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Putting Pedagogy before Technology Tools 

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Putting Pedagogy before Technology Tools 

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The Padagogy Wheel - It's Not About The Apps, It's About The Pedagogy contributed by Allan Carrington, TeachThought PD Workshop Facilitator Visit TeachThought Professional Development if you're interested in our workshop options on the Padagogy Wheel.
The Padagogy Wheel is designed to help educators think - systematically, coherently, and with a view to long term, big-picture outcomes - about how they use mobile apps in their teaching. The Padagogy Wheel is all about mindsets; it's a way of thinking about digital-age education that meshes together concerns about mobile app features, learning transformation, motivation, cognitive development and long-term learning objectives.

The Padagogy Wheel, though, is not rocket science. It is an everyday device that can be readily used by everyday teachers; it can be applied to everything from curriculum planning and development, to writing learning objectives and designing centered activities. The idea is for the users to respond to the challenges that the Wheel presents for their teaching practices, and to ask themselves the tough questions about their choices and methods.

The underlying principle of the Padagogy Wheel is that it is the pedagogy that should determine our educational use of apps. It's all very well to come across an exciting new app and to think to yourself, 'That's really cool, now how can I use it in the classroom?,' but what you need to do at the same time is to think about how that app might contribute to your set of educational aims for the program you are teaching. It was in fact this very concern, my desire to help teachers make good decisions as to how to make the pedagogy drive the technology, and not the other way around, that led to the birth of the Padagogy Wheel.
So how does it work?
The Padagogy Wheel brings together in the one chart several different domains of pedagogical thinking. It situates mobile apps within this integrated framework, associating them with the educational purpose they are most likely to serve. It then enables teachers to identify the pedagogical place and purpose of their various app-based learning and teaching activities in the context of their overall objectives for the course, and with reference to the wider developmental needs of their students.

It's useful to see the Wheel as providing a series of challenges and questions, a structured set of prompts asking you to reflect on your teaching, from planning to implementation. These prompts are interconnected like mechanical gears where a decision in one area often affects decisions in other areas. Consider each area as a grid through which you filter what you are doing. There are five of these grids; let's look at each one in more detail.

THE FIVE GRIDS
1. Graduate Attributes And Capabilities
Graduate Attributes are at the core of learning design. Graduate Attributes address the long-term, enduring aims of our educational activity. They involve thinking about the type of people that emerge from our educational programs - their ethics, responsibility, and citizenship, for example - and their employability in our current and future society. Teachers must constantly revisit the way in which their programs are contributing to the development of these attributes.

They need to do the hard yards of articulating what they expect a graduate of a program to 'look like'-i.e. what is it that a graduate is and does that we regard as successful and meets the expectations of their communities as change agents and leaders. How else can teachers help students know what transformation 'looks like'?

Many universities around the world are constantly working on their graduate attributes and are mapping their programs to them. The blog post " If you exercise these capabilities.. You will be employed! " where I interviewed Prof. Geoff Scott, is really eye opening for college educators as it highlights the attributes and capabilities the CEOs in the market place want in graduates, the things they look for in hiring. If educational leaders don't have a clear picture of the qualities and capabilities of an excellent graduate of their program, then how can teachers help students strive for excellence and to be leaders in their worlds?

Every teacher needs to look at their courses and pedagogy and ask, "How does everything I do support these attributes? Is there any way I can build content and activities that help students become 'excellent'?"
2. Motivation
Motivation is vital to achieving the most effective learning outcomes. It is valuable for teachers to regularly ask themselves "Why am I doing this again?" That is not a joke. I am referring to the choices of learning outcomes, development of activities and design of content e.g. writing text and even making videos. So the wheel introduces a 21st century model of motivation that science has developed and is so well presented by Dan Pink in the TEDtalk "The Puzzle of Motivation".

Thinking through the grid of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (AMP) and filtering everything you do from idea-creation to assessment will, I believe, significantly help your teaching be transformational.
3. Bloom's Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy is really a way of helping teachers design learning objectives that require higher order thinking. You start with 'remembering and understanding', which is the easiest category to serve with objectives but produces the least effective outcomes in achieving transformation. When supporting teachers, I recommend they try to get at least one learning objective from each category and always push towards the domain category of Creating, where higher order thinking takes place. This is the 'By the time you finish this workshop/seminar/lesson you should be able to. . .' type of thinking. Only after you have developed your learning outcomes are you ready for technology enhancement.
4. Technology Enhancement
Technology Enhancement serves your pedagogy. When you choose any app or technology remember to apply the app selection criteria. The model only suggests apps that can support the learning objectives and activities at the time of publishing. The Padagogy Wheel constantly needs updating with apps as they are released. Teachers also should think customization all the time - is there a better app or tool for the job of enhancing my defined pedagogy?
5. The SAMR Model
Developed by Ruben Puentedura, the SAMR model - standing for "Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition" - is a framework that assists teachers to assess the degree to which digitally-empowered learning and teaching is (or is not) moving beyond what can be taught using analog technologies. The SAMR Model is extremely useful when considering how you are going to use the technologies you have chosen. SAMR is a widely used model with a wealth of resources online, like Kathy Schrock's excellent SAMR resources page. A very useful perspective about SAMR is through the eyes of the students. The 3:55 min Youtube video below, subtitled for when I teach about the Padagogy Wheel in China, explains:

Take each of your activities and think through how you will use the technology for each task. Ask yourself "Does this activity just substitute (i.e. students could easily achieve the tasks without this chosen technology) or can I augment or modify the tasks to improve the activity and increase engagement?" Finally sieve your curriculum building activities and your teaching practice through the SAMR grid of Redefinition. Is there any task you can build into the activity that without the technology would not be possible?
The history of the Padagogy Wheel
In 2012 on a teaching trip to the UK, I got the idea of putting apps around the outside of Bloom's Taxonomy Wheel and organizing them according to his cognitive domain categories. The taxonomy was based on Kathwohl and Anderson's (2001) adaption of Bloom (1956) and it was their work that combined Remembering and Understanding.

The first version of the Padagogy Wheel had at its core Bloom's cognitive domain categories and teachers started their exploration of the wheel by making decisions about learning outcomes from each of those categories. They were aiming for those outcomes that promoted higher order thinking skills, in the 'Analyse' and 'Create' domains. I was the first to show 65 educational apps around the outer rim of the wheel. These apps were categorized by their strengths in helping learners reach better outcomes. I knew I was onto something useful by the requests for my permission to use this info-graphic after the seminars.

Back in Australia I thought about 'what is good teaching' and 'what is its core concept.' I added Graduate Attributes and Employable Capabilities for version two, then Motivation and the SAMR Model for version three. Two years and 150,000 downloads later I updated the apps and doubled the number available per category for version four. I also added further advice on app selection criteria.
I want to issue you with a challenge
Spend time thinking through how you can apply all five of the grids to your curriculum design, lesson plans and teaching practice. Learn more about each grid and take the Padagogy Wheel out for a spin. Please share your best practice examples. I would love to hear from you.

This year an objective is to build an online resource of how teachers have used the model, showcasing best practice and including research projects. We learned from our recent trip to China that they have over 14.5 million teachers. Yes, just teachers! And they all are extremely committed to change, hungry for professional development and collaboration. Your own work on the Padagogy Wheel could help many thousands of educators in China, as well as others around the world. This will help students become excellent practitioners and graduates, leading their communities into transformational change and could make the world a better place. After all isn't that why you became a teacher?

