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"Context and prior knowledge are critical components in fostering comprehension, regardless of the topic," according to Faith Wallace, co-author of Teaching Math Through Reading. Reading literature is one of several ways to build that context and background knowledge. "When math is integral to the story students can learn the concepts in a natural way, become inquisitive, engage in thoughtful conversation, and more," said Wallace.

The combination of mathematical, literary and personal reflection, along with students' genuine interest in the story, leads to higher student engagement, Bezaire said. Year after year, his students who previously kept quiet raised their hands during discussions of The Curious Incident . "Very often, this continues into the rest of the year after our novel study is done," he said. "Often when middle school students get momentum in a certain class, they are hardy enough to allow it to continue even when the unit of study changes."
Calculus Book Club
Two years ago, when a schedule change created extra periods in Sam Shah's multivariable calculus course, he instituted a class book club. The students started with the satirical science fiction novel Flatland by Edwin Abbott and later read several nonfiction texts about mathematicians and mathematical ideas. Book club meetings took place during a block of 30 to 40 minutes a few times per month, with a rotating pair of students leading each discussion.

In the first year, Shah said, his biggest challenge was deciding how much to chime into the discussions. It's as important to create a relaxed atmosphere for the meetings as it is to keep students focused on the text, he said.

During the second year of book club, he made an effort to intervene less often. "When I reflected upon what my goal was ... it wasn't to teach kids how to do close readings and feel like drudgery. The readings were picked to inspire kids to think, to have strong feelings about, to be curious about something mathematical that showed up, to see and think about math differently."

That's what the readings did.

"What I appreciated most is how humanizing our conversations were of mathematics - in terms of who was doing it - and how much curiosity students brought to the mathematical ideas they were exposed to."

One student, for example, used The Calculus of Friendship by Steven Strogatz as the model for her final course project , in which she explored her identity and mathematical experiences using calculus concepts.

Although another schedule change this year forced Shah to drop book club from calculus, he has continued the club outside class with interested students.

"If you have the time, it's a magical way to get kids to see mathematics through a number of different lenses," he said.

Shah created a list of titles that would work well in a math book club, and Bezaire's curriculum for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is available on his website . MindShift asked the two teachers to share their advice for educators who want to try incorporating literature into their own math classrooms.

Lay the groundwork for the unit by communicating with parents, other teachers, administrators, students before diving in. There may be resistance: the book has been removed from some schools because of profanity.

Stock up on throat lozenges or tea with honey. "I speak out loud in front of classes for a living, and it's still a stretch for me to read the book out loud four times per day," Bezaire said.

Pre-read each day's reading passage to find teachable moments: clues, red herrings and math worth expanding on. Make notes in your copy of the novel to make things easier the second year.

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How Reading Novels in Math Class Can Strengthen Student Engagement

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"Context and prior knowledge are critical components in fostering comprehension, regardless of the topic," according to Faith Wallace, co-author of Teaching Math Through Reading . Reading literature is one of several ways to build that context and background knowledge.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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Math learning and teaching can be so much fun especially when done through the right strategies. One of these strategies is through engaging video content. To this end, we have compiled 20 of the best and most popular YouTube channels for math teachers. These channels provide a wide variety of videos, tutorials and animated courses covering different mathematical concepts from algebra to geometry. If you have other suggestions to add to the list, please share with us in our Facebook page.

'MathTV.com has over 10,000 instructional videos to help students learn everything from basic math through calculus. Each problem is worked by multiple instructors.'

This list would be incomplete without Khan Academy in it. The channel embeds math courses and video tutorials covering a large spectrum of math concepts.

This is another popular math channel on YouTube. It features math videos with a primary focus on numbers

Tech math is a channel that 'obsesses over methods to make maths easier! [It provides] Math Tricks for fast results!'

This channel is run by a former math instructor and provides a wide variety of videos tackling different math problems.

'Here you can find full length lessons with multiple examples covering topics from Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, Trigonometry, PreCalculus, Calculus, and Statistics.'

Another great channel for math teachers. Mathantics features tons of video tutorials on everything related to Math.

'This Channel is dedicated to quality mathematics education. It is absolutely FREE so Enjoy! Videos are organized in playlists and are course specific.'
9- Krista King

Krista 'recorded tons of videos and written out cheat-sheet style notes and formula sheets to help every math student-from basic middle school classes to advanced college calculus-figure out what's going on, understand the important concepts, and pass their classes, once and for all.'
10- Free Math Videos

This channel is also run by a math teacher who offers free math tutoring and videos to help students 'gain better understanding of mathematics'.

PBS Math Club 'cover the 7th grade Common Core Standard for math; topics like adding and subtracting integers, equations, ratios and proportions, and statistics.'
12- Mashup Math

'MashUp Math, a mathematics education YouTube channel run by young teachers on a mission to meet the unique needs of students with a visual learning preference.'
13- Math Meeting

Math Meeting covers almost all 'math subjects from basic level math through upper level calculus and statistics'.
14- Learn Math Tutorials

'This channel provides a growing resource of helpful math tutorials.'
15- The Video Math Tutor

The Video Math Tutor offers a variety of math tutoring videos 'plus many helpful study tips, calculator tips, and "Brain Teasers."'
16- TeacherTube Math

Another great math channel that covers topics such as fractions, multiplication, elementary math, middle school math, high school math, college math, and anymore.

This channel offers math videos covering algebra and calculus from a MIT graduate.

'This channel is to help with your math studies through school, college and university. Real maths, tips, resources, videos, word problems, numeracy, arithmetic, games, BIG questions, past papers are all either on the channel or the Maths Wrap website.'

This channels provides animated math videos and educational songs for kids to make math learning fun and engaging.

'This channel is to provide help to students out there who need a little extra help and cannot afford tutoring. I produce the channel for free in my free time outside my full time job as a maths teacher.'

First appeared here.

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Some Very Good YouTube Channels for Math Teachers

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Math learning and teaching can be so much fun especially when done through the right strategies. One of these strategies is through engaging video content. To this end, we have compiled 20 of the best and most popular YouTube channels for math teachers.

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Ilana Horn-Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In - The Principal Center

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Interview Notes, Resources, & Links Get the book, Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In Follow Ilana on Twitter @ilana_horn About Ilana Horn Ilana Seidel Horn, PhD is Professor of Mathematics Education at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, where her research and teaching center on ways to make authentic mathematics accessible to students, particularly ...

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Years ago TED-Ed started a playlist of video lessons called Math in Real Life. That playlist that started out with just a couple dozen lessons has now grown to include 82 lessons. The "real life" context in these lessons isn't things like "how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper." The "real life" context found in the videos in the Math in Real Life series is broad in nature. For example, you will find lessons about how math is used to guide ships and why airlines often sell more seats than they have on an airplane.

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Years ago TED-Ed started a playlist of video lessons called Math in Real Life. That playlist that started out with just a couple dozen lessons has now grown to include 82 lessons. The "real life" context in these lessons isn't things like "how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper."

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There always seems to be a new debate about the best way to teach math or which curriculum is the best. I also hear often from homeschool moms who love and feel confident teaching reading, yet feel uncertain and ill-equipped to teach math. Today I am not trying to put any debates to rest or say that I have the final answer to math education questions, I simply want to share some ideas to help you wherever you are, and hopefully show that teaching math doesn't have to be difficult or scary. You may also be surprised to hear it isn't as far away from teaching reading as it seems. Because you can actually use helpful and recognized literacy strategies to teach math!
*Please Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and help support the work of this site. Read our full disclosure here.*
I've recently been reading a book by Laney Sammons called, Building Mathematical Comprehension. It is an excellent resource and if you are interested in learning more and seeing more examples and in depth analysis of these strategies, I highly recommend it.

As I've read through and considered various literacy strategies, it has struck me that applying these strategies to math seems so obvious, and yet, it's not something I have heard or thought of before.

For instance, she makes the point that the goal of reading instruction is to comprehend and apply. The same is true of math! The goal of teaching and learning math is not to be able to compute or work through algorithms or memorize facts. It is to understand. To comprehend the meaning of all the numbers and their connections to each other and then apply that to real life.

So if you're familiar with these strategies, I hope this will give you new insight into how you can apply them to math instruction, and if you're not familiar with these strategies, I hope this will be packed full of useful information for you!

5 Ideas for Using Literacy Strategies to Teach Math:

1. Teach Math Vocabulary

In reading, vocabulary (and figuring out unknown words) is an essential component of comprehension. In math, the task of knowing and determining unknown vocabulary is even more challenging because there are words that are specific to math and not used in everyday conversation.

Math is a foreign language and it is important that we don't take for granted the language used to talk about and describe math problems and situations. The good thing is, there are lots of different ways you can teach and help kids understand math specific vocabulary.
Here are just a few ideas:

Have a "word wall" in your home or classroom to expose kids to math specific words and start discussions

Encourage students to explain their thinking when they solve a problem using math words. If they explain in a way that doesn't incorporate the correct vocabulary, rephrase it for them using appropriate terms

Use "word sorts" to allow students to make connections between various words and mathematical operations (for example, sort words like "add, altogether, in total, plus, etc." under the addition symbol

Have math talks and encourage (and model yourself) the use of math specific vocabulary

Incorporate writing into your lessons to allow students to write about mathematical experiences, or explain a solution in their own words using math vocabulary

Use graphic organizers such as a Frayer diagram or Venn diagram to compare words, find examples, etc.

Read math stories (this is one of my favorites!)

Related: The Importance of Math Vocabulary
2. Use Schema (a.k.a prior knowledge)

Every child has a schema, or set of knowledge, that is unique to them. Each child's schema will be varied in its breadth and depth. Some may overlap, some may have a lot of prior knowledge (some may have a much larger vocabulary, for instance) while others may have virtually no prior knowledge.

It's important, however, in reading and math, to try and start with what they know and build on that knowledge. In fact, according to Marzano, research suggests that "what students already know about the content is one of the strongest indicators of how well they will learn new information relative to the content." (This also means you may need to spend time determining what they know before you start).

By starting with something familiar, students can then make a connection from the new concept to what they already know, helping to make sense of the new ideas, as well as helping with retention.

This is the reason the first few lessons in my introduction to multiplication bundle focus on reinforcing and understanding repeated addition. This allows kids to take something familiar (addition) and think about it in a new way (repeated addition) and then form a connection from repeated addition to multiplication.

So when you are planning math lessons, it is helpful for students if you start with the familiar and work towards building a bridge to new content.

But it is also important to help students see how they can do this on their own to help them solve problems. When they look at a math problem, have them first ask themselves, "What do I know?" and then write that down. Look for things that are familiar (such as known vocabulary words) and see if that provides any insight into how to solve the problem.

A popular method in reading instruction is to use a KWL chart (What do I KNOW, what do I WANT to know, and then what did I LEARN). This could easily be used when learning a new math concept as well, helping kids make those important connections!
Related: Teaching Readers to Use Their Schema
3. Make Connections

This leads me to the next literacy strategy: making connections. Helping kids use their prior knowledge gives them something to connect a new concept to.

But students can make connections in other ways as well, and this is a very useful strategy to help them learn, apply and remember new math concepts.
Types of math connections:
All of math is interconnected, and it's important to help kids see the connections between one math concept and another. We also then, have to find ways to make connections between the math they're learning and their life, and help them see math in the world around them.

One way you can help kids form connections is to plan lessons in which connections are abundant. Be intentional in the way you present new topics. Teach it in a way that uses all sorts of other math to see and learn the new math idea.

Sometimes it is helpful to point out these connections to students, and other times, encourage them to make the connections on their own. Eventually, you want seeing and making connections to be a habit, natural and automatic for kids.
Ideas for helping kids make mathematical connections:

Have a daily "how did you use math yesterday?" discussion

Keep math journals documenting math situations or connections

If you're a classroom teacher, encourage parents to have "math talks" or go on "math walks" at home

Read the book Math Curse and spend time discussing it and other ways we see and use math (get FREE resources to use with this book here)

Related: Making connections to help with reading comprehension
4. Make predictions

Making predictions and inferences is an important reading comprehension strategy, and adapting that to math instruction is vital. As Laney Sammons states,

"Students need to know that making predictions that are then proved or disproved is a process mathematicians have used throughout history."

Having an idea about how to solve a problem and then seeing that that is either a valid method or not is what we do as mathematicians. It's the crux of the problem solving process. Play around with ideas and numbers and see what happens.
Related: 8 reasons making mistakes in math is a good thing
The problem is, this is not normally how math is taught. Often, students are told, "Here is the process. Do each problem exactly like this." Students then memorize a procedure without understanding the concept or making any connections to prior knowledge or their world.

Instead, encourage exploration. Encourage mistakes, and then have students analyze why a method did or did not work. Then have them try again.

Help them look for patterns and see if they can generalize their observations.

Just as students can make predictions about how to solve problems, they should also be in the habit of predicting the solution. This is called estimating.

Unfortunately, this is a rarely taught skill, and is usually only seen in the form of, "How many balls do you think are in this jar?"

Helping kids get in the habit of estimating the solution is important though, because it will help them to self check and make sure that the answer makes sense in the context of the problem. They can use what is given in the problem as well as their prior knowledge to make predictions about the solution.

For instance, in an addition problem, students should know that the final solution must be larger than the numbers they are adding.

In more challenging problems, they should think about whether the solution should be positive or negative, large or small, a whole number or a fraction, exactly one solution or more than one solution, etc.

I think the best way to encourage this kind of estimating is to constantly model it for kids. Talk out loud as you solve a problem and explain why you think the answer will be large and positive. Then talk through your thinking as you do the math.

Related: Making predictions as you read and Using inferences to help with comprehension

5. Teach kids to visualize

Just like reading a story creates a visual image in our minds, math problems should as well. When using visualizing to help with reading comprehension, it's a good idea to underline or circle visual words (adjectives).

Kids can do this with math word problems as well. Circle words that paint a picture and provide important information, and then use those words to draw a picture.

Visualizing and drawing a picture is a helpful strategy because it provides kids with a mental image which will help them remember what they've learned.

It can also help them break down a problem into easier to understand parts to make sense of it. If a problem seems overwhelming at first glance, spending time circling visual words and then drawing a picture of the problem can help make it less overwhelming.
Related: Problem solving by drawing a picture
This is an exhaustive list of literacy strategies, or ideas for how you can apply reading comprehension strategies to math instruction. It is simply meant to give you a starting point and hopefully some good ideas for how you can encourage your kids to be thinkers and problem solvers who have a deep understanding of math and how it relates to the world around them.

And if you're looking for more strategies to help kids make sense of math, grab a FREE copy of my ebook, Strategies for Problem Solving: Equip Kids to Solve Math Problems with Confidence!
Click HERE to learn more and request your copy! References in this post:

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There always seems to be a new debate about the best way to teach math or which curriculum is the best. I also hear often from homeschool moms who love and feel confident teaching reading, yet feel uncertain and ill-equipped to teach math.

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CyArk is an organization building an online library of 3D models of the world's cultural heritage sites. Mount Rushmore is one of the places that CyArk features in their galleries of 3D models. You can find the entire collection of places here.

Applications for Education
In the CyArk lesson plan collection you will find a handful of lesson plans about the mathematics connected to Mount Rushmore. Scroll down to items 17 through 26 to find the lesson plans about Mount Rushmore. In these lesson plans you will find activities for teaching measurement, geometry, and algebra. There are lesson plans available for K-12. Some lessons are as simple as identifying shapes while others are as complex as predicting when two cracks on the surface of Mount Rushmore would intersect over time.

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Geometry at Mount Rushmore - A Math Lesson

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CyArk is an organization building an online library of 3D models of the world's cultural heritage sites. Mount Rushmore is one of the places that CyArk features in their galleries of 3D models. You can find the entire collection of places here.

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Perhaps you stumbled on this post after reading my prior post about choosing a research topic. Or, maybe you googled " how to write an introduction paragraph " because you are struggling to come up with a way to make introduction paragraphs less daunting for students.

Honestly, getting students started with their essay is the hardest part. Because I have a compulsion to reflect on and analyze my lessons and units, I am always trying to come up with no-fear, sensible ways to help students approach writing. In this post, I'm sharing the methods I use to make writing an introduction paragraph for an argumentative essay more transparent and concrete.

Begin with the thesis statement.

I always begin by asking students to define their view. We begin by discussing how we would write thesis statements for debates that students would understand without much research. I explain to students that in an argumentative essay, the thesis statement is also called a claim because they are arguing a specific point. I want them to associate the term thesis statement with every essay we write, but it's important that they know the word claim as well.

Identify the main points of argument.

Even though I don't ask students to list their main points in the introduction paragraph, I consider it part of writing an intro. They need to understand whether or not their thesis statement can be developed with sound research. I give my students a graphic organizer that allows them to view the main points as pillars that support the thesis statement. If they can identify at least three solid pillars and provide evidence from research, they are approved to move on. (I do require students to begin collecting sources during the pre-writing stage, and I encourage them to tweak their original Works Cited page as they draft and revise.)

Explore attention getter options.

I like to give my students specific examples of strategies they can use as hooks. I also provide examples of each and then ask them to practice, which can look many different ways. Here are a few ideas:

1. Display each hook strategy as a station around the room. Ask students to work in groups of 2 or 3 to write their own example for a topic they are assigned. They can then rotate around the room with the same topic, practicing different techniques, or they can present the strategy, example, and their own writing to the class.

2. Ask students to experiment by choosing three different hooks. Have them write an attention getter for their essay for each type. Then, put students in groups and have them provide peer feedback on which approach is the strongest.

3. Give students some task cards with attention getters already written. Ask them to identify the type of hook that is used on each task card. They can also evaluate that hook's effectiveness.

Regardless of the type of hook students select, I always ask them to frame the essay in their conclusion. More on that in another post.

Teach specific ways to add background.

Even if students manage to come up with a hook they like and a sound thesis statement, they generally struggle with what to write in the middle. I explain that the middle of the introduction is a bridge in two different ways.

One, it bridges the hook to the thesis. Those two typically don't flow naturally together. Two, it provides a bridge between the issue and the audience's understanding of it. I allow my students to choose topics they are passionate about, but I explain that other people who will read their essay might not know anything about the topic. I ask them, "What information does your audience need to know in order to fully understand this debate?"

Does the topic have an important history? Are there relevant court cases? How long has this issue existed? Is it currently in the news? Does it impact people locally, nationally, or globally? Can it be related to or a cause of any other issues in our world? Are there any terms the audience might need defined? Who disagrees about this topic, and why? These are some of the probing questions I ask students to ponder.

Use acronyms.

I'm a writer who appreciates structure. Not all students need it, but giving them an acronym to help them remember the basics of a paragraph can't hurt. I developed the ABC acronym for writing argumentative introductions because it's so easy to remember.

A: ATTENTION GETTER / HOOK

B: BRIDGE / BACKGROUND

C: CLAIM / THESIS

Even students who don't need much scaffolding must understand that those elements are necessary in order to grab the audience's attention, fill in gaps of knowledge, and establish a sound position.

Make feedback social.

I find it important to give students feedback on their introduction paragraphs before moving on to the body of the essay. Feedback is an opportunity to boost students' confidence. They will enter the next stage of their paper knowing their foundation is solid. But, feedback doesn't have to always come from the teacher.

My favorite activity I've ever done to make feedback social is this. Ask students to bring in three versions of their introduction paragraphs. Have them use a different hook in each but keep the rest the same. Make sure they are paper clipped or stapled together.

Then, sit in a circle. Ask students to pass the essays either to the right or the left one person. For five or ten minutes, just sit and allow students to respond to the introduction paragraphs. Students can write praises and suggestions either on the actual paper copies or on post-its. Give them some prompts to consider to guide their feedback.

After time has lapsed, have students pass again in the same direction. Do this as many times as you can before they lose focus or before the period is over. This activity can also be conducted digitally. I just prefer the paper version because it feels more authentic and is easier to manage.

And that's what I do to teach students how to write an introduction paragraph. I know some people encourage students to begin with the body paragraphs, and that's fine. We all have to find what works for our teaching style and for our students. Even if students begin in the middle, they'll have to come back to the beginning at some point.

Interested in reading more? You might enjoy one of these related articles...

This is the mini unit I use to teach how to write an introduction paragraphs. It contains the ABC acronym, the pillars and introduction paragraph graphic organizer, examples of hooks, ideas for what to include in the bridge, and an example introduction paragraph. Click on the image to take a closer look at the details.

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Teaching Students How to Write an Introduction Paragraph | Reading and Writing Haven

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Perhaps you stumbled on this post after reading my prior post about choosing a research topic . Or, maybe you googled " how to write an introduction paragraph " because you are struggling to come up with a way to make introduction paragraphs less daunting for students.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Voice of Witness: Bring the Power of Oral History to Your Classroom | Cult of Pedagogy

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The need for these books goes beyond curriculum: Reading these stories will make our students better humans.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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Smithsonian's History Explorer provides teachers, educators and students with a wide variety of resources to help them teach and learn about the American history. The site is a fruit of the partnership between the National Museum of American History and he Verizon Foundation. 'History Explorer's resources focus on learning history by "reading" objects for the stories they hold about the nation and its many peoples. Learning activities feature artifacts selected from over 3 million items in the Museum's collections, and draw on the expertise of the Museum's renowned curatorial staff.'

History Explore r provides seven types of resource types: artifacts, primary sources, lessons and activities, worksheets, reference materials, reviewed websites, and interactives and media. You can use the search box on the left to search for resources. To get precise results you need to narrow down your search using criteria such as grade level, historical era, cross-curricular connections, and resource type. Watch the video below to learn more about how to use materials you find on History Explorer.

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Here Is An Important Tool for History Teachers

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Smithsonian's History Explorer provides teachers, educators and students with a wide variety of resources to help them teach and learn about the American history. The site is a fruit of the partnership between the National Museum of American History and he Verizon Foundation.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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Beyond the Bubble History Assessments is an excellent educational resource from Stanford Education Group. The core philosophy underlying Beyond the Bubble is to help students develop critical thinking skills to use in , among other things, reading and analysis of historical documents. It provides a collection of pre-designed assessments or HATs (History Assessments of Thinking) that will help teachers 'measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts'. The emphasis is on equiping students with the appropriate conceptual tools to analyze, evaluate and critically interact with document sources in such a way that enhances their historical thinking. These assements come with a number of accompanying documents teachers can use in designing their history lessons and facilitating 'classroom discussions about historical topics'.Also, the assessments target a wide range of historical skills including: sourcing, periodization, use of evidence, corroboration, contextualization, and background knowledge. Check out this video to learn more about Beyond The Bubble.

Another equally important resource for history teachers and students is Reading Like A Historian which is also from Standford History Education Group. 'The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. To learn more about how to use Reading Like a Historian lessons, watch this series of videos about how teachers use these materials in their classrooms.'

Source: Common Sense Education

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Two Must Have Resources for History Teachers

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Beyond the Bubble History Assessments is an excellent educational resource from Stanford Education Group. The core philosophy underlying Beyond the Bubble is to help students develop critical thinking skills to use in , among other things, reading and analysis of historical documents.

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Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse has a collection of more than 5,000 historical maps. The maps are licensed for free download and reuse by teachers and students. The collection is organized by continent and country. The US category is further broken down and organized by state and by historical theme.

Some of the maps in this collection are excellent maps to download and layer over Google Earth and Google Maps for the purpose of showing current maps and historic maps in the same screen. Learn how to do that during Tuesday's webinar about Google Earth, Google Maps, and virtual tour creator.

Applications for Education
Historical maps can be very useful in helping students to get a better sense of an entire historical event or story. These maps could be used as a supplement to a history lesson or as the beginning of an inquiry-based lesson. These maps could also be used as overlay images in Google Earth files that students develop.

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More Than 5,000 Historical Maps for Teachers and Students

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Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse has a collection of more than 5,000 historical maps. The maps are licensed for free download and reuse by teachers and students. The collection is organized by continent and country. The US category is further broken down and organized by state and by historical theme.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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Beyond the Bubble History Assessments is an excellent educational resource from Stanford Education Group. The core philosophy underlying Beyond the Bubble is to help students develop critical thinking skills to use in , among other things, reading and analysis of historical documents. It provides a collection of pre-designed assessments or HATs (History Assessments of Thinking) that will help teachers 'measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts'. The emphasis is on equiping students with the appropriate conceptual tools to analyze, evaluate and critically interact with document sources in such a way that enhances their historical thinking. These assements come with a number of accompanying documents teachers can use in designing their history lessons and facilitating 'classroom discussions about historical topics'.Also, the assessments target a wide range of historical skills including: sourcing, periodization, use of evidence, corroboration, contextualization, and background knowledge. Check out this video to learn more about Beyond The Bubble.

Another equally important resource for history teachers and students is Reading Like A Historian which is also from Standford History Education Group. 'The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. To learn more about how to use Reading Like a Historian lessons, watch this series of videos about how teachers use these materials in their classrooms.'

