

Demand for Critical Media Project services outpaces current resources. With new funding CMP could expand our outreach, grow our resources and content, develop training modules for teachers, and assess our impact and value. Please consider donating today! And thank you!

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Key facets of identity -- like gender, social class, age, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, religion, and disability -- play prominent roles in the media we consume and create, determining how we see, understand, and experience the world and those we encounter in it.

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Intercultural Development Inventory | IDI, LLC

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A Denial mindset reflects a more limited capability for understanding and appropriately responding to cultural differences in values, beliefs, perceptions, emotional responses, and behaviors. Denial consists of a Disinterest in other cultures and a more active Avoidance of cultural difference. Individuals with a Denial orientation often do not see differences in perceptions and behavior as "cultural." A Denial orientation is characteristic of individuals who have limited experience with other cultural groups and therefore tend to operate with broad stereotypes and generalizations about the cultural "other." Those at Denial may also maintain a distance from other cultural groups and express little interest in learning about the cultural values and practices of diverse communities. This orientation tends to be associated more with members of a dominant culture as well as members of non-dominant groups who are relatively isolated from mainstream society because both may have more opportunity to remain relatively isolated from cultural diversity. By contrast, members of non-dominant groups who are more actively engaged within the larger, mainstream society are less likely to maintain a Denial orientation, because they more often need to engage cultural differences. When Denial is present in the workplace, cultural diversity oftentimes feels "ignored."

Polarization

Polarization is an evaluative mindset that views cultural differences from an "us versus them" perspective. Polarization can take the form of Defense ("My cultural practices are superior to other cultural practices") or Reversal ("Other cultures are better than mine"). Within Defense, cultural differences are often seen as divisive and threatening to one's own "way of doing things." Reversal is a mindset that values and may idealize other cultural practices while denigrating one's own culture group. Reversal may also support the "cause" of an oppressed group, but this is done with little knowledge of what the "cause" means to people from the oppressed community. When Polarization is present in an organization, diversity typically feels "uncomfortable."

Minimization

Minimization is a transitional mindset between the more Monocultural orientations of Denial and Polarization and the more Intercultural/Global worldviews of Acceptance and Adaptation. Minimization highlights commonalities in both human Similarity (basic needs) and Universalism (universal values and principles) that can mask a deeper understanding of cultural differences. Minimization can take one of two forms: (a) the highlighting of commonalities due to limited cultural self-understanding, which is more commonly experienced by dominant group members within a cultural community; or (b) the highlighting of commonalities as a strategy for navigating the values and practices largely determined by the dominant culture group, which is more often experienced by non-dominant group members within a larger cultural community. This latter strategy can have survival value for non-dominant culture members and often takes the form of "go along to get along." When Minimization exists in organizations, diversity often feels "not heard."

Acceptance

Acceptance and Adaptation are intercultural/global mindsets. With an Acceptance orientation, individuals recognize and appreciate patterns of cultural difference and commonality in their own and other cultures. An Acceptance orientation is curious to learn how a cultural pattern of behavior makes sense within different cultural communities. This involves contrastive self-reflection between one's own culturally learned perceptions and behaviors and perceptions and practices of different cultural groups. While curious, individuals with an Acceptance mindset are not fully able to appropriately adapt to cultural difference. Someone with an Acceptance orientation may be challenged as well to make ethical or moral decisions across cultural groups. While a person within Acceptance embraces a deeper understanding of cultural differences, this can lead to the individual struggling with reconciling behavior in another cultural group that the person considers unethical or immoral from his or her own cultural viewpoint. When Acceptance is present in organizations and educational institutions, diversity feels "understood."

Adaptation

An Adaptation orientation consists of both Cognitive Frame-Shifting (shifting one's cultural perspective) and Behavioral Code-Shifting (changing behavior in authentic and culturally appropriate ways). Adaptation enables deep cultural bridging across diverse communities using an increased repertoire of cultural frameworks and practices in navigating cultural commonalities and differences. An Adaptation mindset sees adaptation in performance (behavior). While people with an Adaptation mindset typically focus on learning adaptive strategies, problems can arise when people with Adaptation mindsets express little tolerance toward people who engage diversity from other developmental orientations. This can result in people with Adaptive capabilities being marginalized in their workplace. When an Adaptation mindset is present in the workplace, diversity feels "valued and involved."

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The Intercultural Development Continuum (IDC™)

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A Denial mindset reflects a more limited capability for understanding and appropriately responding to cultural differences in values, beliefs, perceptions, emotional responses, and behaviors. Denial consists of a Disinterest in other cultures and a more active Avoidance of cultural difference. Individuals with a Denial orientation often do not see differences in perceptions and behavior as "cultural."

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CITING IMAGES

APA - Citing an Image from a Website

No creator named: Use the image title as the author

No image title: Try placing your cursor over the image. The image title or description (if available) will be displayed.

APA Style Template for Website References -- The Internet as an Egg

Yellow Yolk: Content in the yolk is covered by clearly defined APA citation examples. See the NSCC APA Guide, By Type page for examples.

Egg White: Content represented in this area are less traditional resources, like images found on websites. Creating a reference is actually simple if you follow the template below.

You need to find four pieces of information:

The APA Reference Formula

Author, A. (date). Title of document [Format description]. Retrieved from ... insert url address
APA Reference Example - The Egg Image on this page
APA Reference Example - Blog Post

Format
The format description in brackets is used only when the format is something out of the ordinary, and provides information about the type of resource being referenced.

More information about using APA is available on the NSCC APA Guide.

Adapted from Lee, C. (2010, November 18). How to cite something you found on a website in APA Style [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/11/how-to-cite-something-you-found-on-a-website-in-apa-style.html

Creative Commons (CC) - Citing a CC Licensed Image

Creative Commons licensed content (with the exception of CC0 licenses) requires an attribution that includes the license type, with links to the content and the license description when reproduced in electronic formats.

Include 4 elements in a CC credit:

The 4 elements written as a CC credit: Image Title by Author Name [Source] is licensed under CC License Type

Image Credit: Ella the Snow Dog by John Talbot [Flickr] is licensed under CC BY 2.0
For more information on Creative Commons go to the Creative Commons License section of OER guide.

NSCC Guidelines

Academic integrity is an important aspect of academic education. See NSCC Academic Integrity Policy

NSCC faculty and students are expected to include attribution for all copied works.

When your assignments include copied images, you must include references for the images.

Check with your instructor about whether a specific citation style is required.

Support for creating APA references is available from campus librarians.

Web-based support can be found here: NSCC APA Citation Style.

Credits vs References

A credit line under a visual is the equivalent of an in-text citation. It provides acknowledgment to the creator and provides enough information to point the reader to the full reference. The reference list is the complete list of all the sources you have used and cited in the creation of your document.

Creating Brochures for Assignments?

Use a small type size and place the references in their own separate section on the brochure.

A well created reference makes it easy for the reader (your instructor) to locate the source of the copied content.

If you purchased visual content under a license or are using your own photographs you don't need to include attribution, unless this is a requirement for your assignment.

Always check to make sure you have the 'right' to include the image -- consult your campus library staff if you have questions.

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Subject Guides: Copyright @ NSCC: Images

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No creator named: Use the image title as the author No image title: Try placing your cursor over the image. The image title or description (if available) will be displayed. Yellow Yolk: Content in the yolk is covered by clearly defined APA citation examples. See the NSCC APA Guide, By Type page for examples.

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Speak & Present Effectively

This chapter teaches you a quick, easy way to create effective presentations. You'll also learn how to use valid resources and avoid plagiarism.

There are lots of ways to structure a presentation, but we like this one best. It's clear, simple and fits most presentations.

Beginning

In this part of your presentation, you'll capture the audience's attention, tell them who you are, and give them a preview of your presentation.

Grabber/hook (Goes before or after the self-introduction) A very brief and interesting statement or question that grabs the audience's attention. See Grabber Types below for more details.

Self-introduction (Goes before or after the grabber) Tell the audience your name and credentials. For example: I'm Minh and I've been a professional presenter for 10 years.

Thesis The main point or argument of your presentation. Be brief and precise, not general or vague. For example: I'm going to show you how practicing your presentation 10 times will improve your grade by 20%.

Overview of main points Briefly outline the main points that you'll cover in your presentation. To help your audience, do list these in same order that you'll deliver them later on. For example: First, we'll talk about what makes presentations great, then I'll share some data on how practice affects your confidence and performance, and finally we'll look at how to practice.

Body

In this part of your presentation, you'll deliver the detailed information of your presentation.

Key point 1 A major point that supports your thesis and may have supporting sub-points

Key point 2 Another major point that supports your thesis and may have supporting sub-points

Key point 3 The final major point that supports your thesis and may have supporting sub-points

Ending

In this part you'll remind the audience of what you told them, and tell them what to do next.

Summary of main points (Can be merged with your conclusion) Clearly restate your three main points in the same order you delivered them. It's the same as your overview but in past tense. First, I described what makes presentations great, then I shared data on how practice affects confidence and performance, and finally we looked at how to practice.

Conclusion Restate your thesis in past tense. For example: I'm showed you that practicing your presentation 10 times will improve your grade by 20%.

Call to action Give your audience clear, active and compelling direction, based on what you told them. For example: Practice your presentations ten times and start collecting those A-plusses!

Grabber types

Remember that the grabber's job is grabbing the audience's attention, so it must be surprising, fascinating or intriguing. It must also be related to your presentation's topic. Here are some descriptions and examples:

You can also mix and match grabbers. For example, you could show an image and ask the audience to guess what it is.

The length of your grabber is relative to your total presentation time. For a 2-minute presentation, it should be quite brief - maybe one sentence. For a 16-minute team presentation, a 45-60 second grabber would be appropriate.