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The Padagogy Wheel: It's Not About The Apps, It's About The Pedagogy

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The Padagogy Wheel - It's Not About The Apps, It's About The Pedagogy contributed by Allan Carrington, TeachThought PD Workshop Facilitator Visit TeachThought Professional Development if you're interested in our workshop options on the Padagogy Wheel.

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Google Jamboard - Another mention of a platform or tool that helps accomplish the greater goal of communication and collaboration.

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Grade 7s learning about @getnicced as we embark on reading her bestselling novel. #jamboard @DDSBatHome7to8

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Grade 7s learning about @getnicced as we embark on reading her bestselling novel. #jamboard @DDSBatHome7to8 https://t.co/iMOwBvweCZ

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Grade 7s learning about @getnicced as we embark on reading her bestselling novel. #jamboard @DDSBatHome7to8 pic.twitter.com/iMOwBvweCZ
— Ms. BT♡ (@jessiebt) January 6, 2021

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Grade 7s learning about @getnicced as we embark on reading her bestselling novel. #jamboard @DDSBatHome7to8 https://t.co/iMOwBvweCZ

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Grade 7s learning about @getnicced as we embark on reading her bestselling novel. #jamboard @DDSBatHome7to8 https://t.co/iMOwBvweCZ

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Grade 7s learning about @getnicced as we embark on reading her bestselling novel. #jamboard @DDSBatHome7to8

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Another example of HOW to build community using a tech tool. Also feeds into collaboration on Jamboard.

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🍬Love Me Jamboard🍬 

💙Here's a Valentine's Day activity to foster self-confidence and help students identify their own strengths! 

♥️As an extension activity, you can invite students to write a note observing each other's strengths. 

Enjoy👇🏾
https://t.co/Hehxq4FbAB

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🍬Love Me Jamboard🍬 

💙Here's a Valentine's Day activity to foster self-confidence and help students identify their own strengths! 

♥️As an extension activity, you can invite students to write a note observing each other's strengths. 

Enjoy👇🏾
https://t.co/Hehxq4FbAB https://t.co/BoXRjXiFrj

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🍬Love Me Jamboard🍬

💙Here's a Valentine's Day activity to foster self-confidence and help students identify their own strengths!

♥️As an extension activity, you can invite students to write a note observing each other's strengths.

Enjoy👇🏾https://t.co/Hehxq4FbAB pic.twitter.com/BoXRjXiFrj
— Esther Park (@MrsParkShine) February 1, 2021

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🍬Love Me Jamboard🍬 

💙Here's a Valentine's Day activity to foster self-confidence and help students identify their own strengths! 

♥️As an extension activity, you can invite students to write a note observing each other's strengths. 

Enjoy👇🏾
https://t.co/Hehxq4FbAB https://t.co/BoXRjXiFrj

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
🍬Love Me Jamboard🍬 

💙Here's a Valentine's Day activity to foster self-confidence and help students identify their own strengths! 

♥️As an extension activity, you can invite students to write a note observing each other's strengths. 

Enjoy👇🏾
https://t.co/Hehxq4FbAB https://t.co/BoXRjXiFrj

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
🍬Love Me Jamboard🍬 

💙Here's a Valentine's Day activity to foster self-confidence and help students identify their own strengths! 

♥️As an extension activity, you can invite students to write a note observing each other's strengths. 

Enjoy👇🏾
https://t.co/Hehxq4FbAB

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Students are creating guidelines to follow during classroom discussions. This also feeds into both collaboration and community.

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

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I 👏🏽FREAKIN👏🏽 LOVE👏🏽 the term and idea of ESTABLISHING A “COMMUNITY AGREEMENT” before having REAL conversations! EMPOWERING CONVERSATIONS!
 #stamped #OKCTE @oklacte 
Dr. @LaraSearcy112 https://t.co/GYiBWJdCJ0

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo
— OKCTE (@oklacte) December 5, 2020

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

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I 👏🏽FREAKIN👏🏽 LOVE👏🏽 the term and idea of ESTABLISHING A “COMMUNITY AGREEMENT” before having REAL conversations! EMPOWERING CONVERSATIONS!
 #stamped #OKCTE @oklacte 
Dr. @LaraSearcy112 https://t.co/GYiBWJdCJ0

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

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I 👏🏽FREAKIN👏🏽 LOVE👏🏽 the term and idea of ESTABLISHING A “COMMUNITY AGREEMENT” before having REAL conversations! EMPOWERING CONVERSATIONS!
 #stamped #OKCTE @oklacte 
Dr. @LaraSearcy112 https://t.co/GYiBWJdCJ0

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Giving students opportunities to just hang out and see each other - Sarah B. interview and how facilitating quality discussion stems from allowing students to simply discuss and connect.

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My students shared that a challenge on remote days is not having time to "just hang out together." 

We talked it out & they decided to create an optional Advisory Zoom for this morning ("you can come too, Ms. Christie 😂😭).

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My students shared that a challenge on remote days is not having time to "just hang out together." 

We talked it out & they decided to create an optional Advisory Zoom for this morning ("you can come too, Ms. Christie 😂😭).

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My students shared that a challenge on remote days is not having time to "just hang out together."

We talked it out & they decided to create an optional Advisory Zoom for this morning ("you can come too, Ms. Christie 😂😭).
— Christie (@ChristieNold) February 16, 2021

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My students shared that a challenge on remote days is not having time to "just hang out together." 

We talked it out & they decided to create an optional Advisory Zoom for this morning ("you can come too, Ms. Christie 😂😭).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
My students shared that a challenge on remote days is not having time to "just hang out together." 

We talked it out & they decided to create an optional Advisory Zoom for this morning ("you can come too, Ms. Christie 😂😭).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
My students shared that a challenge on remote days is not having time to "just hang out together." 

We talked it out & they decided to create an optional Advisory Zoom for this morning ("you can come too, Ms. Christie 😂😭).

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Merging tech with attendance questions to build online community. Relevant to young people.

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For today’s attendance question I made a Padlet and told the kids to go to the barbiestyle Insta feed to pick the Barbie that matches them and post with 1 sentence why.

I WILL NEVER STOP LAUGHINGGGG, this is my best AQ of all time

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For today’s attendance question I made a Padlet and told the kids to go to the barbiestyle Insta feed to pick the Barbie that matches them and post with 1 sentence why.

I WILL NEVER STOP LAUGHINGGGG, this is my best AQ of all time https://t.co/noHMJ8kE37

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Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.

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For today’s attendance question I made a Padlet and told the kids to go to the barbiestyle Insta feed to pick the Barbie that matches them and post with 1 sentence why.

I WILL NEVER STOP LAUGHINGGGG, this is my best AQ of all time pic.twitter.com/noHMJ8kE37
— Jessica Kirkland (@jkirk___) February 17, 2021

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For today’s attendance question I made a Padlet and told the kids to go to the barbiestyle Insta feed to pick the Barbie that matches them and post with 1 sentence why.

I WILL NEVER STOP LAUGHINGGGG, this is my best AQ of all time https://t.co/noHMJ8kE37

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
For today’s attendance question I made a Padlet and told the kids to go to the barbiestyle Insta feed to pick the Barbie that matches them and post with 1 sentence why.

I WILL NEVER STOP LAUGHINGGGG, this is my best AQ of all time https://t.co/noHMJ8kE37

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
For today’s attendance question I made a Padlet and told the kids to go to the barbiestyle Insta feed to pick the Barbie that matches them and post with 1 sentence why.

