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How can I make my Schoology page and slides more accessible? 

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How can I make my Schoology page and slides more accessible? 

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Grade 9 students were informally asked: If every teacher could organize their Schoology page like one teacher/subject, what would you suggest? The answer was MATH!

Math Schoology Pages

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How can I make my slides more accessible? 

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How can I make my slides more accessible? 

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Tips for slides by Lily Poe

After reviewing this slideshow, spend some time looking at your own slides. Any ideas on what to incorporate?

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Seven-minute video on the importance of cultivating a relationship with your students to provide them with deep learning experiences.

Consider what you could do to build more connections with students.

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Ed-Talk: Learning with an Emotional Brain - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

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What are choice boards? How can I use them? Why would I use them? 

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What are choice boards? How can I use them? Why would I use them? 

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This video is part of the Using Choice Boards in the Classroom online course. This video introduces the concepts of choice boards and the benefits of using them with students.

Watch until 4:42

Consider how choice boards might be useful in your lessons.

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Using Choice Boards in the Classroom: Introduction

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How can I use a choice board as review? 

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How can I use a choice board as review? 

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What would a review choice board look like in your subject?

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Review Playlist for  Born a Crime (1).pdf

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How can I use a choice board to give student options in terms of content, but keep the skills the same? 

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How can I use a choice board to give student options in terms of content, but keep the skills the same? 

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In this activity, students chose the TED talk they wanted to watch, and then they had a discussion about how the presenter delivered the information in groups.

Consider how this could apply to your subject.

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How can I use a choice board to formatively assess students? 

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How can I use a choice board to formatively assess students? 

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This choice board encourages students to choose one activity per "course." All students are studying the same content, but the way they show their understanding may differ. This allows students to have more voice and choice.

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How could I use a choice board at the start of class? 

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How could I use a choice board at the start of class? 

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If you'd like more information, read this article. The article is written for elementary math teachers, but could be applied to middle & high school as well.

Here is a sample choice board we used in English as a warm up.

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This article will walk you through the setup of a choice board in Math and Science. You might have a choice board for one 80-minute lesson, or you might want to start with a choice board as a warm-up. It's important to have clear guidelines when starting choice boards.

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Letting high school students choose how they take notes in math and science classes can get them to engage more deeply with the content.

Maskot Images / Shutterstock

Giving direct instruction to my math and science classes often felt like a game of whack-a-mole. No matter what style of note-taking I chose to give them-even with employing best practices like chunking information and formative assessment-some of my students struggled to connect with the concepts.

A while ago I became aware of the many different ways my students preferred to be introduced to new information. Some thrived with videos, while others struggled to make sense of new concepts unless I lectured. When I lectured, some students struggled to internalize the information even when they actively participated. Some preferred to read slides and articles and learn what they needed from text.

Since I use choice boards regularly as a way for students to demonstrate their understanding, this year I decided to see what would happen if I applied choice boards to note-taking. Would my students learn new information even if I was not the one giving the information?

Benefits of Choice Boards for Notes

The most immediate effect of using choice boards for notes was the reduction in classroom disruptions. I no longer have to stop instruction to redirect students, wake them up, or ask why they aren't writing anything down. Students don't have to wait for me to finish talking to ask a clarifying question. They can, if they choose, hold a continuing dialogue with each other as they process the new information. (They're expected to keep their voices low, and the lab, where they work, has a wide enough area so they can move away from others, and others can move away from them.)

My students are more engaged with the material. They self-assess their understanding and stop to ask questions, something that many of them wouldn't do during a traditional lecture. Overall, students take more steps on their own to make sure they're understanding the new concepts.

I also observed growth in student achievement. My students are performing as well as or better than the previous year using the choice boards. Because of that, this is now my preferred method of giving notes.

Building the Choice Boards

At the beginning of the year, I gave my students a survey asking about their learning preferences and what types of activities reached them the best. I used this data, and prior experience, to build the activities on the choice board. Overall, my students preferred either a direct lecture from me, a video, or reading slides/text. I sometimes include inquiry-based activities, such as Math Medic or PhET lab simulations, for students who like to learn by noticing trends.

I rely on edtech tools, like Quizizz and Edpuzzle, to build checks for understanding into each choice so that students have timely feedback on their level of understanding. For my math classes, I make use of Desmos Classroom activities to guide students through concepts of graphical relationships. For my science classes, the chemistry section of Positive Physics helps with scaffolding questions and concepts.

Using edtech tools also allows me to build accommodations for my students who need them. I can deploy subtitles, allow reattempts of the work, and make use of read-aloud features. This ensures that all of my students are able to make any choice, regardless of disability or language acquisition.

At the bottom of my choice board I include an exit ticket activity that all students take, so that I can see student progress and compare the effectiveness of each note-taking method.

During Class

Save any questions for me until I am done with the direct teach.

You may work together, but you must keep your volume down so that those listening to a video or to my direct teach can hear.

You must work the full time. If you do not achieve at least an 80 percent on the note-taking activity, you must reattempt it.

If you are disruptive, you are choosing to finish the note-taking activity with me up front.

When I introduce the choice boards to my students, I remind them to make the choice based on how they learn best, not what their friend is doing. Then, I set the following expectations:

I direct students to different areas of the room depending on their choice of activity to minimize noise interference, which also allows them to work together with others who chose the same activity. They're free to switch between different methods during the period if they realize that their choice isn't working for them, or to join me while I'm working examples on the board before returning to their original choice.

