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Think Inclusive | The Official Blog of MCIE

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About ACEs and Trauma-Informed Practices

Adverse Childhood Experiences, also known as ACEs, are traumatic experiences that occur during childhood, ranging from parental divorce to domestic and sexual violence. ACEs have an extremely negative impact on children in the moment, affecting their ability to learn, and, according to the 1998 Kaiser Permanente and U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention ACE Study, the chronic stress they cause can even lead to long-term health issues.

ACEs are measured with a point system by adding up the number of adversities a child has experienced. ACE scores of 0/1 are low, while 4+ are high and mean students are at risk for serious health and behavioral consequences.

While an increased knowledge of ACEs and their negative consequences is crucial, "trauma-informed education is not solely concerned with students' ACE score... Trauma-informed education includes examining the influence and impact on students in our schools of factors such as racism (explicit, implicit, and systematic; and microaggressions) as well as poverty, peer victimization, community violence, and bullying," says Mathew Portell in "Understanding Trauma-Informed Education."

Ways to Support Students Using Trauma-Informed Educational Practices

Look at more than just the behavior

Some students with high levels of trauma act out in unexpected or inappropriate ways. Be calm, kind, and curious. Dig deeper to understand why the behavior is happening and how you can help.

Meetbasic life needs

Students experiencing trauma may need basic life needs met before they can be successful in your classroom. Know the resources in your school and community so you can refer students for supports and services. Follow through with the student to make sure they are getting what they need.

Make sure you have a safe space

Safe spaces start by having strong relationships with students. Ensure you can have honest conversations about what is bothering them. Try and connect beyond academics so students feel they are more than just a student. Find their passions and interests and support them in their learning.

For students who have faced significant trauma, deviation from the schedule and highly unpredictable actions can cause adverse and unexpected reactions. Students with high ACE scores have often stated they feel out of control. Helping them be regulated with consistent rituals and routines is a major step in supporting students with trauma.

Build core skills

Students who have experienced toxic stress may need additional support in building executive function skills, including how to make a plan, cope with stress, adjust, focus, and be more self-aware and flexible.

See the positive

Try and push positive thinking. Often with high levels of trauma, students need to practice positive thinking. Use mental pictures, belly breaths, meditation, and other tactics to support students in changing how they view a situation. For example, before a big test, students can picture being successful, can use big belly breaths to calm nerves, and can ensure they have a plan to take breaks if needed.

Teach!

Teach students how to communicate. Have students practice talking about how they are feeling and what they need. Support them by helping them understand how to ask to take a break and express when they are being hurt. Open yourself to understanding how they learn and what they need to be successful. And, understand it is extremely hard to have one teacher try and do it alone. Trauma-informed educational practices should be a team effort and a school-wide initiative.

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Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma-Informed Practices | Think Inclusive | The Official Blog of MCIE

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About ACEs and Trauma-Informed Practices Adverse Childhood Experiences, also known as ACEs, are traumatic experiences that occur during childhood, ranging from parental divorce to domestic and sexual violence. ACEs have an extremely negative impact on children in the moment, affecting their ability to learn, and, according to the 1998 Kaiser Permanente and U.S.

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Universities are mandated to be the ultimate "learning culture," powered by faculty who embody lifelong learning. We know that reflection is essential to learning; it's the foundation of "continuous improvement," that ceaseless cultivation of our skills and spirits as we work in the world. And this year, our reflection comes in time of global crisis-all the more reason to reflect on what matters most in our lives and our students' lives, in our communities, and in our teaching and learning within our courses.

For some years now, higher education has acknowledged that part of our work is to prepare students for a world marked by increasing uncertainty. We understand that part of our teaching must include helping students develop essential, transferable career skills such as navigating change, communicating and collaborating, creating/innovating, and "learning how to learn." And certainly, the pandemic gave faculty a chance to model flexibility and responsiveness to uncertain, changing conditions, as well as the chance to model learning as we crafted innovative approaches in our shift from classroom teaching to teaching online.

Let's pause here for a moment to reflect on student feedback on their learning experiences this past year. A recent survey about teaching and learning at my small, midwestern liberal arts university highlighted a few key themes we might keep in mind: the need to boost student motivation to provide chances for metacognition in order to cultivate self-directed learning, and students' need for meaningful learning.