Source: Common Sense Education

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Two Must Have Resources for History Teachers

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Beyond the Bubble History Assessments is an excellent educational resource from Stanford Education Group. The core philosophy underlying Beyond the Bubble is to help students develop critical thinking skills to use in , among other things, reading and analysis of historical documents.

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The slave trade in the Americas was a more than three-century-long institution that fundamentally shaped how countries like the United States formed. The U.S. is still reckoning with its legacy, and Americans unsurprisingly tend to focus on North America's role in the triangular trade. But Brazil was also a huge destination for slave ships, especially during the later years of the slave trade, as a new infographic reminds us.

Slate, which is currently tackling the history of American slavery in a nine-episode podcast, created an interactive animation that tracks slave shipments across the Atlantic from the 16th through the 19th centuries, tracking where specific slave ships originated and landed over the course of that period. Each ship carrying human cargo destined for slave markets in the Western Hemisphere is represented as a dot, with the size of the dot corresponding to the size of the group of captured people on board. If you pause the animation and click on one of the dots, information about the specific ship and its origins, when available, and the number of people it ultimately carried into slavery will appear.

Compare the map above, showing slave ships in 1818, with the one showing ships in 1787 during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. During the intervening decades, the major slave ports in the Americas shifted from the West Indies to Brazil.

Slate reports that over the 315 years of slavery documented in the infographic, some 10 million kidnapped Africans were transported to the Western Hemisphere to serve as slaves, while an estimated 2 million didn't survive the trans-Atlantic journey. Less than four percent of that total (less than 400,000) came to North America, while 4 million people were shipped to the Caribbean, 4.8 million to Brazil, and 1.3 million to Central America.

While slave trading remained legal for decades afterward, the U.S. banned importing new slaves in 1808, around the same time that Britain and other European powers did the same. Brazil was the last American nation to ban slavery outright, holding out until 1888.

It's well worth checking out the interactive, animated version over on Slate.
Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.
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315 Years of the American Slave Trade in 2 Minutes

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The slave trade in the Americas was a more than three-century-long institution that fundamentally shaped how countries like the United States formed. The U.S. is still reckoning with its legacy, and Americans unsurprisingly tend to focus on North America's role in the triangular trade.

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Last week I began a series on scaffolds for helping students read like writers. To read like a writer is to appreciate what another writer has made while exploring possibilities for your own work. When students are surrounded by excellent writing and have been taught how to mine that writing for craft, their writing toolbox expands and their sense of possibility enlarges. But this way of reading like a writer does not come naturally for many students who have been schooled to read only like readers and sadly, who are not often enough invited to play and tinker and make their own writing.

So we owe our student writers really good instruction in this area, and ample time to practice reading like a writer until it becomes second nature.

Last week we explored the very first step in the four-step protocol:

1. Notice something about the craft.

2. Name the craft.

3. Come up with a theory for why the writer used this craft.

4. Try this craft in your own work.

We looked at five exercises that can help craft "pop" for writers like the Magic Eye illusions of the 90s. Many students are able to spot craft in writing-their eyes see a pattern or discern the way a sentence is built-but the next step, the naming part, presents a major barrier for them. When they don't have the words to name what they see, their observations becomes fuzzy and lost.

It might be tempting to hand these students a pre-made packet of terminology, but these kinds of "learning tools" are overwhelming and can provide major blocks to learning and reading with a sense of possibility for one's own work. These packets may also limit the creativity of the writer who spies something beautiful in a piece of writing that has not yet been named by anyone. So how can we help students name what they see without a pre-made list of vocabulary words?

5 Scaffolds for Helping Students Name Craft

1. Use student-friendly language to match what students see.

Imagine you are studying this sentence from Patricia MacLachlan's Baby with your sixth graders:

My mother stood with her hands up to her face, shocked.

Some of your students may be struck by the placement of the word shocked at the end of the sentence. Even the most inexperienced readers may sense that this is an unusual pattern: they have the English language rhythm of adjective-noun ingrained in them. Perhaps they'll even make the connection to Spanish class, where most adjectives come after the nouns they modify. When you ask them what they notice, one of your students volunteers, "Shocked is weird at the end. Like it's out of place."

Now it's your turn to help turn this wonderful observation into something more compact, something the class can use to label this craft move over and over again. Using his language as a guide, you might offer, "Okay, let's call that move Out-of-Place Adjectives."

This scaffold requires you to think on your feet, but you won't be helpless if you listen to your students and use their words to help them name what they cannot say yet. Consider archiving all of the terms you devise together on a series of posters, or in a class glossary (more to come on this in a future post!).

2. Send students on a craft hunt.

Once you and your students have practiced naming with creative, student-generated language craft moves across a few different texts, you can send them out into the print world with a list of these moves to see what else they can find.

At the beginning of a blogging unit, my 8th graders used the following list of craft moves to explore blog writing. They were were asked to annotate a few short blogs for these techniques:

Examples-in-a-list

Information-adding colon

Whispering parenthesis

Creative subtitle

The drive-the-school-marm-crazy sentence (sentences that start with a conjunction!)

A magic three (rhythmic sentences that have three distinct parts to them)

Anything else that interests you as a writer

As you can see, the items on this "list" are a far cry from literary terms packets: they are creative, descriptive, and student-generated. The last item on the list is open: students are invited to look for new craft moves and use the fun language of the proceeding vocabulary to inspire their own terminology.

3. Attribute moves to particular authors.

Another way of describing the craft moves we see over and over again, particularly within a single author's oeuvre, is to use that author's name to describe his or her most ubiquitous techniques. Let's look at an example in the passage below. If you had to guess which popular young adult author wrote this sentence, who would you guess?

If I'd been the author, I would've stopped thinking about my microbiome. I would've told Daisy how much I liked her idea for Mychal's art project, and I would've told her that I did remember Davis Pickett, that I remembered being eleven and carrying a vague but constant fear. I would've told her that I remembered once at camp lying next to Davis on the edge of a dock, our legs dangling over, our backs against the rough-hewn planks of wood, staring together up at a cloudless summer sky. I would've told her that Davis and I never talked much, or even looked at each other, but it didn't matter, because we were looking at the same sky together, which is maybe more intimate than eye contact anyway. Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.

The passage is from John Green's Turtles All the Way Down. (I wrote a YA Sentence Study post about it here.) If you've read any John Green at all, you'll agree that this sentence is very John Green-y. It's built around a repetitive pattern; the narrator's voice is revealing, vulnerable, true; the sentence closes with a thematic discovery about life. And I'm betting that your students, especially if you have cultivated an independent reading-rich environment in your classroom, might guess John Green as well. They may not be able to say why it's a John Green sentence, but they'll feel it, and with your help they will be able to describe the style that makes it his.

I love this scaffold because it helps students describe author style while encouraging them to make connections between authors and look for craft patterns across texts. The next time they come across a sentence that feels John Green-y - one that has a vulnerable narrator, or rich repetition, or ends with a thematic punch, they can say, "Hey, that's a John Green sentence," and you'll point to the poster in your room that you've made with a few bullet points describing his style to help give words to what they cannot yet say.

4. Invite students to make or build the craft they see.

I've been reading Angela Stockman's Hack the Writing Workshop, and I'm so, so inspired. In this book Angela explores how letting kids use unconventional materials like legos, clay, and straw to build their ideas "bit by bit" can dissolve students' print-resistance and break down creative barriers. As I write, a bin of Legos tumbles over in our family room

spreading colorful pieces everywhere, and I can't help but wonder what might happen if we asked our students to build or make their craft noticings in order to give them a name. On page 136 of Hack the Writing Workshop Angela writes, "Print is just one modality, and many argue that it isn't even the modality of the moment. Future-ready writers know how to use diverse mediums and modalities to inform, move, and call their readers to action. Does you writing workshop prepare them for this reality? I began inviting writers to switch mediums or modalities whenever they told me they were blocked. 'Build what you don't yet have words for,' I suggested. 'Sketch it. Paint it. Perform it. Dance out the conflict in your story.' Every time, words began to flow in the wake of making." After students build their ideas, Angela encourages them to label the tiny pieces of their creations; then students use those labels and descriptions to form phrases, and later sentences and paragraphs.

For instance, if a student were to build the Patricia MacLachlan Baby sentence above with a bunch of legos, she might create a tower of ten yellow Legos to represent the first ten words of the sentence, followed by one red Lego to represent the adjective that jumps out at her and seems out of place. How would this student then describe her Lego tower, and what words in that description might help her name the original craft move that inspired it?

5. Borrow a familiar vocabulary.

Our students are musicians. Skate boarders. Traceurs (had to look that one up! This is what you call a person who does parkour). Cooks. Ballerinas. Artists. Field hockey players. Jockeys. Gymnasts. Gamers. Basketball players. Our students love what they do and know the vocabularies of their passions inside and out.

Have your students make a list of the words that define their passions. For example, a dancer might list:

Battu is a term that refers to the "beating" of feet in the middle of a jump or step. What might your dancer discover if you invited her to find a sentence or passage that mimicked battu-perhaps a really long sentence followed by a short, punchy sentence in the middle (the beating of the feet), following by another long sentence? How might this dancer see craft through the lens of her passion?

~

Seeking and naming craft is a creative endeavor; terminology packets suck all the inspiration out of this process, leaving little room for a student to be inspired and consider possibilities for her own work. Still, you might be wondering, "But when do you introduce students to the actual terms?"

That depends.

Even our highest achieving students need time and space to discover their own ways of naming the craft they see. But if you teach a test-based class where the terminology truly matters (like AP Language, for instance), then the answer is: in time. If you must use precise terminology, do it after students are practiced noticing and naming on their own terms.

But keep in mind that some of the most beautiful craft moves do not have a name. You will not find a label in your terminology packet to describe the gorgeous patterns your students have spotted and felt in their bones as they read.
I hope you'll join me again in two weeks as we consider the third step in the RLAW protocol: helping students analyze craft moves and come up with a theory for why a writer has used a particular technique. In the meantime, please share your ideas for helping students name craft they do not yet have words for, and let me know if you try any of the ideas above!

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Scaffolds for Helping Students Read Like Writers, Part II (Naming Craft)

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Last week I began a series on scaffolds for helping students read like writers. To read like a writer is to appreciate what another writer has made while exploring possibilities for your own work. When students are surrounded by excellent writing and have been taught how to mine that writing for craft, their writing toolbox...

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Google Docs are already a wonderful tool to use in our classrooms. They allow us to work together and share our ideas with the world. But sometimes there are things that seem impossible to do in Google Docs. Before you give up and think that Docs just can't be used in your content area, check out some of these specialized add-ons.

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"Animation offers a medium of storytelling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world." - Walt Disney
Research indicates that one of the most effective ways students learn is by teaching others. In my new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom, students are sent on a mission to instruct others by creating their own video tutorials. Other ways students can teach others is by creating explainer videos (sometimes called One Take Videos), Do It Yourself (DIY) videos, or How-To Videos. These videos help students visualize and explain in their own words their understanding of the topic. Additionally, these videos save you time if you are flipping instruction and need a library of instructional videos. No need for you to create the videos. Your students will have a much valuable learning experience if they create their own. Future students can learn with these videos and create others to demonstrate the same concepts. Below are some tips, web tools, and resources to get your students started.

Process and Resources

First show students examples of the type of video they will produce. Find several examples in the list below:

Students choose a topic for their explainer, DIY, or instructional videos. These videos should be no longer than 3 minutes and some can be as short as six seconds.

Give students time to write the scripts for their videos and storyboard them.

Students will need time to gather their props or create illustrations for their videos if this is the option you choose.
Check out this video showing a group of students behind the scenes creating their Common Craft videos.

A better option is to choose a web tool or app with a template to create their videos quickly. This will cut down the amount of time students spend completing the task.

Suggested free web tools with templates- My Simple Show, Biteable, Powtoon, Wideo, RenderForest, Moovly, Raw Shorts, and WeVideo.

Suggested free web apps- create how-to videos with the Darby iOS app, Get-Puppet iOS app, Explain Everything iOS/Android app, Lensoo iOS/Android app, Show Me iOS/Android app, and Educreations iOS app.

Students produce their videos and get their peers to view them, complete the tasks, and provide feedback.

Challenge: Get your students started creating their own instructional videos using any of these resources or ideas!

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14 Tools and Resources to Get Students to Create Instructional Videos

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"Animation offers a medium of storytelling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world." - Walt Disney Research indicates that one of the most effective ways students learn is by teaching others.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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September 2, 2017
Here is a handy infographic by Kudoswall to use with your students in class. The visual features a number of interesting tips to help students build and manage their digital portfolios. You can also check this ' beginner's guide to student portfolios' to learn more about the educational importance of portfolios in learning. And if you are looking for web tools for creating portfolios, this collection embeds some good options to start with.

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Students Guide to Building A Digital Portfolio

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September 2, 2017 Here is a handy infographic by Kudoswall to use with your students in class. The visual features a number of interesting tips to help students build and manage their digital portfolios. You can also check this ' beginner's guide to student portfolios' to learn more about the educational importance of portfolios in learning.

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Digital portfolios are one of the most powerful ways my students take ownership of their learning and reflect on their learning journeys. Digital portfolios help students set, track, and achieve their academic learning goals. Check out several of my students' reflective portfolios here. Students attach screenshots and links to their work along with a personal reflection of how they will apply the learning. This is followed by an overall reflection. This year I want to improve the portfolios by including three important parts. Part one entails setting academic goals and reflecting on strengths and weaknesses. The second part is to get students to benchmark and reflect at more regular intervals through student led conferences. The third part includes the final reflection. The time to implement digital portfolios is at the start of the course. To help you get started find a slide presentation, tips, web tools and resources below. Also, check out my recent webinar recording of the process here.

Resources

Suggested tools for K to 12 educators, include Mahara, Showbie, Seesaw, Livebinders, Educlipper, Padlet, Edublogs, Kudos Wall, and Google Sites. You might also try Pinterest, Weebly, Bulb, and Pathbrite.

Start with goals! Find student goal templates for any age group here.

Get learners to track and reflect on their progress at regular intervals, such as each progress report time, with student led conferences (SLC).

Check out this great SLC guide by NYC schools with handouts.

Students can use an Assessing my Assessment sheet to reflect on their growth and identify areas for improvement.

As a team- the student, parent, and you- come up with strategies for further growth.

The third part is the final reflection.

My student final reflections are sometimes separate from the actual portfolios. For one course my students used , and Capzles for their Pinterest for their portfolios and Prezi, Voicethread final reflections.

Last year I experimented with Padlet for a final reflection. Check out my template to copy and adapt.

Check out more of my back to school posts here!

Challenge: Get your students started with digital portfolios.

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Digital portfolios are one of the most powerful ways my students take ownership of their learning and reflect on their learning journeys. Digital portfolios help students set, track, and achieve their academic learning goals. Check out several of my students' reflective portfolios here.

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A couple of weeks ago I featured two Chromebook training opportunities. One of those I'm hosting next week in Portland, Maine. The other is being hosted by my friends Ernie Delgado and Malia Hoffmann in Palm Springs, CA on August 2nd and 3rd. Yesterday, Ernie and Malia joined me on Zoom to talk about hyperdocs, Chromebooks, and how they customize their Chromebook trainings for each participant. The video of our interview is embedded below.

As mentioned in the video, readers of FreeTech4Teachers.com can receive a by using the code "Family25" when registering for Malia and Ernie's Beyond Tech Ed professional development course.

Disclosure: Beyond Tech Ed is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com

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Hyperdocs, Chromebooks, and Customized PD

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A couple of weeks ago I featured two Chromebook training opportunities. One of those I'm hosting next week in Portland, Maine. The other is being hosted by my friends Ernie Delgado and Malia Hoffmann in Palm Springs, CA on August 2nd and 3rd.

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I've seen a lot of discussion lately about the concept of delaying grades based on Kristy Louden's awesome article, Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback, over at the equally awesome Cult of Pedagogy.

She argues that if you have students focus on reading feedback and self assessing their work before addressing the grade, the feedback becomes more meaningful. I wholeheartedly agree, and have seen many educators jumping into the conversation with their own practices and strategies. I've thought a lot about my own grading and feedback beliefs and policies this year, and done a lot of work to be better.

Louden writes, "Wow, glad I put so much time into that assignment, said no teacher ever." We spend so long grading and providing feedback, but too often it ends up crumpled in backpacks or garbage cans. Online feedback is great because it's harder to lose or misplace, but it still can be a struggle to get students to read it. We need to stop doing the same thing and expecting different results. We need to stop the insanity.

Louden explains her methods, continuing, "The simple act of delaying the grade meant that students had to think about their writing. They had to read their own writing-after a few weeks away from it-and digest my comments, which allowed them to better recognize what they did well or not so well. The response from students was extremely positive; they understood the benefit of rereading their essays and paying attention to feedback. One boy said, 'Mrs. Louden, you're a genius. I've never read what a teacher writes on my essay before, and now I have to.'"

For more on grades and feedback I recommend checking out "Changing the Conversation: Grades vs. Learning" by Starr Sackstein and ASCD's Seven Keys to Effective Feedback from Grant Wiggins.

Feedback Conferences

I wish I was better at face-to-face, individual conferences about student work. Louden conferences with her students--and this is fantastic--but it's never been my strong suit. What I'm really good at is using technology to provide specific, focused, and timely feedback to students. This shouldn't entirely replace the conference--I wish I did this more often and better--but it can be a nice tool to help make the feedback process easier in delaying grades.

Google Tools to Delay Grades

In addition to delaying the grade, I like to delay the feedback. To do so, I generally return digital or hard copies of student work without any comments. Then, I ask students to read, comment on, and assess their work using a rubric. Usually, I do this a few days or even a week after the writing is turned it--this time creates a separation from the student as the writer versus editor. With distance, my students are often about to be more objective, thoughtful, and constructive about their own work.

Sometimes, the student's self-assessment makes it easier for me to provide feedback. I can reference their own comments and thoughts, and learn more about their understanding of their progress. Other times, I want to return my feedback immediately and use it to help them assess their own self-assessment and reflection. To do so, I turn to Google.

Google Classroom: Return with Purpose

Let's start with the simple option: use Google Classroom to promote self-assessment and feedback and delay the grades. When a student turns work in on Classroom, they lose rights to edit. Use this transfer of sharing rights to have them provide feedback on paper or to add suggested comments about their own writing. Then, return the work to a class or any number of students to share your comments and/or grades.

Looking for more control and specificity in your feedback? Explore Google Forms below and its power to help delay the grade.

Google Forms and formMule

With my students' most recent work, I created a feedback form to organize and maintain my feedback digitally. I read students' writing and used this simple form (see below) to provide the feedback. Notice the drop down list of student names and the checkboxes for common feedback items. This makes it quick and easy to make the process effective--the same options repeat with a heading for improvement.

I fill out the form, write comments, and can provide a grade. The submissions live in a Google Sheet, where I set up the add-on formMule to make the return process easy. With formMule, the sheet rows merge to an e-mail, sharing the results when I'm ready to do so. I use a roster of my classes to look up student e-mail addresses based on their names (but there could easily be a form question or drop down for e-mails, too) and then send the feedback only AFTER students have completed their reflections and self assessments. This way, I can delay the grades and the feedback to promote active reflection and metacognition.

If my students are ready, I'll return all of the feedback at once, but I can also choose to add a send condition in formMule to only send it back to some students. If you're new to formMule, check out Schoencast 01: formMule for a walkthrough tutorial.

To make feedback and grades matter more to students, and to make them matter to learning, we need more than technology. We need conversations about learning, along with reflection and conversations about growth and metacognition. But technology can help make the process easier and more efficient. Check out the original article that inspired this post, Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback, and add your best tips--high tech or no tech--and join the conversation.

What are your best strategies for making feedback matter to students? How can technology help (or hurt?) in the process? Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter @MrSchoenbart.

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Google Tools for Delaying Grades to Focus on Feedback

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I've seen a lot of discussion lately about the concept of delaying grades based on Kristy Louden's awesome article, Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback, over at the equally awesome Cult of Pedagogy .

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Name Picker Ninja is free tool for quickly randomly selecting a name from a list. Using Name Picker Ninja is a simple matter of pasting or typing a list of names into the "add names" field in Name Picker Ninja and then clicking "go!" The names in your list will scroll and stop on a randomly selected name. Once a name has been selected you can remove it from the list or keep it in the rotation. In the video embedded below I provide a short demonstration of Name Picker Ninja.

Applications for Education
Name Picker Ninja is useful for choosing students for all kinds of classroom activities. In elementary school you might use it to pick your line leaders for the day. In middle school or high school you might use it to choose the order in which students make presentations to their classmates.

If you want to put a random name selector in your blog or website, watch the video here to learn how to do that.

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Name Picker Ninja is free tool for quickly randomly selecting a name from a list. Using Name Picker Ninja is a simple matter of pasting or typing a list of names into the "add names" field in Name Picker Ninja and then clicking "go!"

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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June 27, 2017
Scrible is a very good productivity tool every research student should have. It provides you with various tools and features that enable you to curate online content, bookmark websites, store files, annotate and share webpages and PDFs. You can use Scrible to annotate content on a webpage or PDF. You can add comments, highlight passages and share your annotated content with others through email or social media websites. Everything you curate and annotate is saved to your library in Scrible. You can organize your library with tags so you can easily find your saved content.

Scrible also provides an excellent PDF viewer and annotator which works from your browser. Students can use it to load or upload PDF documents to work on. They can use Scrible's annotation tools to highlight and add comments. They can share PDF documents with each other and be able to see who is viewing the shared PDF, reply to comments and see annotations in real-time. Watch the video below to learn more about Scrible PDF Viewer/Annotator.
Scrible provides free upgrade to students and educators. Check it out to learn more,

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Here Is A Must Have Productivity Tool for Research Students

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June 27, 2017 Scrible is a very good productivity tool every research student should have. It provides you with various tools and features that enable you to curate online content, bookmark websites, store files, annotate and share webpages and PDFs. You can use Scrible to annotate content on a webpage or PDF.

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I've had the wonderful opportunity of being involved in a lot of great programs at my school site. However, the more involved you are in at your school, the likelihood that you will be out of your classroom greatly increases. As I have found myself out of the classroom more frequently, I have tried to find ways to keep my students focused and engaged while in the classroom. More importantly, I have tried to find ways for students to still be actively learning and involved in the content that we have been covering when I am normally in class.
My main goal, whenever I am out of the classroom, is to find ways to keep students learning, engaged, and to never "lose a day" of class.
I want the work that I assign when I am out of the classroom to be meaningful, not simply "busy" work in hopes that they will not be a behavior problem for the substitute. I truly believe that you can develop true and meaningful lessons for your students to complete when you are out of the classroom without leaving behind work that simply "fills the time".

With my classroom already being blended, this concept has always been in easy in my classroom. Instead of completing the notes for homework (since my classroom is flipped), they can complete them in class. They can work on their Lesson Practice or continue working on projects. They can work on Khan Academy or play Prodigy. My biggest struggle, however, is ensuring that the information is being delivered to the students by the substitute teacher. Sometimes we have so many instructional strategies and tools being used in my classroom, that it can feel intimidating or overwhelming to a substitute. So, how do I ensure that the students are completing all of the activities that they need to complete while I am away? How can I truly ensure that they are involved in meaningful activities?

In the past, I would give the students a paper "handout" and they would work through the assignments on the handout. Unfortunately, this really did not help me to understand how my students were doing by the end of class. Students would not always turn the checklist back into the substitute. In addition to this, the checklist wasn't interactive and it was easily misplaced. So, I came up with a new idea...

Enter in...HyperDocs!

I was reading about HyperDocs and a million ideas came to my mind. The quickest and easiest one to implement would be to create a HyperDoc for my students to use when I am out this week. I wanted to create something that had the students do the following:

Interact with the HyperDoc to gage their understanding and comfort with new material.

Link to the lesson on EdPuzzle.

Link to the Lesson Practice.

Offer them choice for their final activities, such as SMG project, Khan Academy, or Prodigy.

Give the students an opportunity to share about their day.

View the sample below or click HERE to view on Google Drawings:

I am extremely excited to hear about how this works in my classroom this week. (Yes, super nerdy teacher moment.) I'm hoping that the students enjoy this process and also find it to be meaningful and engaging. We will see how it goes! 🙂

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HyperDoc Lessons for When You're Out of the Classroom

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I've had the wonderful opportunity of being involved in a lot of great programs at my school site. However, the more involved you are in at your school, the likelihood that you will be out of your classroom greatly increases.

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Last summer, I was searching high and low for possible ways to use the new Chromebooks my students would be coming to school with for the very first time. I knew that I didn't want to use the technology for the sake of using it. I didn't want just some program or website that students would be required to work though uninspired. I wanted the technology in my classroom to be meaningful and benefit the students' learning.

I discovered HyperDocs during the first night of the #DitchBook twitter chat book study. Just the name at first intrigued me enough to seek out more information after the chat was over. So after a quick Google search it lead me to discover Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis' Edu on Air: Extreme pedagogy makeover using Multimedia Text Sets & HyperDocs .