I WILL NEVER STOP LAUGHINGGGG, this is my best AQ of all time

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Daily dedications to learning - what a beautiful way to honor others, build empathy, create #classroomcommunity, & so much more! Just reading this will move you, so imagine the impact it could have with students in your classroom! https://t.co/uPFJ7FWka8 @edutopia

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𝕄𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣

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A Daily Ritual That Builds Trust and Community Among Students

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An activity that encourages students to open up about a person close to them can bring a whole class together in profound ways.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Daily dedications to learning - what a beautiful way to honor others, build empathy, create #classroomcommunity, & so much more! Just reading this will move you, so imagine the impact it could have with students in your classroom! https://t.co/uPFJ7FWka8 @edutopia

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𝕄𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣

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𝕄𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣

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Daily dedications to learning - what a beautiful way to honor others, build empathy, create #classroomcommunity, & so much more! Just reading this will move you, so imagine the impact it could have with students in your classroom! https://t.co/uPFJ7FWka8 @edutopia
— 𝕄𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 (@MicheleMacumber) February 3, 2021

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A Daily Ritual That Builds Trust and Community Among Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.entities.urls[].description
An activity that encourages students to open up about a person close to them can bring a whole class together in profound ways.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Daily dedications to learning - what a beautiful way to honor others, build empathy, create #classroomcommunity, & so much more! Just reading this will move you, so imagine the impact it could have with students in your classroom! https://t.co/uPFJ7FWka8 @edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.includes.users[].name
𝕄𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Daily dedications to learning - what a beautiful way to honor others, build empathy, create #classroomcommunity, & so much more! Just reading this will move you, so imagine the impact it could have with students in your classroom! https://t.co/uPFJ7FWka8 @edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Daily dedications to learning - what a beautiful way to honor others, build empathy, create #classroomcommunity, & so much more! Just reading this will move you, so imagine the impact it could have with students in your classroom! https://t.co/uPFJ7FWka8 @edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.author.name
𝕄𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].title
A Daily Ritual That Builds Trust and Community Among Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].description
An activity that encourages students to open up about a person close to them can bring a whole class together in profound ways.

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This tweet gives a WAY to build community - with an actual activity or technology tool.

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
I 👏🏽FREAKIN👏🏽 LOVE👏🏽 the term and idea of ESTABLISHING A “COMMUNITY AGREEMENT” before having REAL conversations! EMPOWERING CONVERSATIONS!
 #stamped #OKCTE @oklacte 
Dr. @LaraSearcy112 https://t.co/GYiBWJdCJ0

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Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo
— OKCTE (@oklacte) December 5, 2020

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#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.includes.tweets[].text
I 👏🏽FREAKIN👏🏽 LOVE👏🏽 the term and idea of ESTABLISHING A “COMMUNITY AGREEMENT” before having REAL conversations! EMPOWERING CONVERSATIONS!
 #stamped #OKCTE @oklacte 
Dr. @LaraSearcy112 https://t.co/GYiBWJdCJ0

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
#classroomcommunity is so important - this is a great way to help establish it. #oklaed #OKCTE https://t.co/H5BXAgscqo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
I 👏🏽FREAKIN👏🏽 LOVE👏🏽 the term and idea of ESTABLISHING A “COMMUNITY AGREEMENT” before having REAL conversations! EMPOWERING CONVERSATIONS!
 #stamped #OKCTE @oklacte 
Dr. @LaraSearcy112 https://t.co/GYiBWJdCJ0

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Support Online and Blended Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines - Dr. Catlin Tucker

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Project Zero at Harvard's Graduate School of Education has created a collection of Core Thinking Routines as part of their Visible Thinking Project. Teachers can view the entire collection on the Project Zero website, where each routine is described in detail (e.g., purpose, application, launch) in both English and Spanish.

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Designing Authentic  Discussion Forum Engagement.pdf

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Linkr | Community Platform for Education Organizations and Learning Communities

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Education organizations worldwide use Linkr’s custom platforms to galvanize, engage, and grow their learning community.

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Why e-learning is killing education | Aaron Barth | TEDxKitchenerED

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This documentary explores the harm that social media is having on people in general, and also young people. Some of the brain science is something to keep in mind for my pedagogical goal.

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Watch The Social Dilemma | Netflix Official Site

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This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. Watch trailers & learn more.

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The Center for Humane Technology focuses on ways that media (specifically social media) can be become more humane for users. Not geared towards E-Learning, but a lot of resources would be helpful to keep in mind as educators continue to create digital learning opportunities.

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We’re a nonprofit exposing the negative effects of persuasive technology and social media and empowering people to take action. Discover The Social Dilemma, our podcast, course, and more.

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80 Tips for Remote Learning NYT Article 

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80 Tips for Remote Learning NYT Article 

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This article really focuses on the ways that E-Learning should look different than in person learning.. I can't help but wonder how many of these changes should be here to stay also.

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80 Tips for Remote Learning From Seasoned Educators (Published 2020)

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Twenty-eight middle and high school teachers from The New York Times Teaching Project tell us how they’re navigating remote instruction this fall.

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Already curated topics to use for students to get to know you and each other.

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Use your school email for the best Flip experience.

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Feedback: Part of Humanizing All Learning

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Feedback: Part of Humanizing All Learning

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Feedback is essential when it comes to feeling connected to students.. especially digitally. How can we cut down the time we spend on screens, while still giving meaningful feedback to students?

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Listen to the Interview with Matthew Johnson:
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My study of feedback began in earnest on a sunny afternoon during my third year of teaching. I was living in California - much to the envy of my midwestern friends and family - but I was also harboring a secret, a secret that was troubling me that afternoon. The secret was that while my social media pictures showed me at the beach and hiking past redwoods, those excursions were rare, maybe once-a-quarter outings. Instead, the vast majority of my days were spent doing exactly what I was doing in that moment: responding to and grading papers.

For the better part of my first three years as a teacher, student papers acted as the chains that shackled me to my desk day after day. Like Tantalus, I could see the beach gleaming through a crack between the apartment buildings next to mine, but when I looked at the towers of student work in front of me, the sand and waves receded out of reach. Maybe tomorrow after I chop these essay stacks down I would tell myself once again.

That afternoon though, for reasons I don't fully understand, something inside me finally snapped and I admitted to myself what I'd long known unconsciously: I didn't want to live like this anymore. I was drowning, submerged under a never-ending torrent of student work in need of feedback and assessment. I didn't want to leave the classroom, but I also didn't want to stay if it meant that my next forty years would endlessly orbit stacks of student work in the way that my first three years did.

That night, in a last-ditch effort to stay a teacher, I began to read whatever I could find about responding faster and better to student work, and it didn't take long for me to realize that I was far from the first teacher to resent living a life with papers at its geographic center. In fact, the very first article of the very first volume of the The English Journal in 1912 begins with a simple question written in all caps: CAN GOOD COMPOSITION TEACHING BE DONE UNDER THE PRESENT CONDITIONS?

The answer given by the author, Dr. Edwin M. Hopkins? "No." There were simply too many students and papers to manage. By the way, it is worth noting that Dr. Hopkins had 100 students. I currently have 158.

And the problem is that Dr. Hopkins wasn't fully wrong, then or now. The issue largely comes down to feedback, which is an essential part of good teaching-not just for composition, but for any content area. Just like the conditions in Dr. Hopkins' time, our present conditions make providing quality feedback incredibly difficult. This is because effective feedback generally shares a handful of characteristics: It is given regularly, returned in a timely manner, and written in clear language. It also works best when students are in the midst of creation, as opposed to as a postscript on final drafts once they finish.