We might think of meaningful learning as a tree. Our course material, our textbooks, our tests, and discipline-specific learning tasks are branches of the tree of our students' time at our university. We might then think of the roots as the deeper curriculum. The cultivation of those key habits-habits such as learning and creating-entail a host of other habits of mind such as comfort with risk, uncertainty, and failed attempts, as well as facility in reflection, curiosity, and persistence.

While it may seem counterintuitive, the pressures of the pandemic and the shift this year to online/hybrid courses can open up opportunities for deeper learning. Through brief activities that boost student engagement and community rapport, we can integrate course content with students' daily lives (including work and their other coursework). We can assist students in becoming more self-directed learners by spurring them to thinking about their study habits and course assignments. Leveraging our current context, we can practice more whole-person teaching that cultivates crucial capacities-such as reflection and resilience-for a world of work that requires lifelong learning.

Outlined in this article are some brief yet potent areas of focus, and clusters of questions to make your own. The questions offered here are very general; consider the nitty gritty of students' lives- their pressures, problems, and plans-when you design questions. These may seem rudimentary, but we need to remember to integrate them. The two to five minutes of class /homework time these activities take makes a real difference in the quality of student engagement and learning.

A frequent remark on the survey showed that students have been struggling in their motivation to fulfill their course obligations. It is always our job to generate interest. Motivation, like assessment, like learning, like anything alive, is an ongoing process. We have an opportunity to do what we should always do in our teaching-refashion anything resembling busywork into more compelling forms, ensure our assignments are purposeful and that our course materials are meaningful, and provide opportunities for students to cultivate awareness and skill as learners. It is always our job to communicate, compellingly and truthfully, why our disciplines matter-and that also means evolving how we teach and what we teach in light of how our disciplines connect to the needs of the world now.

Seven ways to facilitate motivation, metacognition, and a learning community

There are three benefits to using these brief activities: 1) We keep motivation high because we keep the focus on why our coursework is meaningful for students' lives; 2) We cultivate metacognition and self-directed learning, encouraging our students to be partners in learning; 3) We build a strong learning community as students share their reflections aloud in class or in our discussion boards.

1. Weekly challenges and support in learning
Rather than just a general, "How was your week?" ask a question each week in which students identify challenges and different supports to their lives (if applicable to your course) and/or learning/homework projects over the past week. What supported their study time? What obstacles arose in life or learning? What did they learn from this challenge? Did they have any ah-ha moments? If so, ask the student to articulate them, this way the class learns with them and they own what they learned all the more. Where did they get stuck? What support did they need for their learning and did they find a way to get it? How might they better approach their work next week?

2. Contemplative course-focused questions
Design questions that draw on key topics of your course that week-but be sure to connect it to students' lives. You have an opportunity to connect your course material with their current lives as students, sports team members, workers, and with their possible future work, as well as with social issues and their other courses in other disciplines. In this way, you are also modeling higher-order integrative thinking while making your course material more connected and meaningful.

A broad example: How do you see [this week's course content] connect with global news/knowledge or skills you are building in your other courses?

A more specific question from a global leadership class during a unit on communication skills: Are there relationships where you could strengthen your listening skills to help transform your teamwork?

3. Course-focused, weekly, check-in assignment reflections and exam wrappers
Incorporating a metacognitive component 1) at the start of class or 2) as an integral part of an assignment, such as an exam wrapper, helps our students learn our course material, and more broadly, "learn how to learn." You might ask students: What was interesting/exciting or usable/valuable about this chapter/assignment for you? Where did you struggle? What helped you overcome that challenge? Are there aspects of your studying this week, or work on this kind of assignment, that might need improvement or a new approach? How can you make those changes?

4. Intentions and goals
The focus on interests, intentions, and goals supports student motivation. Note that for some students goal-setting is intimidating; it's another part of a hidden curriculum for many, so we can help support them in learning this skill, too. But interests are something that can engage everyone. The focus on areas of motivation helps guard against our assignments being seen as busywork. (And in our own fearless, pandemic-driven reflection as teachers, let's be sure it isn't busywork.) Here, you have a chance to share yourself and/or to ask students questions like: Why is this course/unit of the course, or this particular learning activity, meaningful? How will it help you (the student) in your future career? How will it help you in your current life-say in other courses, projects you are keen to try, even in your current jobs?