Outline your presentation

The fastest way to create a successful presentation is to start with an outline.

Use an outline, not a script; this will allow you to be more natural and let you look at the audience or camera. Reading is a guaranteed way to make your presentation boring.

The easiest way to create your outline is to work in this order:

1. Determine your thesis and write this as a full sentence

2. Determine your 3 Main Points

3. Add key supporting points for each of your Main Points

4. Complete the other parts - introduction, grabber, call to action, etc.

Working in this order is fast because it's easier to create the conclusion and grabber when you've already decided on the content. Also, after you have the main structure it's easy to add details, examples and stories that make your presentation interesting and convincing.

Another benefit of outlining is that you can use the outline as your presentation notes.

Test your knowledge

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Speak & Present Effectively There are lots of ways to structure a presentation, but we like this one best. It's clear, simple and fits most presentations. In this part of your presentation, you'll capture the audience's attention, tell them who you are, and give them a preview of your presentation.

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Learn To Create Animated Flowchart In PowerPoint [Animation Tutorial #3]

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Learning Supports - Libraries and Learning Commons | NSCC

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learning supports, Research Help, Writing, EAL, English as an additional language, accessibility services, testing services, tutoring, technology supports

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After an abrupt transition to online learning during the spring of this year, it soon became clear that getting back to "normal" wouldn't be happening any time soon, and the seemingly temporary embrace of technology in higher education institutions needed to be replaced with a focus on intentionally designed online learning for the foreseeable future.

Though this shift has made it possible for learning to continue amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also presented a myriad of challenges for faculty and students alike. While educators adapted their pedagogies to the technologies at hand, students struggled with the more basic need of accessibility now that the campus computer labs and high-speed WiFi were no longer available. The challenge of keeping students engaged with their instructors as well as their peers has loomed large throughout the return to studies.

Combined, these challenges have prompted institutions to reexamine the term "student success" and what it means to deliver on the expectations of students. And as our wait for a return to normal has turned into acceptance of our new normal, it's clear that learning will remain virtual for the foreseeable future.

In an effort to address these high stakes in higher education, Instructure conducted a global benchmark study with Hanover Research, The State of Student Success and Engagement, in which 7,070 educators and students in 13 countries were surveyed to identify how they define student success and what they consider to be driving factors of engagement.

Of all the results, the following statistics made it clear: The COVID-19 pandemic has presented institutional leaders with a catalyst for change.

85% of students said that COVID-19 was most impacting their ability to succeed.

71% of respondents said it has impacted student academic progress.

70% of faculty said more students are falling behind on their studies than ever before.

With the expectation that courses will remain online indefinitely, it's critical for higher education institutions to better understand what students believe they need to be successful and engaged. As I continue to connect with educators and institutional leaders in our Canvas Community, I am amazed at the resilience and creativity they've displayed as they evolve to meet these challenges. Below are a few of the ways institutions are adapting to focus on a more holistic approach to student development.

Aligning Course Objectives to Future Careers

Beyond the disruptions in education, the workforce has also experienced a great deal of change, and students want to know that what they're learning in their courses is directly preparing them for their next step. A key finding from our study supports this notion, citing career readiness as the number one priority for students.

"If you had asked me pre-COVID what student success would look like, I would have had a laundry list-here's our course objectives, here's our department objectives, here's the university objectives that we want to accomplish," explained Dr. Karen Freberg, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication at the University of Louisville, during a recent webinar I hosted.

"But with COVID, what I've realized [...] is that it's not only about knowing the material and understanding their field of study a little bit more. A lot of my students have been asking me how they can apply their learning and bring assignments to life."

This paradigm shift has presented institutions with the challenge of transferring hands-on learning experiences to an online format that is collaborative and rigorous enough to prepare students for real-world application.

In response to this, we are seeing many institutions using this challenge as an opportunity to connect with local organizations and community partners to provide educational opportunities that align with jobs.

Leading With Empathy in Online Course Design

As students strive to keep up with their courses, it's important to remember that like many of us, they are balancing multiple roles in their life while also addressing the impact of COVID-19. Now more than ever, educators need to think beyond the lecture and provide flexibility, enabling students to demonstrate mastery of skills in many different ways.

Sean Nufer, an educator at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and Canvas 2020 Educator of the Year winner, said it best in a recent live stream discussion. "We need to be listening to our students more than ever. We need to be patient with them and recognize that while there is more than one way to teach, there are also multiple ways to learn."

We see many educators leveraging technology to create a more immersive experience that allows students to discuss and collaborate virtually, rather than watching a one-way video lecture. We've also noticed institutions using audio and video tools to give personalized and targeted feedback to individual students, transforming the traditional grading process into another opportunity for connection.

Creating Opportunities for Faculty-Student Engagement

Amid the increasing use of technology today, both students and faculty continue to value the hands-on learning and collaboration that technology simply cannot replace. When asked what factors are considered to be the main drivers of student success, respondents named quality of faculty (88%), technology availability (86%), and hands-on instruction (86%), reinforcing that technology is best used when paired with interactive content and opportunities for connection beyond devices.

Sean Nufer also shared how he prioritizes connecting with students in a fully virtual learning environment: "The community that you have in a traditional classroom is not replicated online. We have to be purposeful in building those connections [...] and those connections are vital, because without that network, what are we? We're not just repositories of information. What brings education value are the connections we make that last beyond the three credits or 16 weeks."

It's becoming clear that the accelerated evolution forced on education will result in changes to instructional delivery that are here to stay. Connecting educators and learners with technology and helping those learners connect with careers is becoming key, not just to the success of students but to the success of colleges and universities themselves. Educators, technologists, instructional designers, and academic leaders alike will continue to come together to forge a pathway to the future, celebrating and supporting each other along the way. That's what is, and always will be, great about education.

We invite you to review the findings from our study to learn more about the newfound meaning of student success and how institutions can use these challenges as a catalyst for meaningful change.

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The Impact of COVID-19 on Student Success in Higher Education

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After an abrupt transition to online learning during the spring of this year, it soon became clear that getting back to "normal" wouldn't be happening any time soon, and the seemingly temporary embrace of technology in higher education institutions needed to be replaced with a focus on intentionally designed online learning for the foreseeable future.

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NSCC human rights, equity and inclusion policies

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NSCC human rights, equity and inclusion policies

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Join a global community working to strengthen the Commons

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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When it comes to learning, variability is the rule not the exception. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that guides the design of learning goals, materials, methods, and assessments as well as the policies surrounding these curricular elements with the diversity of learners in mind.

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When it comes to learning, variability is the rule not the exception. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that guides the design of learning goals, materials, methods, and assessments as well as the policies surrounding these curricular elements with the diversity of learners in mind.

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Learn about CAST’s Universal Design for Learning framework, fostering inclusive educational experiences and improving learning outcomes for all learners.

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Learn about CAST’s Universal Design for Learning framework, fostering inclusive educational experiences and improving learning outcomes for all learners.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool that can be used to design learning experiences that meet the needs of all learners. These Guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions for applying the UDL framework to practice and help ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities. Learn more about the research evidence used to develop the Guidelines.

Organization

The UDL Guidelines are organized both horizontally and vertically. Vertically, the Guidelines are organized according to the three principles of UDL: engagement, representation, and action and expression. The principles are broken down into Guidelines, and each of these Guidelines have corresponding "checkpoints" that provide more detailed suggestions.

The Guidelines are also organized horizontally. The "access" row includes the guidelines that suggest ways to increase access to the learning goal by recruiting interest and by offering options for perception and physical action.

The "build" row includes the guidelines that suggest ways to develop effort and persistence, language and symbols, and expression and communication.

Finally, the "internalize" row includes the guidelines that suggest ways to empower learners through self-regulation, comprehension, and executive function.

Taken together, the Guidelines lead to the ultimate goal of UDL: to develop "expert learners" who are, each in their own way, resourceful and knowledgeable, strategic and goal-directed, purposeful and motivated.

Applying to Practice

The UDL Guidelines are not meant to be a "prescription" but a set of suggestions that can be applied to reduce barriers and maximize learning opportunities for all learners. They can be mixed and matched according to specific learning goals and can be applied to particular content areas and contexts.

In many cases, educators find that they are already incorporating some aspects of these guidelines into their practice; however, barriers to the learning goal may still be present. We see the Guidelines as a tool to support the development of a shared language in the design of goals, assessments, methods, and materials that lead to accessible, meaningful, and challenging learning experiences for all.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool that can be used to design learning experiences that meet the needs of all learners. These Guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions for applying the UDL framework to practice and help ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

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An analysis of teaching standards in all 50 states to better understand whether states incorporate culturally responsive teaching.

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John Dewey (1933) said, “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

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John Dewey (1933) said, “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

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E.M. Forster wrote: “How can I tell what I think till I see what I say

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E.M. Forster wrote: “How can I tell what I think till I see what I say

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Getting started with Reflective Practice

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Getting started with Reflective Practice

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What is the research behind reflective practice?

Educational researchers have long promoted the importance of reflecting on practice to support student learning and staff development.

There are many different models of reflective practice. However, they all share the same basic aim: to get the best results from the learning, for both the teacher and students.
Each model of reflection aims to unpick learning to make links between the 'doing' and the 'thinking'.

Kolb's learning cycle
David Kolb, educational researcher, developed a four-stage reflective model. Kolb's Learning Cycle (1984) highlights reflective practice as a tool to gain conclusions and ideas from an experience. The aim is to take the learning into new experiences, completing the cycle. Kolb's cycle follows four stages.

First, practitioners have a concrete experience. This means experiencing something new for the first time in the classroom. The experience should be an active one, used to test out new ideas and teaching methods.
This is followed by...