When one digs down, the logistics of providing regular, timely, and formative feedback are absurd when one has 158 or even 100 students. Take my classes: Each minute of feedback I provide to each of my 158 students takes a time investment of over two and a half hours. That means reading and responding to one essay or project or test in ten minutes-a blisteringly fast speed based on the teachers I've talked to-will take over 25 hours. Even if a teacher works 60 or 70 hours, sacrificing countless evenings and weekends to student work, there exists a hard cap on the amount of feedback a teacher can give if it's only given in big chunks on big assignments.

Of course more global feedback on larger assignments is important, and there are ways to get more efficient and effective with that feedback (I wrote a book largely on this subject, Flash Feedback: Responding to Student Writing Better and Faster-Without Burning Out, and this very site has excellent suggestions here, here, and here), but if teachers want to provide timely, regular, formative, and meaningful feedback, we need to diversify our practices.

Feedback, after all, is just a teacher's response to something, and we can meaningfully respond to different assignments in a multitude of ways, many of them only taking a minute or two. I call these practices Flash Feedback, and while they come in small packages, they can pack a serious educational punch.

Characteristics of Flash Feedback

Teachers can take countless approaches to Flash Feedback. The exact structures will depend on the discipline, students, and teacher, but the most efficient and effective Flash Feedback tends to share these four characteristics:

It focuses on one or two learning objectives. A long history of scholarship argues that feedback, even on large assignments, should generally focus only on a manageable number of topics, no more than a few. Covering too many topics tends to overload students, so they learn no lessons (or no lessons deeply) and it takes longer, making it the exact opposite of Flash Feedback.

Students do the heavy lifting. Teachers often fall into the trap of correcting work for students and doing more reflection on student work than they require the students to do. Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle call this Helicopter Teaching, and while it generally comes from a place of wanting to help, it often holds students back for two reasons: First, when students don't have to work for an answer, they are less likely to remember it. Second, the time it takes to correct student work and solve problems for the students severely limits how much feedback the teacher can give them. For Flash Feedback to work, students must be the primary ones finding answers, patterns, and approaches, as the teacher plays the role of the guide standing well off to the side.

It utilizes systems and technology. Feedback often has a lot of redundancies that can be mitigated with better systems or by using technology, and even little efficiencies add up. For me, each 15 second increase in efficiency saves me 40 minutes when taken on the scale of all of my students!

There is a spillover plan and time allotted for special cases. There will inevitably be times when a student's specific needs won't fit within the system and structure being used by the teacher. This is why having a clearly defined spillover plan/time will help to make sure that the needs of one or two individuals don't derail the plan for the rest of the class.

Three Ways to Do Flash Feedback

In my classes, and especially during the time when I'm writing this-an era of emergency distance learning when time is tight-there are three types of Flash Feedback that I find myself coming to again and again: Targeted Response, Micro-Conferences, and Wise Interventions.

1. Targeted Response

My students, like most people, tend to struggle with comma usage. My approach to helping them with commas used to be to circle and correct every comma error I found in every paper, but this never led to much progress and it took a tremendous amount of time.

Now I mainly use Targeted Response, which is where the teacher focuses an assignment and its feedback solely on 1 to 2 targeted learning goals. When it comes to commas, my students write a very short one-page paper about anything they want in any genre. It is called the Comma Paper, and its only criteria (and the only thing I give feedback to) is that they must include at least four correctly used examples of each type of comma we studied in class.

To speed my assessment of and response to these papers, I have students turn them in on Google Classroom. That enables me to use the Find Function (Command-F) to highlight all of the commas in the piece, so I can quickly scan for comma issues. It also allows me to pre-populate two comments in the comment bank (if you don't know how to do this, here is a quick tutorial). One is a short congratulatory note for students who had no comma errors. The other is a message where I tell students the number of comma errors and let them know that to get credit for the assignment, they must find the errors and fix them during the class time provided.

By keeping the scope of the paper and feedback focused and using the technology tools available, I can give specific, individual, and meaningful feedback in less than a minute per student, and the best part is that the deep focus on commas leads to more student growth in one short paper than a year of circling and correcting commas ever did!

2. Micro-Conferences

Conferencing is one of the most celebrated pedagogical tools, and there is good reason for that. It is a rare one-on-one opportunity to offer individualized instruction and feedback, fix misconceptions, build relationships, and give students the opportunity to be heard by a caring adult. Like written feedback though, the logistics of conferences can be daunting in most classes. My classes meet for 210 minutes each week and average 32 students. This means doing a five minute conference with each student takes over 75 percent of the class time that week.

While larger conferences are sometimes worth this time investment for me, I can only do so many if I want to cover everything else I need to do. Enter the Micro-Conference, which is a conference that is done in a fraction of the time (generally 1 to 2 minutes) by being focused and carefully structured.

One of my favorites is one I do around paraphrasing, which is another deeply important skill that students tend to struggle with. Here's how it works:

1. Students write a rough draft of a paper with paraphrasing, like a research paper, and bring it to class.

2. As a whole class, we read and discuss mentor texts with strong paraphrasing.

3. Students take out their own drafts, pick a page to work with, and then highlight each moment of paraphrasing they see.

4. They then rate their paraphrasing in their paper from 1 to 10, based on the mentor text we read, and write at least four sentences justifying their rating.

5. Once students have rated and reflected on their work, they call me over and we quickly conference. I generally start conferences by asking students to share their ratings and what they noticed when comparing their work to the example. We then use those thoughts to plan an actionable path forward together. My role in this is mainly that of the gadfly - asking questions and helping the student to orient in the right direction - and while I try to keep the conferences to no more than a minute, most generally wrap up naturally in that time without feeling rushed.

Like the Targeted Response, everything about these conferences is designed to maximize time efficiency. The students have already laid the groundwork and highlighted the paraphrased sections, allowing us to jump right in at a high level. Further, by focusing just on paraphrasing, a minute is not too short to go deep, answer questions, and figure out meaningful action steps forward for the student.

3. Wise Interventions

Wise Interventions is a practice that came out of Stanford and the University of Virginia, among others, and the idea behind it is that while shifting negative student mindsets, beliefs, and behaviors is often painstakingly slow, in the right circumstances it can also happen incredibly quickly. The key to these moments of rapid positive change is that if teachers can find the exact moments that fuel and perpetuate negative student beliefs/mindsets/behaviors and disrupt them, sometimes it can open students up to better alternatives in surprisingly little time.

Probably the most famous example of this was a study of Massachusetts middle schools that found that students did twice as much revision on an essay when they each received a sticky note on the top of their essays that read "I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them," versus those who got a sticky note that read "I'm giving you these comments so that you'll have feedback on your paper."

The researchers theorized that the reason for why one sticky note-the product of no more than a few seconds work - would have such a large effect on student mindsets and behavior was that many students in the study might have felt the teachers didn't believe in them. Those narratives were disrupted by a note coming just at the moment they were preparing for teacher disappointment once again via the teacher comments, which in turn cleared the way for those students to put in more work.

I use a number of Wise Interventions in my classes, but my favorite with feedback is one called "I'm so sorry about the rain." It comes from Daniel Coyle's book The Culture Code, and the basic premise is that a study out of Harvard found that people were 422% more likely to let a stranger borrow their phone if the stranger prefaced asking for the phone by saying "I'm so sorry about the rain." The reason this rather banal comment about the weather led to a striking shift in behavior was likely that it was enough to signal a relationship, which changes nearly everything about how a brain responds to a request.

I have found that little personal things that take only a few seconds to write-like quickly referencing something a student said in class or an aspiration the student shared at some point-can often have the same effect on students, especially those who are wary of writing, and shift the attention and care they give to feedback on that paper and beyond.