5. Metacognitive midterm and end-of-term pause
This has proven to be a powerful tool for students to reflect on learning at midterms or as a recollection at the end of the term. Ask students to review their course calendar and articulate key insights from each week and how they can use what they learned in the future. When LMS is central to the course, as it is for most faculty at the moment, students can then share their responses, crowd-sourcing a list of key insights and lessons learned in the course. For more information on this idea, see a previous Faculty Focus article, " Transforming Midterm Evaluations into a Metacognitive Pause. "

6. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a big tent of techniques ranging from gratitude lists that keep our mindset positive to breath work that resets attention for learning. Mindfulness activities at the beginning of class work well to help students refocus their learning. This does not include icebreakers such as, "How was your weekend?" Rather, this is a purposeful activity to refresh harried students and reset their attention towards learning. During the initial shock of the pandemic, taking two to three minutes to ask students to share a gratitude or a vicarious joy (an underdeveloped capacity of happiness at others' happiness) helped my students reduce their distractions, and refocus and gather themselves individually and as a group. Student feedback was strongly favorable citing improvements to their mood at the end of a long day, increased ability to focus, and a stronger sense of learning community, which improved the overall quality of class discussions. You can find support for integrating mindfulness at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
For all of the above:
How to plan this? Just choose two or three areas that you rotate throughout the semester and tailor to your course material each week. You only need to throw out one question at a time, after all. Students love sharing this stuff, and they all benefit from the chance to reflect on their studying and learning processes, gaining insights from the instructor and from each other. These kinds of brief moments in class discussion (online or in-person) build a thriving learning community and cultivate more motivated and self-directed learners.
Gillian Parrish, MFA, is an inveterate teaching-geek and an assistant professor and program director in the MFA Writing Program at Lindenwood University.

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Boosting Student Motivation Through Connected Reflection | Faculty Focus

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Universities are mandated to be the ultimate "learning culture," powered by faculty who embody lifelong learning. We know that reflection is essential to learning; it's the foundation of "continuous improvement," that ceaseless cultivation of our skills and spirits as we work in the world.

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Mental arithmetic is fun!
In this math game, your children make visible progress. With each correctly solved task, Fiete jumps further up the stairs and collects coins. Your children can then use the coins to unlock other cute characters.
A motivating math app that has your children solving hundreds of math tasks in just minutes. Efficient math practice for grade school!

Learning principle: how children have fun learning math
Our tests have shown children voluntarily solving hundreds of tasks in a short time. On paper, that would be almost impossible.

The game principle is easy to understand: For every correctly solved task, the player jumps one step up the stairs. If the answer is wrong, they jump down one level.
Each task solved is rewarded with a coin. But some tasks offer bonuses.
Your children can then use the coins to unlock other characters.

The direct feedback and the proven reward system motivates the children to keep solving tasks.
Our goal with Fiete Math Climber is for children to do arithmetic voluntarily because it's fun and they can see their progress.

Behind the scenes, the app analyzes the child's task-solving style and continuously adjusts the difficulty.
By gently increasing the challenge, their motivation increases and they gain self-confidence in solving math tasks.

Nevertheless, it is always up to the children to decide how difficult they want the tasks to be: they can skip tasks they find too difficult, simplify them, or even make them harder.
This freedom keeps their motivation high and ensures that your child will have fun with this math app for a long time.

Helps parents and teachers to identify and resolve issues
The app continuously analyzes the child's arithmetic and reveals the child's skills and potential issues with certain tasks.
The analytics algorithm immediately identifies issues and creates targeted sets of tasks.
The perfect add-on for math class.

The task list shows parents and teachers what tasks the child has tackled.
This makes it possible to see how far the child's skills have come and why they have issues with certain tasks. It will also parents and teachers to help address these issues.

User management allows multiple students to use the app at the same time.Extensive statistics provide information on whether a child is really improving.

Features
- Contains all arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
- Number range adjustable from 1 to 1,000
- Pre-configured exercise sets include: arithmetic up to 20, multiplication tables, carrying tens, etc.
- suitable for children ages 5 to 10
- targeted training possible
- task definition is comprehensively adjustable
- motivation through entertaining game structure with direct feedback
- long-term motivation through the possibility of collecting figures
- user management
- multiple players possible
- statistics show learning progress
- display all tasks solved
- skills analysis
- identify skills and potential issues
- secure
- all data remains on the device

SUPPORT INFORMATION
We do our best to test our apps on all devices. Should you nevertheless run into difficulties, please send us an email to support@ahoiii.com. We can unfortunately not provide any support in response to comments in the App Store. Thank you!

TO PARENTS
Dear mums and dads, we ourselves are parents, and only make apps that we would not hesitate to play with our own children. By rating us in the App Store, you would be giving us valuable support. We also take data privacy very seriously. If you want to know more details about the way we deal with it, please read our privacy policy at: http://ahoiii.com/privacy-policy/. Should you have problems please feel free to send us an email and we will take care of it.