After watching this presentation on what HyperDocs are, I quickly realized I found a game changer when it comes to teaching with technology. I saw that creating and teaching with HyperDocs all students can become creative, collaborative, critical thinkers, and communicators in their learning. I didn't need anything special, just the things that I already new I had: Google Apps for Education, Chromebooks the student will be bringing to school, and the internet.

After exploring what few HyperDocs I was able to find, I had a plan of how I wanted to use them transform my teaching for the upcoming school year. By using HyperDocs I wanted to:

Promote independent and collaborative learning

Provide choices for students to demonstrate their learning

Get more time for individual or small group interaction with the teacher

So now that the wild ride of my first year teaching 1:1 with Chromebooks and using HyperDocs is over. (Here is my shared folder of the HyperDocs I created.) I'm reflecting back and believe I have successfully accomplished those four goals of mine. However, I am now realizing . The HyperDoc Effect: 7 ways using HyperDocs has changed my classroom

So if you are at all interested in HyperDocs or looking for other instructional practices, I encourage you to continue reading and take notice of the possible effects you may encounter.

It doesn't matter what grade level you teach, what subject you teach, or what students you have in the classroom, creating & teaching with HyperDocs is by far one of the most effective ways to incorporate technology.

First off HyperDocs themselves are built and delivered using technology. Leave it at that and you've accomplished that all important question that many teachers are asking when it comes to using technology, " What am I supposed to do with this?" But again, I didn't want to use technology just to use it; and with HyperDocs, I feel you really can't do that.

Each HyperDoc I created served a purpose in the classroom, to help inspire curiosity and advance my students learning. The reason why HyperDocs can do this is because they can be whatever you NEED them to be . Each one is created specifically for the students and what their needs are. And to me THAT is the purpose of incorporating technology into your lessons.

One of the things I knew that I was going to have to do is help guide my students to appropriate digital content. As an elementary teacher, you just cannot say "Go!" and expect students to be able to navigate through all that is the internet and find websites & resources that are helpful to them. So why not make it easier for them and put it into a HyperDoc? This is the beauty of HyperDocs. T hey are a package. A way to curate instructional content (digital and even non digital) and learning experiences in a way that engages learners .
There are an endless number of resources and web tools out there that can help students make connections and become successful learners. Once I have found the resources I want to use, with just a few clicks or keyboard shortcuts, I can place the link to a useful video, website, image, or online activity in a HyperDoc and push it out for students to access. It is a simple and effective way to help guide students great material online.

Sometimes the use technology is enough to keep students engaged. I remember how attentive and eager my students were during the lessons after a new SmartBoard was installed in the room. But let's be honest, we know that doing the same thing over and over will eventually lose the "wow factor". So yes at first just having the Chromebooks open and working on a HyperDoc kept students engaged because the lesson at that time wasn't out of a boring textbook or the traditional lecture and worksheet method of delivering instruction.

However, HyperDocs go beyond just the technology it uses. HyperDocs are all about lesson design and using the technology to teach . A HyperDoc is a lesson that gives students opportunities to Engage, Explore, Explain, Apply, Share, Reflect, and Extend their learning on the topic of study. Just check out the HyperDoc templates . They have specific sections to help you build these different ways of learning into your HyperDoc.

Students are naturally curious, so by providing them with a thoughtful question or maybe a video hook at the beginning, it was much easier to get all students engaged in the lesson. Then throughout the HyperDoc having links to the incredible resources I found or made to package in the HyperDoc helped students to explore the materials and explain the concepts they needed to learn. Add in an option for them to work collaboratively, apply what they learned in a creative way and to share what they learned, there was always something that kept students engaged, ready, and wanting more. HyperDocs offer a true blended approach to learning that appeals and engages all learners.
In addition to lesson design, HyperDocs allow teachers to be creative in the actually design of the lesson itself. When you create a HyperDoc you get to choose the page color, layout, font styles and size, and images you want to include into the lesson. As for me, I am always thinking of what I can include in the lesson design that will make the lesson more visual appealing and engaging for my students.

One thing I stressed in my classroom even before knowing about and using HyperDocs was student to student collaboration. At the beginning of the year, I do some small team building activities to help my students understand that we are ALL (yes myself included) learners in the classroom and can help each other learn.
Before HyperDocs I had the typical collaboration setup. I made sure desks were in groups so student could turn and talk. I would let students partner up (both self and teacher selected) during most assignments. I would have my "go to" students that were capable of helping other students if needed. And so on and so forth.
However After assigning a HyperDoc, students would divide up sections to read aloud for their group. They would share the workload by assigning each other the different links within a section of the HyperDoc to explore and then share what they learned with each other. (I did reinforce though that everyone double check each other too.) Students were teaching other students how to use the technology. Sometimes the HyperDoc itself or an outside linked web tool. Add in a shared Google Doc or Slides, Padlet, or Pear Deck and even more great collaboration happens.
after I began using HyperDocs, a whole other level of collaboration began happening. Heather Marshall ( @MsMarshallCMS ) shared how even one of her students that was sick and at home, signed into the HyperDoc assignment to collaborate and help the group with the work by making comments on a shared Google Doc. How amazing is that?

One thing I understood quickly with the introduction of technology in my classroom, I no longer had to be the gatekeeper of knowledge. Myself and each student had a device that was connected to endless information and I could use it to my advantage.

I will be honest, it felt kind of odd for a while whenever I first began assigning HyperDocs. I use Google classroom to "pass out" the HyperDoc and typically give my students some sort of verbal or written directions before they begin. After that most of the instructions for the HyperDoc lesson was built within the HyperDoc as text, video screencasts or GIFs so once students started, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I really didn't know what to do with myself. I wasn't standing in the front of the room with students watching and listening to me deliver the lesson.

Students were engaged in the HyperDoc lesson. Small pockets of students were gathered on the floor in a circle, at a clump of grouped desks, at the back table, so I began to drift from group to group. At first it was to observe students getting started, clarifying directions and making sure everything was loading correctly on the HyperDoc.

But then as the students got more comfortable with HyperDocs as the year went on and the HyperDocs I was creating were improving, I became more comfortable in my new role as a facilitator. I was having meaningful conversations with students that were deepening their understanding. I was helping students make connections and share what they were learning in new creative ways. There was actually a couple of blissful moments that I felt l wasn't even needed in the room!

It is no doubt that any effective teacher should be constantly thinking about differentiation. As educators, no matter what grade levels or content areas we teach, we have to meet students at their level and HyperDocs helped me do this in a better and easier way.

HyperDocs allow students to work at their own pace and provide choices. Some may go slower and need more guidance and since you are now a facilitator of the classroom you have more 1-on-1 face time to support individual or small groups of students that need it. For the students that fly through your lessons and are constantly saying "Now what?", include built in extra extension activities to help guide students to deeper understanding of the topic.

I sometimes just sit in awe of watching my own two children play, create, and LEARN. There is no doubt about it, when creating something, you also learn. You learn what works, what doesn't, new or better ways of accomplishing a task, and on and on. You've heard of the famous quote by Thomas Edison, "I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb."

HyperDocs are not just about packaging and assigning content for students to consume, HyperDocs help to transform students from consumers to creators . This is one of my favorite things about HyperDocs. I always try to include a section into my HyperDocs a place for students to take their new found knowledge and apply it in a new way by creating something. When students create, they are demonstrating true understanding of the content.

There really isn't any excuse for not having students to be creators with the plethora of free creation tools out there. Even if you just utilize GAFE, there are plenty of ways to get students to become creators.
If you see the importance of getting students to become creators then it's a no brainer that utilizing HyperDocs is a great way to include more creating into your lessons. Just check out Google Drive folder of some student creations that came from HyperDocs.

So there you have it. The seven ways HyperDocs has helped transform the learning and teaching in my classroom. I am actually anxious and eager to get the new school year started and apply what I now know.

If you are interested in knowing more about HyperDocs I urge you to checkout the new website If you have any questions about HyperDocs please comment below or feel free to reach out and connect with me on twitter hyperdocs.co and go buy the new book, The HyperDoc Handbook , which can be found on Amazon. For more resources, check out the Google Slide embedded below. It has tons of links for you to explore. @SEANJFAHEY .

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The #HyperDoc Effect: 7 ways using HyperDocs has changed my classroom

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Last summer, I was searching high and low for possible ways to use the new Chromebooks my students would be coming to school with for the very first time. I knew that I didn't want to use the technology for the sake of using it.

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Listen to my interview with Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis, authors of The HyperDoc Handbook ( transcript):

In many classrooms, a learning cycle looks something like this: First, we write plans for a series of lessons and a final assessment. We gather materials-handouts, websites, rubrics, video clips. Then we teach the lessons one at a time, to the whole class, at the same pace, distributing materials as needed. Finally, we end with a project, test, or other assessment.

It's a very teacher-directed model, which can limit learning in a number of ways:

Students don't feel much ownership for their own learning. Instead, they depend on the teacher to tell them when and how to learn the material.

Because so much of the teacher's time is spent in direct instruction, there's little opportunity to work one-on-one with students.

Because it's up to the teacher to adjust instruction for students with varied needs and levels of readiness, differentiation becomes one more thing to do.

ENTER THE HYPERDOC

A HyperDoc is a digital document-such as a Google Doc-where all components of a learning cycle have been pulled together into one central hub. Within a single document, students are provided with hyperlinks to all of the resources they need to complete that learning cycle. Here's an example.

In the above HyperDoc, all of the bolded words are linked to outside resources. The right-hand column is set aside for students to take notes and do other kinds of thinking and planning as they work through the lesson.

One of the earliest iterations of the this type of "hub" was the WebQuest, which guided students through a lesson using all online resources. Now that Google tools like Docs and Slides have become so prevalent, teachers are using these tools to create similar lessons, choosing and mixing resources that go well beyond simple web pages. Last year, we looked at something called a playlist, which teacher Tracy Enos used to organize her language arts lessons and differentiate instruction for her students.

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links; if you purchase from Amazon after going through these links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Meanwhile, teachers Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis were doing similar work in their own classrooms. They coined the term "HyperDoc" to describe their version of this, and in 2016, they published The HyperDoc Handbook to teach others their method for creating these lessons.

The book explains how HyperDocs work, why they have such an impact on instruction, and their model for how teachers can design HyperDocs for high-quality instruction. In the podcast episode above, I interviewed all three about their work. Here I will blend their expertise with some of my own thoughts about this exciting format.

BENEFITS OF HYPERDOCS

Fewer lectures. Teachers have been told for decades that we need to do less lecturing, to step away from being the sage on the stage and become more of a guide on the side. "I feel so bad for teachers when they hear that," Highfill says, "because they're like, 'Well, what am I supposed to do? I need to get information into their heads.'" A HyperDoc offers a solution by taking care of the direct instruction part of a lesson and offering a lot more as well.

More face-to-face interaction. A good HyperDoc runs itself, allowing students to work through it without needing you to guide them through each step. "Although it seems odd that you're putting a student in front of a device," Landis notes, "really what it's doing is freeing you up to move around and have increased face time with the students."

Flexibility. If one part of your lesson isn't working, you can just change it in the HyperDoc and the change takes effect immediately; no need to re-copy all your materials. Similarly, if each student gets their own copy of a HyperDoc, the elements can be changed on each to meet individual students' needs.

Multimodal opportunities. Because it is digital, a HyperDoc allows us to include all kinds of multimedia. "Living in this digital age, we're able to expose kids to different types of media that allows each child to access the learning or the content or the information in a way that's visually or auditorily appealing to them," Landis says. "I might be visual, and I might first study an image, then watch a video, and then I'm finally ready to tackle that article my teacher really wants me to read."

They don't know that maybe their text ... is at a different reading level," says Hilton. "Or they're able to use Privacy. If students' HyperDocs have been customized for them, no one else needs to know. "Read&Write for Google and just put headphones in, and that's just a little agreement between you and that student."

MODELS FOR BUILDING HYPERDOCS

Because HyperDocs are such adaptable tools, teachers structure them in many different ways, and you should experiment until you find a structure that works for you. Here are some options to consider:

Playlist: This model, explained in this article, follows a step-by-step sequence of activities that consist of learning activities as well as check-ins with the teacher and housekeeping tasks like setting up accounts on websites.

Self-Paced Learning: Explored in this post by math teacher Natalie McCutchen, this system lays out a path of lessons for a whole unit, along with links to review materials, pre-tests, and practice questions. Students decide how much practice they need and determine when to take the assessment for each learning goal. If they grasp the material quickly, they can test and move on.

5E Model: This first stage of this model is to Engage student interest. Next, students Explore the topic, Explain what they have learned, and Extend their learning by applying it in new situations. The last stage Evaluates student learning.

HyperDoc Model: The HyperDoc Handbook authors have developed a model that has some components of the 5Es above, but with some additions and adjustments. This template explains all 7 stages. One important component of this model is the first step, Explore. Highfill explains the value of this stage: "Kids are exploring and coming up with ideas and answers about a concept on their own, and it's engaging them from the beginning, instead of passively listening to a teacher explain something." During this time, while students explore, the teacher is actively gathering information: "I listen to my students," Highfill says, "I'm studying them and hearing to what level are they understanding a concept. I have the ability to pull a small group. I can work with my language learners during that time. The whole time I'm doing formative assessment in the classroom, which will then really be my basis for the next part of the lesson."

Agenda: This model, borrowed from the kind of planning done at a typical Montessori school, provides each student with a planner listing out their assignments for the week. Students decide how they want to use their class time each day, but are expected to complete all goals by the end of the week. Although these are traditionally done on paper, they could easily be converted to a HyperDoc format.

OTHER USES FOR HYPERDOCS

Building an extended lesson or unit is one of the most instructionally robust ways to use HyperDocs, but they can also be used for:

substitute teacher plans

video or podcast playlists

learning centers or stations

student-made HyperDocs

parent resources

departmental-, team-or grade-level HyperDocs to gather and share resources among teachers

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Start with a template.
Rather than build your first HyperDoc from scratch, you might find more success by starting with a pre-made template, like the ones available for free on HyperDocs.co. You could also start with a completely finished HyperDoc that someone else created for their own classroom and modify it for your own use.

Build in participation, collaboration, and multimedia.
One risk inherent in HyperDocs is that they could simply become online worksheets, replicating the kind of work students could just as easily do on paper. Take advantage of this medium by including ways for students to participate actively, collaborate with others, and learn from a variety of media: video, interactive posters like ThingLinks, podcasts, online flashcards, and so on.

Offer choice...
HyperDocs are designed to allow students to work at different speeds and navigate learning in a way that works best for them. So when you can, offer choices: Give students options for the kind and quantity of materials they need to learn the material, how they will practice and apply it, and how they will demonstrate their learning.

...but don't "kitchen sink" it.
If you stuff your HyperDoc with every possible resource on a topic ("everything but the kitchen sink"), you'll overwhelm students. Choose resources thoughtfully.

Give students HyperDocs training.
Even if your students have used HyperDocs in other classes, your design probably has its own unique qualities, so take the time to demonstrate how it should be used. And within the HyperDoc itself, provide clear directions for its use.

So if you create a HyperDoc," says Hilton, "in the header or footer, say Collaborate with other teachers.
You do not need to do this alone! Thousands of teachers are sharing and collaborating on the HyperDocs.co site and using the #hyperdocs hashtag on Twitter. And be sure to give credit to the person who created the original: " Created by, and maybe link to your Twitter handle or your email, for yourself, and then if you make a copy of someone's, we encourage you to give that person credit by saying Inspired by or Remixed HyperDoc originally created by, just because we want an inclusive, appreciative sharing community."

Don't feel like you have to create a HyperDoc for every lesson.
"That's not something that any teacher should feel pressured to do," says Landis, "and it's not really realistic. We don't want teachers doing any one thing all the time, because then it becomes redundant for our kids."

HyperDocs Resources: How to Learn More

Book: The HyperDocs Handbook

Website: HyperDocs.co: The online hub for Landis, Hilton, and Highfill's work on HyperDocs. It contains helpful blog posts and the Teachers Give Teachers system where participants share their own HyperDocs with one another. To browse and borrow other teachers' HyperDocs, all you need to do is register.
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How HyperDocs Can Transform Your Teaching

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HyperDocs make room for more interactive, personalized, and student-directed learning. Let's look at how they work.

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On Twitter Clint asked me for a recommendation for a tool that his students can use to analyze writing. Two tools immediately came to mind. Those tools are Hemingway App and Analyze My Writing.

To use Hemingway, found at Hemingwayapp.com, just paste some text into the Hemingway editor and it will provide you with a bunch of information about that text. Hemingway highlights the parts of your writing that use passive voice, adverbs, and overly complex sentences. All of those factors are accounted for in generating a general readability score for your passage. The short video embedded below shows how easy it is to use Hemingwayapp.com to analyze your writing.

Paste your text into Analyze My Writing and it will generate a ton of information about your writing. Analyze My Writing will give you a break-down of the readability of your writing on five indices. The analysis will include listings of the most common words and most common word pairs in your writing. A listing of how frequently you use punctuation and punctuation types is included in the analysis provided by Analyze My Writing. Finally, a word cloud is included at the end of the analysis of your writing.

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Two Tools That Help Students Analyze Writing

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On Twitter Clint asked me for a recommendation for a tool that his students can use to analyze writing. Two tools immediately came to mind. Those tools are Hemingway App and Analyze My Writing. To use Hemingway, found at Hemingwayapp.com, just paste some text into the Hemingway editor and it will provide you with a bunch of information about that text.

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A portfolio for learning is often a short-term capstone project that will be assessed summatively. At the end of the year, students put selections of their work into a portfolio so a teacher can assess their learning. This is often a showcase portfolio, or a sample of students' best work.

A portfolio as learning typically has an extended timeframe. This is often formative assessment, but students will also self-reflect and assess themselves. These process portfolios promote student reflection and ownership of the learning process.

On blending elements of positivism and constructivism, Barrett says, "In order to approach a balanced solution, we must envision a solution that makes it easy for students to maintain their own digital archive of work, where they can capture a large number of examples and add their reflections and notes in an ongoing way."

The answer can be found in using different portions of the portfolio for different purposes, or in having students keep separate portfolios. So be crystal clear about your purpose, as it impacts how you design your portfolio.

2. Select Tools to Empower Students

Adding to the portfolio should be easy. It could be in your learning management system. I prefer my high school students to select the tool for their capstone portfolio. Here are some popular choices:

In their electronic notebook: Perhaps one of the best ways to incorporate a process portfolio is within shared notebooks using OneNote or Evernote. The new OneNote Class Notebook allows teachers and administrators see work in a process portfolio. Students can also keep a page linking to their best work.

Personal website: My older students select from Weebly, Webs, Wix, or Google Sites to build their personal portfolio website.

One-page collection: Sometimes students just want to link to their work published in other places. In this case, a tool like Strikingly, Glogster, or LiveBinders may be used. One of my former students created a one-page wiki for this purpose.

Student blog: My eighth-grade students blog on a private Ning, so their portfolio is a blog post with links to their other blog posts that completed different tasks. Many teachers are using this method on Edmodo, KidBlogs, Edublogs, Ning, or other class blogging tools.

Paper: Some teachers prefer some or all of the portfolio on paper. With private student work such as journal entries, this is often a good idea.

Whatever the tool, select it with your purpose in mind. Share sample portfolios from previous classes. Use templates to help students start. They should focus on selecting the work, so help them on the format.

3. Select a Variety of Content

In addition to print media represented by text and photos, you can use videos, screencasts, hyperlinks to student work, audio recordings, and annotated photographs. If you use only text and photographs, you're missing the authentic student voice you'd get from audio and video. Students struggling as writers could record a video journal as part of their process portfolio.

4. Empower Portfolio Review and Publish to an Audience

There's a reason elementary hallways are lined with student artwork-students love an audience. Privacy should always be protected and age-appropriate safeguards should be considered, but we know that an audience for final work improves engagement. As part of revision, portfolio review might include students themselves, teachers, peers, other teachers, parents, or a global audience. Review and feedback should allow a student to grow and change.

When considering publication, online is the obvious choice. But if this isn't allowed for individual students, teachers can share screenshots on the class blog. Students could also publish part or all of their work in a protected online space for parents to see.

5. Know Your Timeline

You can do portfolios at a certain time of year or over a long period. If you're doing them throughout the year, make sure students organize themselves to put their portfolio in a place where they can reach it any time they need it. (Students often need to be reminded about putting their work in their portfolio.)

I have my students do their eighth-grade portfolios over a six-week period after they learn the keyboard. My high school students built their personal portfolio website in ninth grade and updated it again in tenth grade. Many of my students use these websites after they graduate from high school.

6. Empower Metacognition

How can your students reflect on their work (or think about their thinking)? Are there ways to ask metacognitive questions? There are many resources on metacognition because it's so critically important to learning, and this level of reflection should be incorporated into any portfolio of student work.

For example, a writing portfolio may have students select different pieces that demonstrate how they've learned to use voice during the school year. As they write about how they improved in this ability, they're reflecting on how their thinking evolved. Metacognition lends itself to the process portion of the portfolio.

7. Relate Portfolios to Other Coursework

In Identifying Critical Content, Deana Senn, Amber Rutherford, and Robert Marzano discuss the importance of effectively cueing critical information. One of the concepts they discuss is the advance organization of content, a term coined by psychologist David Ausubel to describe helping students understand the content of a section before it is introduced.

For a science portfolio, you could introduce a unit on water quality by informing students that they'll be preparing a section of their portfolio where they'll explain how water quality can be assessed. They can write their opinion beforehand while quoting the data and charts from their learning. In this example, you've told students what will be covered so they can begin with the end in mind. So at the beginning of a unit, you can share what type of evidence they'll be collecting for their portfolio, and you can relate standards to outcomes more clearly using portfolios as advance organizers.

8. Don't Overwhelm Students

How can you share your rubric and assignment for a long-term portfolio project without overwhelming the student? It can be upsetting to give students the entire portfolio assignment at one time. If you hand out all portfolio requirements at once, assure students that you'll be guiding them section by section. You can instead give students the portfolio assignments as needed during the year.

9. Link Paper and Electronic Portfolios

How will you relate online and offline portions of the portfolio? Consider linking them with a QR code. This makes it easier to grade the paper portfolio and see the online work without having to type a long hyperlink in your web browser.

10. Consider the Portfolio's Longevity

How will you help students preserve their portfolios for future use? They often don't consider their need for the work they've done until they're applying for jobs or want to find it later. With many schools deleting data over the summer, we promote student ownership by letting them take their portfolios with them. When the portfolio is created in an online space, students should save the files and burn them onto a CD or DVD.

11. Engage Teachers in Effective Portfolio Use

How will teachers learn and share best practices so that portfolios are implemented effectively? While perusing the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research, I came across a finding from Clemson University (PDF) that one of their university's essential areas for improving portfolio use was "increased faculty support/buy-in." The Clemson paper notes, "Unfortunately, much of what has been done in the name of programmatic assessment has failed to engage large numbers of faculty in significant ways."

This emphasizes the importance of involving teachers in successful portfolio implementation.

Speaking From Experience

In my opinion, the best portfolios are part of the learning process. Students reflect on their work and learning. Two important aspects of teaching-metacognition and advance organizing of content-can be done powerfully through portfolios. Students can also have an audience of reviewers and readers. If done well, the final product can further their academic career or get them a job. A well-done portfolio is an essential tool in 21st-century learning. In my classroom, portfolios are essential, powerful means of learning and leveling up.

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11 Essentials for Excellent Digital Portfolios

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A portfolio for learning is often a short-term capstone project that will be assessed summatively. At the end of the year, students put selections of their work into a portfolio so a teacher can assess their learning. This is often a showcase portfolio, or a sample of students' best work.

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Getting students to care about seeking and spreading the truth is one of the key topics in my new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions. How do we motivate our students to spend a few extra minutes evaluating all the information they consume with a critical eye? Annotation is the key to helping learners evaluate what they read online. Many free mobile apps and web tools allow students to digitally mark up, highlight, and jot down quick thoughts about what they are reading. My students annotate every reading in our class so that their brains learn the process.

Snapchat is one of the coolest ways to get your students to annotate their readings. Students can subscribe to popular publications, such as National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. These publications will send them multimedia visual and video snaps of their top articles. Students can mark up these articles using the highlighting tools, emojis, and stickers as shown in the image below. Get students to add smileys next to points they agree with and angry faces next to points they disagree with. They can also star the main idea or add question marks next to words that are unfamiliar. Try this yourself for a week to see how much fun you have marking up snaps by these major publications. I guarantee you will know more about the world around you! Then challenge your students to do the same.

If Snapchat isn't allowed at your school, then get students to use Newsela or OwlEyes to digitally markup assigned articles, current events, and literature. These websites were created for educators. For more resources, check out my article and the slide presentation below, Critical Reading with Digital Devices, posted on ESL Library.