Observation of the concrete experience, then reflecting on the experience. Here practitioners should consider the strengths of the experience and areas of development. Practitioners need to form an understanding of what helped students' learning and what hindered it.
This should lead to...

The formation of abstract concepts. The practitioner needs to make sense of what has happened. They should do this through making links between what they have done, what they already know and what they need to learn. The practitioner should draw on ideas from research and textbooks to help support development and understanding. They could also draw on support from other colleagues and their previous knowledge. Practitioners should modify their ideas or devise new approaches, based on what they have learnt from their observations and wider research.
The final stage of this cycle is when...

The practitioner considers how they are going to put what they have learnt into practice. The practitioner's abstract concepts are made concrete as they use these to test ideas in future situations, resulting in new experiences. The ideas from the observations and conceptualisations are made into active experimentation as they are implemented into future teaching. The cycle is then repeated on this new method.

Kolb's model aims to draw on the importance of using both our own everyday experiences and educational research to help us improve. It is not simply enough for you to reflect. This reflection must drive a change which is rooted in educational research.

Gibbs' reflective cycle

The theoretical approach of reflection as a cyclical model was further developed by Gibbs (1998). This model is based on a six-stage approach, leading from a description of the experience through to conclusions and considerations for future events. While most of the core principles are similar to Kolb's, Gibbs' model is broken down further to encourage the teacher to reflect on their own thoughts and feelings.

Gibbs' model is an effective tool to help you reflect after the experience, and is a useful model if you are new to reflection as it is broken down into clearly defined sections.

Description
In this section, the practitioner should clearly outline the experience. This needs to be a factual account of what happened in the classroom. It should not be analytical at this stage.

Feelings
This section encourages the practitioner to explore any thoughts or feelings they had at the time of the event. Here the practitioner should explain feelings and give examples which directly reference the teaching experience. It is important the practitioner is honest with how they feel, even if these feelings might be negative. Only once the feelings have been identified can the practitioner implement strategies to overcome these barriers.

Evaluation
The evaluation section gives the opportunity for the practitioner to discuss what went well and analyse practice. It is also important to consider areas needed for development and things that did not work out as initially planned. This evaluation should consider both the practitioner's learning and the students' learning.

Analysis
This section is where the practitioner makes sense of the experience. They consider what might have helped the learning or hindered it. It is in this stage that the practitioner refers to any relevant literature or research to help make sense of the experience. For example, if you felt the instructions you gave were not clear, you could consult educational research on how to communicate effectively.

Conclusion
At this stage, the practitioner draws all the ideas together. They should now understand what they need to improve on and have some ideas on how to do this based on their wider research.

Action plan
During this final stage, the practitioner sums up all previous elements of this cycle. They create a step-by-step plan for the new learning experience. The practitioner identifies what they will keep, what they will develop and what they will do differently. The action plan might also outline the next steps needed to overcome any barriers, for example enrolling on a course or observing another colleague.

In Gibbs' model the first three sections are concerned with what happened. The final three sections relate to making sense of the experience and how you, as the teacher, can improve on the situation.

'Reflection-in-action' and 'reflection-on-action'

Another approach to reflection is the work by Schön. Schön (1991) distinguishes between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action.

Reflection-in-action is reflection during the 'doing' stage (that is, reflecting on the incident while it can still benefit the learning). This is carried out during the lesson rather than reflecting on how you would do things differently in the future. This is an extremely efficient method of reflection as it allows you to react and change an event at the time it happens. For example, in the classroom you may be teaching a topic which you can see the students are not understanding. Your reflection-in-action allows you to understand why this has happened and how to respond to overcome this situation.

Reflection-in-action allows you to deal with surprising incidents that may happen in a learning environment. It allows you to be responsible and resourceful, drawing on your own knowledge and allowing you to apply it to new experiences. It also allows for personalised learning as, rather than using preconceived ideas about what you should do in a particular situation, you decide what works best at that time for that unique experience and student.

Reflection-on-action, on the other hand, involves reflecting on how practice can be developed after the lesson has been taught. Schön recognises the importance of reflecting back 'in order to discover how our knowing-in-action may have contributed to an unexpected outcome' (Schön, 1983).

Reflection-on-action means you reflect after the event on how your knowledge of previous teaching may have directed you to the experience you had.

Reflection-on-action should encourage ideas on what you need to change for the future. You carry out reflection-on-action outside the classroom, where you consider the situation again. This requires deeper thought, for example, as to why the students did not understand the topic. It encourages you to consider causes and options, which should be informed by a wider network of understanding from research.

By following any of the above models of reflection, you will have a questioning approach to teaching. You will consider why things are as they are, and how they could be. You will consider the strengths and areas of development in your own practice, questioning why learning experiences might be this way and considering how to develop them. As a result, what you do in the classroom will be carefully planned, informed by research and previous experience, and focused, with logical reasons. All of these models stress the importance of repeating the cycle to make sure knowledge is secure and progression is continued.

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Getting started with Reflective Practice

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Educational researchers have long promoted the importance of reflecting on practice to support student learning and staff development. There are many different models of reflective practice. However, they all share the same basic aim: to get the best results from the learning, for both the teacher and students.Each model of reflection aims to unpick learning to make links between the 'doing' and the 'thinking'.

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Three Reflective Practices for Effectiveness

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Three Reflective Practices for Effectiveness

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"From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action." Spoken by Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant, educator, and author, he found that increased think time or reflection led to better results no matter what the endeavor.

We are human, and as teachers we are also overly busy which means at times, we may make bad decisions or use hasty judgment. Is there a way to make lemonade out of our pesky lemons? Being an effective, successful teacher does not mean we do not have lemon days, but it does mean we can and should learn from those times thus making us life-long learners. But how can we learn unless we take the precious time to reflect on our teaching and vigilantly question our motives and practices? It is only then that we can improve and become effective teachers for our students.

What Is Reflection and Why Is It Important?

John Dewey (1933) was a pioneer in the concept of reflection as a form of thinking. He maintained that, "We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." (p.78). He promoted educators to stand back from routine and move into a more conscious form of practice. Learning is ongoing in the teaching world; we are constantly evolving. There is always more to learn and understand in order to bolster our teaching skills. Braun and Crumpler (2004) put it best in their study on teacher reflection. "To be unreflective results in a teacher who is merely a skilled technician, i.e. one who has limited ability to make good decisions; to consider the consequences of their actions; and, to alter their actions." (p. 60) This means that the 35-year veteran teacher can learn and grow equivalently to a brand-new teacher fresh out in the field. They just have to be willing to engage in the process of reflection and then be open to feedback. Otherwise, they are just going through the motions day in and day out.

The Practice of Reflection

You already do it. Many days, you casually share with your colleagues:

Now, initially, we may jump to some wrong conclusions as to what went wrong. Mostly, many of us just move on and try something new. Reflective teaching, instead, entails a more systematic approach of assembling and tracking our thoughts and observations as we go. We must also enlist others in this process such as students and colleagues.

There are many ways to begin the process of reflection. Perhaps you want to focus on just one class or one lesson. Maybe it's just one student. First, you must collect information on that person or situation. There are various ways to do this.

Maintain a Professional Journal

Amid the methods for reflection on teaching, maintaining a professional journal provides a point of entry to cultivate pedagogical improvement and to develop more effective daily practices. Elizabeth Tompkins, in her article A Reflective Teaching Journal: An Instructional Improvement Tool for Academic Librarians, scoured the literature on keeping a journal and shared her own experiences in doing so. She postulated that many educators could use additional training in how to teach and keeping a daily teaching journal provided a way to make notes on what did and did not go well in the classroom. Furthermore, journaling made the process more disciplined and gave a place for ideas and insights to take root. Finally, when we write, we gain clarity on what we are thinking. I love what E.M. Forster wrote: "How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?" The structure of daily writing allows this free space of thoughts to flow. You can record:

Peer Observation

Next, having a second pair of eyes often gives us valuable information we would have missed. Invite a colleague to visit your classroom and gather data about your lesson, the student engagement, and the atmosphere. After you have discussed with your colleague, you can then add it to your journal and include your own insights. This will relate back to the area you have identified to reflect upon. For example, you might ask your colleague to focus on which students are not engaged and perhaps why or maybe how you handle a distraction.

Student Feedback

The last way we can reflect is to have our students give us feedback. Often at the end of a quiz, I'll add a question about what they think about a certain lesson or to give ideas about a certain issue in the classroom. This is always a risk, and we must put our ego aside to just listen. We must assure them that it is anonymous, and we are simply wanting to learn and grow as an educator. They appreciate that their teacher cares enough to ask. Again, as with peer feedback, we can add this data to our journals and then give our insights with it.

Effective Reflection

We never want to become stale or complacent in our teaching. The way to become even more effective is through looking back so we can leap forward. The process of keeping a teaching journal and constantly adding to it keeps us mindful of what we do and allows us to answer the question of why we do it. With feedback from various parties, we can also find ways to stay fresh and again become even more effective. As a result of your reflection you may choose to change things up or refine what you already do. This is what being effective is all about.

Dr. Stephanie Knight is an experienced 7th and 8th grade English language arts educator. She taught in Title One schools for eight years-helping them grow from underperforming to excelling-and then in an independent school for four years. Knight is now part of Grand Canyon University's adjunct faculty where she teaches graduate level education and reading courses.

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Three Reflective Practices for Effectiveness - ASCD

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"From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action." Spoken by Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant, educator, and author, he found that increased think time or reflection led to better results no matter what the endeavor. We are human, and as teachers we are also overly busy which means at times, we may make bad decisions or use hasty judgment.

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Teaching isn’t easy.