More apps from Ahoiii:
Fiete Math
Fiete Match
Fiete Choice
FIete HIde and Seek
Fiete Sports
Fiete Winter Sportts
Fiete Soccer

Game looks good, crashes on iPad 2

I checked this out on my more modern phone and was excited to give to my daughter. Unfortunately the app would not even load into the game because of crashing. Could be better on more recent devices but this app is unusable on an iPad 2 running 9.3.5

Great app

I seen some review saying the app crashes . Well maybe they fixed it. It's really good for practicing math.

This app looks good and works good for me

I love this app because it increases my learning skills I love this I gave this a 5 star rating yaaa yeet

The developer, Ahoiii Entertainment, has not provided details about its privacy practices and handling of data to Apple. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Information

Seller

Ahoiii Entertainment UG (haftungsbeschraenkt)

Compatibility

Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Copyright

© 2018 Ahoiii Entertainment UG

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎Mental arithmetic is fun! In this math game, your children make visible progress. With each correctly solved task, Fiete jumps further up the stairs and collects coins. Your children can then use the coins to unlock other cute characters. A motivating math app that has your children solving hundred...

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(Image credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay )

Educators teaching online classes across the country have noticed a disturbing trend: Many students have stopped logging into their online classes altogether.

In Hillsborough County, Florida, more than 7,000 students were missing at the beginning of the school year, and in Los Angeles, kindergarten enrollment dropped by 6,000, according to . Desperate to locate these missing learners, some teachers have started making house calls hoping to find them.

Keeping students from disengaging with their education has long been a focus of Robert Balfanz, PhD, a research professor and scientist at the Center for the Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, where he is the director of the Everyone Graduates Center. He also co-founded Diplomas Now, an evidence-based model designed to transform high needs middle and high schools.

Balfanz shared thoughts on why students are disconnecting and what educators can do to bring them back.

Why Are Students Logging Out?

This is occurring for reasons ranging from poor connectivity -- even with school-provided devices and internet access -- to older students working jobs and students who moved over the summer and have no idea what school they are supposed to log into. "If it's a physical world, you show up at a school building. If it's a virtual world, how do you find a new virtual school?" Balfanz says.

The way online learning was implemented as a stopgap measure last spring also signaled to many students that online school wasn't something to take seriously, he says.

Students who entered middle school or high school this fall may be particularly vulnerable. "We know from research that the sixth and ninth grade are very critical times when you're sort of deciding, 'Is schooling for me, is it worth investing in?'" Balfanz says. Now, because of the pandemic, many students are going to new schools and haven't met their teachers or classmates in real life.

How Can Educators Reconnect?

"There is no shortcut to actually establishing a direct human connection with these students," Balfanz says. "Somebody's got to make the human connection to say, 'How are you doing? What's going on? What's your situation? We really want you to be in school, we're gonna try to troubleshoot for you. Can you at least come three days a week?'"

Even just finding those students to make that connection can be difficult. Balfanz says some districts have been able to successfully partner with community organizations to track down students.

However, Balfanz emphasizes that this is not an easy situation for already overtaxed educators. "It would be sugarcoating it to say, 'Oh, yeah, just add the human touch to what you're doing.' Because that's time and energy for teachers, and the heart may be there, but just the pure energy to do it may not, given everything else the teachers are doing, and also working with their own families who are often doing remote schooling."

What Keeps Students Engaged in General?

A growing body of research on school connectedness that predates the pandemic shows kids are connected when four things are true, Balfanz says.

1. They know that there is an adult or adults at the school who cares about them as a person.

2. They have a supportive peer group. "It could be a shared interest, it could be a club, it could be theater, it could be sports, it could just be you just hang out and play video games together," Balfanz says.

3. They engage in prosocial activities (activities that are meaningful to them or help others). While adolescents are often thought of as "me"-oriented, Balfanz says they are more motivated by helping others than themselves. "We often say, 'You have to do this for your future,' which has its place, but it's clear that kids are actually more motivated, if we say, 'Let's work together on this project. You'll learn stuff, and we'll also do good.'"

4. They find school to be a welcoming place that accepts them for who they are.

"The truth is there's not a lot of kids who check all those boxes," Balfanz says. "But most kids check at least some. If you don't check any, that's usually your disconnected kid."