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Annotation with Digital Devices Motivates Learners to Dive Deeper

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Getting students to care about seeking and spreading the truth is one of the key topics in my new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions. How do we motivate our students to spend a few extra minutes evaluating all the information they consume with a critical eye?

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Like any robust presentation tool, Google Slides has many features that often go overlooked by new users. Some of these features will let you accomplish the things that you used to do in PowerPoint or Keynote while others will just save you a bit of time. Either way, here are ten features of Google Slides that you should know how to use.

Word Art is different than just changing your font size or style. Inserting word art lets you apply custom borders, colors, and shading to your font. It also lets you dynamically resize font to fit almost anywhere in a slide.

Launch a live Q&A channel forum for your audience directly from the Presenter View menu. Your audience can submit questions by going to the Q&A link that is automatically displayed across the top of your slides when you have Q&A activated. You can also disable this feature at any time.

3. Import Google Keep Note

Open the "tools" menu while editing your slides and you can choose to open a Keep Notepad. That will display all of the notes that you have saved in Google Keep including pictures and links.

4. Integrated Unsplash Image Search

You can use the "insert image" menu to launch a Google Images search, but that's not the best option for an integrated image search. Unsplash Photos has a free Google Slides Add-on that provides access to hundreds of thousands of images that are in the public domain.

5. Add Audio to Your Slides

There are two ways that you can do this. You could place a YouTube music video in your slide and then shrink it down and hide it in the corner of your slide. Or you could use the AudioPlayer for Slides Add-on which makes it quite easy to play music behind your entire presentation.

6. Play videos without using YouTube.

Last year Google finally added the option to include videos in your slides without those videos having to be on YouTube. Upload any video to your Google Drive account and then you can import it directly into any slide.

7. Make Interactive Diagrams

I made a video about this last week and featured it in the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week. By using the hyperlinking tools in Google Slides you can link multiple parts of one slide to other slides within the same presentation. Take the model to its fullest extent and your students can begin to build choose-your-own-adventure stories in Google Slides.

8. Voice Typing Speaker Notes

In the "tools" menu in Google Slides you will find an option for speech-to-text. This function only works for the speaker notes and not for the body of slides.

9. Chart, Diagram, and Timeline Templates.

Within the "insert" menu in Google Slides you will find a handful of chart, diagram, and timeline templates that you can customize.

10. Import your old PPT slides

If your school recently made the switch from a Windows-based environment to Chromebooks or just to G Suite for Education, you might be worried about having to recreate some of your favorite presentations. You don't have to do that. You can import your old PPT files into Google Slides right from the "file" drop-down menu in Google Slides.

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Like any robust presentation tool, Google Slides has many features that often go overlooked by new users. Some of these features will let you accomplish the things that you used to do in PowerPoint or Keynote while others will just save you a bit of time.

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Like any robust presentation tool, Google Slides has many features that often go overlooked by new users. Some of these features will let you accomplish the things that you used to do in PowerPoint or Keynote while others will just save you a bit of time. Either way, here are ten features of Google Slides that you should know how to use.

Word Art is different than just changing your font size or style. Inserting word art lets you apply custom borders, colors, and shading to your font. It also lets you dynamically resize font to fit almost anywhere in a slide.

Launch a live Q&A channel forum for your audience directly from the Presenter View menu. Your audience can submit questions by going to the Q&A link that is automatically displayed across the top of your slides when you have Q&A activated. You can also disable this feature at any time.

3. Import Google Keep Note

Open the "tools" menu while editing your slides and you can choose to open a Keep Notepad. That will display all of the notes that you have saved in Google Keep including pictures and links.

4. Integrated Unsplash Image Search

You can use the "insert image" menu to launch a Google Images search, but that's not the best option for an integrated image search. Unsplash Photos has a free Google Slides Add-on that provides access to hundreds of thousands of images that are in the public domain.

5. Add Audio to Your Slides

There are two ways that you can do this. You could place a YouTube music video in your slide and then shrink it down and hide it in the corner of your slide. Or you could use the AudioPlayer for Slides Add-on which makes it quite easy to play music behind your entire presentation.

6. Play videos without using YouTube.

Last year Google finally added the option to include videos in your slides without those videos having to be on YouTube. Upload any video to your Google Drive account and then you can import it directly into any slide.

7. Make Interactive Diagrams

I made a video about this last week and featured it in the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week. By using the hyperlinking tools in Google Slides you can link multiple parts of one slide to other slides within the same presentation. Take the model to its fullest extent and your students can begin to build choose-your-own-adventure stories in Google Slides.

8. Voice Typing Speaker Notes

In the "tools" menu in Google Slides you will find an option for speech-to-text. This function only works for the speaker notes and not for the body of slides.

9. Chart, Diagram, and Timeline Templates.

Within the "insert" menu in Google Slides you will find a handful of chart, diagram, and timeline templates that you can customize.

10. Import your old PPT slides

If your school recently made the switch from a Windows-based environment to Chromebooks or just to G Suite for Education, you might be worried about having to recreate some of your favorite presentations. You don't have to do that. You can import your old PPT files into Google Slides right from the "file" drop-down menu in Google Slides.

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Like any robust presentation tool, Google Slides has many features that often go overlooked by new users. Some of these features will let you accomplish the things that you used to do in PowerPoint or Keynote while others will just save you a bit of time.

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Hyperdocs: Create Interactive Google Docs

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This blog post is sponsored by Unicheck.

The reputation and credibility of the educational institution directly depend on academic conduct policies and measures taken to prevent plagiarism. It is equally relevant for online and offline academic institutions.

The problem is plagiarism has never ceased to exist. According to the University of Adelaide survey, 90% of students said they were aware of plagiarism policies and possible cheating consequences. Surprisingly, two thirds of students claimed to be unsure about referencing and quoting issues and didn't know plagiarism checkers were used at all.

These astonishing figures are rather discouraging. If it is so common for brick-and-mortar institutions, so how about online learning then?

Let's dig deeper and see how the issue is tackled there.

Preventing plagiarism in online learning

In online education, writing assignments are required quite frequently. They shouldn't be plagiarized or recycled. The value of each assignment is defined by its originality rate and ideas outlined.

So far the most widespread methods to help students avoid plagiarism are prevention and detection.

Briefly, prevention comprises explaining what sources to use, how to write originally, and what plagiarism consequences might be. Detection is usually done by means of plagiarism checkers.

Used widely for online and offline learning, LMSs like Canvas, Schoology, and Moodle have long had these tools accessible for educators and students. Integrated as apps or plugins, plagiarism checkers help detect matching content by comparing papers with online sources or academic databases.

Running plagiarism checks in Google Classroom

Google Classroom has recently joined the list of online learning platforms having plagiarism detection apps. Its integration with Unicheck makes paper checking process run automatically.

Having Google Classroom and Unicheck accounts are enough for integrating the checker. It's possible to configure its settings anytime (either for a particular course or all courses at once).

Teachers get reports sent to their email accounts. These reports brief teachers about each checked student submission showing percentage of matches detected, submission dates, student names and emails. What is more, teachers can choose what way they want to receive reports: as soon as papers are submitted, or on the due date of the assignment when all papers have been submitted.

By clicking the View report button, a teacher is taken to the full report page. Here, the teacher will be able to see all potential plagiarism highlighted in the text, as well as correctly formatted citations and references. Each sentence with found similarity is provided with a link to the source it might have been copied from. Teachers can exclude sources that they feel should not be included in the report and can change search settings to skip sources that have insignificant matches.

Unicheck identifies suspicious character substitutions and supports almost all text file formats, including .doc, .docx, .rtf, .odt, .html, .pdf, .ppt, .pptx. As the checker is specially tailored for education, it identifies references and citations in MLA, APA, Turabian and other academic writing styles. Recognized citations contribute to the lower similarity score. Teachers can manually exclude citations at their judgement and include them in search results, thus influencing similarity score.

Extra bonuses for smarter working

Shareability. With Unicheck at hand no minute is wasted; each report can be shared right from teachers' Gmail accounts. This may be done either by sharing a link to the report or forwarding Unicheck's email.

Advanced search. By default, all papers are checked against internal Library and Internet. Unicheck compares each paper with the internet and open access databases in real time. Thus, no outdated sources get into the report. All submissions and files previously uploaded in the Library will automatically be checked against the new submissions.

Better customization. Customization settings allow tuning up each search for matches and selecting courses to be checked with Unicheck. Besides, no old submissions will be checked. Unicheck will start checking new student submissions from the day it is integrated into your Google Classroom, leaving all previous submissions unchecked.

In conclusion

Simple, yet very efficient Google Classroom is getting even more powerful with Unicheck integration. From now on, teachers can keep track student writing without checking each work for plagiarism manually. It is also good news for students, as they can use Unicheck on their own to check their papers before teachers see them.

Unicheck is likely to make teacher-student workflow way easier and effective. Hopefully, more useful apps will be part of Google Classroom soon.

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How to Prevent Plagiarism in Online Learning: Unicheck and Google Classroom

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This blog post is sponsored by Unicheck . The reputation and credibility of the educational institution directly depend on academic conduct policies and measures taken to prevent plagiarism. It is equally relevant for online and offline academic institutions. The problem is plagiarism has never ceased to exist.

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CheckMark is a brand new an extension that was developed to help make it easier for teachers to provide feedback to students in Google Docs. Once you add the extension, all you do is highlight where there is an issue and select one of the nearly three dozen canned comments. These comments include the most common mistakes such as capitalization, tense, rephrase, and subject/verb agreement.

Applications for Education
This extension will save teachers lots of time. Students could also use this extension to provide feedback to their peers or teachers could provide students with a Doc that has mistakes in it and have students use this extension to locate all of the mistakes.

Click here to see a demo of how CheckMark works.

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CheckMark Extension for Providing Feedback on Google Docs

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CheckMark is a brand new an extension that was developed to help make it easier for teachers to provide feedback to students in Google Docs. Once you add the extension, all you do is highlight where there is an issue and select one of the nearly three dozen canned comments.

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Laura  Randazzo – Solutions for the Secondary Classroom

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If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know the spring semester around here means 20Time, a passion project where students spend 20% of class time for 12 weeks working on an individual plan approved by their peers. (A whole bunch of free materials, including handouts, to explain the project can be found here.)

One of the cornerstones of the program is that the teacher also completes a 20Time project, serving as the ultimate model for our students. It's my fourth year using the project and this time around I made a video to announce the plan:

Yes, it's a beast.
Yes, I'm excited to finally slay it.
And, yes, I WILL hit that April 6 deadline. No. Matter. What.

( Click here to grab a set of the free materials I mentioned in the video.)

How about you? Have you brought 20Time to your classroom yet? If no, what's holding you back? If yes, what's your spring project? Let me know in the "Leave a Reply" box below. Teach on, everyone!

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If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know the spring semester around here means 20Time, a passion project where students spend 20% of class time for 12 weeks working on an individual plan approved by their peers. (A whole bunch of free materials, including handouts, to explain the project can be found...

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Choosing a vocabulary program for middle school and high school English classes can be an overwhelming experience. There are so many options available, and unless you experiment with all of them, how will you know what works? The answer will invariably differ for each teacher, but sometimes it helps to narrow the focus of your search. In this post, I'm highlighting some possibilities that I have tried with success in my own classroom.

1. Flocabulary

Flocabulary is at the top of my favorites list for vocabulary programs. The videos they create are engaging for students and appeal to the digital generation.

Flocabulary's website features vocabulary cards that prompt students to write meaningful sentences and draw connections on the computer. Students can also read short passages to read and select the correct vocabulary word. Practices quizzes are structured in a similar manner. The best part is the lyric lab, in which students can select a beat and write their own Flocabulary rhyme using the words.

Basically, Flocabulary provides a brain-based layering experience to help differentiate the learning experience. Because Flocabulary has extensive, research-based word lists for many grade levels, it's easy to differentiate for various readiness levels.

The downside? Flocabulary comes with a good price tag, which is worth it, in my opinion, if your district can afford it.

2. Storytelling Vocabulary

The Mrs. Wordsmith vocabulary program is unique because it focuses specifically on helping students grow their narrative vocabularies.

Mrs Wordsmith groups vocabulary words into six broad categories to help students improve their writing abilities: emotions, weather, characters, taste and smell, action, and characters. Each of those categories is then broken down smaller. For instance, under the "action" umbrella, there are six chaos and confusion words: commotion, devastating, havoc, rebellious, turbulent, and unruly.

The program centers around helping students understand the relationships between the vocabulary word and its collocates (other words that are most likely to appear in language with that word). For example, the word contented can be related to a sigh, a cat, a customer, a smile, and so on.

The fun part is utilizing the beautiful vocabulary flashcards (designed by illustrators for Madagascar and Hotel Transylvania), pictured below. I've found that playing games with vocabulary cards is an extremely effective way of teaching new words. You can easily play Name 5 Things with these cards. For instance: Name 5 things you would devour.

As narrative bell ringer prompts, you can ask students to write a paragraph using the vocabulary word and the collocates on the back of the card.

Like Flocabulary,the Mrs Wordsmith program is sticky. Students will remember the words because it is based upon direct instruction, exploring word relationships, and humorous images.

Mrs Wordsmith would work extremely well in creative writing courses, classes that focus heavily on narrative writing, or secondary classrooms where teachers just want students to learn to show readers what is happening instead of telling them.

3. Root Word Vocabulary

I've experimented with studying root words using this Greek and Latin root words book. With my sophomores, I introduce two root words and three related vocabulary words each week. Usually, we do something different every day. I vary the structure from year-to-year, but here is an example:

Mondays are when we learn the new words and roots and jot notes.

On Tuesdays, we discuss these words as a class and practice using them in sentences verbally and in writing.

Wednesdays are engaging. We play Pictionary and charades for a kinesthetic approach.

Thursdays are fun because each student writes a test question about a word of their choice. Then, the class rotates around the room, and each student writes down his/her answer to that question on a piece of notebook paper. It's an informal, student-generated quiz that doubles as a whole-class review opportunity.

Friday is either a quiz day or a differentiated learning approaches review day.

In my experience, root words are tough for students to remember - even when teachers use best-practice instructional approaches. My students who have always excelled at root words are those who are currently in or who have previously taken Latin class. They have prior knowledge of the content, so the connections they make are stronger.

Recently, however, I came across an idea in Gallagher's Deeper Reading. It totally made sense. The basic concept is to have students memorize the meanings of the most common prefixes, roots, and suffixes in order to be able to attack unfamiliar words skillfully. He calls it the 30-15-10 list (thirty prefixes, fifteen roots, and ten suffixes).

4. Text-Based Vocabulary

Teachers and students can work together to generate their own vocabulary lists based upon course texts. Whether you are the one who is selecting the words or you're using words from a resource you have purchased, you need research-based vocabulary activities to support retention.

The issue I've always had with selecting words from stories is that we often only come across that word once or twice in literature. That's hardly enough time to truly give it the attention it deserves. The best way I've found to address the situation is to introduce all of the words for a given unit up front. After the first day of direct instruction, we spend time reviewing on a daily basis. If you've poked around my blog at all, you already know I like to usea variety of engaging vocabulary teaching approaches to help words stick.

5. Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary.com is another program teachers could consider using. In my opinion, its greatest strength is that teachers can paste excerpts from course texts into the program. It will then scrub the text for difficult words and help generate a list. Like No Red Ink, Vocabulary.com has practice exercises and games as well as online quizzes for students to complete, which cut down on creating and grading.

Still, I wouldn't recommend using vocabulary.com as the only means of word instruction. Students need more than a website to retain new word meanings and use them skillfully in writing.
Because of the constant changes in education, I've had to switch my vocabulary instruction approaches multiple times. Each time, I've adapted and found a way to teach effectively so that students not only retained word meanings but also developed an appreciation for our language.
RELATED RESOURCE:

When selecting a vocabulary program for your school, think about your teaching strengths, course requirements, student needs, and the time you have to devote to creating lists and materials. Regardless of the approach you select, you'll need meaningful activities that will engage students and push them toward retention. Click on the vocabulary activities image below to see some of my favorite approaches that are rooted in vocabulary research and can be used with any Tier 2 list.

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Choosing a Vocabulary Program for Secondary | Reading and Writing Haven

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Choosing a vocabulary program for middle school and high school English classes can be an overwhelming experience. There are so many options available, and unless you experiment with all of them, how will you know what works? The answer will invariably differ for each teacher, but sometimes it helps to narrow the focus of your search.

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Some students will come up with projects that are too simple with answers that could be easily Googled. We introduced the students to 'High Order Thinking Skills' and built these into the planning forms students complete. Projects need to include elements of synthesis, evaluation, and creativity with the minimum requirement adjusted for individuals.

We provide students with a list of verbs appropriate for the top levels of Bloom's taxonomy and help them use these in framing their topics.
4. Some students design a project that has nothing to do with their passion
A student might have a passion for surfing and decide they are going to write a book about the history of the sport. The problem is they have designed a project where they will need to be a historian, a researcher, a writer and you know they don't enjoy doing any of this. Maybe with the right topic, they will gain a wider interest in these things but most likely they will quickly dream of days at the beach.
5. Some projects are just not possible
It can be hard to say no to a project but some are just not feasible. A classic example is a student who wants to design a better tennis racquet by selecting the right mix of shapes and materials. The problem is that the modern tennis racquet uses high tech composites and even with million-dollar R&D budgets the differences between one design and the next is hard to prove.
6. Time & Scale
Some projects will clearly take longer than you have available, others are simply too large in scale or will rely on the involvement of too many people. Setting manageable goals and working to an achievable timeframe is important. At the same time, you need to ensure that the concerns over time constraints are genuine.

Creating a detailed timeline with estimates of how long each phase will take is beneficial on many levels at this stage. For the students, the conversations around how long the project will take can include some rewarding reflection on how they approach tasks and can assist in their development of an understanding of their learning style.

Some students need time to talk about their project and unpack ideas socially, others need quiet time to think through the steps, some just dive in and fix mistakes and redirect their plans as they go. (See Learning Lessons From Albert Einstein for more ideas here.)
7. Too many changes
One of the challenges for some students has been the ever-changing project. They select one topic, discover they don't like it, or encounter a problem they can't easily solve and change to another topic. A week later and the process repeats. Setting a definite deadline after which there can be no changes is important. In the end, the students work out that they have to make their ideas work.
8. Just enough planning
Over the years we refined the level of planning the students were required to do before commencing on their projects in earnest. The initial version required great detail and length processes for developing focus questions and setting targets.

For some students and some projects, it worked well but for others it got in the way. Eventually, we got to a point where the planning had just enough detail, so we know the students have an understanding of their project and that we can support them along the way. View our simplified planning template
9. Relying on experts and building a team
Many of the projects students have explored over the years fall outside of the expertise of their teachers. I have no idea how to sew for example and have been of equally little help to students who are basing their projects around dance or music.

Across the school, we have found amazing partners with the skills we needed and in most cases, they are keen to spend time with a student who they share a passion with. Building a team of support around the project is key to its ultimate success. Being mindful of the workload within this team is also important.

We have had some colleagues so keen to help that they become overloaded and although they never complained we had to be careful in managing the demands on their time.

10. Collaboration & Self Organized Learning

Because this is a Personal Passion Project we have not included team projects. Nevertheless, collaboration between students is an important part of many projects. Where possible foster the opportunities for collaboration while allowing each student to maintain control of their project. The power of collaboration will lift the quality of the projects as students share ideas and encourage each other to go beyond expectations.

Collaboration will also solve some of the problems with projects outside the teacher's comfort zone. This year I had a group of students focused on game development and their ultimate success was a direct result of the community of like-minded learners they created around their projects.

This is a perfect demonstration of students adopting a self-organized learning environment as they connect with their passions.
11. The invisible safety net
For the Personal Passion Project finding the right levels of scaffolding, teacher input, and guidance is one of the challenges. We want the students to feel that they are working independently while maintaining an appropriate level of support. In many ways, we are wanting to provide an invisible safety net that allows the students to take risks independently while having the support they require.
12. Documenting the process and ensuring time for reflection
Giving time to active reflection on the process has been important. Students need to be able to take a step back and assess what they have achieved and what remains to be accomplished. Sharing these ideas with peers is most beneficial and allows you to train the students in reflecting on their learning and in giving feedback to their peers.

The act of reflecting on the process has also benefitted many students when it is time to share their projects with the world as their audience is as interested in the process as they are in the product. This is particularly true for projects where the process is not obvious or is underestimated by the audience. A good example is game design projects in which the finished product does not reveal the level of knowledge and effort that was required.
13. Real Audiences
For all learning adding a real audience for the students is critical, too much of what students do is produced for an audience of one. The Personal Passion Project presenting to an audience at the end of term 'Gallery Walk' has been critical in ensuring the success of the projects. The students gain a real sense of achievement from this day and the feedback is always genuinely positive.

In the future, we are planning to move to a 'Genius Hour' model with students engaging in a scaffolded program of project management skill development throughout Semester One that leads into planning for and completing a Personal Passion Project across Semester Two. The difference will be that the learning experience will be distributed across the year, one hour per week.

We hope that this fits with the demands of the new syllabus from a time perspective while retaining the best parts of the present model. Certainly at the end of the year, we will reflect and share what has been learned.

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The Genius Hour Design Cycle: A Process For Planning

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Some projects will clearly take longer than you have available, others are too large in scale or rely on the involvement of too many people.

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

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

Listen Now

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

***

Inquiry-Based Learning in the History Classroom

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

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

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

Constitutional Convention Simulation for Teaching History

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

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

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

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

Vicki: So they have to play the role.

Josh: That's correct.

How it works

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

Vicki: (laughs)

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

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

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

Vicki: What do the students think about this?

How Students Give Feedback to the Process

Josh: I'm waiting...

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

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

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

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

Vicki: Josh, are you always this "hands on"?

Why Josh Gets Students Involved in Hands On History

Josh: I try to be!

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

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

Vicki: Oh, I like that.

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

A Lewis and Clark Experience

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Mistakes Has Josh Made in Inquiry Based Learning?

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

Josh: Oh gosh! All the time!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Josh Moved from Administration Back into the Classroom

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

Vicki: Are you glad to be back?

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

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

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

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

What About Being An Administrator Has Made You a Better Teacher

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slowing Down When Asking Questions

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

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

I started teaching at 22 years old. I think everything went fast.

Vicki: (laughs)

Josh: But I think again, being an administrator and realizing how sometimes teachers were... I saw that teachers were rushing... and didn't realize they were.

Having that mindset now to know, "I can get to what I need to get to, even if I just wait a little longer for kids to process the question that they've asked."

Or... even a project we're doing, or an activity we're doing. Just wait. Let them have time before we start getting to work, so they really know what they have to do.

Vicki: So much great advice here we've gotten from Josh about being a remarkable teacher.

This one issue of wait time? You know, that really hits home to me. Sometimes I think I don't wait long enough.

So many wonderful ideas here.

Let's get kids up. Let's get them moving.

And off of this idea of having masks for role-playing - so marvelous! I think it can really do some things in the classroom.

I hope you'll take this and apply this to your classroom, whether it's history or any subject!
Contact us about the show: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/ Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford [email protected]
Bio as submitted

Josh Eby currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Social Science at Redwood MS is Thousand Oaks, CA. For the previous five years, Josh was the Principal at Newbury Park HS and Sycamore Canyon School. This year he returned to his true passion: Teaching.

Blog: History Teacher Thoughts

Twitter:@EbysHist

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

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Inquiry-Based Learning in the History Classroom

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Josh Eby shares how he uses inquiry-based learning in his history classroom. He also discusses how he's become a better teacher after returning to the classroom after 12 years in administration and why it was one of the best decisions he's ever made. Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday - teachers of all subjects will learn some [...]

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A couple of month ago I launched an on-demand version of my popular Teaching History With Technology course. So far more than 50 people have completed the course. The question that almost everyone asks before they enroll in the course is, "what's covered in the course?" That's a fair question to ask so I published the following outline of the eight lessons in the course.

Lesson 4 - Using audio in history lessons.

Recording history with students

Hearing history

The eight lessons in Teaching History With Technology are delivered via email. Each lesson contains at least one how-to video (20-30 minutes) and a suggested activity to use in your classroom. Click here to get started today!

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Eight Lessons in Teaching History With Technology

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A couple of month ago I launched an on-demand version of my popular Teaching History With Technology course. So far more than 50 people have completed the course. The question that almost everyone asks before they enroll in the course is, "what's covered in the course?"

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Listen to this post as a podcast (sponsored by Listenwise):
Plagiarism can be a real pain. Most teachers have had to deal with it in some form or another, and a whole lot of us still haven't figured out the best way to combat it. Many of us issue stern warnings and threaten serious, soul-crushing consequences. Others also use plagiarism checkers to catch students in the act.