It will challenge your content knowledge, pedagogical skills, charisma, diplomacy, communication, statistical analysis skills, and a dozen other strands you didn’t know where strands. Some teachers may try to tell you that being happy doesn’t matter. That it’s about results. Data. Performance. Or more rhetorically, the students.

Teaching is about the students, but guess what? If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t help the students–not in a way that’s sustainable. We’ve talked before about surviving teaching. But what about setting the bar higher? What about being happy? And further, can you be happy and be a good teacher at the same time?

A key factor in happiness can be perspective, and a factor in effectiveness can be reflection. Below are 10 ways to be a more reflective teacher.

1. Record yourself teaching

This used to require awkward VHS systems and tripods that students would knock over–and that would distract them endlessly.

Today, it can be a matter of casually propping up your smartphone out of sight, setting it to record, and getting on with the lesson. In fact, you can even create a time-lapse (there are many apps that do this with ease) to track your movement around the room. You can watch the video with and without sound. You can even look for specific things–who talks the most, average wait time, clarity of instructions, etc.

And it doesn’t have to be video–just audio can be revealing, too.

2. Share that video with your PLN

And ask them to help you do the above, and offer feedback of their own. (Just be sure that students’ faces are blurred if you’re making the video public.) Every teacher needs a high-functioning Professional Learning Network.

3. Invite colleagues to observe your class

Not just the same few teachers, either. Ask them to be ‘critical friends’ and then thicken your skin. It’s not about you, it’s about your craft.

4. Ask the students for feedback

You might be surprised how good they are at guiding you in your work.

5. Ask yourself daily, “How did it go and how do you know?”

This is a question from Cognitive Coaching training, and it’s a useful tool to frame reflection. What are your general impressions, and what evidence do you have to support those impressions? Think of something right now that you believe to be effective. A literacy strategy, for example. Or a favorite unit. Maybe a no-zero grading policy.

You say it ‘works.’ How do you know? What can you point to as evidence? What would others say? What metrics are you using? (See #10 below.)

6. Keep a minimalist blog or journal

This doesn’t have to be anything ambitious–the point is reflection, not web design. Make it as basic as possible and try to blog at least twice a week–and don’t skip it if you’re feeling too tired or stressed to reflect. These can be the best times and writing about it can be therapeutic. You can even limit yourself to five minutes per entry.

The only goal here is to reflect–maybe create a list of sample prompts or stems to support the reflection. Then go back and read previous entries every now and then to see what you were thinking, when, and why.

7. Be honest with–but not critical of–yourself

So many potentially great teachers are blind to their shortcomings.

This is probably a kind of defense mechanism. That, or they really can’t see their hangups. No teacher is perfect, but reflection can help you identify those barriers that are keeping you from improving. This will require you to be honest with yourself; don’t rationalize your own mediocrity, but don’t tear yourself apart, either.

Reflect, iterate, and improve.

8. Surround yourself with enthusiasm

The more potential you see around you, the more you’ll observe, analyze, and design to try to fit some of those ideas in.

9. Look for what’s working

Don’t become addicted to fixing the broken bits in your teaching; celebrate what you do well. Identify your own strengths, and use them to transform your teaching. If you’re good at tinkering, use that in your teaching no matter the content area. If you thrive through interpersonal connections, use that to drive your work.

By looking for what’s working, we can see how that affects everything else, tracing cause/effect patterns to understand how to reflect and grow.

10. Diversify your metrics

It’s tempting to have ‘stuff you like,’ but have a diverse set of measures of the effectiveness of what you do: Talk to students. Get feedback from parents. Have colleagues watch you. Record it and share with your PLN. Use a variety of types of assessments.

And that’s just the content part. You also need to know if your manner of interacting with colleagues is working for both you and them. Your tone, body language, quantity and quality of conversation, and so on.

The same with how you grade papers, store unit materials, call the class to attention, manage your time, and on and on. Of all the ways to be a more reflective teacher, there is no single best approach. Just make sure you know what’s working and what’s not. So often, teachers spin their wheels wildly without knowing it.

10 Ways To Be A More Reflective Teacher

10 Ways To Be A More Reflective Teacher

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A key factor in happiness can be perspective, and a factor in effectiveness can be reflection. Here are ways to be a more reflective teacher.

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Gretchen C. Seibel | Elementary Teacher Portfolio

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Elementary educator providing creative lessons and engaging classroom instruction to promote literacy, critical-thinking, and problem solving skills for all students

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For me, teaching is a calling. From my earliest childhood memories, I remember loving to play "school." This love of the entire process of learning has followed me throughout the changes in my career path. In any role, regardless of whether I am acting in the formal roles of "instructor" or "student," I seek to learn and to teach.

Education is my chosen career path. In my faculty and professional roles, I consider mentoring, supervising and teaching the next generation of thought and practice leaders to be a wonderful privilege. Giving back to the profession I love and believe in is one of the primary motivators behind my teaching. By teaching the teachers, I know that my work can have an impact on college students far beyond those with whom I have immediate contact.

At its core, my teaching is grounded in concepts of student learning and development. Much as our profession has focused on the education of the whole student, I apply this philosophy to my teaching. My main goal in any teaching endeavor is to encourage the student to explore research and knowledge in order to incorporate it into their own professional point of view. Teaching in this field requires one to attend to both the technical knowledge a student needs and to their evolution as a reflective professional and person. Theory and practice are inextricably linked.

In encouraging this process, I believe it is important to view the student-teacher relationship as one that is co-constructed. In this regard, I am heavily influenced by the learning partnerships work of Dr. Marcia Baxter Magolda. Much as I hope students will learn from me, I equally appreciate the learning I take from my students. In the classroom space, I believe that authority and the responsibility for learning is mutually shared.

Part of this co-construction requires that I reflect on my own approach, style and biases in the learning process. It also requires that I recognize that students learn differently, have differing levels of learning abilities, and that my teaching must be sensitive to the individual needs of each student. In approaching my teaching, I attempt to accommodate the myriad of learning styles present in the classroom. I utilize a blend of approaches, including reading, writing, discussion, role play, case studies, reflection, and lecture.

Lastly, I view teaching as a performative act. Although I attempt to de-center myself in the classroom, I nevertheless recognize that teaching is, in part, a show. I relish the challenge of trying to take difficult concepts and explore them in accessible, interesting and engaging ways. I also strive to experiment with new innovative ways of engaging in the learning process. I am not the only one that benefits from this experimentation. My students do as well.

When it comes to education, the process is often the product, and I continually learn as I teach.

I believe that the best teachers are reflective teachers. To this end, I have documented my thoughts on teaching and experiments in the classroom via my blog. Additionally, given my research interest in the intersection of digital and social technology with student learning and development, I have also written extensively on the topic.

Click here to explore some of my blog posts and thought pieces related to pedagogy. You can also click here to review my refereed and invited presentations, many of which relate to student learning and development.

Capstone in Higher Education (HED 590C), 4 credits, graduate-level, Merrimack College: Spring 2015 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation)

Higher Education Fellowship Internship Experience (HED 560G/561G), 2-4 credits, gradaute-level, Merrimack College: Fall 2012 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation), Spring 2013 (Syllabus); Fall 2013 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation); Spring 2014 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation); Fall 2014 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation); Spring 2015 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation)

Advanced Field Experience in Higher Education (ED 977), 1 credit, graduate-level, Boston College: Spring 2012 (Syllabus, Teaching Observation, Course Evaluation); Spring 2013, 2 sections (Syllabus, Course Evaluation Section 1, Course Evaluation Section 2); Spring 2014 (Syllabus, Course Evaluation)

Field Experience in Higher Education (ED 976), 2 credits, graduate-level, Boston College: Team taught with Michelle Brown-Kerrigan and Dr. Heather Rowan Kenyon, Fall 2011 (Syllabus); Team taught with Michelle Brown-Kerrigan, Fall 2012 (Syllabus, Teaching Observation); 2 credits, graduate-level, Boston College: Team taught with Kevin Gin and Dr. Heather Rowan Kenyon, Fall 2013 (Syllabus)

Introduction to Scholarship, Leadership and Service (HON 280), 1 credit, undergraduate-level, Miami University, 8 sections between January 2003-May 2006 (Sample Syllabus)

Student Development in the Residence Halls (EDL 301), 1 credit, undergraduate-level, Miami University, Spring 2004 (Syllabus)

Teaching Assistant Experience

Theories of Student Development (ED/PY 778), 3 credits, graduate-level, with Dr. Karen Arnold, Boston College, Spring 2012 (Syllabus); Spring 2014, 2 sections (Syllabus)

Higher Education in American Society (ED 770), 3 credits, graduate-level, with Dr. Michael James, Boston College, Fall 2013 (Syllabus)

Contemporary Issues in Higher Education: Advanced Student Development Theory (ED 708), 3 credits, graduate-level, with Dr. Karen Arnold, Boston College, Fall 2013

Introduction to College Student Personnel Work (CSP 552), 3 credits, graduate-level, with Dr. Robert Reason, Western Illinois University, Fall 2001

Introduction to Logic (PHIL 111), 3 credits, undergraduate-level, with Dr. Stacey Edgar, SUNY Geneseo, Fall 1999

Minds, Dreams, and Machines (PHIL 103), 3 credits, undergraduate-level, with Dr. William Edgar, SUNY Geneseo, Spring 1999

Further Pedagogical Experience

ACT Fellow (Fall 2013-2014), Apprenticeship in College Teaching Program, Boston College. Co-coordinated, planned and implemented a year-long professional development program on teaching for graduate student instructors and teaching assistants. Specifically presented on: Grading, Teaching with Social Media, Developing an E-Portfolio, Leading Discussions, and Developing Engaging Lectures

Orientation Planning Team (Fall 2012), Apprenticeship in College Teaching Program, Boston College. Co-developed, implemented, and presented an orientation and training program for graduate student instructors and teaching assistants

Coordinator for Honors & Scholars Living Learning Community (LLC) Courses (July 2004-June 2006), University Honors & Scholars Program, Miami University. Collaborated on redeveloping first year LLC course syllabus, and the creation of two upper-class LLC course syllabi; Co-developed enriched residence hall-based sections of English Composition for Honors and Scholars students; Recruited and trained instructors and Undergraduate Associates

Training and Certifications

Apprenticeship in College Teaching Certificate (Completed Spring 2013), Boston College. Met the requirements for certification including (1) attending a teaching orientation, (2) attending at least seven teaching workshops, (3) submit an original syllabus for review, (4) conduct a teaching observation of a faculty member, (5) undergo an teaching observation, and (6) complete a teaching portfolio. In completing these requirements, I attended workshops on: (1) Grading, (2) Creating a Teaching Portfolio, (3) Conducting a Teaching Observation, (4) Classroom Management, (5) Using Technology in Your Teaching, (6) Leading Discussions, (7) Teaching and Learning Styles, and (8) Syllabus Construction.