By being focused and carefully structured, Flash Feedback allows us to make feedback a part of class that is as regular as the bells in the halls. It also allows us to teach many more personalized lessons each semester; gives us regular points of contact with students, which have been shown to improve performance and relationships; and best of all, can be done quickly, allowing teachers to break those shackles to student papers and take a day at the beach every once in a while.

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Flash Feedback: How to Provide More Meaningful Feedback in Less Time

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If we want to provide timely, regular, formative, and meaningful feedback, we need to diversify our practices. These three strategies pack a lot of punch in very little time.

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All about the human-ness of humans, Professor Mike Wesh offers a ton of ideas for teachers during online learning.

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anthropology "social media" culture "online teaching" "teaching online" "online teaching tips" "how to teach online" pedagogy education tutorials video

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a professor of cultural anthropology & world religions sharing interesting & useful ideas My Book: The Art of Being Human https://amzn.to/2vDOPUo Free Anthro...

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Sponsored by PowerSchool and ISTE U

It's a pretty safe bet that most teachers will be doing some form of online teaching in the coming year. Maybe you'll do it full-time, maybe it will be some kind of hybrid model, but one thing is for sure: This time around you won't be dropped into it without warning.

So with this chance to take a breath and do more thoughtful, intentional planning, the next question is What do we do differently? What shifts do we need to make in our face-to-face teaching practices to make the most of online learning?

To find out, I sought the help of Melanie Kitchen, a Coordinator of Instructional Technology and Staff Development serving 19 school districts in Western New York state. Melanie has years of experience working with teachers on developing blended learning and has now shifted to helping teachers develop best practices for remote learning.

Melanie Kitchen

I asked Melanie to share some ways online teaching should be different from face-to-face teaching. She came up with nine: three that are specific to community building and communication, and six that focus on instructional design. Along with these differences, she also shared a few things that should stay exactly the same.

Community Building & Communication

1. The first weeks of school should be devoted to community building and digital competency.

Resist the temptation to dive right into curriculum at the start of the school year. Things will go more smoothly if you devote the early weeks to building community so students feel connected. Social emotional skills can be woven in during this time. On top of that, students need practice with whatever digital tools you'll be using. So focus your lessons on those things, intertwining the two when possible.

"If you are explicitly teaching persistence," Kitchen says, "maybe I'm going to give you a challenge that's not content-related, but something that you might have to kind of grapple with. But when I assign that, if I'm using Google Classroom, then I'm going to assign that through Google Classroom and teach you how you're going to open an assignment, how you're going to submit it, how you'll be receiving feedback. So you are teaching these skills all at once, and it's not something separate or extra. It's just all done together."

Other good resources that can guide and inform the conversations you have in these early weeks are:

2. Communication with parents needs to be more thorough, streamlined, and predictable.

Parents are also adjusting to this new way of doing school. Because they are sometimes expected to play an even more prominent role in supporting student learning, they need more support from you. "We really need parents to be our partners in this learning community," Kitchen says.

Here are some guidelines:

Establish a consistent location and predictable schedule for sharing information. When parents know where and when to look for information from you, they'll do a better job of keeping up with it and following through on their end. Weekly updates are a good way to keep everyone informed about what's going on in your class. And rather than toggling around between emails, text alerts, blog posts, website announcements, and newsletters, choose one platform for outgoing information and stick to it; if your whole school can do the same you'll see even better results.

Set clear expectations and boundaries for communication. When can students and parents expect to hear from you? How and when can they get in touch with you when needed? If you don't set boundaries you'll end up feeling like you have to be available 24/7, which will quickly lead to burnout. Establish regular office hours and advertise them in an easy-to-find place so parents know when you'll be most accessible.

Create a backup plan for off-hours and tech support. If parents or students need help outside of your regular office hours or they need help with technology, who can they contact? Make this information clearly available.

Make communication multimodal. Although it's important to consistently post through one platform, it's also helpful to provide the information in more than one mode. For example, you might offer written announcements and record the same announcements in a short video each week so students and parents can choose the format that works best for them.

Provide parent tech training. Parents will be better able to support students if they understand how to use the technology, so provide them with tutorials on the tech you use, including whatever platform you use to disseminate information.

3. Community and connection need to be a priority for teachers, too.

"Teachers need to connect with each other now more than ever," Kitchen says. Your school leadership should be building in regular opportunities for you to stay connected to your colleagues during this time. If they are not, create those opportunities for yourself.

Staff meetings should still be held regularly-even if it's through a videoconferencing platform-to keep staff connected.

During these meetings, some time and attention should be given to teacher well-being and emotional health.

Smaller groups like teaching teams or content-area PLCs can offer even more support.

If you're not getting the support you need, seek it out through platforms like Twitter.

This article offers a more in-depth look at teacher well-being: How to Support Teachers' Emotional Needs Right Now.

Instructional Design

4. Teacher collaboration is even more important.

Meeting the challenges of online learning gets easier when we work together. "As we're all trying to get to know these students better," Kitchen says, "we need to be working together to do that." That means working more closely with specialists to make sure our lessons and materials meet the needs of all students, partnering with others in our content area to plan instruction, working together on cross-curricular projects, and dividing up the things all students need (like technology instruction) among teachers on a team or grade level so students aren't doing the same lessons over and over and our work isn't duplicated.

Fortunately, collaborating online can be even easier than trying to do it when we all teach in the same physical building. "This virtual environment has provided us the opportunity to break down those walls, to break down those silos," Kitchen says. "Our schedules and time constraints that we may have had before will come down. We may have more opportunity to partner with people that we didn't have the time or the space to be able to do that before."

5. "Face-to-face" time should be used for active learning.

Online instruction is made up largely of asynchronous instruction, which students can access at any time. This is ideal, because requiring attendance for synchronous instruction puts some students at an immediate disadvantage if they don't have the same access to technology, reliable internet, or a flexible home schedule.

But you're likely to offer "face-to-face" or synchronous opportunities at some point, and one way to make them happen more easily is to have students meet in small groups. While it's nearly impossible to arrange for 30 students to attend a meeting at once, assigning four students to meet is much more manageable. Kitchen likes "campfire groups," which are permanent groups of about four that stay together for long periods of time. This arrangement allows students to get to know each other better and establish more trust. Students might be rearranged for other activities to provide some variety, but the campfire groups would provide a stable base throughout the school term.

So what kind of instructional activities should be used for these different formats?

What works best, Kitchen says, is to keep direct instruction-things like brief video lectures and readings-in asynchronous form, using checks for understanding like embedded questions or exit slips.

You can then use synchronous meetings for more interactive, engaging work. "If we want students showing up, if we want them to know that this is worth their time," Kitchen explains, "it really needs to be something active and engaging for them. Any time they can work with the material, categorize it, organize it, share further thoughts on it, have a discussion, all of those are great things to do in small groups."

Small group strategies she strongly recommends:

6. Content needs to be simplified and slowed down.

Online instruction is not conducive to covering large amounts of content, so you have to choose wisely, teaching the most important things at a slower pace. To make those choices, Kitchen recommends asking some key questions:

What really holds leverage for the students? What has endurance? What knowledge is essential?

What knowledge and skills do students need to have before they move to the next grade level or the next class?

What practices can be emphasized that transfer across many content areas? Skills like analyzing, constructing arguments, building a strong knowledge base through texts, and speaking can all be taught through many different subjects.

What tools can serve multiple purposes? Teaching students to use something like Padlet gives them opportunities to use audio, drawing, writing, and video. Non-digital tools can also work: Students can use things they find around the house, like toilet paper rolls, to fulfill other assignments, and then submit their work with a photo.