While these methods can deter students from plagiarizing and catch them if they do, they operate on the assumption that all plagiarism is devious, that all students who plagiarize know exactly what they're doing, and our mission is to catch and punish. Now because I don't believe that assumption is true, I think we could be handling the problem with a lot more finesse.

How Well Do Students Understand Plagiarism?

In my own experience as a teacher and a parent, I have seen acts of plagiarism that I truly believe were rooted in ignorance.

Take my 5th-grade daughter, for instance. A few months ago, she and her best friend were collaborating on a Google Slides presentation about a Native American tribe. Reading over it as she worked, I found sentence after sentence written in language she never could have come up with. When I asked her where she got the information, she told me point blank that she copied and pasted it from a website. It took me forever to explain why that was wrong and what she needed to do instead. She seriously had no idea. She wasn't trying to cheat. Eventually, I convinced her that she really, really needed to revise, and even though she did, I could tell she was mostly humoring me.

Okay, that's 5th grade, you say. Surely it gets better as students get older?

Marginally. Let's take a look at college undergrads. In two separate studies, undergraduates were asked to identify incidences of plagiarism. In both, students' ability to correctly label plagiarism could best be described as limited (Dawson & Overfield, 2006; Marshall & Garry, 2005). In other words, a significant number of students have an incomplete understanding of what plagiarism actually is. And if they don't always know when they're doing it, it's going to be pretty hard to get them to stop.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that all students who plagiarize are innocent. I've had students whose attempts at passing off someone else's work as their own were so blatant, I took it as a personal insult. But I do believe we can cut way back on less deliberate instances of plagiarism by teaching students the skills to avoid it.

Direct Instruction Works

Unfortunately, students are expected to learn how to avoid plagiarism by some kind of osmosis. As they progress from grade to grade, they are expected to already know how to weave research into their writing in original, elegant, and ethical ways, but far too often, they don't have this skill set. Not at all. So rather than going straight to the plagiarism checkers, we need to explicitly teach these skills, and we need to do it more than once if we want good results.

How? First, we need to help them identify plagiarism. When students are shown different examples of plagiarism and taught-even through basic lecture-the many forms it can take, their understanding of what constitutes plagiarism gets much more sophisticated (Landau, Druen, & Arcuri, 2002; Moniz, Fine, & Bliss, 2008).

Then we need to give them practice in correctly citing their sources. When students get hands-on practice with paraphrasing and correctly citing sources, especially if that practice comes with instructor feedback, plagiarism is significantly reduced (Emerson, Rees, & MacKay, 2005).

Below I have outlined five exercises you can do with students in grades 7-12 to give them a much better understanding of what plagiarism is and how to correctly integrate research into their own writing.

5 Exercises for Reducing Student Plagiarism

These exercises come from my own classroom practice and are supported by the above research. (If you'd like these exercises in a classroom-ready format, take a look at my Avoiding Plagiarism Mini-Unit at the end of this post.)

Before we start, two important tips:

First, use simple texts for practice. If you want students to read and cite challenging academic texts, that's fine for later, but to teach them the skills of writing from research and giving proper credit, make the reading material easy so they don't waste energy struggling with that. Once they have the writing and citation skills down, they'll be better equipped to plug in more challenging sources.

Second, do these exercises together in class. These would not be good lessons for flipped or blended learning, where students just work through them on their own. The skills are complex and often require a judgment call to determine if they have been done correctly. For every exercise, students should be getting feedback from you, from their group members, or both. Setting aside class time to do these together will pay off in the long run.

Here are the exercises:

Exercise 1: Recognizing Plagiarism
Required Time: 15-20 minutes
As mentioned earlier, students have an incomplete understanding of what actually constitutes plagiarism. This exercise uses the concept attainment instructional strategy of showing students "yes" and "no" examples to help students refine their definition of a concept.

1. Have students read a short, simple text. This could be anywhere from 500-800 words, on a somewhat familiar topic. Something like this article about bees would do the trick.

2. Show several teacher-created examples of student writing based on that text. In some cases, the writing should demonstrate plagiarism, and in other cases, it should not. For each one, have students decide whether they think it represents plagiarism or not. Have them discuss this in groups if possible. After each example, tell them if they are correct or not, and explain why.

3. Eventually, they should get to the point where they can correctly identify most examples as "plagiarism" or "not plagiarism."

Exercise 2: Summarizing
Required Time: 20-30 minutes
Once students know what plagiarism looks like, have them practice putting the information they learn from texts into their own words. Here we're not talking about a full-length summary; the skill of summarization can be applied in smaller bursts, and it's absolutely necessary for writing about the things you research. Students need to be able to read something, digest it, then explain what they learned in their own language. In the context of plagiarism, that skill is referred to as summarization.

For this exercise and the ones that follow it, use a classic I do, we do, you do format to model the process described below: Start by modeling the process yourself (the "I" step), then repeat it as a whole class with you in the lead or by having students try it in pairs or groups (the "we" step), and finally have students make a fresh attempt on their own (the "you" step).

Here's the process to teach:

1. Choose a 1-2 paragraph section of a text. (If you haven't already gutted the one used for Exercise 1, that will work; otherwise, find a fresh one). Read it several times to make sure you understand it.

2. Turn your paper over (or minimize their screen, if you are reading it digitally), then think for a minute about what the section said.

3. Next, turn to a partner or group and explain what you learned from the paragraph in your own words.

4. Write a few sentences summarizing that information without looking back at the original source. Their summary should sound like YOU, not the source.

5. After you have written your summary, check the original source to make sure your summary is correct and that key terms are spelled correctly.

6. Finally, make sure you give credit to your source for this information. (Show students a few different sentence stems so they have options for building their sentence, e.g., "According to..." "In her article, _____ says...")

This process, if done carefully, will show students how important is is to disconnect from the original text when composing. After the "you do" part of the exercise, let students study the paragraphs of their peers and evaluate each other for plagiarism. Looking at how other people summarized the same idea will help them see the range of possibilities.

Exercise 3: Paraphrasing
Required Time: 20-30 minutes
There's a fine line between summarizing and paraphrasing, which is . Each one needs to be treated a little differently. When you summarize, you are pulling together lots of information and making it your own. When you paraphrase, you are taking a more specific, unique idea from one author and using similar- explained here by the OWL at Purdue but not exactly the same -language.

For this lesson, use the same I do, we do, you do format to practice this process:

1. Read a section of a text (like the bee article mentioned above).

2. Point to a specific idea and show them how to paraphrase it and give credit to the author. Show students a few different sentence stems so they have options for building their sentence ("According to..." "In her article, _____ says...")

3. Have students practice the same skill with a different passage, checking their response with each other, then reviewing it with the class.

Exercise 4: Using Direct Quotes
Required Time: 20-30 minutes
The next level up from paraphrasing is using some of the exact words from the source. This will help students understand that the only time it's okay to copy someone else's exact words into your work is when you put those words in quotes and give them credit for them.

For this exercise, use the same I do, we do, you do pattern as in exercises 2 and 3 to show students how to quote a sentence or phrase from the original text, using some of the same sentence stems from exercise 3.

Exercise 5: Using a Formal Citation Style

Required time: 30-40 minutes

At the university level, students are expected to use a formal citation style (such as MLA or APA) when writing papers, and the Common Core requires students to start applying a formal citation style as early as grade 7. So choose the style your district uses most frequently and teach students the basics.

Give students 2 to 3 sample items to use as practice sources. I recommend sticking with simple, predictable items that resemble the kinds of things students will access in their own research. For middle and secondary students, this most likely means online articles and (maybe) books.

Start with the references list at the end of the paper (or Works Cited, if you're doing MLA). I recommend beginning this way because many students will already be somewhat familiar with the concept of a bibliography, so this is a logical jump. Also, when you do in-text citations later, those citations will actually refer to something, since the references will already be listed at the end.

After you've built the references list, show students how to modify the author mentions they already made in exercises 3 and 4 so they match the in-text citation format of your chosen style.

Do all of this slowwwwly, with plenty of time for students to check their work with you and with each other.

When you think they have the basics down, throw two new resources at them-a book and an online article-and see if they can repeat the process: First have them build a reference list, then then paraphrase something from each one and do an in-text citation for each.

If it fits with your curriculum, the next step after this exercise would be to have students actually do a bit of research and write their own essay or extended response with a reference list and in-text citation

By the way, citation generators like EasyBib and BibMe or the citation feature in Google Docs can be wonderful time savers, but because they are not fail-safe, students will get the most use out of them after they learn to do their own citations manually.

Get these exercises in a classroom-ready mini-unit

If you like the exercises described in this post and want them ready to teach tomorrow, get a copy of Avoiding Plagiarism, my classroom-ready mini unit for grades 7-12. It contains all five exercises in PowerPoint slideshows, plus printable handouts for student use.
References
Dawson, M. M. & Overfield, J. A. (2006). Plagiarism: Do students know what it is? Bioscience education, 8(1), 1-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3108/beej.8.1

Emerson, L., Rees, M. T., & MacKay, B. (2005). Scaffolding academic integrity: Creating a learning context for teaching referencing skills. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 2(3), 3. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1059488.pdf

Landau, J. D., Druen, P. B., & Arcuri, J. A. (2002). Methods for helping students avoid plagiarism. Teaching of Psychology, 29(2), 112-115. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15328023TOP2902_06

Marshall, S. & Garry, M. (2005). How well do students really understand plagiarism? Proceedings from ASCILITE 2005: Balance, Fidelity, Mobility: Maintaining the Momentum? Retrieved from http://www.ascilite.org/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/52_Marshall.pdf

Moniz, R., Fine, J., & Bliss, L. (2008). The effectiveness of direct-instruction and student-centered teaching methods on students' functional understanding of plagiarism. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 15(3), 255-279. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10691310802258174

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Listen to this post as a podcast (sponsored by Listenwise): Plagiarism can be a real pain. Most teachers have had to deal with it in some form or another, and a whole lot of us still haven't figured out the best way to combat it.

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Listen to the interview with A.J. Juliani (transcript):
Sponsored by Kiddom

We hear all the time about how we need to give students more choice. About how we should be helping them discover their passions, how we need more student-directed, inquiry-based learning in the classroom. But all of that can feel like a load of abstract, pie-in-the-sky hooey without practical instructions for how to actually do it. We need a structure, a format, a plan for delivering this kind of experience.

Good news: That plan is here, and it's called Genius Hour. More and more teachers are implementing this brilliant learning practice in their own classrooms. Chances are, you already have a pretty good idea of what Genius Hour is. You might even have it on your list of things to try "some day." If that day hasn't come yet, it's probably because you have some unanswered questions.

So to help you out, I invited my friend A.J. Juliani to answer the 10 most frequently asked questions about Genius Hour. A.J. is the Director of Technology and Innovation for Centennial School District in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He did his first Genius Hour project back when he was an 11th grade English teacher, and since then has supported many other teachers as they implement Genius Hour in their own classrooms.

Now A.J. has created a full online course, the 1-Day Genius Hour Course, where he walks teachers step-by-step through the implementation process. (Learn more about the course at the end of this post!) The teachers who are already enrolled are seeing incredible results with their students, so I wanted to share some of A.J.'s wisdom with you and maybe get you one step closer to trying Genius Hour in your own classroom. To learn more about the course, scroll to the bottom of this post. In the meantime, there's plenty here to keep you busy!

1. What is Genius Hour? Is it different from 20 percent time?

Genius Hour is a teaching practice that has absolutely exploded in popularity over the last couple of years. It's where the teacher sets aside a certain amount of time every week or every day-maybe one class period per week or one hour per day in an all-day classroom setting-for students to learn about whatever they want. "There are lots of terms for it," Juliani says. "Genius Hour and 20 percent time are probably the terms people are using right now the most for this kind of inquiry-based learning, but that's really what both are at their heart."

2. Is Genius Hour just "do whatever you want," or is there a way to structure it?

If teachers want a Genius Hour project to be successful, they definitely need to structure it. "Even though students get to choose, and they have the freedom of choice," Juliani says, "the project is very, very much structured and put together. And I think it has to be in order for students to actually have the ability to get to the final end result." In our interview, he outlined how the basic structure works:

Step 1: Planning
First, Juliani says, teachers need to decide how much time they are going to set aside, and when that's going to happen. "Whatever works in your classroom, in your school, with your curriculum, I think dictates how much time."

Step 2: Topic Selection
After introducing the project to students, they choose what they are going to learn and what product they are going to create at the end to demonstrate their learning.

Step 3: The Pitch
Next comes the "Shark Tank" phase. Juliani explains how this works: "Each student either puts together four slides, and it's 30 seconds to a minute long, and basically what they tell their peers in the class is (1) What they're going to make, what they're going to learn. (2) Why they're going to learn it. Why they want to learn it. Why they want to make what they're going to make. (3) How they're going to go about doing it, kind of a brief schedule of how they're going to get there. And (4) What would be a success in their mind?"

Step 4: Research, Learning, and Documentation
Now students start learning the thing they said they were going to learn. "Kids might go to the library and research some things, or they may pull out technology and research," Juliani explains. "The teacher really facilitates where they're going to research and kind of get information. They could be watching videos. They could be talking to people who are experts. They could be reading books or articles. So research doesn't have to be typing something into a database. There's lots of different ways students can research the world."

At the same time, students are also sharing their progress along the way. "You want to have them documenting in their journal, sharing on a blog, doing videos and sharing them on YouTube, doing a podcast," says Juliani, "because they want to share out what they're doing with the world. You don't want to keep this hidden. You want to actually put it out there." Doing this builds classroom community and helps students learn from each other.

Step 5: Making
"You don't want to spend too much time in the research phase, because you really want to get into the making, creating, designing phase and start building your project into a reality," Juliani says. "For many students, this is where they get a little bit fearful, right? They're scared that they're going to fail. They're scared it's not going to turn out well. And so what I suggest is you put up what we call 'epic failure' boards. As the teacher, you share out when you fail, and you get kids, every time they come in the class for Genius Hour, putting up on there, 'Hey, here's how I failed on my project this week.' And you're celebrating those failures as steps toward success."

Step 6: Presentations
After the students have made their final products, they present them to their peers. The presentation can take a lot of different forms, Juliani says. "I've seen classrooms do TED-style talks where they live stream students doing three- to five-minute presentations and classrooms do gallery walk museum, wax museum, inviting parents in, community members, and putting it out there."

Step 7: Reflection
"After the presentation," Juliani says, "you have to take time to show the world what you made, what you did, and also reflect. What went well? What did you learn? What do you want to keep on learning? How's this going to keep growing?"

3. How do I grade Genius Hour work?

Those in the Genius Hour community handle this one differently, and whether or not this kind of project should be graded at all is still up for debate, but Juliani recommends that teachers grade students' work during the whole process, rather than the final product. To do this, he uses something called a GRIT rubric. "It's an acronym, and it stands for guts, resiliency, integrity, tenacity. It allows you to grade the process of students each and every time they come in or overall on, basically, are they having guts in the process? Are they actually taking on a challenge? Are they having integrity? Are they not cutting corners? Are they following through? Are they having the tenacity to go after something big? And are they having the resiliency if things don't go well to bounce back?"

4 & 5. How do I find time for Genius Hour in an already packed schedule? Can Genius Hour meet my required standards?

For some teachers, Juliani says, a Genius Hour project is a natural fit with existing coursework. This would be the case in an all-day elementary classroom or in any English language arts class, regardless of the grade level, because nonfiction reading and writing are being emphasized so much these days in many standards. In other classes, teachers may need to get more creative. "There was one elementary school that really couldn't fit it into their typical elementary school day, until the librarian said, 'Hey, I'm going to do it during my library block.' Library connected to research, connected to reading, and it fit right in there. I had a middle school science teacher tied it to the lab work that they do, where they research something and they create something in kind of the STEM subjects, and so they connected it there. So I think it's first just finding those pieces in your curriculum that overlap with inquiry and kind of seeing where it could fit in there. It's going to be different for everyone."

Teachers may also use Genius Hour as a special project during times when it's harder to get much academic work done. "A lot of folks have chosen to do Genius Hour projects in their class right around the time of state testing. It's a way for students to learn and have fun and actually be thoroughly engaged in school during that window of time that traditionally is just not that fun for kids."

As for standards, "This project hits so many of the common core and other types of standards," says Juliani. "Everything from standards that connect to reading and researching, standards that connect to analyzing and applying. Standards that connect to writing and presenting, creating and evaluating. And then you have standards for mathematical practice, ones like construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Another standard for model of mathematics. So you're hitting a lot of them in a Genius Hour project."

6. What if students want to study something weird or inappropriate?

Juliani believes we shouldn't reject a topic right off the bat if it's something unusual or completely unfamiliar to us; we might just need to learn more about it or send students to someone who shares their interest. "If you get a topic like that, and you're kind of really uneasy about it and not really sure, talk to some other teachers, talk to some professionals and see." But if it's inappropriate, he says, reinforce the idea that although they have free choice, the choice has to be something appropriate for a school assignment. "Just say, 'Hey, this is still school. It's got to be appropriate.'"

7. What if students just slack off instead of working?

When students don't take to Genius Hour right away, Juliani advises us to proceed slowly. "Just focus on the kid, because if they're not invested in this, there's probably some other things going on. So it's about coming alongside of them as a guide and a real teacher and building that relationship first, then those other pieces start to fall into place as you kind of work with them."

He recommends three strategies for helping students who get stuck or seem uninterested in the project:

First, talk with the student about life, not the project. "I think often we want to kind of just jump ahead and kind of force them down a path, but Genius Hour is as much about students finding what they're passionate about as it is about them kind of finding themselves. So I would talk with a student about life. 'Hey, what's going on at home? How are things going?' Talk to them about their interests. Come to find out what they're interested in."

If that doesn't get the student back on track with a topic they're truly invested in, the next step would be to ask them for help. "If they're not going to be able to work on a project, I wouldn't just let them sit there. I'd say, 'Hey. If you're not going to work on a project, let's go help somebody else. Let's see what John's doing over here or see what Susie's doing over here, and let's go.' And that lets them know in just a nice and friendly way that, 'Hey, I'm not giving you an F for this project, but you're going to do something. You're either going to do what you want to do, or you're going to help somebody else.'"

Finally, "I'd help them find a new purpose. Sometimes they get stuck on the passion part. They get stuck on 'I'm not really that interested in something.' And so now I'd start the opposite way, which is, 'Let's find a purpose. What have you ever wanted to make? What have you wanted to build?' 'What job do you want when you're older?'

8. How do I convince parents, my administrator, or my colleagues that Genius Hour is worth trying?

"When you start this, Juliani says, "tell your colleagues what you're doing. Invite them in your classroom. Show them other Genius Hour presentations and let them see what the end result of this is. With parents, send a letter home.Tell them what's going on in your class. Invite them into the classroom. Share your student blogs, give regular updates to your parents, to your colleagues, to your administrator, and then finally invite them into the presentations as well. Whatever type of presentation you're doing, invite them in, bring them together, share it out with people, be as transparent as possible."

9. Will this work with younger students?

"In K-2, it works really well," Juliani says. "Now, the researching might look different. Maybe they're not reading to research. Maybe they're watching some presentations, they're watching videos, they're looking around the world, right? Their purposes may differ too. They may not want to build a video game or clone carnivorous plants. But their purposes may differ as well. T he end products are going to look different. The presentations are going to look different. But the learning is going to be just as powerful in kindergarten, first and second grade."

10. How do I get started?

"Start with just a day or two," Julani says, "Start with an hour where students are just kind of going through this process really quickly. Like, what do you want to learn? Take a whole period just to learn something and tell everybody at the end of the period what you learned, why you wanted to learn it. Just kind of get that inquiry going in the classroom. It doesn't have to be a full eight-week unit or anything like that. Start small, and bring inquiry and choice into your classroom. It doesn't have to be a big, long project." From there, teachers can learn more from the growing community of teachers online who have run successful Genius Hour programs in their own classrooms.

The 1-Day Genius Hour Course

This course equips you with everything you need to run a successful Genius Hour program in your classroom: step-by-step instructions, printable and digital downloads to help you get organized, plus membership in a private Facebook community of experienced Genius Hour practitioners who can answer your questions every step of the way.
Get a closer look at the course
* I am an affiliate for the 1-Day Genius Hour Course. That means if you enroll after visiting the course through my link, I will get a small commission for referring you.

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Your Top 10 Genius Hour Questions Answered

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We hear the charge for more student-directed, inquiry-based learning, but it can seem like a load of pie-in-the-sky hooey without instructions for how to do it.

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Creating Space for Self-Management in PBL: When Teachers Step Back, Students Step Up

Educators often look at BIE's Project Based Teaching Practices and assume it will be their job to manage the learning, to assess all student progress, etc. They are, after all, called teaching practices, which suggests that they are elements controlled by the teacher. Yet the true magic of PBL is what happens when we trust students and scaffold self-management skills, allowing them to be more in charge than we are. Once you and your students get past the initial learning curve and build a student-centered culture, PBL should mean less work for you as a teacher, not more. If we stop thinking of project management as something that starts and ends with the teacher, the learning starts to shift. Students get more engaged, teachers and students alike replace the language of "have to" and "must" with the language of like "want to" and "excited to"-what Australian inquiry expert Kath Murdoch refers to as "invitational language." A science teacher I know, Jonathan Reveal, discovered that putting students in charge of tracking their own process and growth led to more experimentation and learning from both successes and failures. In fact, when Jonathan left his classroom for a three-day training in Colorado in the middle of a project on building prosthetic hands, his students got twice as much done in his absence as he was expecting-and he wasn't even in the room.

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Creating Space for Self-Management in PBL: When Teachers Step Back, Students Step Up

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Creating Space for Self-Management in PBL: When Teachers Step Back, Students Step Up Educators often look at BIE's Project Based Teaching Practices and assume it will be their job to manage the learning, to assess all student progress, etc. They are, after all, called teaching practices, which suggests that they are elements controlled by the teacher.

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With a little help from technology, a young filmmaker, musician, writer, or artist can pursue their work like a pro. Listen to this post as a podcast (transcript):
When I was putting together my book, The Teacher's Guide to Tech, I kept getting carried away with thoughts of how so many of the tools I discovered were so empowering. Not long ago, a person's talents were limited by money and other resources. For instance:

If a writer wanted to write a book, he had to get the attention - and the financial support - of an established publisher.

If a guitar player wanted to record and distribute her music, she had to get the backing of a music producer.

If a painter wanted to sell his art, he had to find a gallery to show it.

If a filmmaker wanted to see her film come to life, she needed expensive equipment - and a movie studio - to produce and distribute it to the world.

But that's all changed now. All of it.

Because now, technology can enable the most ordinary person to do truly extraordinary things. Specifically, a group of resources I'm calling Passion Tools, different types of tech tools that help students (or anyone, really) take their personal interests or talents to a whole new level, developing and sharing them in the same way a professional would: book publishing tools, blogging and website-building tools, image-making tools, screencasting and podcasting tools (and I explain what both of these are!), photo editing tools, and tools that help you create and share videos.

The game really is so different now, and anyone with the tools can play. Consider this a starter kit.

The Teacher's Guide to Tech contains full descriptions of each of these tools, along with links to helpful videos, links to alternatives, and tons of ideas for classroom implementation. If you'd like to check the tools out directly, these links will get you there:

Blogging & Website-Building
Blogger
Weebly
Wix
WordPress

Book Publishing
Lulu
Mixbook
Storybird

Image Making
Canva
Inkscape

Photo Editing
PicMonkey
Pixlr

Podcasting
Audacity
audioBoom
Jewelbeat

Screencasting
Explain Everything
Screencast-o-Matic

Video Production
Animoto
iMovie
PowToon
Windows Movie Maker

Video Sharing
Vimeo
Vine
YouTube

Stick around.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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Tools to Help Students Follow Their Passions

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With a little help from technology, a young filmmaker, musician, writer, or artist can pursue their work like a pro. Listen to this post as a podcast (transcript): When I was putting together my book, The Teacher's Guide to Tech, I kept getting carried away with thoughts of how so many of the tools I discovered were so empowering.

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I've always thought that PBL lead very naturally, for me, to Making and Makerspaces. As I thought more about it, the two concepts can both be approached the same way in the classroom. That is good and bad though. There are approaches that some call PBL or Making, but fall a bit short for me. There are three steps to PBL and Making that should be explored by educators looking to introduce these practices in the fall.

Step 1: Teacher Controlled

Project Based Learning

Having student create exactly what the teachers has asked for is Teacher Controlled PBL. It is not true PBL. It is having students follow a recipe and just being compliant. Very little creativity is allowed or needed to complete the task.

Having students work in a Makerspace creating exactly what the teacher has asked is not true Making. It is follow directions and doing as they are told. It's not very fun and the students might appear engaged, but they are just going through the motions.

Step 2: Teacher Influenced
Project Based Learning

This version of Project Based Learning has the teacher putting some constraints on the project or adding specific aspects that must be addressed in the project. This is closer to pure PBL, but the teacher still has too much say in the process.