Faculty-Professional Learning Community on Living Learning Communities (August 2004-May 2005), Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT), Miami University.Applied for and participated in a year-long learning community to enhance the curricular components of living learning communities at Miami University

Course: CSP 571: Teaching and Training in Student Affairs, 1 credit hour, graduate-level, Western Illinois University, Spring 2001.

Teaching and Learning Conferences

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TEACHING PHILOSOPHY For me, teaching is a calling. From my earliest childhood memories, I remember loving to play "school." This love of the entire process of learning has followed me throughout the changes in my career path. In any role, regardless of whether I am acting in the formal roles of "instructor" or "student,"...

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Adult Education Foundations – Teaching and Learning Program Outcomes

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Adult Education Foundations – Teaching and Learning Program Outcomes

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
by Zaretta Hammond, 192 pages, Corwin, November 2014

This article contains Amazon Affiliate links. If you click these and make a purchase from Amazon, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

For eight years, I taught students who would likely be labeled "at risk." Not all of my kids fit that description, but at least half belonged to the groups we talk about when we talk about the opportunity* gap: Students whose race, culture, home language, or socioeconomic status are not necessarily a match with what many schools teach and value. I did my best to meet their needs, to challenge them and set them up for success in life, but when I look back with the knowledge I have gained over the last few years, I know I did a crappy job.

I think about Dion, one of my seventh graders, who sat listlessly through most of my classes, whose assignments were always half-finished, who always scored low on tests, who used his cute, slow smile as a cover any time I tried to push him to get his work done. I'd keep him in at lunch and after school, let him do piles of make-up work to try to bring his grade from an F to a D, and talk to him about how he needed to change his habits. But none of it worked. All of us, his other teachers and myself, met with Dion and his mom more than once to try and figure out how to get Dion to improve.

The discussion often went like this:

"What do you think is the problem here?" from one of my colleagues.

Dion shrugged. "I'm not doing my work."

From another teacher: "And what do you need to do differently?"

Another shrug. "Start doing my work, I guess."

Nothing changed. Dion managed to keep his grades up just enough to move on to eighth grade. His skills never improved, his habits stayed about the same, and he went on with his life, like hundreds of others moving through that same school system every year.

If we had read Zaretta Hammond's book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain , things could have been completely different for us, for Dion, and for so many other students in our school. This practical, insightful, and absolutely necessary book will help teachers do a better job of teaching a more diverse group of students.

A Brain-based Blueprint for Reaching Diverse Students

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain is not just a "bag of tricks" teachers can pull from to help students from more diverse backgrounds do better. It is a thoughtful, holistic, brain-based approach to teaching the whole child.

By looking through the lens of neuroscience, Hammond shows us how the brain responds to various teaching approaches and learning environments, and helps us understand why, despite our best efforts, many students simply haven't responded to the kinds of interventions many schools put in place for them. "The problem of the achievement gap won't be solved by simply trying to motivate students of color to become more engaged learners," she writes. "We have to create school environments that welcome their natural ways of learning and shape content so that they see its connection to their lives and funds of knowledge."

The book is built around the Ready for Rigor Framework, four separate practice areas that, if used together, give us the tools for culturally responsive teaching. The practice areas are:

Awareness. Before teachers can truly meet the needs of diverse learners, we must develop the right mindset. This requires us to understand what "culture" really means, fully explore our own cultural beliefs and biases, and study how the brain learns.

Learning Partnerships. To succeed in school, diverse learners need to feel as if they are in partnership with their teachers. To create these relationships, we need to build trust with students, help them develop positive mindsets, and give them the language to talk about their learning.

Information Processing. Teachers need to understand how to expand students' intellective capacity so they can engage in deeper, more complex learning. This requires teachers to learn brain-based information processing strategies common to oral cultures like metaphors, rhythmic mnemonics, and "story-ifying" the content.

Community Building. Culturally responsive teachers work to create supportive, welcoming environments, places that feel socially and emotionally safe, so that students are comfortable enough taking the risks required to stretch their brains.

Apart from being incredibly useful and clear, what's great about this book is that it won't make teachers defensive. Rather than attacking teachers for taking the wrong approach, Hammond simply shows us why some methods are ineffective, then explains why a different approach works better. This lack of judgment is likely to give her message a bigger reach, and to help far more teachers develop the skills they need for this important work.

We Can Do Better

Maya Angelou said, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." I believe most teachers are doing the best they can to serve all of their students. They just don't have enough tools. This book is without question a way to know better. I urge anyone who works with culturally diverse students, second-language students, or students who have grown up in poverty to read Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain . There's no way for me to reach Dion now, but there are millions of others just like him. Now we have the tools to really change their academic paths.

Now we know better. We just have to do it. ♦

Zaretta Hammond is a former English teacher who has been doing instructional design, school coaching, and professional development around the issues of equity, literacy, and culturally responsive teaching for the past 18 years. To read more of her work, visit her blog, Ready for Rigor, or follow her on Twitter at @Ready4Rigor.
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*Author's note, June 2018: This post has been revised slightly since its original publication in 2015, when I used the term "achievement gap" throughout. At the time, I was not aware of the way this term perpetuates deficit thinking about some of our students. My revisions are an attempt to use language that better represents our need to reach all children in a way that works for them.

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Join my mailing list and never miss another post. You'll get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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A Must-Have Guide to Culturally Responsive Teaching

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This practical, insightful, and absolutely necessary book is a guide for teachers who want to help culturally and linguistically diverse students not just survive, but thrive.

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Last month, I reviewed Zaretta Hammond's fantastic book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Now I'm proud to have Zaretta here as a guest writer to share some specific strategies with us.

Culturally responsive teaching. Everybody is talking about it. The big question is: How do you actually make lessons culturally responsive? That comes up regularly when I am working with groups of teachers to improve outcomes for diverse students who are struggling. I remember working with a group of sixth grade teachers on improving learning for their at-risk students. These teachers were frustrated that their students, 95 percent of them students of color and English language learners, were not applying themselves to learning.

I suggested that we explore making lessons more culturally relevant in order to accelerate student learning. I remember the reaction of Janice, the science teacher. "I am not going to be rappin' about the periodic table," she said defiantly as she crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

I couldn't blame her. Google "culturally responsive teaching" and you can find a dozen videos of well-meaning teachers leading some call-and-response chant about exponents or rapping about the Boston Tea Party while students sit back and giggle. That's because we usually talk about culturally responsive teaching only as an engagement strategy designed to motivate at-risk students to take learning seriously. Or we try to find a race-based connection to the content to make it "relevant" to minority students.

One of the biggest misconceptions about culturally responsive teaching is thinking you have to tie the lesson's content to African American or Latino students' racial background. The common belief is if you mention Africa, Mexico, or famous black and brown high achievers, it will spark students' attention. Then they will be motivated to participate.

In reality, culturally responsive teaching is less about using racial pride as a motivator and more about mimicking students' cultural learning styles and tools. These are the strategies their moms, dads, grandmas, and other community folks use to teach them life skills and basic concepts long before they come to school and during out-of-school time.

Culturally responsive teaching leverages the brain's memory systems and information processing structures. Why? Many diverse students come from oral cultural traditions. This means their primary ways of knowledge transfer and meaning-making are oral and active. It's a common cultural tradition that cuts across racial groups: African American, Latino, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander communities all have strong oral cultures. Each of these cultural groups uses the brain's memory systems for turning inert information into useable knowledge. They use memory strategies to make learning sticky, like connecting what needs to be remembered to a rhythm or music (that's why we still know the ABC song) or by reciting it in fun ways like a poem, riddle, or limerick.

I asked Janice what area of learning she wanted to help her kids improve. She said science vocabulary; they weren't learning the weekly words and it was getting in the way of their understanding of key concepts. She was frustrated and at the end of her rope. I asked how she was teaching it. She used the typical approach: On Monday, she listed the words on the board. Students copied them down and were required to look each word up and use it in a sentence. On Wednesday, there was a vocabulary test.

I suggested that we design word study to be more culturally responsive by making it more like the students' own cultural learning process. She was open for trying something different.

I offered her these three tips for transforming any lesson into something that looked and felt more culturally responsive to diverse students, something that would allow them to engage more and process the content effectively.

Games are the power strategy for culturally-grounded learning because they get the brain's attention and require active processing. Attention is the first step in learning. We cannot learn, remember, or understand what we don't first pay attention to. Call and response is just a way to get the brain's attention. Most games employ a lot of the cultural tools you'd find in oral traditions - repetition, solving a puzzle, making connections between things that don't seem to be related (Ever play Taboo or Apples to Apples?).