How Can You Foster This Connectedness in a Pandemic

"Some folks have been very inventive about finding ways to do student club activities online," Balfanz says. For instance, some schools have done radio dramas together remotely, while others have encouraged students to participate in esports instead of physical sports.

While there are also examples of educators who have had virtual office hours, another effective strategy some schools have employed is peer tutoring in which older students help younger ones. "It gives you that prosocial purpose," Balfanz says.

What to Do To Reestablish Connection When In-Person Classes Resume

As the pandemic eventually ends and schools resume in-person classes, Balfanz says educators should acknowledge the difficulties of the Covid era. "Teachers are going to have to spend a little time--we're not talking months or weeks, but a couple of days--just reconnecting as people to tell your stories and create a common narrative that we're all in this together," Balfanz says. "We all experienced Covid in different ways, but we all experienced it. We can work together to reconnect those bonds at an interpersonal level, before diving in and saying, 'Well, what didn't you learn, let's establish your learning loss, and figure out a plan to recover it.' That's all important but first [priority] is reestablishing those connections and creating a group sense."

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How to Reconnect with Students Who Have Logged Out

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
(Image credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay ) Educators teaching online classes across the country have noticed a disturbing trend: Many students have stopped logging into their online classes altogether. In Hillsborough County, Florida, more than 7,000 students were missing at the beginning of the school year, and in Los Angeles, kindergarten enrollment dropped by 6,000, according to .

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A guide to help parents become aware of certain patters in their child.

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A guide to help parents become aware of certain patters in their child.

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How Parents Can Spot Signs of Learning Disabilities During Remote Learning

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A new digital guide aims to identify students missing out on special education services and supports during distance learning.

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How to keep students engaged in online learning

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How to keep students engaged in online learning

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(Image credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay )

Educators teaching online classes across the country have noticed a disturbing trend: Many students have stopped logging into their online classes altogether.

In Hillsborough County, Florida, more than 7,000 students were missing at the beginning of the school year, and in Los Angeles, kindergarten enrollment dropped by 6,000, according to . Desperate to locate these missing learners, some teachers have started making house calls hoping to find them.

Keeping students from disengaging with their education has long been a focus of Robert Balfanz, PhD, a research professor and scientist at the Center for the Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, where he is the director of the Everyone Graduates Center. He also co-founded Diplomas Now, an evidence-based model designed to transform high needs middle and high schools.

Balfanz shared thoughts on why students are disconnecting and what educators can do to bring them back.

Why Are Students Logging Out?

This is occurring for reasons ranging from poor connectivity -- even with school-provided devices and internet access -- to older students working jobs and students who moved over the summer and have no idea what school they are supposed to log into. "If it's a physical world, you show up at a school building. If it's a virtual world, how do you find a new virtual school?" Balfanz says.

The way online learning was implemented as a stopgap measure last spring also signaled to many students that online school wasn't something to take seriously, he says.

Students who entered middle school or high school this fall may be particularly vulnerable. "We know from research that the sixth and ninth grade are very critical times when you're sort of deciding, 'Is schooling for me, is it worth investing in?'" Balfanz says. Now, because of the pandemic, many students are going to new schools and haven't met their teachers or classmates in real life.

How Can Educators Reconnect?

"There is no shortcut to actually establishing a direct human connection with these students," Balfanz says. "Somebody's got to make the human connection to say, 'How are you doing? What's going on? What's your situation? We really want you to be in school, we're gonna try to troubleshoot for you. Can you at least come three days a week?'"

Even just finding those students to make that connection can be difficult. Balfanz says some districts have been able to successfully partner with community organizations to track down students.

However, Balfanz emphasizes that this is not an easy situation for already overtaxed educators. "It would be sugarcoating it to say, 'Oh, yeah, just add the human touch to what you're doing.' Because that's time and energy for teachers, and the heart may be there, but just the pure energy to do it may not, given everything else the teachers are doing, and also working with their own families who are often doing remote schooling."

What Keeps Students Engaged in General?

A growing body of research on school connectedness that predates the pandemic shows kids are connected when four things are true, Balfanz says.

1. They know that there is an adult or adults at the school who cares about them as a person.

2. They have a supportive peer group. "It could be a shared interest, it could be a club, it could be theater, it could be sports, it could just be you just hang out and play video games together," Balfanz says.