7. Instructions should be easy to find, explicit, and multimodal.

Because you are not in the same room with students, your instructions have to work a lot harder than they do in a brick-and-mortar setting.

Provide instructions in a consistent location and at a consistent time. This advice was already given for parents, but it's worth repeating here through the lens of instructional design: Set up lessons so that students know where to find instructions every time.

Make instructions explicit. Read and re-read to make sure these are as clear as possible. Make dogfooding your lessons a regular practice to root out problem areas.

Offer multimodal instructions. If possible, provide both written and video instructions for assignments, so students can choose the format that works best for them. You might also offer a synchronous weekly or daily meeting; what's great about doing these online is that even if you teach several sections of the same class per day, students are no longer restricted to class times and can attend whatever meeting works best for them.

8. Traditional grading practices should take a backseat to feedback.

"We saw a transition during emergency remote teaching where each of us had different requirements about grades or no grades, pass and fail," Kitchen says. "This whole environment really needs to be supported by communication and connection. If I'm to receive an A or a 95 or a 65, that doesn't necessarily tell me as much as verbal feedback or print feedback to what I'm doing right, what I can improve on."

So when teaching remotely, put the emphasis on formative feedback as students work through assignments and tasks, rather than simply grading them at the end.

Most learning management platforms, like Google Classroom, have built-in features for giving feedback. Use these as your primary method.

Tools like Floop offer other ways to provide on-the-spot feedback and can be especially good for math.

Feedback should be frequent and specific. Consider some of the methods shared by Matthew Johnson in Flash Feedback.

Provide a pathway for students and parents to give YOU feedback on assignments as well.

9. Summative assessment should focus on creation.

In online learning, Kitchen says, "There are so many ways that students can cheat, so if we're giving them just the traditional quiz or test, it's really easy for them to be able to just look up that information."

A great solution to this problem is to have students create things. These can be videos, podcasts, digital or physical art, writing pieces, comics, and so on. "It's a lot more difficult to cheat when you have to make something or do something. And it also integrates all of the areas and it builds up, all of that learning builds up into this creation that they will do."

For assessment, use a detailed rubric that highlights the learning goals the end product will demonstrate. A single-point rubric works well for this.

To help students discover tools to work with, this list of tools is organized by the type of product each one creates. Another great source of ideas is the Teacher's Guide to Tech.

When developing the assignment, rather than focusing on the end product, start by getting clear on what you want students to DO with that product. This list from Bill Ferriter explores the difference:

Image Credit: Bill Ferriter (CC BY-NC-ND)

What Stays the Same

Not everything in online teaching is different. Some aspects of good teaching should definitely stay the same.

Clear and consistent communication

Creating explicit and consistent rituals and routines

Using research-based instructional strategies

Determining whether to use digital or non-digital tools for an assignment

A focus on authentic learning, where authentic products are created and students have voice and choice in assignments

The teaching environment may not be the same as we're used to, but it's important to remember that good teaching is still good teaching. "All of those things that we know are really good practices can still be done virtually," Kitchen says. "It just might look a little bit different."

You can find Melanie on her website, creativecuriosity.org, or on Twitter at @MelKitchenEDU.

Come back for more.
Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

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9 Ways Online Teaching Should be Different from Face-to-Face

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What shifts do we need to make in our face-to-face teaching practices to make the most of online learning? What can stay exactly the same?

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From Twitter Thread

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(This is the third post in a four-part series. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What are effective strategies for having students teach their classmates and other peers?

Part One's contributors were Bobson Wong, Adeyemi Stembridge, Jennifer Davis Bowman, Starr Sackstein, Kathy Dyer, and Rachelle Dene Poth. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jennifer, Bobson, Adeyemi, and Starr on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Part Two in this series included commentaries by Rita Platt, Paul Solarz, Laurie Buffington, Dr. Laura Greenstein, and Anne Taffin d'Heursel Baldisseri..

Today, Amber Chandler, Cheryl Mizerny, Andrew Miller, Dr. Karen Goeller, Michael D. Toth, Megan Bang, Laura M. Brady, Stephanie A. Fryberg, and Mary C. Murphy share their ideas.

Response From Amber Chandler

Amber Chandler is a national-board-certified ?8th grade English/language arts teacher and the author of The Flexible ELA Classroom and The Flexible SEL Classroom . She's the president of her district teachers' union and a columnist for ShareMyLesson and American Middle Level Educator:

I learned a long time ago that I'm hardly ever the best teacher in the room, no matter how hard I try to engage, impress, and excite children about what we are learning. Rather, students themselves magnetize learning for their peers, creating a draw that could only develop via peer pressure. We've demonized peer pressure, but, when facilitated wisely, it can provide a "stickiness" that will help students make learning their own.

The primary way that I utilize students' magnetism is through our Passion Projects. Passion Projects are designed to showcase the interests of the students, their talents, and to engage other students in the learning. Students are given approximately a month to read at least 100 pages on the topic of their choice, write a "review of the literature," and create two projects that deepen their learning on the topic. They then create a Google slideshow that will share what they've been up to while piquing the interest of their fellow students who are gleaning great background knowledge from their friends. In practice, these projects vary widely and are almost always cross-curricular. Parents, administrators, and fellow students who aren't in the class are invited to the presentations, and word travels quickly when someone does something "cool." This type of built-in motivation is important for those students who are not compliant because of external motivations; giving students freedom to be themselves and share who they are works wonders. Students often want their other teachers to come see their presentation because they had been inspired from something in class.

Last year there was a boy who wanted to understand how to drive a golf ball farther. Part of his presentation was to show us a variety of golf balls sliced down the center and allow us to make predictions about which core (the inside of the ball) was more effective, and he went on to show us a video of himself driving the golf balls. He used his science skills to create an excellent public presentation with a technological component, all while engaging his peers. They were exposed to his scientific ideas, information about golf, and even the methodology of cutting the balls in half-which was hands down the students' favorite part.

I had another young man who demonstrated how to do a DNA extraction with a student's gargled salt water. It was June. It was 87 degrees in my classroom. We were all "done" in ways that it is hard to pinpoint, but when Santi asked for a volunteer, every student perked up. When the experiment was done, and he was showing students how clumps of DNA float to the top of the beaker, I literally couldn't get them to leave my room. I had to write three late passes that day! Would this have happened if I were the one delivering content? Probably not. Could I even do the experiment that had fascinated my students? Probably, but it never would have occurred to me, since it isn't my passion.

In the end, we live in a world that is automated, often virtual, always changing, and it has changed exponentially since I began teaching almost 20 years ago. The one constant that has made teaching worthwhile for me, and my classroom a vibrant place to be, is the relationships that I can foster both with and between my students. One can never truly "get ahead of the curve," but I feel comfortable that 21st-century learning must allow students to construct their learning together, and the best way to do that is to personalize it to their passions.

Response From Cheryl Mizerny

Cheryl Mizerny has been teaching for over 20 years, is passionate about middle-level education, and serves on the faculty of the AMLE Institute for Middle Level Leadership. Her practice is guided by her belief in reaching every student and educating the whole child. She currently teaches 6th grade English in Michigan and writes an education blog, It's Not Easy Being Tween, for Middleweb.com:

Peer teaching is one of the most effective ways I have found to ensure student engagement and retention of knowledge. On a regular basis, I use cooperative-learning techniques such as turn and talk, think-pair-share, fishbowl discussions, or group problem solving.