Teachers sometimes put out tasks or ask students to complete projects with broader guidelines in the Makerspace. A teacher influenced Maker project is close to pure Making, but it still has too many teacher fingerprints.
Step 3: Teacher Free
Project Based Learning

The purest form of Project Based Learning is Genius Hour/20 Time. This is the purest form to me because it allows the student to choose what they want to learn and how they are going to demonstrate what they learned when they are done. The student is in full control of their learning from start to finish and the teacher provides whatever support the student might need along the way.

Pure Making is exactly the same thing. Word for word, it is the same. Students use the Makerspace to explore their passions and share what they have made and what they learn in ways that work for them. The teacher acts in a support fashion if needed.

I want to stress that Step 1 and 2 are ONLY bad if that is the only way that PBL and Making are approached. If educators stop and Step 1 or 2, the students are not getting a full PBL/Maker experience. Teachers should start with Step 1 and model the process of creating the project with the students. Next, Step 2 allows the students to see how choice can come into play for projects. Lastly, Step 3 allows the students to explore learning on their own and the teacher provides support as needed.

Like all things in education, this is not the end all be all approach to Making or Project Based Learning. This is what I've noticed over the past few years of using PBL and Making in my classroom and school. Do you have something to add that I missed? Is there another step? Share it in the comments.

Hugs and High Fives,

NP

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The Path to PBL and Making in the Classroom #MakerEd #PBLChat

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I've always thought that PBL lead very naturally, for me, to Making and Makerspaces. As I thought more about it, the two concepts can both be approached the same way in the classroom. That is good and bad though. There are approaches that some call PBL or Making, but fall a bit short for me.

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Creativity isn't limited to STEM or STEAM or even the arts. Every time a student is designing, building, tinkering, and problem-solving, it becomes a chance to develop a maker mindset. And any time a teacher creates a space that cultivates this maker mindset, he or she is designing a maker space. - John Spencer, The Makerspace Master Course

In 9th grade I cut my thumb on a saw in wood shop and had to get stitches. It wasn't too bad...

However, that was the last year I took "shop" class in high school. I had enjoyed making our C02 cars in middle school, and liked the process of learning in "shop" class...but the food in Home Economics, and the potential game-making in Computer Programming took me away from wood shop. Nonetheless, I continued to create and make long after high school.

As a high school teacher I began to see a divide between the kids who took shop class and often went to the local technical school, and those students who took all "academic" classes. This is not to say that they weren't academic. We had fantastic discussions in English class where high level connections were consistently made, yet many did not see themselves as "academic" and wanted to do other things after high school. In fact, many thought high school was a waste of their time because it had "nothing to do" with where they were headed.

I loved the "real world" perspective many of these students brought to my class, but I hated the fact that I categorized them as "those students"...meaning tech school students. The other piece was how the percentages were swayed heavily to boys in both our "shop" classes and technical school. I mean 90%-10% heavy!

The flip-side of this equation was a set of students who took every AP and Honors level class they could take during their high school journey. Their goals for high school were different. They wanted to get into a great college, and knew they had to have a HS resume that would reflect how intelligent and hard working they had been for the past four years.

They rarely did anything with their hands. Rarely made anything in school that was not tied to a set of standards or written out in paper. This was not to say that they weren't creative. Far from it. However, their opportunities were limited in "making" because of the academic path they took in high school.

If only it were that simple...

Like most things in life, school for me as a teenager, and as a teacher...was not that cut and dry. Most students did not fall into either of the above paths, including myself. I fell somewhere in between, shying away from AP classes and also not seeing the value in tech school.

Yet, I always was tinkering around. Making videos (before everyone made videos) and making my own songs, recording things, and always interested in music as I was part of a band. At the time I didn't know I was a "Maker" or have any idea about that term. I did know that when something interested me I usually jumped at the chance to mess around and play with it to learn.

When I gave my students the choice to work on whatever project they wanted to for our Genius Hour projects, I joined in the fun. I decided to build my own app from scratch (something I always wanted to do) and the Maker in me came out again. I saw how my students struggled with their projects...yet continued to push through. Even though our projects were not tied to grades, they still cared and had a higher level of commitment than I could have ever drawn out with a quiz or test.

This was English class, and we were making things with our hands.

We were also writing, reading, speaking, and listening about our own projects and the other students that were in the class.

Although my students and I embodied the "maker" mindset during those 45 minutes each week, the problem was simple: That was not enough time.

They needed more experiences in school like Genius Hour where they could fail safely, learn by tinkering, collaborate freely, and see an idea go from seed to creation over a period of time.

Why this needs to change in the 21st century...

Yes, we are 15 years into the "21st Century" and keep talking about it like we're still not living in this world. We all know how the world has changed, and how our students have changed. Not to mention how the workforce has and will continue to shift towards jobs that require critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

But I still see many schools as silos. If you want to go to college take this path...and if you want to get "career ready" take this other path over here. That's not going to cut it anymore.

The "career ready" path has to have strong academic merit to it, just as the "college ready" path has to have creative merit if we actually want to prepare students for life after school.

Shouldn't a student who is heading to college to take engineering courses have hands on experience designing, making, and building in school?

Shouldn't a student who is starting their own landscaping or design business after graduation have experience writing business plans, speaking to an audience, and connecting their math class to their business interests?

And shouldn't an elementary student interested in everything have the opportunity to explore with their mind and their hands as they make their way through our K-12 system?
As a teacher, parent, and student myself I believe we need to expect more out of all of our students and give them the opportunities in school to do "real" work instead of consistently "preparing" them for what is next.
5 Ways to Mash-Up Genius Hour and Makerspaces

My good friend and c0-author John Spencer recently launched the Makerspace Master Course, which takes you from idea to fully functional Makerspace in a week. In his course, John goes into detail about the Maker mindset, and why Genius Hour can be a great place to start using the Makerspace with purpose.

John points out that every makerspace has the following components:

Hands-on activities. Even if there are digital processes going on, students should be engaged in some kind of hands-on fabrication.

Student ownership over the creative process

Differentiated space, so that students can sit, stand, and move around

And, when students have Genius Hour, we know it needs to include the following:

Time. Students need time in school (whether 45 minutes or an hour a week) to spend learning what they are interested in, and creating something that matters to them intrinsically.

Passion. Kids need to be fired up to learn and fuel their curiosity. It's up to them to choose what topic and areas they navigate.

Purpose. Learning needs to be connected to making. There has to be a purpose to the learning that extends beyond being curious and moves into a creative pursuit of designing a solution, experience, or something for people to engage with.

Here's how to combine the two for an ultimate mash-up.

#1. Start Your Makerspace in Your Room

We often have these grandiose ideas of makerspaces and fab labs in our mind. Forget that. Start a makerspace in your classroom so your students can use it whenever they want, and you can allow students to make during Genius Hour instead of having that be an activity that only happens outside the classroom.

#2. Start Cheap

In the checklist John created (you can get it at the end of this article), he breaks down how to start a classroom Makerspace on a $100 budget (as well as some higher level budgets). This can be done through the school, through a donors choose grant, or as a good 'ol tax deductible teacher purchase. Better yet, most of the stuff is brought in by the students! Don't let fancy 3d Printer pricing make you feel like students can have a space to make and create in your room, start cheap and give students time during Genius Hour.

#3. Structure it for students to have ongoing ownership

It may seem like you have to do all the work to get this up and running, but that is definitely not the case. Invite students to bring ideas to the table. Have them tweak the material list and add their perspective on what needs to be in stock in your makerspace. Then make it a point to continue these conversations at check-points throughout the school year for ongoing ownership.

#4. Give it Personality

One of the best parts of Genius Hour is kids showing off who they truly are by what the choose to learn and make. The same should happen in your makerspace. It needs a classroom personality and has to feel personal. I love walking into a space and knowing that only that classroom, or that person could have created it, otherwise it won't be used and will feel seperate from the community you've built in the classroom.

#5. Use old school materials

That's right. Duct tape. Cardboard. Glue guns. Straws. Sticks. Legos. Anything that you can piece together to maker something can be used. But, don't fall prey to the trap of shiny. Your makerspace can be rocking without the shiny. Sure it is nice to have these things eventually, but start with the old school and see how excited students are to explore and create.

Get Started Now

Two ways to get started. You can download the FREE Checklist that John Spencer created by entering in your email below. It has a breakdown of what you need to get started with makerspace materials and a price list.

Or you can jump right into John's Makerspace Master Course (click here to access it). If you join before the end of July you can use my coupon code (just type in "AJ" to redeem the coupon on checkout) and save 20%.

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Genius of Making: 5 Ways to Mash-Up Genius Hour and Your Makerspace

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Creativity isn't limited to STEM or STEAM or even the arts. Every time a student is designing, building, tinkering, and problem-solving, it becomes a chance to develop a maker mindset. And any time a teacher creates a space that cultivates this maker mindset, he or she is designing a maker space.

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It Takes a Village: Maximizing the Power of Industry & Community Partners in PBL

Industry and community partners can add incredible value and authenticity to projects, but we sometimes miss opportunities to fully leverage our partners throughout a project. As you deepen your work in PBL, consider the following opportunities for working with external organizations, businesses, and experts:

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It Takes a Village: Maximizing the Power of Industry & Community Partners in PBL

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It Takes a Village: Maximizing the Power of Industry & Community Partners in PBL Industry and community partners can add incredible value and authenticity to projects, but we sometimes miss opportunities to fully leverage our partners throughout a project.

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Subtle Things Make or Break a PBL Classroom Culture

I had the honor to read a story during a PBL project in my friend's classroom. Customary to her classroom, I gave her a hug as she welcomed me back. We stood by the door and as each student walked in, we greeted them with a handshake, dap (fist bump), or a hug. The students took their places ready for the read aloud. Before reading, we reviewed and shared some things great readers do, how those strategies would help us connect the text to our PBL project. As I read the text, we continued to build upon making connections. One student had a great connection building upon another student's connection. When he spoke he stumbled around what he was trying to say. I stopped him and explained how great readers also connect thoughts with others and provided a quick demonstration with the teacher. While we role played, I could see his eyes light up with understanding and asked for a redo. He tried again and said, "I want to connect and build on what Kierra said...". Next thing you know, every student who wanted to add on to a thought from another student used similar phrasing. At the end, students reflected how those connections and phrases from the story could help support our PBL project. The class continued right along with their PBL project as I stayed and participated. Later, the teacher and I debriefed what aspects of a healthy classroom culture are most important to sustain when implementing PBL.

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Subtle Things Make or Break a PBL Classroom Culture

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Subtle Things Make or Break a PBL Classroom Culture I had the honor to read a story during a PBL project in my friend's classroom. Customary to her classroom, I gave her a hug as she welcomed me back.

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One of the most common features of any PBL project is group work. Even if the product is individual, there should always be some form of group work within the project to give students the ability to receive critique and revision, to share resources and think deeper about what they're learning, and to practice and develop the 21st century skill of collaboration. Not only should they be able to work as a group during the project, they should also find time to work as a group but independent and absent any direct instruction by the teacher. This can be a daunting challenge for even experienced classroom practitioners as they may not know how to scaffold a gradual release for their students or may have concerns about specific students in their class being able to work without derailing an entire group.

One of the easiest ways to structure work is to provide roles for students during the project. There are many different ways to construct these roles, so before you launch your project you may want to consider which best describes your project design:

1. Do you want your students to complete tasks based on static, unchanging roles?

2. Do they need the ability to be more dynamic day to day with their roles, or think of roles as task-based?

Whichever way you structure roles in the context of your project, they generally fall in one of these two categories, and each has specific advantages/disadvantages:

Static Roles

In this system, students always have the same job or role, so there is very little chance for misunderstanding or confusion even if the student happens to be absent for a day or two or miss the initial phases of the project. Static roles are particularly useful in longer, more investigative projects or for short group discussions where you want these discussions to be carried on in a certain way. For example, a science teacher I work with always displays the same group roles for every lab on the board and then mixes them up by divvying out cards playing cards where each suit corresponds to a specific role. These roles include an explainer, a recorder, the timekeeper, and the materials manager. This approach provides a strongly defined foundation for lab work. This system forms a foundation for the culture of her classroom and after the first few attempts her students are well aware of what the expectations are for lab and group tasks once the playing cards come out. As a result, there is very little wandering or off task behavior during her projects.

The danger with static roles is they must be well thought out and must have some sort of job during the entire part of the project. For example, if you were doing a project that required video recording, and you had a student whose role was to be the camera person, what do they do after the project has been recorded and moved onto the editing phase? In a situation like this, more dynamic, task-based roles may be more appropriate.

Dynamic Roles

With this model, groups start off each work period by filling out a task list and assigning specific jobs to each person. A teacher can ask for this task list at any time in order to learn exactly who is doing what in each group. At the end of each work period, students sign off that their task has either been completed, or they write down the next step that they need to complete in order to finish the assignment the next time they work on it. In this model students will take on multiple roles in each project depending on what has to be done during a given work period. It also gives students a chance to experience different roles and practice different skills throughout the project.

An added bonus to this approach is the paper trail that is left behind. Task lists are very helpful in providing information for the teacher as to the effectiveness of the group over a long period of time or for students when they reflect on the project process at the end.

The danger with dynamic groups is that it is the responsibility of the students to divide the work up evenly, and sometimes they may need more coaching and guidance for this to happen before it becomes automatic. Also, since each group is free to find their own path to the end product, this form of role-creation can result in a chaotic classroom.

Hybrid Approach

If neither of the above seems like the right fit, don't worry, there is also a third option that combines aspects of the other two. Some students will be given static roles that do not change, while others will be given dynamic roles where their job or responsibilities change throughout the course of the project. This helps support learners who excel or need an additional challenge while scaffolding for learners who need the more consistent checks that are provided by dynamic grouping.

For example, I have my students complete a constitution project where they run their own mock campaign for president, where certain students take on a management role. One student actually takes on the role of party chairperson and essentially keeps the rest of the class on task and working by checking in and providing coaching. This student keeps their role the entire time while other students move between roles based on the goals of the project. This system works well in the context of the project, but it is important to think about the best way of introducing this model to the class so that those with static roles aren't seen as superior.

If you're not sure what approach to roles is best for your project, consider these questions before you launch.

What are the different phases of your project?

In order for your students to complete your project, what kinds of things will they all need to do?

What roles or responsibilities could best encapsulate the steps?

Is one of these roles more key, more crucial to completion of the project than the others? (It may be helpful to give groups a heads-up about this, in case someone is interested in taking more of a leadership role while others would like to just simply be a part of the group work)

What 21st century skills will each role require?

Would a tool for reflection help your students?

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Roles in PBL: 3 Approaches For Organizing Group Tasks

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One of the most common features of any PBL project is group work. Even if the product is individual, there should always be some form of group work within the project to give students the ability to receive critique and revision, to share resources and think deeper about what they're learning, and to practice and develop the 21st century skill of collaboration.

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What if a project mattered outside the classroom? What if we did something real?

"Don't you want to take it home?" How many times have we heard, "No thanks," in response? A recycling bin full of creative endeavors, shelves lined with student examples, disassembly to preserve possibly useful pieces of wood...

Project Based Learning has been a central philosophy to my teaching over the past 20 years before I even had even heard the words to describe what I was attempting. I have slowly built, through experience and trial and error, an ability to design projects that require critical thinking, student voice and choice, creative problem solving, and collaboration. My original motivation years ago was in response to a "Why should I care to learn this?" attitude from my students. It is a very valid question. Why should a 13 year old care about history, adding fractions, or themes found in Shakespeare? The desire to connect curriculum and meaning to students led to engaging projects-but the products of all this work invariably ended back in the recycling bin.

A trip to my childhood Nature House at Miracle Beach Campground in Campbell River, BC, Canada, changed everything.

The Nature House is near a popular beach and was full of hands-on activities to learn more about local flora and fauna. I was so excited to share the marvels of the Nature House with my young nieces, but years of no funding had left my beloved Nature House worn, outdated, and lacking. As I reflected on my school year and the Nature House, I began to think big. What if...? What if we poured our Project Based Learning energies into a REAL project? What if we designed and built new displays and activities for the Nature House? BIE's Gold Standard PBL talks about Public Product and Authenticity. What would be more authentic than really making something lasting for the public's benefit?

Having Confidence in Students
Convincing the Nature House to work with us was more difficult than I expected at first. The idea of 90 grade 8s building something worth keeping took some selling. My advice when approaching the non-teaching public to work with you on a project is to stay confident in what your students can do. We know what is possible even when those outside our world do not.

My perseverance paid off and we travelled in October to Miracle Beach, Rathtrevor Beach, and Goldstream to see the Nature Houses and meet with the naturalists. The students named the project, "Make a Miracle" in honor of Miracle Beach. A key to PBL's success is scaffolding and preparation by the teacher. We spent time before our visit learning about both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Students were prepared when we arrived at each site to both learn what the goals and needs of each Nature House were from the naturalists but also to collect data about the local areas.

Scaffolding and Building
Upon returning to Victoria, students spent the next six months developing their project ideas and creating the exhibits and activities, built out of wood, to install in the Nature Houses. The authentic audience required a level of academic rigor that they hadn't faced before. Students chose a focus area for their projects and began the research and development portion of the project. To scaffold learning and design of interactive projects, we worked with the Royal British Columbia Museum to learn about interactivity, text level, and effective displays. Students sent their project proposals for approval to the naturalists before getting started.

One group had an entire section cut because they hadn't adhered to the guidelines of local species only. The student who had written it was heartbroken that she had to restart from the beginning but persevered so that she could have her work in the Nature House at the end. Students also learned about creative property laws when they wanted to use photos they hadn't taken, and had to contact photographers to ask permission. One photographer politely declined the use of his photos and the student who had contacted him was shocked but carried on and sought other sources.

Science, History, and writing complete, now the build was on! The math component of the project began in earnest. Students calculated material needs and costs and got to work in the Wood Shop at our school. The quality of text created was now matched by the quality of craftsmanship required. Our final show of exhibits and activities included students and parents but also a visit from the naturalists who approved and marked the exhibits for their destinations. Some projects were given feedback for changes and improvements before being accepted for the Nature Houses.

The Public Exhibition
Our final visit in May took us back to each site, where students rolled up their sleeves to clean as well as work with the carpenter and naturalists to install their projects. Three years later, I visited Goldstream and was so proud to see a large percentage of their displays and activities continue to be from this project.

I am now an authentic audience addict. Since our bold move to take our energies outside of the school walls, we have worked with Emily Carr House, Craigdarroch Castle, and Point Ellice House in Victoria, BC, on similar projects. We have also developed an ongoing relationship with Langham Court Theatre to write, direct and perform a French play each year. These relationships with the community and real-life goals have added a dimension to PBL that can't be replicated in the classroom.

This step in project design requires massive amounts of scaffolding as well as courage to ask yourself, "What if?" I now know that if the idea seems slightly crazy and a little bit scary... I'm onto something good!

To see the student project documentary about our Nature House adventures, follow this link: https://youtu.be/PIpxCSUw-vQ

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What if a project mattered outside the classroom? What if we did something real? "Don't you want to take it home?" How many times have we heard, "No thanks," in response? A recycling bin full of creative endeavors, shelves lined with student examples, disassembly to preserve possibly useful pieces of wood...

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Project-Based Learning | Feature

Tech Tools That Inspire PBL in High School

Whether you call it project- or problem-based learning, these technologies will help your students get authentic experience in a blended environment - and help your teachers to track their progress.

"When will I ever use this?" This cringeworthy comment slipping from a teenager's lips can swipe away the sense of accomplishment felt by a teacher who has spent a week crafting a lesson that she thought would have staying power. If you cringe too, it may be time to lock onto the practice of PBL, which is variously referred to as project-, problem- or inquiry-based learning. Where blended learning gives students some flexibility as to where and when they do their work, PBL offers them a choice of what they do. And when students pick the activities they're going to work on (within parameters established by the teacher, of course), how many of them will openly criticize their own choices? In PBL classrooms, students aren't learning simply to pass a test; job one is applying creativity and taking ownership of their own education. As a rework of the old saying goes, teach a student to add, and he'll get through a quiz for the day; show him how to calculate profit and loss, and he'll be pitching his next new idea for a lifetime. Here are 10 technologies to help you implement PBL in your classroom.

Web-Based Career Readiness System
"Here in Navasota we want our students to be 'life ready,'" said Navasota Independent School District (TX) Superintendent Rory Gesch. That means preparing students for careers to which they are well-suited. Navasota received its first real dose of PBL magic in 2012 when an AP statistics teacher, Josh Wilkerson, set his students to work on a project that hit close to home. In the summer of 2012, Grimes County, where Navasota is located, suffered through devastating wildfires that destroyed 32 homes. The stats class undertook a student-led comparison of the use of volunteer versus service fire personnel to understand where the community felt the biggest impact. Working alongside experts brought in from Texas A&M University, students interviewed fire victims, workers and community service people to put together a presentation that they shared with the school board as well as the city council.

Along with regional planning among superintendents and the opening of a school specifically for at-risk students in the district, that project sparked another kind of fire: a desire among Navasota administrators and teachers to move into PBL. Spurred by the desire to redefine its career and college readiness focus to meet the needs of the community and align those needs with Texas standards, the district purchased the Web-based WIN Learning Personalized Career Readiness System.

Navasoto ISD Statistics Teacher Josh Wilkerson and his students share their engagement in a project that analyzed response to local wildfires.

That set of applications includes WIN Strategic Compass, which allows students to explore potential career paths, identify interests and put together a career plan based on employment trends for the next five to 10 years. An initial review measures a student's "career readiness" and identifies gaps in skills such as reading for information and applied math. The goal is to help the student see the relevance of his or her own education. The software also has lessons for soft skills such as communication, teamwork and critical thinking.

Mobile Devices
Does putting computing devices into a list like this seem obvious? According to Ronnie Gonzalez, chief administrative officer and director of technology and communications at Navasota, choosing a mobile device isn't about the tool. It's more about enabling "kids to create and have access to information." His district is attempting to implement a plan by which each classroom has multiple types of devices so students can choose the right one for the job.

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win learning personalized career readiness system

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Tech Tools That Inspire PBL in High School -- THE Journal

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Project-Based Learning | Feature Whether you call it project- or problem-based learning, these technologies will help your students get authentic experience in a blended environment - and help your teachers to track their progress. "When will I ever use this?"

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Your students are arguing with you, whining left and right, straying off task, staring at a blank screen, even exhibiting behavior issues. They've shut down. You're only trying to do your job. Why aren't they cooperating?

Could it be that you've just assigned a multiple-paragraph essay? Teaching struggling writers can be a daunting task. On one hand, the Common Core standards require middle and high school students to be able to write full-length essays...eloquently, confidently, skillfully, maturely. On the other hand, there's reality. Sometimes we have students who honestly can't write a single sentence coherently, let alone a multiple-paragraph composition. How can we meet these students at their readiness levels without sacrificing the rigor?

Over the years, I've taught at-risk freshmen in a myriad of different settings. In order to save both my sanity and theirs, I had to devise some scaffolding solutions so that we all didn't go off the deep end. Are you in that boat? Maybe some of these tips will help you make teaching writing more manageable.

For one, you could try writing together.

Not everyone is comfortable with modeling writing on their feet, but this approach was the single most beneficial way I have reached struggling writers. It's actually fairly simple, and if the thought of it makes you nervous, it's easy to brainstorm some ideas beforehand so that if students get stuck, you have information you can use to probe and prompt them.

In my classroom, this is how it works:

After some prep time (sometimes weeks!) of teaching students about traits of writing, the writing process, MLA skills, and plagiarism, we are ready to begin a class writing activity. We start with the thesis. Having already taught them that an argumentative thesis takes a stance on a controversial topic, I ask, "Who can compose a solid thesis statement for this topic?" ( You can give the class a topic, or you can work through selecting one together, which is always interesting.)

Students provide possible answers. Sometimes I type them all, and we select the strongest one. This practice is so effective because it provides students with the opportunity to see how brainstorming multiple options while obtaining meaningful input from others can strengthen the final product.

The process continues in this way. Periodically, we pause to consult our notes, to conduct research on the Internet, and to revise or edit as we reread what we have written collectively to that point.

If you haven't tried this one, I just can't stress enough: It's a game changer. Modeling and facilitating in this way makes the whole essay writing process more accessible to students. Plus, it gives them a birds' eye view to the internal thought process of a skilled writer ( that's you).

Another go-to approach for my struggling writers is writing one paragraph at a time.

Don't be afraid to take it slow. When I teach the research writing process to my at-risk freshmen, I block off an entire nine weeks. During this time, we still do choice reading and grammar, but I dedicate the majority of the curriculum to writing time.

Think about the last time you felt truly frustrated by something. Perhaps it was an online course, and you just wanted to be able to talk to the director face-to-face to get clarification. Maybe you were overwhelmed by needing to do one thousand things but only having an hour to get them done ( We've all been there!).