Organizing learning so that students rely on each other will build on diverse students' communal orientation. This communal orientation can be summed up in the African proverb, "I am because we are." Even making learning slightly competitive in a good-natured way increases students' level of attention and engagement. It's why the T.V. show Survivor has been around for so many years; it's a social-based game.

The brain is wired to remember stories and to use the story structure to make sense of the world. That's why every culture has creation stories. In oral traditions, stories play a bigger role in teaching lessons about manners, morality, or simply what plants to eat or not eat in the wilderness because it's the way content is remembered. Diverse students (and all students, really) learn content more effectively if they can create a coherent narrative about the topic or process presented. That's the brain's way of weaving it all together. (Bonus: It also offers a great way to check for understanding and correct misconceptions.)

So Janice took her weekly list of science vocabulary and created a variety of sorting and matching games for students. She built a set of simple card games based on Go Fish or Old Maid. In addition she created some team games. Each week students had different active ways to learn the vocabulary. For 10-15 minutes a couple of times during the week, students got to play these learning games rather than look up words in a dictionary. She gave them instructions for making the games at home if they wanted to.

Instead of the traditional weekly vocab test, she asked them to "storify" their understanding of key concept words like metamorphosis, using vocabulary from past weeks.

When I checked in with the group a few weeks later, she was the first one to share. She said student engagement was like night and day. Now all students were participating. She said she knew they were learning the vocabulary at a deeper level because they were actually using the new science terms during discussions and in their writing with no prompting from her.

The big A-ha's for the group that day were that (1) Culturally responsive teaching doesn't have to be some performance the teacher does to entertain students and (2) It doesn't have to mention race or reference culture at all. Instead, what makes a practice culturally responsive is that it mimics students' own cultural learning tools. They all realized that these practices are helpful for all students, not targeted at minority students.

The real trick is to use these strategies regularly as part of your instructional routine rather than doing them randomly every now and then. Consistency is the key. ♦

Learn more about how to improve diverse students' information processing skills and actually grow their brains in Zaretta Hammond's book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students .

Stick around.
Join my mailing list and never miss another post. You'll get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive

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Google "culturally responsive teaching" and you can find a dozen videos of well-meaning teachers leading some call-and-response chant about exponents or rapping about the Boston Tea Party while students sit back and giggle.

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Culturally Relevant and Culturally Responsive

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It is no surprise that many teachers have an interest in neuroscience and psychology since areas such as memory, motivation, curiosity, intelligence and determination are highly important in education.

But neuroscience and psychology are complex, nuanced subjects that come with many caveats. Although progress is being made towards understanding what helps and hinders students, there is still a disconnect between the research in labs and what happens in many schools.

Many " neuromyths" are rampant in our classrooms, and research suggests that people are often seduced by neuroscientific explanations, even if these are not accurate or even relevant. Research also shows that explanations accompanied by images of the brain also persuade people to believe in their validity, however random the illustration.

Lia Commissar, a project manager at the Wellcome Trust, says there are several reasons why neuromyths gain traction: "They seem to persist because they are easy to understand, fit everyday observation, are heavily promoted or are easy to implement. However, unfortunately they often have little or no evidence supporting the impact they will have on learning."

Such myths are a drain on time and money, and it is important to explore and expose them. So which popular neuromyths exist in schools and how did they catch on?

Learning styles

The myth: Learning styles are often referred to as VAK - students are categorised as visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners. This myth states that students will learn more if they are taught in a way that matches their preferred style. Despite an absence of any evidence (pdf) to support this claim, research carried out in 2012 found it was believed by 93% of teachers in the UK.

How it caught on: Each student is unique and has a different personality, experience and genes. Teachers are often encouraged to differentiate to ensure that each child is making as much progress as they can. This, combined with the fact that students may have a preference for how they are taught, has morphed into the belief that if you match your style to their preference, it will lead to better grades.

Where next for learning styles? Teacher Tom Bennet recently drew attention to the problem of this myth being taught in initial teacher training. On Twitter, and the hashtag #VAKOFF has been used to draw attention to this neuro-nonsense. To highlight the lack of evidence behind this myth, $5,000 has been promised to anyone who can prove any such intervention helps. Advances in research may help kill this myth, with findings indicating that teaching new information to students using a variety of senses results in stronger learning (pdf).

You only use 10% of your brain

The myth: This myth states that people only use 10% of their brain. In a survey of the general public in Brazil (pdf), this brain myth was one of the most prevalent. But it is completely untrue. We are able to examine the brain in better detail than ever before; if we were only using 10% of it, at least one scientist would have written about it but none has.

The origins: Many people believe Albert Einstein first said this. He didn't. In fact, he didn't say most of the things that the internet claims he did. This myth is alluring as it resonates with the very true fact that we can probably get better at things and our potential is an unknown entity.

Where next for the 10% myth? Hopefully, the overwhelming evidence against this myth will drown it out. Unfortunately, as long as it keeps being linked to the concept of self-improvement and bettering yourself, it will probably hang around for some time yet.

Right brain v left brain

The myth: 91% of teachers believe that difference between the left hemisphere and right hemisphere explains individual differences among learners. This typically translates into people thinking you are left-brained if you are rational and objective or right-brained if you are intuitive and creative.

The origins: In the 1960s, research on patients with epilepsy found that when the connection between the right and left hemispheres were broken, the two sides acted individually and processed things differently. This led to the belief that the two hemispheres of our brain worked independently. This spoke to the desire for us to categorise people and behaviours. It made the complex simple; the confusing clear.

Where next for the right-brain/left-brain myth?
Researchers have found that neither hemisphere is solely responsible for one type of personality. It is a particularly damaging myth as it can lead to students not trying in certain subjects as they believe they don't have the brain for it.

Playing brain games makes you smarter

The myth: That playing brain-training games can help improve your memory, concentration or intelligence. This is usually evidenced by people playing these games and getting better at them; however, the problem is that there is little to no transfer of these skills when tested in different contexts (ie in the classroom).

The origins: This myth is mainly peddled by companies wanting to cash in on the public's interest in neuroscience. They may be fun to play, but research shows that popular brain games do not make you smarter or improve your thinking.

Where next for the brain game myth? There may be some benefit for a small percentage of the population ( early research suggests it may be of benefit in the fight against Alzheimer's). However, one of the lead researchers into brain training games has concluded that there is "no evidence for any generalised improvements in cognitive function following brain training in a large sample of healthy adults".

Why teachers need a critical eye

The fields of psychology and neuroscience can aid us in helping students, but it is important to view claims with a critical eye. Is the claim being sold as a silver-bullet? What is the evidence behind it? Does it sound too simple? Hopefully, as these myths die out, they can be replaced with practical suggestions to best help students, that are backed up by credible research.

Follow us on Twitter via @GuardianTeach. Join the Guardian Teacher Network for lesson resources, comment and job opportunities, direct to your inbox.
Topics

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Four neuromyths that are still prevalent in schools - debunked

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It is no surprise that many teachers have an interest in neuroscience and psychology since areas such as memory, motivation, curiosity, intelligence and determination are highly important in education. But neuroscience and psychology are complex, nuanced subjects that come with many caveats.

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Teachers and parents have a great enthusiasm for the brain sciences and the light they can shed on children's and adults' learning in educational environments. We share that enthusiasm at the CEN.

However, we also believe that sometimes this enthusiasm can lead to educators too readily accepting teaching practices, ideas, or techniques that do not actually have a scientific basis in neuroscience - or which reflect some basis in neuroscience but have not been rigorously tested within an educational context. This phenomenon has been labelled the spread of 'neuromyths' - mistaken ideas about the brain - and it has been the topic of discussion by researchers within neuroscience (e.g., articles by Goswami and Howard-Jones, see this report from the Royal Society).

Researchers in educational neuroscience have begun to compile sets of resources, meta-analyses and reviews to address which neuroscience-inspired teaching techniques are supported by empirical evidence, and which 'facts' about the brain actually reflect current consensus within neuroscience. In the following pages, we provide access to some of these resources, themed around some of the main topics where neuromyths have arisen, and give brief overviews about the existing state of research - what we know and don't yet know on these topics.

Are these 'neuro-hits' or 'neuro-myths'?

UPDATED 2023: We have been updating our articles to include evidence from the most recent research on each topic, indicated by the "Updated" tag below. Note that for most of the articles, an update does not mean a change in the overall conclusion (hit or myth).

The CEN has launched a new project, called NeuroSENse, to explore people's beliefs about the brain and people with special educational needs (SEN). We'd love your help in completing a short questionnaire (all answers confidential and anonymous). Click on this link to take the survey: https://uclioe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d4EceZ2McQQFaKh. Thanks!

These articles were compiled by Dr. Victoria Knowland and edited by Professor Michael Thomas © CEN. This work was supported by a Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund grant awarded to Professor Michael Thomas, Birkbeck, University of London.

For other education and neuroscience activities sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, see:

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Teachers and parents have a great enthusiasm for the brain sciences and the light they can shed on children's and adults' learning in educational environments. We share that enthusiasm ...

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The Growth Mindset - What is Growth Mindset - Mindset Works

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Brainology is an online interactive program in which middle school students learn about how the brain works, how to strengthen their own brains, and how to better approach their own learning. In the process they develop a growth mindset whereby they think of their intelligence as something they can…

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Technologically, creating a WebQuest can be very simple. As long as you can create a document with hyperlinks, you can create a WebQuest. That means that a WebQuest can be created in Word, Powerpoint, and even Excel! If you're going to call it a WebQuest, though, be sure that it has all the critical attributes.