3. They engage in prosocial activities (activities that are meaningful to them or help others). While adolescents are often thought of as "me"-oriented, Balfanz says they are more motivated by helping others than themselves. "We often say, 'You have to do this for your future,' which has its place, but it's clear that kids are actually more motivated, if we say, 'Let's work together on this project. You'll learn stuff, and we'll also do good.'"

4. They find school to be a welcoming place that accepts them for who they are.

"The truth is there's not a lot of kids who check all those boxes," Balfanz says. "But most kids check at least some. If you don't check any, that's usually your disconnected kid."

How Can You Foster This Connectedness in a Pandemic

"Some folks have been very inventive about finding ways to do student club activities online," Balfanz says. For instance, some schools have done radio dramas together remotely, while others have encouraged students to participate in esports instead of physical sports.

While there are also examples of educators who have had virtual office hours, another effective strategy some schools have employed is peer tutoring in which older students help younger ones. "It gives you that prosocial purpose," Balfanz says.

What to Do To Reestablish Connection When In-Person Classes Resume

As the pandemic eventually ends and schools resume in-person classes, Balfanz says educators should acknowledge the difficulties of the Covid era. "Teachers are going to have to spend a little time--we're not talking months or weeks, but a couple of days--just reconnecting as people to tell your stories and create a common narrative that we're all in this together," Balfanz says. "We all experienced Covid in different ways, but we all experienced it. We can work together to reconnect those bonds at an interpersonal level, before diving in and saying, 'Well, what didn't you learn, let's establish your learning loss, and figure out a plan to recover it.' That's all important but first [priority] is reestablishing those connections and creating a group sense."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Reconnect with Students Who Have Logged Out

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
(Image credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay ) Educators teaching online classes across the country have noticed a disturbing trend: Many students have stopped logging into their online classes altogether. In Hillsborough County, Florida, more than 7,000 students were missing at the beginning of the school year, and in Los Angeles, kindergarten enrollment dropped by 6,000, according to .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Universities are mandated to be the ultimate "learning culture," powered by faculty who embody lifelong learning. We know that reflection is essential to learning; it's the foundation of "continuous improvement," that ceaseless cultivation of our skills and spirits as we work in the world. And this year, our reflection comes in time of global crisis-all the more reason to reflect on what matters most in our lives and our students' lives, in our communities, and in our teaching and learning within our courses.

For some years now, higher education has acknowledged that part of our work is to prepare students for a world marked by increasing uncertainty. We understand that part of our teaching must include helping students develop essential, transferable career skills such as navigating change, communicating and collaborating, creating/innovating, and "learning how to learn." And certainly, the pandemic gave faculty a chance to model flexibility and responsiveness to uncertain, changing conditions, as well as the chance to model learning as we crafted innovative approaches in our shift from classroom teaching to teaching online.

Let's pause here for a moment to reflect on student feedback on their learning experiences this past year. A recent survey about teaching and learning at my small, midwestern liberal arts university highlighted a few key themes we might keep in mind: the need to boost student motivation to provide chances for metacognition in order to cultivate self-directed learning, and students' need for meaningful learning.

We might think of meaningful learning as a tree. Our course material, our textbooks, our tests, and discipline-specific learning tasks are branches of the tree of our students' time at our university. We might then think of the roots as the deeper curriculum. The cultivation of those key habits-habits such as learning and creating-entail a host of other habits of mind such as comfort with risk, uncertainty, and failed attempts, as well as facility in reflection, curiosity, and persistence.

While it may seem counterintuitive, the pressures of the pandemic and the shift this year to online/hybrid courses can open up opportunities for deeper learning. Through brief activities that boost student engagement and community rapport, we can integrate course content with students' daily lives (including work and their other coursework). We can assist students in becoming more self-directed learners by spurring them to thinking about their study habits and course assignments. Leveraging our current context, we can practice more whole-person teaching that cultivates crucial capacities-such as reflection and resilience-for a world of work that requires lifelong learning.

Outlined in this article are some brief yet potent areas of focus, and clusters of questions to make your own. The questions offered here are very general; consider the nitty gritty of students' lives- their pressures, problems, and plans-when you design questions. These may seem rudimentary, but we need to remember to integrate them. The two to five minutes of class /homework time these activities take makes a real difference in the quality of student engagement and learning.

A frequent remark on the survey showed that students have been struggling in their motivation to fulfill their course obligations. It is always our job to generate interest. Motivation, like assessment, like learning, like anything alive, is an ongoing process. We have an opportunity to do what we should always do in our teaching-refashion anything resembling busywork into more compelling forms, ensure our assignments are purposeful and that our course materials are meaningful, and provide opportunities for students to cultivate awareness and skill as learners. It is always our job to communicate, compellingly and truthfully, why our disciplines matter-and that also means evolving how we teach and what we teach in light of how our disciplines connect to the needs of the world now.