That's how our struggling writers feel when we rush through the instructional portion (or even the compositional element) of a multiple-paragraph essay. We, as the teachers, may feel we've devoted ample time to the topic, but we understand the material. They don't. So? We have to adapt.

I've found success in slowing down my writing units by providing thorough time to model each paragraph. After modeling, I invite students to provide feedback on examples ( of only that paragraph - perhaps it's the introduction or counterargument). A great follow-up approach is to allow students to write a paragraph with a partner. So many of our kids are collaborative learners by nature, and allowing them to tackle an overwhelming task by working with someone else takes half the pressure off of them. Finally, students are ready to tackle a paragraph on their own.

Provide students with meaningful feedback on this paragraph, and ask them to revise before moving on to the next segment of the essay.

This simple scaffolding approach can do wonders for your reluctant writers' confidence and readiness.

You can also provide students with sentence stems.

If your students struggle to begin a sentence ( after all, half the battle is in getting started), you might consider providing them with sentence stems. For example, let's say you want them to avoid elementary narration (as in: The next reason I am going to tell you about is...), you can come up with topic sentence or supporting detail wording options they might use instead. You can create an anchor chart, interactive notebook insert, or reference sheet that students can refer to when writing.

In the same way,

While many people argue...

The body of research suggests...

Depending on the grade you teach and the maturity of your students, these stems may look entirely different. When I provide my struggling writers with sentence stems, I've found it beneficial to do two things:

1. Avoid simply providing one-word transitions. We want all of our students, even struggling writers, to understand that when authors move from one point to the next, we can use phrases and clauses to help our readers follow along.

2. Define unfamiliar words. Many of my students look at a transition list, and they can't define words like "moreover," "furthermore," "consequently," and "subsequently." Make it easy for them by providing definitions in layman's terms.

Most importantly, provide meaningful, frequent one-on-one feedback.

Life gets busy. It's easy to sit on a stack of papers for weeks. We all know that's a bad practice. Struggling writers, especially, need almost immediate feedback regarding their work. You can conference with them, you can leave notes on their Google Docs, you can do it the traditional way and write comments on a printed paper, or you can even use dialogue journals. You might even consider asking each student which form of feedback he or she feels would be best for his or her learning style.

Putting it simply, if we don't have time to provide this type of feedback, we shouldn't be assigning the piece to struggling writers. Students won't learn. They won't grow.

When you provide feedback, remember that struggling writers already have low confidence. Instead of providing them with a list of ten errors and asking them to revise, try using a one-to-one rule. Give them one accolade for every piece of constructive criticism. This can be so hard! Sometimes you might even have to stretch the truth a bit, but the reward is worth it.

Think about it this way. If our bosses approach us (as they sometimes do) with complaint after complaint, we can easily begin to wonder if we have any value...if anyone sees the effort we put into our jobs day after day. Isn't there a "thank you" in sight?

Now, think about the piling mandates...the constant pressure and responsibilities added to our daily workload.

These burdens are so similar to what a reluctant writer often feels when rushed into writing a multiple-paragraph essay without proper scaffolding. It would behoove us to keep that feeling of frustration and burnout close to our hearts as we work with struggling writers. Build them up by using best-practices. Take the extra time to do it right, and your students will thrive.
Interested in reading more techniques for supporting struggling writers? I can keep going! Here are 14 fresh ideas you can implement today.
Looking for practical writing lessons for struggling secondary writers? You can find some high-interest options here.

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Scaffolding the Multiple-Paragraph Essay for Struggling Writers | Reading and Writing Haven

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Could it be that you've just assigned a multiple-paragraph essay? Teaching struggling writers can be a daunting task. On one hand, the Common Core standards require middle and high school students to be able to write full-length essays...eloquently, confidently, skillfully, maturely. On the other hand, there's reality.

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Writing is one of the most challenging skills to master in school. Compound this challenge by asking a student to write in their second or third language while meeting benchmarks and grade-level standards, and it's no wonder writing appears to be such a daunting task for many English language learners, resulting in classrooms filled with apathetic and unmotivated students.

Portfolios are assessment tools designed to address these issues by placing students in the driver's seat. The benefits of portfolios are well-documented in both theory and practice: (1) Students are able to select pieces of writing that showcase important milestones in their learning trajectory; (2) students take ownership of their learning through consistent goal-setting, reflection, and other metacognitive processes; and (3) students develop self-regulation skills that empower them with agency. But can portfolios be tailored to the specific learning and linguistic needs of our English language learners?

According to principles in second language writing research, portfolios can break down the writing process by content and language to better engage English language learners. This makes writing much less daunting and allows learners to become more aware of their own development as writers. The downloadable sample portfolio checklist that accompanies this article is one I used as a teacher of elementary-aged English language learners-and it can easily be adapted for use with older students. It covers three critical stages of the writing portfolio: goal setting, monitoring, and reflecting.

1. Goal setting

Student-directed goal setting provides learners with a purpose for writing. While some children might aim to write "the scariest horror story ever known to mankind," English language learners often feel that their creativity is stifled by the errors they will likely make. Let them know that their ideas are important by providing them with a list of goals divided into content and language (page 1 of the download). This encourages them to use their artistic license in their content while maintaining separate, tangible goals for the mechanics of their writing.

Classroom tip: Change the content and language goals according to the genre that children are writing. For example, fables or stories may include characters with speech (content) and past tense (language) goals, while expository texts may include examples (content) and topic sentences (language). Consider setting a class goal so you can hit important features of the writing genre, but allow students to choose other goals or make up their own. Also, make sure students don't check too many boxes, so they can go in-depth and monitor their goals more precisely.

2. Monitoring

Portfolio assessments are distinct from other assessments because they require students to monitor their own learning. Learners need to monitor their goals with each writing piece. As students write, remind them to refer to their content and language goals. When conferencing with students and providing written feedback on their drafts, make sure your feedback relates to their goals. Also, provide rubrics (page 2 of the download) to students before the writing begins-incorporate elements of the content and language goals into the rubrics for reinforcement.

3. Reflection

Finally, after each writing unit, students need to undergo two stages of reflection: first on the recently completed writing piece, and second on their overall writing development. Besides making sure that students reflect on their content and language goals, an important consideration for English language learners is to let them reflect using language(s) they are comfortable with. The goal of reflection is not to practice the new language, but to cognitively engage in the monitoring process.

The second stage of reflection requires students to reflect on all of the writing pieces they've produced thus far. This may vary from classroom to classroom because some portfolios may include student-selected pieces of writing, while others might include all of their writing. Either way, this final step of reflection is critical. To reflect on their language goals, English language learners need to become aware of the types of mistakes they make (e.g., tense, punctuation, spelling). An error log (page 3 of the download) is a wonderful tool that allows students to tally and monitor these errors over time.

Finally, allow students to systematically reflect on previous writing units by using a form or worksheet to serve as a guide (pages 4-5 of the download). Make sure these reflections include both the technical aspects of writing and students' personal enjoyment/reactions toward writing. Reflections should end with a resolution for future writing-related goals.

When English language learners are treated as writers and given the opportunity to understand where they are in their journey to becoming writers, they become much more motivated and excited to write. Moreover, allowing students to assess where they are in their writing, set goals for the future, and then monitor and reflect on how well they've achieved these goals teaches them the invaluable skill of self-regulation.

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A Valuable Tool for English Language Learners

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Writing is one of the most challenging skills to master in school. Compound this challenge by asking a student to write in their second or third language while meeting benchmarks and grade-level standards, and it's no wonder writing appears to be such a daunting task for many English language learners, resulting in classrooms filled with apathetic and unmotivated students.

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This guest post was contributed by Laura Lenz. It first appeared on her blog,
Teaching with an Open Heart.
Close your eyes.
Imagine a school where we focused on the strengths of English language learners. What if these students' cultures, languages, countries of origin, unique skills, and life experiences were held up as assets?

Let's decide this school year to focus more on these strengths and assets and the unique potential of our English learners. What brilliance might be unleashed? What confidence might be built? What might non-ESL* students learn from the ESLs?

This would be a change in the way we view our English learners as well as a shift in how we view the very nature of teaching. The basis of teaching is to teach students what they don't know. We're trained to look for gaps in knowledge. We're the teachers, the experts, the givers of information.

At the beginning of the school year, most teachers will be asked to look at data from state tests. Tests that focus on who is proficient and who is not proficient. We will identify gaps and deficiencies. Of course, this analysis has its place, and we need to know where students are struggling. However, we can also stimulate growth by capitalizing on existing strengths.

A few years ago, I was on an interview committee for the ESL coordinator in our district. The individual who eventually got the job kept talking about the very principles I have outlined in this article. He believed that the English learners could be the stars of the school district. I had never heard anyone express this sentiment quite that passionately and forcefully, and I immediately knew that what he was saying held enormous value. I believe in his vision, and it's my vision too.

Here are some suggestions for making this shift in how we work with our English learners this year.

1. Make it clear that your students' first languages and cultures are a tremendous strength and asset.

These students are the newest bilingual or multilingual members of our community. They are also learning to be bicultural or multicultural, figuring out how to navigate the tricky ins and outs of living in a diverse society. Our country will continue to become more diverse, and knowing more than one language and being able to navigate multiple cultures will be highly prized skills in our community. Make sure you explicitly share this information with parents as well. They need to know that their culture and language needs to be preserved and it will only strengthen their child's future.

2. Uncover students' unique strengths and funds of knowledge.

Some strengths will be easy to see, like how expert a student is at playing soccer or the great artistic talent some students possess. Some might be a little more difficult to uncover. Make it your job to find the hidden gems that each student has. Sometimes you discover these assets through conversation and questioning, and sometimes you might stumble upon them. By observing carefully, here are a few things I found in my students:

Our art teacher decided to do a sewing project one week. I walked into the room and the African boys were already amazingly adept with that needle and thread. There they were, heads bent over in concentration, sewing like nobody's business. It was amazing.

On one of our field trips we took the class ice skating; most had never done this before. The handful who already knew how to skate took off and skated together, except our Japanese student, who already knew how to skate. I noticed that one by one and with great patience, kindness, and encouragement, she was teaching all the other girls how to ice skate. They trusted her and took risks they may not have taken with their teachers. This kind of interaction among students is something teachers love seeing. This student told us later in the year that she wants to be a teacher.

3. Once you've discovered some of their brilliance, make sure you tell them what you see.

Be specific in your praise. Acknowledge students' strengths in front of the whole class and have conversations with kids privately.

We had to rely on one student sometimes for interpreting when students had conflicts and a bilingual specialist wasn't available. He was a refugee from Africa, already fairly proficient in oral English and also spoke the two most dominant languages in the classroom. The unexpected joy was realizing that he was also a natural peacemaker with a very keen sensibility for justice and fairness, also possessing a charming sense of humor and sweetness that would make kids laugh and get over things quickly.

My teaching partner and I made sure to tell him that he had something special-the three languages, of course, but even more than that, his natural diplomacy skills. I told him he was going to do something great in his life-be a diplomat or a community organizer. He'd always say, "Thank you, Miss," while looking slightly embarrassed, yet with a huge smile spread from ear to ear.

Then he told us one day that he wants to be a police officer. I can just imagine the impact he could make, a black police officer who speaks three languages, understands many cultures, and is a natural peacemaker. We should do everything we can to build on this young man's strengths and help him reach his full potential.

4. Teach your students to validate each other.

One year we did an activity every Friday called "Fill the Bucket," which comes from a popular children's book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud. We drew a different name each week and focused on that person, or if a student was moving, going back to their country, or exiting our program, we would choose them for the activity. The student would sit in the teacher chair at the front of the class and receive praise and compliments from their classmates. We encouraged the kids to be as specific with their praise as possible.

One Friday, it was a particular student's turn. He was from Saudi Arabia, and we were exiting him from the program because he was proficient enough to transition to mainstream classes in the school. When he sat in front of the class, every hand shot up.

"You're a great friend."

"You helped me with my locker on the first day."

"You're always so nice to everyone."

"You make me laugh when I'm worried about things."

I watched this sweet boy absolutely dissolve into tears. Nobody laughed at his crying. It was incredibly moving and I wondered if he had ever been told how amazing he was. We all need validation.

5. Highlight and elevate the English learners in big and small ways in your classroom, in your school, in your community.

Work on integrating the English learners into the greater school community. Have native English speakers help with the language and academics, but then make sure the English learners have a chance to share their talents and knowledge as well.

We teach all of our kids to play chess and they get really good at it. There are always a few who become especially skilled and competitive. They go to tournaments and compete, including the state tournament. We reached out to the local newspaper and made sure this great story was told to the community.

6. Never forget that refugees and immigrants are doing a tremendously difficult thing simply by trying to make their way in this country.

It takes courage and strength to move to a new country and adapt to a new culture, language, and way of life. Most refugees have already endured unimaginable hardships and are forging ahead despite experiencing loss, grief, danger, and trauma. There is a resilience in refugees and immigrants that is just unbelievable and which they will ultimately use to contribute to their new home and community.

When you point out kids' strengths to them and to others, they grow in confidence. They know you see them. You see the whole individual, not just an empty vessel that needs to be filled with your knowledge. Not just a kid who doesn't know English. But a human who already has many unique strengths and assets. Your belief in their value and potential will help their confidence grow. This confidence will enable them to build upon the skills they already have and to be brave enough to learn all the essential things they need to know in this country in order to succeed.

Now, open your eyes.

Decide your model of teaching and working with English learners this year will be a strengths-based one.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying.

The brilliance and possibilities you uncover might just amaze you. ♦

*Editor's note: The term ESL is used in several places in this post because it would make the post easier to find when people searched for it. In the English language teaching community, it is more appropriate to describe these learners as English language learners (ELL) or simply English learners, and the process of teaching them as TESOL (Teaching English as a Second or Other Language). These terms more accurately reflect the fact that many of these students come to us already knowing several languages, and the use of "second" does not recognize this asset.

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A Strength-Based Approach to Teaching English Learners

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Instead of focusing on the deficits of English language learners, what if we held up their cultures, languages, unique skills, and life experiences as assets?

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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Language learning has never been this easy especially with the proliferation of web technologies and mobile apps that enable learners to learn a new language right from the comforts of their own places. From automated language softwares to online tutors available 24/7, learning a new language is no longer a matter of resources availability but rather a will availability.

There is now an abundance of digital materials to use in your language class to enhance your language teaching. More importantly, these resources could also be used by students independently to pick up a new language at their own convenient pace. We have already featured a collection of Android and iPad apps to use for this purpose and today we are sharing with you what we think are the best platforms for learning a new language. Check them out below and share with us your feedback. Enjoy

Duolingo is by far our favourite in this list. Duolingo was featured last year by Google as the best language learning app in Google Play Store. Duolingo turns language learning into a game to make it more fun and effective. Students can learn languages for free while earning points for correct answers, racing against the clock, and leveling up. Duolingo has recently launched a new platform specifically designed for teachers and educators called Duolingo for Schools. With Duolingo for Schools, teachers can easily track their students' progress, run in-class activities and assign homework. Learn more about Duolingo for Schools from this guide.

2- Busuu

Busuu is another great web platform and mobile app for learning a new language. Busuu offers language courses created by educational experts that cover the four major language learning skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The courses range in difficulty from beginner to advanced intermediate levels.Additionally, Busuu allows learners to practice their language skills directly with native speakers from all around the world through its huge community that comprises over 50 million users. Learners will receive personalized feedback on their exercises, talk to native speakers via an integrated chat and get to know people from all over the world.

3- Memrise

Memrise provides quality courses in more than 200 languages enabling students to learn new languages in a fun and joyful way. Memrise brings language learning to life using a wide variety of multimedia materials that include videos, audio, mnemonics, etymologies and many more more. As a teacher, you can use Memrise to create your own courses and materials using rich multimedia flashcards. You can also create groups and keep track of your students progress. Memrise is available for the web, Android and iPad.

4- Livemocha

Live mocha is a language learning community that uses a mixture of traditional learning methods with online practice and interaction with native language speakers from around the world. Using a collaborative approach to language learning, Livemocha delivers an excellent learning experience that promises conversational fluency.'The Livemocha community is made up of language enthusiasts: teachers, language experts, other language learners, and native speakers. Community members help each other learn in a myriad of ways: they leave comments in response to practice exercises, build mini-lessons within exercise feedback, have practice conversations via text, video or audio chat, provide language practice and culture tips, and give much-needed encouragement.'
Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

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Some Useful Websites for Language Learners

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Language learning has never been this easy especially with the proliferation of web technologies and mobile apps that enable learners to learn a new language right from the comforts of their own places. From automated language softwares to online tutors available 24/7, learning a new language is no longer a matter of resources availability but rather a will availability.

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contributed by Dr. Allen Mendler

While stress caused by common core concerns has dominated the recent education landscape, dealing with 'difficult' students remains the number one source of constant tension for most teachers.

Continual exposure to students who won't behave or produce can quickly erode both confidence and well-being.

As a new school year approaches, the guidance offered by six 'pillars' can help you stay at the top of your game by dramatically influencing even your most challenging students to want to behave and achieve. Each pillar is explained followed by a few hands-on suggestions. Add or substitute other methods within each pillar to reflect your style and preference.

6 Strategies For Growing Closer To Your Most Challenging Students

1. Trust

'Difficult' students may have difficulty trusting adults and authority figures, perhaps because they have been jilted in the past. Build trust so that you can build a real, working, functional student-teacher relationship. The vast majority of teachers care deeply for and about their students. Yet by middle school, less than half of all students believe they would be missed by their teacher(s) if they didn't come to school. Perhaps we need to be more demonstrative in showing the caring that is in our hearts.

Make it a top goal to be a cheerleader for your students, particularly those students whose actions make others want to turn away from them. Recognize them when objectionable behaviors are not happening.

Thank them for their cooperation and make time to ask how they managed to look after themselves. Create a classroom climate where students help and even 'cheer' for each other. One simple thing you can do to get started is to have students finish these sentences:

One thing I do well at school and if asked I could help somebody else with is______.

One thing I do well at home and if asked I could help somebody else with is_____.

A strength most people don't know about me is_____________________.

When I need help I_____________________________.

Their answers can become the foundation upon which students look out for each other.

See also Student Engagement Strategies That Empower Learners

2. Engagement

'Difficult' students may have difficulty engaging in lessons that they consider boring and unstimulating. So make the learning compelling!

A frequent complaint by students when we are teaching subject matter content is "When are we going to ever use this?" Many students fail to see the relevance between our content and their lives. When they don't, they may become bored and uninterested. Students who have learned to value school because they see the connection between a good education and success in life can tolerate boring classrooms. Otherwise, they don't. Motivation and discipline problems are often the result.

Make it a goal to begin each class with something that grabs their attention and then try to connect it to the lesson you are teaching: a great story; an existential question; a joke; an experiment; an interesting photo. If you cannot find a way to make the lesson relevant, at least connect with your students for a few seconds every day around something you know they find interesting (Hint: Music, Sports, Video Games, and Money are virtually always of interest to kids).

Show your knowledge and/or ignorance (i.e. Mara, I caught a little bit of ( insert relevant musician here) the other day who I know you listen to, and to be honest, I couldn't understand his message. Help an old guy like me understand what I'm missing?)

Rarely will a student refuse to engage when you capture their attention and interest.

3. Personalization

'Difficult' students may sense - but have difficulty articulating - that lessons are not appropriately differentiated for students who are learning at different paces and levels. Personalize what you emphasize. For example, cultivate responsibility on a student-by-student basis.

Children are not born responsible. It is a skill they need to learn. The best ways to promote responsibility are with involvement, ownership, and choices with limits (i.e. you can answer any five that best show you understand the main causes of the Civil War, or you can create a song with clean lyrics that includes the main causes).

Get your students involved in making decisions about as many things as you can. Try to avoid immediately giving them your solutions or consequences and instead ask questions leading them to think on their own. Find ways to give your students choices they can handle, celebrate with them when their choices work out and hold them accountable when they make mistakes.

For example, "Jose, it looks like you thought you could get by without doing any work. The results of your test show that the strategy didn't work out. So let's look at what you can do to get the practice we both know you need to be more successful. I have a few ideas (don't share them right away) but I bet you do as well (encourage students to first come up with their own solutions and then try to help them anticipate what the consequences of their choice might be).

Then ask, "What do you think?"

4. Positivity

'Difficult' students may have difficulty keeping a positive attitude in class, perhaps because of something that is causing them to struggle in their personal lives. Build momentum. Nobody starts school expecting to fail.

Yet failure is probably the number one in-school factor that causes students to become disaffected, uninterested, unmotivated, and disruptive. Challenge your students to get better every day in your subject than they were yesterday. For example, "You got the first three correct and that is good. I am proud of you. But let's see if you can do it two days in a row. Good luck."

Create and modify assignments, quizzes, tests, and behavioral expectations based upon this premise.

Build an "APPP" for success. These are the keys: A ppear, P repare, P lan and P ractice. Get your kids to understand that "getting better than you were yesterday" is the daily standard of success. Great teachers make it hard for their students to fail. They convey an attitude of success: "Don't ever expect me to give up on you and never give up on yourself."

Praise them when they do well, with your focus being on the effort and the strategy they used. For example, "Carter, you did well because you kept at it and tried three different ways to solve the problem."

Stay away from praise for factors over which they really have no control (i.e. "See, you did well because you are so smart!").

Do the same for yourself! (i.e. "I got through to Laurie because I took the time to focus on her interests.")

5. Safety

'Difficult' students may have difficulty feeling safe in a triggering learning environment, which ultimately impacts their ability to learn. Make sure they feel intellectually, creatively, emotionally, and physically 'safe'

Be very clear about the details you expect your students to follow for a safe and smooth functioning classroom.

Among other things that may be specific to your subject, these should include how to enter the classroom, where to find the assignment, what to do if a pencil breaks, how to get permission for a drink or the bathroom, how to walk through the halls, line up and take turns.

It is important that these procedures be both explained and practiced. When you notice a procedure being followed well, point this out. Reinforcement always helps.

Perhaps the most important procedure that relates specifically to 'difficult' students behavior is to let all your students know that it will be rare for you to stop class to handle somebody's misbehavior for two reasons:

1. You have no interest in either embarrassing the student or yourself.

2. You will not sacrifice instructional time to handle misbehavior.

Let your students know that virtually always you will see the student after class or during a more private moment and it will be then that you will either give a consequence or otherwise figure out a solution with the student. Tell your students,

"If and when somebody breaks a rule, it may look as if I am ignoring what they did. I don't ignore bad behavior but I am not always going to stop class to deal with it because that would waste too much time and possibly be embarrassing. So understand that if you break a rule, there are consequences, but most of the time those will be given after class or when it won't take away from everybody's learning."

When something happens that demands a response but you want to postpone taking action say something like,

"I know you all just heard (saw) what Ethan did and most of you are probably wondering what I am going to do about it. Later on, Ethan and I will figure this out but right now we are on page 15." Then get back to instruction.

6: Help them rebuild what they consider 'fun'

The more you enjoy doing what you do, the more students will want to be around you. Enthusiasm is contagious, so be animated when you teach and have fun with your students and the curriculum. Laugh with them!

Watching 'difficult' students pursue knowledge that interests them is an exciting, dynamic experience. The idea of learning being 'fun' may be a new concept for them. Help them grow their 'learning is fun' muscle while also helping them understand that there are different *kinds* of fun as well.

Of course, not every lesson is 'fun,' but you can even add an element of fun to a boring lesson by announcing in advance how boring the unit is likely to be!

Don't hide from them (I have yet to find a really interesting way to teach______so the next fifteen minutes are likely to be really boring but also important for you to pay attention. By the way, if you can think of a more interesting way to teach_____after class let me know because I'd love to find a better way).

Challenge them to be last to 'moan and groan during the lesson' (if you think it is necessary although the challenge is usually enough, offer some kind of reward like the winner gets five extra points, a special smiley sticker, or an extra bathroom pass) but at the end, allow for some brief 'moan and groan' time. Permit yourself to be one of the loudest! They'll love it when you show that you can out-groan them.

There are lots of ways to make your class welcoming, relevant, successful, involving, safe and pleasurable and it all starts with you! Connect these six pillars to your daily curriculum and interactions. Your kids will benefit and so will you.
The strategies in this post are adapted from Mendler's book, When Teaching Gets Tough: Smart Ways to Reclaim Your Game.
Allen Mendler is an educator, school psychologist, and author who resides in Rochester, N.Y. Dr. Mendler has worked extensively with children of all ages in regular education and special education settings; and youth in juvenile detention. Mendler's books include When Teaching Gets Tough: Smart Ways to Reclaim Your Game (ASCD, 2012) and The Resilient Teacher: How do I stay positive and effective when dealing with difficult people and policies? (ASCD, 2014). Connect with him on Twitter at @allenmendler
6 Strategies For Growing Closer To Your Most 'Difficult' Students Students; image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad

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6 Strategies For Dealing With 'Difficult' Students

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contributed by Dr. Allen Mendler While stress caused by common core concerns has dominated the recent education landscape, dealing with 'difficult' students remains the number one source of constant tension for most teachers. Continual exposure to students who won't behave or produce can quickly erode both confidence and well-being.