A real WebQuest....

is wrapped around a doable and interesting task that is ideally a scaled down version of things that adults do as citizens or workers.

requires higher level thinking, not simply summarizing. This includes synthesis, analysis, problem-solving, creativity and judgment.

makes good use of the web. A WebQuest that isn't based on real resources from the web is probably just a traditional lesson in disguise. (Of course, books and other media can be used within a WebQuest, but if the web isn't at the heart of the lesson, it's not a WebQuest.)

isn't a research report or a step-by-step science or math procedure. Having learners simply distilling web sites and making a presentation about them isn't enough.

isn't just a series of web-based experiences. Having learners go look at this page, then go play this game, then go here and turn your name into hieroglyphs doesn't require higher level thinking skills and so, by definition, isn't a WebQuest.

QuestGarden

To make it easier to create great WebQuests without having to master a web editor, QuestGarden was created by Bernie Dodge. QuestGarden provides step-by-step direction and examples. Supporting documents in Inspiration, Word, PowerPoint, etc can be attached to your WebQuest. Hosting is provided, and you can also download a zipped archive of your lesson and move it to another server. Subscribers can also start with an existing WebQuest created by one of QuestGarden's 150000 members and modify it easily to meet their needs. You can find more information here and enter the site here. Cost: $20 for 2-year subscription. 30-day free trial.

Sample WebQuests created with QuestGarden:

Other Online Authoring Systems

zWebQuest (formerly called InstantWebquest) is a web based software for creating WebQuests in a short time. Cost: $0. Sample product: The Fantastic Four and World War III

TeacherWeb

Online tool for creating simple WebQuests, especially appropriate for younger elementary students. Cost: $27/year. Sample product: Colonial America

WebQuest Templates

The old-school way of creating a WebQuest is to download a template that includes prompts for each section, open it up in a web editor, write your heart out, save it and then upload it to a server somewhere. Lots of effort on purely tech-y things required, and that effort often displaces the time needed to create good pedagogy. Still, if you already know how to use Dreamweaver or KompoZer, templates are the way to go. Here are some sources:

You might find some very old (1997-ish) templates out there (like this) that have separate sections for Resources and Learning Advice. My advice: don't use these. A decade of experience has shown us that those things are much better sprinkled within the Process section.

Once you have a template you like, just follow the steps in the WebQuest Design Process.

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Bernie Dodge, San Diego State University

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Technologically, creating a WebQuest can be very simple. As long as you can create a document with hyperlinks, you can create a WebQuest. That means that a WebQuest can be created in Word, Powerpoint, and even Excel! If you're going to call it a WebQuest, though, be sure that it has all the critical attributes.

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Whether you're new to rubrics, or you just don't know their formal names, it may be time for a primer on rubric terminology.
So let's talk about rubrics for a few minutes. What we're going to do here is describe two frequently used kinds of rubrics, holistic and analytic, plus a less common one called the single-point rubric (my favorite, for the record). For each one, we'll look at an example and explore its pros and cons.

Off we go!

A holistic rubric is the most general kind. It lists three to five levels of performance, along with a broad description of the characteristics that define each level. The levels can be labeled with numbers (such as 1 through 4), letters (such as A through F) or words (such as Beginning through Exemplary). What each level is called isn't what makes the rubric holistic - it's the way the characteristics are all lumped together.

Suppose you're an unusually demanding person. You want your loved ones to know what you expect if they should ever make you breakfast in bed. So you give them this holistic rubric:

When your breakfast is done, you simply gather your loved ones and say, "I'm sorry my darlings, but that breakfast was just a 2. Try harder next time."

The main advantage of a holistic rubric is that it's easy on the teacher - in the short run, anyway. Creating a holistic rubric takes less time than the others, and grading with one is faster, too. You just look over an assignment and give one holistic score to the whole thing.

The main disadvantage of a holistic rubric is that it doesn't provide targeted feedback to students, which means they're unlikely to learn much from the assignment. Although many holistic rubrics list specific characteristics for each level, the teacher gives only one score, without breaking it down into separate qualities. This often leads the student to approach the teacher and ask, "Why did you give me a 2?" If the teacher is the explaining kind, he will spend a few minutes breaking down the score. If not, he'll say something like, "Read the rubric." Then the student has to guess which factors had the biggest influence on her score. For a student who really tries hard, it can be heartbreaking to have no idea what she's doing wrong.

Holistic rubrics are most useful in cases when there's no time (or need, though that's hard to imagine) for specific feedback. You see them in standardized testing - the essay portion of the SAT is scored with a 0-6 holistic rubric. When hundreds of thousands of essays have to be graded quickly, and by total strangers who have no time to provide feedback, a holistic rubric comes in handy.

An analytic rubric breaks down the characteristics of an assignment into parts, allowing the scorer to itemize and define exactly what aspects are strong, and which ones need improvement.

So for the breakfast in bed example, an analytic rubric would look like this:

In this case, you'd give your loved ones a separate score for each category. They might get a 3 on Presentation, but a 2 on Food and just a 1 on Comfort. To make feedback even more targeted, you could also highlight specific phrases in the rubric, like, "the recipient is crowded during the meal" to indicate exactly what went wrong.

This is where we see the main advantage of the analytic rubric: It gives students a clearer picture of why they got the score they got. It is also good for the teacher, because it gives her the ability to justify a score on paper, without having to explain everything in a later conversation.

Analytic rubrics have two significant disadvantages, however: (1) Creating them takes a lot of time. Writing up descriptors of satisfactory work - completing the "3" column in this rubric, for example - is enough of a challenge on its own. But to have to define all the ways the work could go wrong, and all the ways it could exceed expectations, is a big, big task. And once all that work is done, (2) students won't necessarily read the whole thing. Facing a 36-cell table crammed with 8-point font is enough to send most students straight into a nap. And that means they won't clearly understand what's expected of them.

Still, analytic rubrics are useful when you want to cover all your bases, and you're willing to put in the time to really get clear on exactly what every level of performance looks like.

A single-point rubric is a lot like an analytic rubric, because it breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria. What makes it different is that it only describes the criteria for proficiency; it does not attempt to list all the ways a student could fall short, nor does it specify how a student could exceed expectations.

A single-point rubric for breakfast in bed would look like this:

Notice that the language in the "Criteria" column is exactly the same as the "3" column in the analytic rubric. When your loved ones receive this rubric, it will include your written comments on one or both sides of each category, telling them exactly how they fell short ("runny eggs," for example) and how they excelled ("vase of flowers"). Just like with the analytic rubric, if a target was simply met, you can just highlight the appropriate phrase in the center column.

If you've never used a single-point rubric, it's worth a try. In 2010, Jarene Fluckiger studied a collection of teacher action research studies on the use of single-point rubrics. She found that student achievement increased with the use of these rubrics, especially when students helped create them and used them to self-assess their work.

The single-point rubric has several advantages: (1) It contains far less language than the analytic rubric, which means students are more likely to read it and it will take less time to create, while still providing rich detail about what's expected. (2) Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended. When using full analytic rubrics, I often find that students do things that are not described on the rubric, but still depart from expectations. Because I can't find the right language to highlight, I find myself hand-writing justifications for a score in whatever space I can find. This is frustrating, time-consuming and messy. With a single-point rubric, there's no attempt to predict all the ways a student might go wrong. Similarly, the undefined "Advanced" column places no limits on how students might stretch themselves. "If the highest level is already prescribed then creativity may be limited to that pre-determined level," says Fluckiger. "Students may surprise us if we leave quality open-ended."

The main disadvantage of single-point rubrics is that using them requires more writing on the teacher's part. If a student has fallen short in many areas, completing that left-hand column will take more time than simply highlighting a pre-written analytic rubric.

Need Ready-Made Rubrics?

My Rubric Pack gives you four different designs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs formats. It also comes with video tutorials to show you how to customize them for any need, plus a Teacher's Manual to help you understand the pros and cons of each style. Check it out here:

Sources:

Fluckiger, J. (2010). Single point rubric: A tool for responsible student self-assessment. Teacher Education Faculty Publications. Paper 5. Retrieved April 25, 2014 from http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacpub/5.

Mertler, C. A. (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(25). Retrieved April 30, 2014 from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=7&n=25.
Know Your Terms is my effort to build a user-friendly knowledge base of terms every educator should know. New items will be added on an ongoing basis. If you heard some term at a PD and didn't want to admit you didn't know what it meant, send it to me via the contact form and I'll research it for you.

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Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics

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Whether you're new to rubrics, or you've used them for years without knowing their formal names, it may be time for a primer on rubric terminology.

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Outcomes-Based Education Overview ~ 2022

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Outcomes-Based Education Overview ~ 2022

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Introduction to Universal Design for Learning 

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Introduction to Universal Design for Learning 

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"A culturally inclusive classroom is one where students and staff alike recognize, appreciate and capitalize on diversity so as to enrich the overall learning experience. Fostering a culturally inclusive learning environment encourages all individuals - regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation or political beliefs - to develop personal contacts and effective intercultural skills." -- Barker et al.

"Teachers are cultural translators, cultural Bridge makers."
--Jacqueline Jordan Irvine

It's only the tip of the iceberg...

I like to think of the visible and invisible aspects of culture as an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg barely reveals a fraction of its enormous size that lies beneath the water. This is analogous to culture, the things we see (visible culture) barely scratch the surface of the essence of what culture is (invisible culture).

Getting to know a student and his or her culture can be difficult for the teacher, because of the underlying or invisible aspects, not visible to someone who is not a member of that specific community; the only way a teacher would be able to understand an invisible cultural characteristic, such as religious beliefs, is if they conducted research or asked students/parents about to explain it to them.