Seven ways to facilitate motivation, metacognition, and a learning community

There are three benefits to using these brief activities: 1) We keep motivation high because we keep the focus on why our coursework is meaningful for students' lives; 2) We cultivate metacognition and self-directed learning, encouraging our students to be partners in learning; 3) We build a strong learning community as students share their reflections aloud in class or in our discussion boards.

1. Weekly challenges and support in learning
Rather than just a general, "How was your week?" ask a question each week in which students identify challenges and different supports to their lives (if applicable to your course) and/or learning/homework projects over the past week. What supported their study time? What obstacles arose in life or learning? What did they learn from this challenge? Did they have any ah-ha moments? If so, ask the student to articulate them, this way the class learns with them and they own what they learned all the more. Where did they get stuck? What support did they need for their learning and did they find a way to get it? How might they better approach their work next week?

2. Contemplative course-focused questions
Design questions that draw on key topics of your course that week-but be sure to connect it to students' lives. You have an opportunity to connect your course material with their current lives as students, sports team members, workers, and with their possible future work, as well as with social issues and their other courses in other disciplines. In this way, you are also modeling higher-order integrative thinking while making your course material more connected and meaningful.

A broad example: How do you see [this week's course content] connect with global news/knowledge or skills you are building in your other courses?

A more specific question from a global leadership class during a unit on communication skills: Are there relationships where you could strengthen your listening skills to help transform your teamwork?

3. Course-focused, weekly, check-in assignment reflections and exam wrappers
Incorporating a metacognitive component 1) at the start of class or 2) as an integral part of an assignment, such as an exam wrapper, helps our students learn our course material, and more broadly, "learn how to learn." You might ask students: What was interesting/exciting or usable/valuable about this chapter/assignment for you? Where did you struggle? What helped you overcome that challenge? Are there aspects of your studying this week, or work on this kind of assignment, that might need improvement or a new approach? How can you make those changes?

4. Intentions and goals
The focus on interests, intentions, and goals supports student motivation. Note that for some students goal-setting is intimidating; it's another part of a hidden curriculum for many, so we can help support them in learning this skill, too. But interests are something that can engage everyone. The focus on areas of motivation helps guard against our assignments being seen as busywork. (And in our own fearless, pandemic-driven reflection as teachers, let's be sure it isn't busywork.) Here, you have a chance to share yourself and/or to ask students questions like: Why is this course/unit of the course, or this particular learning activity, meaningful? How will it help you (the student) in your future career? How will it help you in your current life-say in other courses, projects you are keen to try, even in your current jobs?

5. Metacognitive midterm and end-of-term pause
This has proven to be a powerful tool for students to reflect on learning at midterms or as a recollection at the end of the term. Ask students to review their course calendar and articulate key insights from each week and how they can use what they learned in the future. When LMS is central to the course, as it is for most faculty at the moment, students can then share their responses, crowd-sourcing a list of key insights and lessons learned in the course. For more information on this idea, see a previous Faculty Focus article, " Transforming Midterm Evaluations into a Metacognitive Pause. "

6. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a big tent of techniques ranging from gratitude lists that keep our mindset positive to breath work that resets attention for learning. Mindfulness activities at the beginning of class work well to help students refocus their learning. This does not include icebreakers such as, "How was your weekend?" Rather, this is a purposeful activity to refresh harried students and reset their attention towards learning. During the initial shock of the pandemic, taking two to three minutes to ask students to share a gratitude or a vicarious joy (an underdeveloped capacity of happiness at others' happiness) helped my students reduce their distractions, and refocus and gather themselves individually and as a group. Student feedback was strongly favorable citing improvements to their mood at the end of a long day, increased ability to focus, and a stronger sense of learning community, which improved the overall quality of class discussions. You can find support for integrating mindfulness at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
For all of the above:
How to plan this? Just choose two or three areas that you rotate throughout the semester and tailor to your course material each week. You only need to throw out one question at a time, after all. Students love sharing this stuff, and they all benefit from the chance to reflect on their studying and learning processes, gaining insights from the instructor and from each other. These kinds of brief moments in class discussion (online or in-person) build a thriving learning community and cultivate more motivated and self-directed learners.
Gillian Parrish, MFA, is an inveterate teaching-geek and an assistant professor and program director in the MFA Writing Program at Lindenwood University.