At times, I want to stretch students to think more deeply. One way to do this is a "You Be the Teacher" project. In a nutshell, students work in collaborative groups to take ownership of a standard or topic to be taught. It is not difficult to implement. Groups may be assigned by the teacher, randomly chosen, or student-selected. I prefer random or student-selected as I am not fond of the mixed-ability, teacher-selected form of grouping so often used in classrooms. First, we brainstorm some of what goes into a strong, engaging lesson. In other words, what do they like to do in class. I share with them some of Dave Burgess's Teach Like a Pirate hooks as well as how to reach higher levels of thinking via Bloom's taxonomy or Webb's Depths of Knowledge. Then they must work on creating their lesson plan as a group, and I provide the lesson-plan template.

The requirements of the project will depend on the age level of your students and the breadth of the topic. It could be something they work on for a day and present in a couple of minutes or it could be extensive and become a large project. It could also be something you do during those times right before a vacation when you need something new. (For a twist before a vacation, students could even teach a noncurricular topic that is something they are an expert in such as yo-yoing, cartooning, or tap dancing.) Depending on the goal, students are given clear expectations such as a time limit, an interactive activity, a whole-class activity, a digital/video component, accuracy of information, and a written information piece. These projects could be shared for the class via Padlet, Flipgrid, a Google site, or the like. This would allow students to refer back to the information prior to an assessment.

The final component should be a self-reflection piece where students answer questions such as: What went well? Were your students engaged? What would you change or improve in your lesson if you taught this again? How did you work together as a group? What is the most important thing you learned? What was the most/least fun part of the project? What suggestions do you have to improve this project? (I always ask this of every project because the information I receive is so valuable.) This reflection is where the true growth and development happens. Who knows, they may even appreciate all the work that goes into what teachers do on a daily basis? As a bonus, the teacher can see what the students find engaging and how they may want to be taught. This project is fun for me and the students so it's a win-win.

Response From Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller is currently an instructional coach at the Shanghai American School in China. He also serves on the national faculty for the Buck Institute for Education and ASCD, where he consults on a variety of topics. He has worked with educators in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, China, Japan, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and the Dominican Republic:

If we want students to engage in teaching each other, it must be for an important and meaningful reason. Sometimes we create assignments or projects and we have a presentation or product they do to teach other classmates. I think before rushing to what students will teach, we need to focus on why students will teach. Ask yourself, what could be an authentic reason for your students to teach their peers? Which peers would find this knowledge important and valuable? If you don't focus on the why, then students will simply comply and share their information and most likely regurgitate the knowledge rather than exhibit critical thinking.

There can be many reasons why. For example, perhaps you jigsaw the content and have students present the information they learned in small groups. Here the authentic reason and "why" is to share information with others that don't know and need to know. Another reason might be that it will be interesting and engaging to their peers, like a passion, or interesting insight on a topic. Furthermore, it might be that the overall project uses a powerful driving question that is more than simply teaching, but helping and supporting one another in honoring community members, or sharing ideas for embracing different cultures. When we focus on authenticity, students teaching students is not only more engaging, but also deeper learning.

Response From Dr. Karen Goeller

Dr. Karen Goeller serves as a K-12 deputy superintendent and adjunct instructor for graduate leadership education. She has been a curriculum director, assistant principal, dean, and teacher. She recently published Six Steps to Boost Student Learning: A Leader's Guide (New York: Routledge, 2018):

Peer Data Discussions

Peer data discussions are easy ways to power up student learning in any classroom setting. These simple forums enable students to talk in structured ways about "How am I doing in this class?" "What is the quality of my work performance?" and "How can I improve?" When students think more strategically about their progress, they develop confidence in their own abilities to grow and learn. Students see the big picture of their learning and better understand how their daily actions influence their long-term goals.

Early in the year, teachers need to plan and carefully craft the peer data discussions. Teachers should create timelines so that meaningful data work is spread throughout the year. Having a simple and clear protocol set up in advance will ensure the strategy's success. Then, once students understand the routine and expectations, the discussions will become a natural extension of classroom lessons.

Peer Data Discussion Protocol

Students are placed in small groups of three or four members.

A different student is selected as the leader for each group discussion.

Teachers return student -ork products, classroom assessments, and other progress reports.

Student leaders facilitate discussions with peers using guided questions:

What are the learning goals that we have had for this unit of study? What has been important for us

to learn and why?

How are we assessing our progress toward this learning? What are our strengths and opportunities

for growth on our classroom assessments? How much effort and skill have we shown in our work

products?

Students record their progress toward individual goals in data notebooks or other data-collection tools.

Students process the data using a variety of charts and graphs.

Students write summaries from guided questions about their progress:

What intentional strategies did you use in your work?

Did the strategies help you make progress?

How do you know you improved?

How can you bring about more growth with different strategies in the future?

Early in the year, teachers should demonstrate steps within the Peer Data Discussion Protocol. Modeling use of guided questions, along with effective speaking and listening skills, will promote the right attitudes about data use from the start. And, showing students different ways to represent their progress with simple graphs and charts will ensure that they process the data efficiency. When teachers think aloud about their own use of strategies while writing summative narratives, students will understand how the choices they make impact their learning.

The collaborative discussions give students simple ways to teach and learn from others. Varying the group leaders sets the tone of high expectations for data use from all students. From this peer leadership, students develop positive attitudes about data use as they become self-assured, independent learners.

Having regular data discussions ensures that students understand where they are in their learning, and as data partners, teachers have easy ways to seamlessly and continuously use student-data monitoring to inform instructional activities. For systemic school improvement, data use must become part of everyday learning. By adding peer data discussions at the student level, there is more likelihood that real student improvement will occur and that the school will move closer toward a culture of inquiry and growth.

Response From Michael D. Toth

Michael D. Toth is the author of the award-winning book, Who Moved My Standards, the co-author with David Sousa of Improving Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Learning Through Academic Teaming (forthcoming, 2019), and the co-author with Dr. Robert J. Marzano of The Essentials of a Standards-Based Classroom, School Leadership for Results, and Teacher Evaluation That Makes a Difference. Toth founded Learning Sciences International, where he serves as the CEO and leads LSI's Applied Research Center. Toth addresses teachers, school leaders, and superintendents at national conferences, policy forums, and workshops, including past addresses to the U.S. Department of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:

Peer Teaching and Coaching Through Academic Teams

Peer teaching and coaching is a key element in the development of students' social-emotional skills, as well as other crucial 21 century workforce skills like critical thinking and creative problem solving.

We have found the best way to embed peer teaching and coaching in daily classroom instruction is by shifting to a team-centered model of instruction. Students step up to support each other when the proper team structures are in place.

Arguably ,student teams that have more peer coaching have more student learning, as illustrated in Improving Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Learning Through Academic Teaming(Sousa & Toth, in press). This is a healthy sign of what we call teaming effects that result from strong team structures, well-defined roles, and norms. Our field research has shown when these structures produce teaming effects such as use of academic vocabulary in student discourse and debate, self- and peer-regulation and -encouragement and students owning the team results, that peer teaching and coaching is a natural result.

Techniques for Beginning Student Grouping

To help support productive peer teaching and coaching in academic teams, we recommend at minimum the roles below for each team:

To establish conditions for peer teaching and coaching, we have seen teachers post and regularly reinforce the following classroom norms:

1. Respect others by: not talking out of turn; being kind to others; being appropriate.

2. Disagreeing: look at the person; use a nice voice; tell how you feel; give a reason; listen to the other person.

3. Before you start a task: read learning target to your group; read success criteria to your group; read the task; pick out important information; explain how the task will demonstrate the learning target and the success criteria; plan your work using the success criteria.