Once I'm finished with the direct teach, I circulate around the room to check progress and answer any questions the students couldn't resolve on their own. If it's a common question, I'll answer it for the whole class. I remind students to complete the exit ticket in the last few minutes of class.

Following Up

After class, I look at exit ticket data to find the weak areas in student understanding. I take steps to reteach them, either through a brief whole group instruction, through an inquiry activity, or by selecting activities for another choice board. This makes the next day's activities more cohesive and meaningful to my students, who engage more, knowing that I'm responding to their needs. I also use the data to determine if there were weak spots in the video or slide deck and take steps to revise them for the following year.

The choice board remains posted in Google Classroom for students to refer back to, and I post a video of my direct teach and/or notes. This assists students who were absent that day and serves as a review resource on a later assessment.

I recommend trying this with a less difficult lesson first and keeping your choice board simple: three choices and an exit ticket. As your students get accustomed to doing this, you can branch into more difficult lessons or add more choices.

Giving students choice in their note-taking will make the practice more meaningful to them, ultimately enriching their learning experience so they can achieve more.

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Setting Up Choice Boards in Math and Science

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Letting high school students choose how they take notes in math and science classes can get them to engage more deeply with the content.

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How can I plan my lesson to embrace learner diversity? 

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How can I plan my lesson to embrace learner diversity? 

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This blog describes the what, how, and why of the templates below. Read it first, then check out the templates.

Templates:

3 Part Flipped Classroom Lesson

Whole Group Rotation Lesson

Station Rotation Model

Playlist Model

Video series on blended learning

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How can I use AI to build background knowledge and/or lower the lexile level of a text? 

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How can I use AI to build background knowledge and/or lower the lexile level of a text? 

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There are so many options available for lowering the lexile level of text. You can ask ChatGPT to "lower the lexile level" or to make the text accessible for a "language learner." You can also ask it to make the text accessible for a student who reads at a "grade 5 level."

Find an article that you ask your students to read and try giving ChatGPT to "make it accessible for a student who is new to English."

Here is an example of how we've used this in a World History assessment.

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How can you differentiate in terms of product, and keep the content the same? 

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How can you differentiate in terms of product, and keep the content the same? 

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Everyone produced a memoir, but they had choice in terms of how to produce it: audiobook, written, graphic novel, etc.

Here is another example of a choice summative in Language Arts.

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How can you differentiate in terms of content and keep the skills the same? 

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How can you differentiate in terms of content and keep the skills the same? 

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Every student chose a different character; they all produced the same product. Notice the multilingualism & images on the slides; this all makes the content more inviting and engaging.

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Copy of Unit 4 - Part 1: The Roaring 20s

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How can I scaffold for an assignment that gives students choice? 

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How can I scaffold for an assignment that gives students choice? 

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Legacy Project (Grade 8 SS)

Organiser

Overview

You could also check out the AI Bot that Baylee created to help the kids develop their ideas: https://legacy-project.streamlit.app/

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What different types of rubrics could I use? 

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What different types of rubrics could I use? 

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Rubric as a Checklist

Generated by ChatGPT Plus based on the rubric. This might be useful for giving feedback to students or having them self-assess.

Single Point Rubric

This would be helpful to assess a formative. Students only see one descriptor, so there is less information to digest, and they can focus on one point. You could make it even shorter if you focus on one standard.

Self-Assessment Tools from Responsive Classroom.

Article with numerous no-prep strategies.

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I need ideas as to how students can craft different products and assume different roles to show their learning. 

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I need ideas as to how students can craft different products and assume different roles to show their learning. 

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Whats is the GRASPS Model? - (2 min video)

Possible Product and Performances

Student Roles and Audiences

Constructing a Performance Task Scenario using G.R.A.S.P.S.

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What adaptive schools protocols could I use in my lesson to have differentiated groupings?

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What adaptive schools protocols could I use in my lesson to have differentiated groupings?

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Check out the following:

Learning Partners (clock)

Jigsaw

Stir the Classroom

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Adaptive Schools Resources | @ThinkCollab

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How can students show understanding of the same content in different ways? 

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How can students show understanding of the same content in different ways? 

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See the project here.

See the rubric here.

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How can I set up a choice board for a flash research project? 

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How can I set up a choice board for a flash research project? 

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This choice board was used for a flash research project. Here is the link.

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One page graphic overview

CAST Website

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Can students choose different curriculum in an assessment? 

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Can students choose different curriculum in an assessment? 

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This is a great example of a free project were students can choose both the concept they want to investigate.

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The updated UDL Guidelines are due out later this year.

Draft Guidelines here.

Introducing Proposed Updates to the UDL Guidelines 3.0 (webinar recording)

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How can students show their understanding without writing a paper?

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How can students show their understanding without writing a paper?

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This is the DRAFT task sheet for an upcoming G9 Science project. Students have to show their understanding of a scientific concept by cooking. Any dish or cuisine, their choice... (Yummy?)

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Could I guide student through an entire design cycle, while giving student choice of product?  

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Could I guide student through an entire design cycle, while giving student choice of product?  

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Linus has some great student choice projects in Grade 7 and 8. Below are two highly structured task sheets:

Designing for a User: Lasercut Jewelry, Accessories, and Decor

Graphic Design: Propaganda & Influence Posters