"We have to remember that students approach learning, not as cultural blank slates, in that they bring into the classroom, all those cultural experiences."

To truly understand what culturally responsive or relevant, I believe teacher must first possess a solid understanding of what culture is and how it can be broken down.

ilters that help us as human beings make sense out of the most ordinary things." Culture , defined by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine and Geneva Gay, is a combination of a person's "...world views, beliefs, language, and values...culture are those f

Culture can be grouped into two different categories:

Visible/Tangible Culture - crafts, music, art, and technology
Invisible/Intangible Culture - values, beliefs, feelings, opinions, assumptions, and perspectives.
When interacting with students that identify themselves as being from the same culture, it is imperative for the teacher to realize that students are not mirror representatives of a cultural or ethnic group they belong to. One student's family may celebrate different holidays or belong to a different religion or sect of a religion (Irvine and Gay).

SOLVING THE problem

As Geneva Gay stated, the problem lies in the miscommunication caused by "the incompatibility between the cultural filters, that have been used to send instructional messages to students (this coming from the school), and when kids from different ethnic backgrounds are trying to learn that. They are trying to receive what we send from school, through another set of cultural filters (Gay)".

When these messages do not match up, then students, parents, educators and administrators all get nowhere.

Culturally Responsive teaching steps in and advocates for students, in that instead of students always having to adapt and learn the culture of the school. The school, instead needs to adapt and modify its messages or mechanisms (Gay).

Two definitions, given to us by Gary R. Howard in the video below, that I find relevant when discussing culturally inclusive pedagogy include:

Cultural competence - "The will and the ability to form: authentic and effective relationships across differences."

Culturally responsive teaching - "Teaching and leading in such a way that more of your students, across more of their differencing, achieve at a high level and engage at a deeper level, more of the time, WITHOUT giving up who they are."

The 7 principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching - Model by Gary R. Howard:

1. 1) Students are affirmed in their cultural connections

2. 2) Teachers are personally inviting

3. 3) The classroom is physically and culturally inviting

4. 4) Students are reinforced for academic development

5. 5) Instructional changes are made to accommodate differences

6. 6) The classroom is managed with a firm, consistent, loving control

7. 7) Interactions stress collectivity as well as individuality

I discovered this TED Talk, titled, "Confessions: New Teacher of Newcomers" delivered by veteran teacher, Michelle Benegas, while conducting a search on culturally inclusive teaching,. In this TED Talk, Benegas recounts her time as a new teacher in an extremely diverse school setting and not having the proper pedagogical tools and cultural knowledge to best serve her students. I truly believe that the specific examples she provides her audience, re-tell the story of pain she feels now, about being unable to help her students when they were younger. It is an inspiring video that will help teachers alike understand why getting to know your students and their respective cultures will make all the difference. It also shows the value of teaching cultural inclusive pedagogy in today's teacher education programs.

With that being said, teachers need to help students realize that they are unique, valued, and bring different skill sets that they can offer to the class, school, and communities they are a part of. I believe it is valuable for teachers to understand the different capitals that exist at school. These four different types of capital, As Zwiers explains in chapter one, "Understanding How Students Use Language", are unequally distributed, just as money is (7). He goes on to explain that the four types of capital overlap one another and their levels or potency vary from student to student. These four capitals are, social, cultural, knowledge, and linguistic capitals.

As Dr. Zisselsberger explained in class, these capitals, should be viewed as notions of continuums, that are not static and change from environment to environment. She explained that students can gain and loose capital in each of the four different types as students grow and learn. Dr Zisselsberger also mentioned to the class that the "levels" of capital of each student is dependent upon the a student's background and what they bring to the classroom.

Social Capital
To begin, social capital, "consists of the amounts and qualities of: (1) interactions with adults, siblings, and peers, (2) listening abilities, (3) empathy skills, and (4) appropriate behaviors and responses (Zwiers, 7)". To me, social capital deals with the amount of social interaction a student has with a wide variety of people and how a student interacts, relates, and responds with different people. At school, students will come across a variety of situations in which they will need interact with people varying in age and backgrounds. I believe that social capital is the most valued by students, especially those in middle and high school; they do not want to be an outcast or viewed differently and truly want to have friends and fit in.

Zwiers states that cultural capital "tends to consist of travel experiences, wealth, parent education, music listened to, games at home, being read to, reading, race, and religion related experience (Zwiers, 7)". For me, cultural capital reflects more of the student's up-brining and life experiences outside of the classroom and school.

Knowledge Capital
According to Zwiers, knowledge capital, "tends to develop (accumulate) from reading, being read to, watching educational and new programs on TV, using computers, organizational abilities with knowledge, word memory abilities, travel, conversations with siblings and adults, and parents asking and answering questions about the world (Zwiers, 7)". For me knowledge capital is rooted in the ability to read and access information whether it be from books or on a computer. I agreed with Dr. Zisselsberger when she stated in the classroom, knowledge capital is most likely the most valued of the capitals.

Linguistic Capital
The fourth type of capital is linguistic. Zwiers states, "Linguistic capital consists of the quantity and quality of language used by parents and peers, in TV shows, and in daily discussions; of religious interactions, which can develop, abilities to use abstract language; of computer experiences and games; and of books at home, whether one is reading [to] oneself or being read to (Zwiers, 7)". For me, linguistic capital deals with the amount and quality of "language" input a student receives. I also believe it has a lot to do with a student's cultural and socioeconomic background.

This is one of my favorite educational videos that I have ever encountered. The video itself focuses in on the self-esteem of students with disabilities, but at the same time, the context of the video could easily be switched to discuss linguistically and culturally diverse students. I am NOT, by any means comparing the state or abilities of linguistically and culturally diverse students to those of students with disabilities; I want to emphasize, that just as students with disabilities, culturally and linguistically diverse students lack "the poker chips" to engage in and play in the game we call school.

To show you how this is applicable to the diverse learners we will encounter in our classrooms, let's examine the case of Sandra. To begin, these "poker chips" are representative of the various capitals that students bring with them into the classroom. For example, Sandra, from Colombia may have 1000 cultural capital poker chips because she comes from a very close knit, supportive family, that exposed her to many elements of culture, read to her when she was little, and raised her to be a devout Catholic. On the other end of the spectrum, she may have 15 linguistic capital poker chips because the only English that she hears at home comes from the television, which she is only allowed to watch after finishing her homework and chores. Sandra will be less likely to interact within the classroom, because she does not have enough linguistic chips to gamble away, meaning take a chance on making a mistake or getting made fun of in front of the entire class. If she does take that chance and gets the answer right, yes, she will increase the amount of linguistic poker chips she has, boosting her self-esteem, but in the back of her mind always looms the "what if scenario".

As a culturally responsive teachers, it is our job to encourage the student and make them feel included by incorporating familiar elements into the classroom. The first step that a culturally responsive teacher must take, is to do their homework. How do you expect to meaningful engage, connect, and interact with students, if you do not know anything about their home life, culture, and what prior knowledge and experiences they bring into the classroom? A teacher must lay the ground work and foster a warm, inviting, and safe, classroom culture in which students feel appreciated, valued, and will want to share personal information pertaining to the class and content area. I believe that all of these elements truly stem from the way in which a teacher is able to connect with his or her students, and creating a relationship in which the students feel that the teacher cares about them, sees them for a human being, and believes that they can succeed .

How can you teach inclusively?
1. Be reflective by asking yourself the following
a. How might your own cultural-bound assumptions influence your interactions with students?
b. How might the backgrounds and experiences of your students influence their motivation, engagement, and learning in your classroom?
c. How can you modify course materials, activities, assignments, and/or exams to be more accessible to all students in your class?

2. Incorporate diversity into your overall curriculum.

3. Be intentional about creating a safe learning environment by utilizing ground rules.

4. Be proactive in connecting with and learning about your students.

5. Utilize a variety of teaching strategies, activities, and assignments that will accommodate the needs of students with diverse learning styles, abilities, backgrounds, and experiences.

6. Use universal design principles to create accessible classes. For example, present information both orally and visually to accommodate both students with visual or auditory impairments in addition to students with various learning preferences.

7. When possible, provide flexibility in how students demonstrate their knowledge and how you assess student knowledge and development. Vary your assessments (for example, incorporate a blend of collaborative and individual assignments) or allow choice in assignments (for example, give students multiple project topics to choose from, or have students determine the weight of each assignment on their final grade at the beginning of the semester.)

8. Be clear about how students will be evaluated and graded. Provide justifications.

9. Take time to assess the classroom climate by obtaining mid-semester feedback from students.
a. Pass out index cards during class for anonymous feedback.
b. Ask students to rate from 1-5 how comfortable they are in class. Also ask for 2 suggestions for how they could feel more comfortable.
c. Conduct a Qualtrics survey.
d. Discuss your findings in the next class and share any changes you will make regarding the feedback.
Strategies Provided by the Cornell University: Center for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/building-inclusive-classrooms/inclusive-teaching-strategies.html)
I believe this video offers teachers a quick and explicit outline of how to create a culturally inclusive classroom from top to bottom, beginning with addressing your own ideas, biases, and stereotypes. Once you are able to overcome, what I like to consider " self-road-blocks" to creating a culturally inclusive environment, you can tackle other elements and help your students appreciate and look forward to learning about one another the unique background that everyone brings into the classroom.

Below, I have posted three slides providing activities, I believe will help you as a teacher get to know your students an have them interact with one another in a more meaningful context.

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"A culturally inclusive classroom is one where students and staff alike recognize, appreciate and capitalize on diversity so as to enrich the overall learning experience. Fostering a culturally inclusive learning environment encourages all individuals - regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation or political beliefs - to develop personal contacts and effective intercultural skills."