Teachers often post "question stems" as communication guidelines during peer teaching and coaching:

From Grouping to Teaming

Once students are comfortable with teacher-imposed roles, norms, and communication guidelines, the classroom can begin moving into team-centered instruction. In a team-centered classroom, students take ownership of their learning and that of their peers while completing the task. Students no longer rely on the teacher or on scripted supports; conversations and debates become natural. In a team-centered classroom, peer teaching and coaching becomes embedded in the classroom culture, and students develop highly advanced SEL and other critical 21 -century skills.

Response From Megan Bang, Laura M. Brady, Stephanie A. Fryberg, and Mary C. Murphy

Dr. Megan Bang is an associate professor of learning sciences and human development at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on improving the quality of life and educational opportunities for youth, families, and communities historically disadvantaged by education, with a central focus on indigenous peoples and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education.

Dr. Laura Brady is a research Associate at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on understanding how culture, social class, and race shape educational experiences and opportunities, and how schools can build more inclusive, motivating environments for students from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Dr. Stephanie Fryberg is a professor of psychology and American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. Her primary research interests examine how social representations of race, culture, and social class influence the development of self, psychological well-being, and educational attainment. Her most recent intervention research focuses on scaling up a model for building culturally inclusive growth-mindset classrooms.

Dr. Mary Murphy is an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences and associate vice provost for student diversity and inclusion at Indiana University. In the realm of education, her research illuminates the situational cues that influence students' academic motivation and achievement with an emphasis on understanding when those processes are similar and different for majority and minority students:

Peer-to-peer teaching is a powerful way of leveraging students' existing knowledge to deepen their own and their peers' engagement with course material. In our work, we take peer-to-peer teaching a step further, using this practice to help teachers build culturally inclusive growth-mindset (CIGM) classrooms. The core beliefs of CIGM classrooms are that 1) students from all backgrounds (e.g., race/class/gender) belong and can make valuable contributions; and 2) all students can grow through effective effort, persistence, and support from teachers and peers. CIGM classrooms are inclusive, collaborative environments where students take risks, embrace challenges, and support one another's learning and growth. All students feel valued, included, and respected, and they make (and learn from) mistakes without fearing that they will be judged. Rather than focusing on perfect performance, students understand that learning involves growth, and teachers celebrate all students' progress as evidence of learning.

Over the past two years, we have worked with hundreds of educators and thousands of students to understand how to build CIGM classrooms. Peer-to-peer teaching is one of our key CIGM practices. Many traditional approaches view peer-to-peer teaching as a means of deepening knowledge for successful students while improving understanding for struggling students. A CIGM approach, however, breaks down the notion that certain students are "good" students while others are "strugglers" and creates an environment where all students learn from one another. In CIGM classrooms, students' diverse cultural experiences and perspectives are resources that enhance learning by challenging the class to engage with class material in different ways.

CIGM peer-to-peer teaching requires effective planning to ensure that all students can contribute without fear of failure or judgment. When planning for peer-to-peer teaching, educators should:

Recognize that certain cultural norms and perspectives are disproportionately represented as "good" or "right" in educational settings (e.g., white/middle-class norms), which can undermine racial-minority and low-income students' engagement and performance.

Frame peer-to-peer teaching as a collaborative activity that helps students grow from each other's perspectives and strategies.

Communicate that all students can make valuable contributions-there is no "right" way to learn.

Ensure that all students share their perspectives/strategies, acting as both "teachers" and "learners."

Group students so that they are exposed to-and try out-multiple perspectives/strategies.

Develop a positive theory of failure among students-celebrate mistakes, challenges, and struggle as opportunities to grow together.

Uphold progress (e.g., growth, trial and error, learning from mistakes) rather than performance as a key metric of success.

CIGM peer-to-peer teaching can engage students who are often marginalized in educational contexts while orienting all students toward growth. However, this practice is likely most effective when the whole classroom culture reflects and reinforces CIGM values. We conclude with questions to guide teachers in building CIGM classrooms that support effective peer-to-peer teaching:

Thanks to Amber, Cheryl, Andrew, Karen, Michael, Megan, Laura, Stephanie, and Mary for their contributions.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Just a reminder-you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And, if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.

This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts

Race & Gender Challenges

Classroom Management Advice

Best Ways to Begin The School Year

Best Ways to End The School Year

Implementing the Common Core

Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning

Teaching Social Studies

Project-Based Learning

Using Tech in the Classroom

Parent Engagement in Schools

Teaching English-Language Learners

Reading Instruction

Writing Instruction

Education Policy Issues

Student Assessment

Differentiating Instruction

Math Instruction

Science Instruction

Advice for New Teachers

Author Interviews

Entering the Teaching Profession

The Inclusive Classroom

Learning & the Brain

Administrator Leadership

Teacher Leadership

Relationships in Schools

Professional Development

Instructional Strategies

Best of Classroom Q&A

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributers to this column.

Look for Part Three in a few days.

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(This is the third post in a four-part series. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.) The new question-of-the-week is: What are effective strategies for having students teach their classmates and other peers? Part One's contributors were Bobson Wong, Adeyemi Stembridge, Jennifer Davis Bowman, Starr Sackstein, Kathy Dyer, and Rachelle Dene Poth.

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A high school English teacher shares ways to create genuine connections online.

As many students are at home during the pandemic, teachers are searching for ways to connect with students in the online classroom. In Jennifer Gonzalez's " Creating Moments of Genuine Connection Online," from Cult of Pedagogy, teacher Dave Stuart Jr. shares simple ways to develop relationships with students, even in a digital classroom.

The process is one Stuart developed when he first started teaching high school and found himself devoting hours to relationship building-leaving him with little time for lesson planning, grading, or curriculum development. Under necessity, Stuart came up with new, shorter ways-even in just one to three minutes-to make meaningful connections with all of his students. "The moments are embedded inside the work you're already doing as a teacher," says Stuart, who now offers a mini-course for other teachers on the topic.

His guiding parameters are that the interactions, whether they are personal or academic, should feel authentic to each student and be genuine. While you may not hit it off with every student, "what you're after in these encounters is that set of feelings: valued, known, respected," Stuart says.

Though online learning creates new barriers to communication and connection, Stuart says these practices can transfer online and describes five ways to do so:

1. Waiting Rooms: Some video conferencing tools permit the host to put a group of participants in a waiting room while they have a separate conversation with a single participant in a breakout space. "If you conduct synchronous class meetings, you can use this feature to have quick chats with a few students as they enter the larger space (this may work especially well with those who arrive early)," he writes.

2. Office Hours: Set aside time for individual or small group student video conferences. Going through the roster alphabetically can help ensure you interact positively with every student on an individual basis at least once during the year.

3. Feedback: Incorporating moments of genuine connection in assessment can be a useful way to build relationships with students. Research has found audio or video feedback can have a more profound impact on students than written feedback, so consider adding a short clip of encouragement or praise on an assignment, Stuart suggests.

4. Video Postcards: Individual, short video messages let students know you are thinking of them. While Stuart admits it's a more time-consuming option, he's found it to be an effective and personalized way to engage.

5. Phone Calls: One of the most direct methods to connect with students is a phone call, which reminds students they have support and provides space for them to share concerns, Stuart says. The conversation doesn't need to be long. He offers a simple script: "Hey, I'm checking in. Is anything getting in the way of your learning right now?"

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5 Ways to Build Connections with Students Online

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A high school English teacher shares ways to create genuine connections online.