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Boosting Student Motivation Through Connected Reflection | Faculty Focus

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Universities are mandated to be the ultimate "learning culture," powered by faculty who embody lifelong learning. We know that reflection is essential to learning; it's the foundation of "continuous improvement," that ceaseless cultivation of our skills and spirits as we work in the world.

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https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1271712039

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Mental arithmetic is fun!
In this math game, your children make visible progress. With each correctly solved task, Fiete jumps further up the stairs and collects coins. Your children can then use the coins to unlock other cute characters.
A motivating math app that has your children solving hundreds of math tasks in just minutes. Efficient math practice for grade school!

Learning principle: how children have fun learning math
Our tests have shown children voluntarily solving hundreds of tasks in a short time. On paper, that would be almost impossible.

The game principle is easy to understand: For every correctly solved task, the player jumps one step up the stairs. If the answer is wrong, they jump down one level.
Each task solved is rewarded with a coin. But some tasks offer bonuses.
Your children can then use the coins to unlock other characters.

The direct feedback and the proven reward system motivates the children to keep solving tasks.
Our goal with Fiete Math Climber is for children to do arithmetic voluntarily because it's fun and they can see their progress.

Behind the scenes, the app analyzes the child's task-solving style and continuously adjusts the difficulty.
By gently increasing the challenge, their motivation increases and they gain self-confidence in solving math tasks.

Nevertheless, it is always up to the children to decide how difficult they want the tasks to be: they can skip tasks they find too difficult, simplify them, or even make them harder.
This freedom keeps their motivation high and ensures that your child will have fun with this math app for a long time.

Helps parents and teachers to identify and resolve issues
The app continuously analyzes the child's arithmetic and reveals the child's skills and potential issues with certain tasks.
The analytics algorithm immediately identifies issues and creates targeted sets of tasks.
The perfect add-on for math class.

The task list shows parents and teachers what tasks the child has tackled.
This makes it possible to see how far the child's skills have come and why they have issues with certain tasks. It will also parents and teachers to help address these issues.

User management allows multiple students to use the app at the same time.Extensive statistics provide information on whether a child is really improving.

Features
- Contains all arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
- Number range adjustable from 1 to 1,000
- Pre-configured exercise sets include: arithmetic up to 20, multiplication tables, carrying tens, etc.
- suitable for children ages 5 to 10
- targeted training possible
- task definition is comprehensively adjustable
- motivation through entertaining game structure with direct feedback
- long-term motivation through the possibility of collecting figures
- user management
- multiple players possible
- statistics show learning progress
- display all tasks solved
- skills analysis
- identify skills and potential issues
- secure
- all data remains on the device

SUPPORT INFORMATION
We do our best to test our apps on all devices. Should you nevertheless run into difficulties, please send us an email to support@ahoiii.com. We can unfortunately not provide any support in response to comments in the App Store. Thank you!

TO PARENTS
Dear mums and dads, we ourselves are parents, and only make apps that we would not hesitate to play with our own children. By rating us in the App Store, you would be giving us valuable support. We also take data privacy very seriously. If you want to know more details about the way we deal with it, please read our privacy policy at: http://ahoiii.com/privacy-policy/. Should you have problems please feel free to send us an email and we will take care of it.

More apps from Ahoiii:
Fiete Math
Fiete Match
Fiete Choice
FIete HIde and Seek
Fiete Sports
Fiete Winter Sportts
Fiete Soccer

Game looks good, crashes on iPad 2

I checked this out on my more modern phone and was excited to give to my daughter. Unfortunately the app would not even load into the game because of crashing. Could be better on more recent devices but this app is unusable on an iPad 2 running 9.3.5

Great app

I seen some review saying the app crashes . Well maybe they fixed it. It's really good for practicing math.

This app looks good and works good for me

I love this app because it increases my learning skills I love this I gave this a 5 star rating yaaa yeet

The developer, Ahoiii Entertainment, has not provided details about its privacy practices and handling of data to Apple. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Information

Seller

Ahoiii Entertainment UG (haftungsbeschraenkt)

Compatibility

Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Copyright

© 2018 Ahoiii Entertainment UG

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

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‎Mental arithmetic is fun! In this math game, your children make visible progress. With each correctly solved task, Fiete jumps further up the stairs and collects coins. Your children can then use the coins to unlock other cute characters. A motivating math app that has your children solving hundred...