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Listen to my interview with Michael Linsin ( transcript):

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In my first few years of teaching, student talking was like popcorn.
I gave the class instructions for some kind of work; let's say journal writing. And for a few seconds, they did it. Things were quiet. Then, like that first kernel of popcorn, one student said she didn't know what to write, so I walked over to her desk to help her. While we talked, two more raised their hands-two more pops-and said they were stuck, too. I signaled to them that I'd be over in a minute, but in the meantime, someone else was closing his journal, finished already. Another pop. The two who were stuck asked him what he wrote about.

The room needs to stay quiet so we can concentrate, I told them.

Someone else had a question. Another pop. I squatted by her desk, and behind me, a conversation started between two others. Pop pop. Another journal closed while a different hand went up.

Okay people, I said, this time louder. Let's keep it down. And with rascally smiles, they turned back to their journals to pretend to write some more. At this point, it had turned into a game.

Someone needed to sharpen their pencil. Pop. Someone else decided to race them over to the sharpener. Pop. In a matter of seconds, the whole room had erupted, a huge hysterical bowl of popcorn, exploding all around me, and I couldn't find my way out.

And then I yelled.

If this sounds anything like you, you're not alone. I hear it from teachers all the time. One of the things they don't teach us in our education courses is just how freaking much students talk, and how hard it can be to quiet them down in order to get anything accomplished.

To find solutions to this problem, I went to Michael Linsin, the creator of Smart Classroom Management and my go-to person for all classroom management needs. Last year, he taught us how to set up a clear, simple classroom management plan. Now he's going to help us understand the causes of excessive talking, what you should be able to realistically expect from students, and how you can fix the problem.

First, two quick caveats.

One: I believe students need to talk. People need to talk. So if you're shooting for a classroom environment where students sit silently and do rote seat work all day long, where they never have an opportunity to talk to their peers, where they never get out of their seats, and where the work is not engaging, you are going to have problems.

Two: A big part of good classroom management is building good relationships with your students. If you haven't taken the time to get to know them as individuals, if you mispronounce their names, if you regularly use sarcasm or make them feel stupid for asking questions, then they aren't going to want to behave well for you. And that's a different problem.

So this post is based on the assumption that you're planning engaging lessons and you have a decent relationship with your students. Without those two, these solutions might kind of work, but you're still probably not going to love your job.

Why It's Happening

Before you can solve this problem, you have to understand its cause. According to Linsin, excessive talking-talking that occurs during independent work time or direct instruction-happens for two reasons.

Reason 1: They don't believe you mean it.

Despite the fact that you specifically tell students not to talk, deep down they don't believe you mean it. "Or they don't care," Linsin says.

"At some point," he explains, "Your authority has faded. If you're able to teach to a quiet classroom in the beginning of the year and now you're not able to, or if it happened right off the bat, then somehow at some point, the students' respect for you and for the process, for the classroom, and your authority has faded."

So even if they hear you, even if they understand that you want quiet at a certain time, they don't believe anything negative will happen if they ignore your request. If they come to you with this behavior, it's likely that it has just been part of their conditioning.

"Because so many teachers struggle with this problem," Linsin explains, "many after a while kind of throw up their hands and just decide they're going to talk over students, they're going to do their best to keep things as quiet as possible during independent work time, so the students come to you (from) classrooms where the teacher asked them to be quiet but doesn't really follow up on it."

Reason 2: They don't understand what "no talking" means.

This one is going to be harder for teachers to believe, but bear with us here: "No talking" may not mean exactly the same thing in different contexts, and if your students are talking more than you want them to, there's a good chance you're working with different definitions.

"When they come to your classroom," Linsin explains, "and they've had teacher after teacher say the same thing, yet continue to allow it to happen in the classroom, then students think, Well, he or she just means we need to kind of keep our voices down, or We're mostly quiet, but if we have important things to say to a neighbor, then we're allowed to do that. And so they're confused as to what the definition of 'quiet' really is."

In many cases, Linsin notes, the problem is likely being caused by a combination of both of these reasons. But notice that neither reason is a blanket statement about students being disrespectful. This is why I like Linsin's approach: He puts control for classroom management in the teacher's hands, rather than placing blame on the student. That's not to say that you won't have disrespectful students, but shifting the blame to them means you have no power over the situation. Blaming the students simply isn't a useful way to address the problem.

"When students are not doing something that you've previously taught them how to do," Linsin says, "whether it's talking or entering the classroom, and they don't do it well, even though the students are responsible for their behavior, when most of the class is not doing what you ask, it's on you. It's about you. There's some disconnect there, there's something they're not understanding."

What You Should Be Able to Expect

Some teachers might wonder whether it's reasonable to expect students to be quiet at all, especially if they are younger. Linsin says yes without hesitation. "You should absolutely expect, no matter where you're teaching or what grade level, that the students are able to sit quietly while you're giving instruction or directions, and they should be able to sit quietly and work during independent work times."

Should there also be times when talking is permitted? "Absolutely," Linsin says. "It's really important to give students an opportunity to express themselves, to get up and move around, to work in groups and pairs and discuss. Classrooms should be vibrant and interesting, exciting places, and so I'm all for getting students up and moving and having fun. Those things just make classroom management stronger, and they free you to ask anything of your students, including silence."

The Solution

If you came here looking for a few tricks to end excessive talking, the bad news is that you won't find anything clever or earth-shattering. The good news is that the solution is pretty simple, and it requires no behavior charts, tokens, or Jolly Ranchers.

Step 1: Define expectations in explicit detail.

"The fix," Linsin says, "is to define, in detail, exactly what you want during independent work time and when you're teaching a directed lesson."

If you believe you've already done this, and it hasn't worked, the issue is probably lack of detail in your explanation. Linsin says you need to go far deeper than what most teachers probably do.

"So you may bring a desk or a table up in front of your classroom, sit down, and pretend to be a student. You may have other students acting as models also. Show students how you expect them to behave while you're giving instruction, and then how you expect them to behave when they're doing independent work."

"It's also important to include what not to do," he adds. "So you'll model those exact behaviors that you're seeing, those exact talking behaviors, whether it's side-talking or standing up and whispering to someone, or whatever your classroom looks like. Even if it's chaotic, whatever that chaos looks like exactly, you want the students to be able to see themselves in your modeling and what isn't okay."

Step 2: Have students practice.

Once you've modeled the desired behavior, have students practice it, just like you'd have them practice any skill you're teaching.

Linsin gives an example of what this might look like. You'd start by saying, "'I'm going to give you 60 seconds, and I want you to show me what good listening looks like, and no talking. So let's pretend I'm standing and giving you a lesson. I want to know what that looks like.' And then you'll stand and maybe you'll cross your arms and put your hand under your chin, and you'll watch them."

Keep this instruction light, he says. Keep it fun. "You'll stare at them and you'll walk around the room, and you'll watch one of them, and you'll nod your head and say, 'Mmhmm, okay, that looks good. Mmhmm. Chin up a little higher!' It's okay to have fun with it. None of this is a punishment. It's just good teaching. Whether you're teaching how to find a topic sentence or how you want your students to line up before recess, it's all teaching. So it's okay to have fun with it. It's okay for them to laugh at some of the things you say or to see themselves in the behaviors, which they love, by the way, especially if you exaggerate it and have some fun with it."

The Sign Strategy: Students are often put in an awkward position when a classmate tries to talk to them during these quiet times. They want to follow your guidelines, but they also don't want to be rude to a classmate. Agree on some kind of physical sign they can give each other at these times. "It can be a scissors or peace sign or whatever's culturally acceptable wherever you teach. And all they do is just hold the sign up, and the sign means, 'I'm really sorry, but I have to listen to the lesson,' or 'I'm really sorry, but I have to do my work.' And you can tell them that if they give the sign and that student who sees the sign turns and gets back to work, you will not enforce a consequence, because they're showing responsible behavior."

Step 3: Teach the consequences.

"Walk them through the exact steps that would happen if they turn and talk to a neighbor, for example," Linsin says. "The exact steps a misbehaving student would take from your initial warning to contacting parents or whatever your consequences look like."

In order to do this, you have to know what your consequences are. Spend some time making sure you're clear on that. If you need help, read our post on creating a classroom management plan.

Step 4: Do it for real.

Once students have been taught your expectations and have practiced exactly what they look like, it's time to apply it in a real lesson. "Have a directed lesson ready," Linsin advises, "to have them prove to you they can do it in practice."

If you've taught the expectations in detail, students should do a good job, but if they don't, you need to enforce your consequences exactly as you described. "You almost hope during that first wonderful lesson, that one student maybe turns, and so the class can see that you're holding them accountable."

If enforcing your consequences is difficult for you-and for many teachers, it will be-read Linsin's post on why teachers struggle to consistently enforce consequences.

Step 5: Continue to define expectations in small chunks.

This last step is crucial. From this point forward, keep telling students what is expected of them before every switch in classroom activity. When you are about to do group work, let students know that talking within the group is okay. If you then switch to independent work, remind them that absolute quiet will be expected. Briefly describe what that will look like, even spelling out what not to do if that fits the activity.

Taking time to do this might seem unnecessary, but being clear ahead of time will prevent problems. "Anytime you can give a reminder before misbehavior," Linsin says, "it's a good thing. Anytime you give a reminder after you see misbehavior, it's a bad thing. You should be holding students accountable, but be preemptive whenever you can."

Learn More from Michael Linsin
The Happy Teacher Habits
(Links to this book are Amazon Affiliate links, which means I get a small commission on purchases you make through my links at no additional cost to you.)

There's more where this came from.
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What they don't teach us in education courses is just how freaking much students talk, and how hard it can be to quiet them down. Help is on the way.

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New Teachers: Fundamentals of Classroom Management

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Resources for developing routines, fostering classroom community, managing disruptions, and building student relationships.

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Discover kernels-simple, quick, and reliable ways to deal with behavior challenges.

©Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images

Do unresolved behavior issues keep you awake at night thinking about what strategies might enhance responsible decision making and increase academic learning time? It's natural to feel personally and professionally challenged-as I have, too many times to count.

The good news is that there are some research-based strategies called kernels that you can add to your classroom management toolkit.

What Are Kernels?

In a 2008 paper published in Clinical Child and Family Psychology, Dennis Embry and Anthony Biglan describe kernels as "fundamental units of behavioral influence"-bite-size strategies that are validated by mountains of empirical evidence and teacher experience. (Barry Parsonson's " Evidence-Based Classroom Behavior Management Strategies " offers another deep dive into the research.)

Embry and Biglan describe how a kernel might help the parent whose child is struggling to get out the door on time for school: "Alone, such a complaint does not merit implementing parenting skills training. However, a simple behavior change strategy, such as the 'Beat the Timer' game ( Adams and Drabman 1995), in which the child receives a reward for completing a behavior before the timer goes off, could solve the problem, and prevent parent-child conflict."

Particularly at the beginning of the year, before you've had a chance to develop deeper relationships with your students, kernels can offer useful approaches to classroom management. Administrators and coaches recommend kernels because implementing them with fidelity is intuitive and observable. They require neither special training nor expensive consultants.

11 Classroom Management Kernels

While veteran teachers may read the annotated list of kernels as common knowledge, their ubiquity is an advantage. You'll often find them embedded in more complex constellations of evidence-based behavioral programs because of their effectiveness in cuing self-awareness, self-regulation, and pro-academic dispositions.

3. Timeouts: Hundreds of studies support the timeout strategy, which is now considered an indispensable component of many evidence-based behavior management systems. Unlike the dunce cap punishment, which intentionally shames and stigmatizes students, a timeout is now used in progressive classrooms to provide an emotional breather in a less socially charged area of the room. It's also a way for students to decompress, reflect on and enhance their self-awareness, and then return to their seats with improved self-regulation.

6. Private Reminders: When partnered with discreet praise, private reminders to students about how to act responsibly increase on-task behaviors. Researchers recommend using short and unemotional reminders.

7. Greetings: It might seem like an insignificant gesture, but greeting students by name and making a positive statement enhances their self-regulation and increases class participation. Example: "Hey, Marcus. How is my brilliant student today?"

An overwhelming number of studies recommend that classroom instructors systematically teach self-regulation, relationship management, and responsible decision making at the beginning of the school year, so implement these kernels soon.

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Discover kernels-simple, quick, and reliable ways to deal with behavior challenges.

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Negative attention doesn’t help difficult students change their ways, but teachers can alter classroom dynamics through this exercise.

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You may not be of much help when it comes to sharpening your son's calculus skills. But during my 35-plus years of clinical practice it's become clear to me that parents can play a huge role in helping their children to develop a critical life skill: the ability to take notice of their thoughts, to step back and view the bigger picture, and to decide how to act based on that more realistic perspective.

Taking heed of an alarmist or pessimistic inner voice is a universal experience. It has survival value; it often protects people from danger. And it's often true that a worrying thought can act as a motivating force - to study, for example.

Still, the insecurities that adolescents feel as they undergo the multiple transitions necessary in growing up make them especially vulnerable to believing the worst. This tendency can lead to chronic anxiety, depression and anger, and can interfere with relationships and success in school.

Helping children grasp the importance of thinking more realistically may help protect them later when they make the huge transition to college. A 2016 survey by the American College Health Association of undergraduates at over 50 colleges and universities found that about 38 percent had felt so depressed at some time during the previous year that it was tough to function. Some 60 percent had experienced an episode of debilitating anxiety.

The power of thoughts to affect feelings and behavior is a foundational principle of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is the form of therapy that I practice. CBT teaches people how to recognize faulty negative self-talk, to notice how it makes them feel and act, and to challenge it. Parents can practice this skill themselves, and act as models as they guide their kids to question a thought by looking at the evidence for and against it.

If your child often seems withdrawn, sad or angry, you may be able to identify a problematic thinking pattern by listening closely. Here are four key styles of negative self-talk to listen for:

Catastrophizing. One common thought habit is the tendency to jump to the worst-case scenario ("What if I fail the test? I'm never going to get into college!") Scanning constantly for disaster ahead acts as a huge contributor to anxiety. And catastrophizing often leads teens to avoid people or become reluctant to try new things.

Zooming in on the negative. Ruminating on a disappointment without taking into account the many positive and neutral aspects of one's experience is often associated with sadness and depression. A missed soccer goal might overshadow everything else that happens one day - the lunch with friends, the good grade on a test, the hilarious TV show - and consume your high-schooler for days.

It's not fair! Interpreting every letdown as a grave injustice - the "it's not fair!" habit - often underlies teens' anger and can harm friendships and family relationships.

I can't! Reacting habitually to difficult situations or to new opportunities with "I can't," rather than "I can try," leads to helplessness. Changing the thought to "I can try!" encourages problem-solving and a willingness to be proactive, to take positive action - both keys to being successful and resilient.

For parents, the idea is not to squelch the negative thought. Research has found that attempted "thought stopping" can actually make the idea stickier. Rather, you want your child to face the thought, thoroughly examine it and replace it with a more realistic and helpful perspective.

Questions that you might pose to carefully weigh the evidence include: "You had a group of friends at your old school and at camp - realistically, what are the chances you can't make friends now? What actions can you take to reach out? What would you say to somebody else who worries about this?"

A helpful replacement thought might be: "It probably will take a few weeks to get to know people, but I've made friends before and there are things I can try. I can sign up for the photography or robotics club and meet people that way."

More realistic and balanced thinking leads to positive action, which, in turn, tends to bolster confidence, enhance self-esteem and result in greater happiness.

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For Teens Knee-Deep In Negativity, Reframing Thoughts Can Help

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You may not be of much help when it comes to sharpening your son's calculus skills. But during my 35-plus years of clinical practice it's become clear to me that parents can play a huge role in helping their children to develop a critical life skill: the ability to take notice of their thoughts, to step back and view the bigger picture, and to decide how to act based on that more realistic perspective.

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How To Support Students That Never Come To School
by TeachThought Staff

No matter how many opportunities there are for innovation in education, in any form this much is true: School can't work if students don't attend.

Student attendance can be an issue at any grade level, whether because of health issues or family circumstances and living situation. As students age, more 'traditional' issues like truancy can become a factor. The reason for the attendance problem has everything to do with both how you address it in hopes of solving it, and how you mitigate the impact of non-attendance in the meantime. For example, a high-achieving 3rd grader that misses extended time because of an illness would require a completely different approach than a 10th grader that can barely read and thinks school is a waste of time.

So what can you do to help students in both cases-or dozens of others, each with their own subtle distinctions that make them a challenge? A personalized approach that treats every case differently is likely required; standardized policies allow unique cases to fall through the cracks.This, however, is nearly impossible for an individual teacher acting alone. But with a variety of approaches that help create a system of support for that child, you just might be able to make it work.

Below are 15 such approaches, and as implied above, not all will work for every student. The idea is to brainstorm possibilities, collaborate with others, and do the best you can.
How To Support Students That Never Come To School 1. Communicate & collaborate

Because that's all you can do.
2. 'If nothing else' lesson & unit design
After communication-where you find out what's happening and speak to the family to do your best to clarify what's happening (or not happening) that's impacting the student's attendance, collaboration is next: Working with parents, extended family, other teachers in your building, administrators, or even relevant local resources and agencies like the YMCA, city organizations, and more.

This approach reconfigures the curriculum, lessons, and other learning experiences with the understanding that the student will not be mastering all content, exposed to every lesson, or otherwise 'learn everything.'

It doesn't seek to remove content or skills from the student's planned learning, but rather take the reverse approach: If this student learns nothing else this year, what do we want to make sure they come away from the school year with in terms of concepts, understandings, skills, and competencies?
3. Blended learning
See also Applying The 40/40/40 Rule In Your Classroom.

This approach requires that the student come to school sometimes, but assuming they do, you plan from the beginning with a hybrid model in mind knowing that the learning will be split between eLearning and face-to-face instruction.
4. Backward grading
See 6 Types Of Blended Learning.
5. Flipped Learning
This an idea we love at TeachThought-at least on paper. You can read about backward grading, but the idea is additive points where students don't lose points and letter grades for what they miss, but rather receive credit for what they don't miss.

A form of blended learning, a flipped classroom can be a good fit for students that don't miss school often. (It wouldn't work for students absent more often because the core tenet of the flipped classroom-for students to be exposed to new content at home and practice at school with guidance after-would be missing the critical 'guided practice' piece.)
6. Gamified learning
See The Definition Of The Flipped Classroom.

Similar to backward grading and possible to work in concert with the 'If nothing else...' prioritization of content, gamification allows for students to be given points and badges for otherwise minor tasks, specific challenges to complete, levels to finish before moving on (think Mastery Learning), and so on.
7. Pass/Fail grading
You can also read more about what gamification in the classroom allows.
8. Home visits
If a student doesn't participate in the 'system' of learning as it was designed, most of the pieces will need to be re-designed in response, and grading is no different. Like backward grading, pass/fail can be a student-friendly alternative to a report card full of Ds and Fs. It simplifies achievement-you either 'made it,' or you didn't.
9. Learning playlists
This is critical for the first approach, 'Communicate & Collaborate.' You may have one version in your head as to why the student doesn't come to school, and see a completely different version when you visit the student at home. (And this assumes that the student has a home-homelessness can, obviously, be a big part of why they aren't showing up at school, as can other challenging living circumstances.)
10. Standards-Based Grading
This approach sees students receiving a 'playlist' of activities that they can self-direct themselves through. Students can either be asked to complete the list (assuming they can), or allowed to pick and choose (sounds iffy, but they're not going to learn everything; learning playlists can be designed with the 'If nothing else...' approach in mind).
11. Project-Based Learning
This can be coupled with other approaches to ensure that the student is graded (pass/fail, for example) based entirely on their mastery of an academic standard rather than on participation in class, completed assignments, and so on.

Projects are more tolerant of hit-and-miss/out of sequence learning than traditional units that depend on and ultimately assess and very specific set of standards.
12. Great books!
You can check out TeachThought Project-Based Learning content for resources, ideas, and more.

Imagine a student who won't be able to participate in blended learning, complete learning playlists, or even attend often enough for a modified grading system to work.What if they only thing they did was read life-changing and extraordinary books, and that's it?
13. Mastery learning
Could be worse, right?

Like 'Standards-based grading' and overlapping with Gamification, Mastery Learning focuses on mastery of skills and concepts, allowing students to work at whatever pace and sequence has its benefits, whether they need longer to demonstrate mastery, an alternative assessment form, or fly through the content, moving faster than they might have in a traditional classroom.
14. Competency-Based Learning
You can read a formal definition of Mastery Learning.
15. Empowered role in the classroom
Like Mastery Learning, Competency-Based Learning focuses on mastery while further narrowing learning to specific and demonstratable competencies.
How To Support Students That Never Come To School
For the student who doesn't attend because of 'motivation,' creating a significant and authentic need for them to be in the classroom beyond their own education can be motivating.

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How To Support Students That Never Come To School -

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How To Support Students That Never Come To School by TeachThought Staff No matter how many opportunities there are for innovation in education, in any form this much is true: School can't work if students don't attend. Student attendance can be an issue at any grade level, whether because of health issues or family circumstances ...

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Whether you've landed your first teaching job, you've been in the classroom a few years, or you're a seasoned veteran, certain classroom management issues rear their ugly heads every year. In this post, read about effective ways to address five of the most common classroom management issues for secondary teachers. Welcome to ELA Today, a monthly chat where the authors of Reading and Writing Haven and Language Arts Classroom cover different ways of approaching common decisions in the ELA classroom.
Recently, I wrote about three different late work options for use in secondary classrooms. However, when it comes to teaching at the middle or high school level, a handful of additional issues are just as pressing. Teachers need to be confident in their classroom rules and procedures, and students and parents need to be familiar with them on day one in order for the machine to operate smoothly.

Problem:

Beginning of class procedures are essential. Without a consistent routine and enforced expectations, students won't be in their seats when the bell rings, and they might grow to expect at least two minutes of socializing time at the beginning of every class period. The way we begin class sets the tone for the entire period. How can this issue be addressed?

Solution:

At the beginning of the year, make it crystal clear that you expect them to not only be seated, but also working on the bell ringer for the day when the bell rings. In my class, it's daily independent reading time. Every period, my students know that they need to have their books open and already be reading them when the bell sounds. To encourage this behavior, I model it. I sit on my chair at the front of the room, greet students as they enter, and let them observe me reading my novel. Sometimes I take my novel to the door and read as students enter, a visual reminder of what they should be doing immediately.

As an extra incentive, I also give students a one-point participation grade each day. Either they are engaged in the bell ringer activity without being reminded, or they're not. You can easily track these points. During the last two minutes of my daily independent reading, I quickly use a checklist to record everyone who earned a point for the day. One point means they did, no points means they didn't, and 1/2 a point means they forgot their book in their locker, didn't start reading immediately when the bell rang but began without being reminded, and etcetera (There are always exceptions!).

Problem:

When students leave our class every single day, even if it's just for five minutes at a time, they are missing out on valuable instruction and learning experiences. Think about it. Five minutes a day times 180 days...that's 900 minutes of class! Of course, medical issues arise, and I'm more than willing to accommodate for students who have legitimate reasons to use the bathroom on a regular basis, but those situations are few and far between.

Solution:

Each nine weeks, I give my students five restroom passes. I don't print them off. I just explain that they have five times during that nine weeks that they can miss my class to tinkle without penalty. In order to document their usage of the passes, I have a chart on a clipboard by the door. The chart has six columns: one with students' names in alphabetical order and five that are each titled "Pass 1," "Pass 2, " and so on. Each time a student uses the bathroom, they write the date next to their name on the chart. This way, they don't lose the passes, and there is a visible reminder of how many times they have gone.

I would never tell a student they can't go to the bathroom. It's illegal. But, this approach does minimize the number of times students leave during my class. It's a fact. If you have no restroom policy whatsoever, high school students figure that out, and they purposely plan their bathroom break for your period. There's no consequence, and they can maximize their socializing in the hallway without rushing to go between classes.

In the rare case that a student needs to use the restroom more than those five times, I call their parents and discuss the issue with them. I explain that I would like their child to spend five extra minutes with me on the day after they use the bathroom (before school, after school, during lunch - parents' choice) because it's a recurring issue so that I can catch them up on what they have missed. It usually only takes one of these discussions to remedy the issue.

Problem:

When students talk during your direct instruction, it's a disruption, and it's disrespectful. For that reason, this is often the issue that frustrates educators the most. It's nearly impossible to prevent students from talking, but there are some strategies that work more effectively than others when addressing the dilemma.

Solutions:

1. Make eye contact. It's harder for a student to continue talking at an inopportune time if they know you are onto them.

2. Invite them into the lesson. When one of my students doesn't respond to the eye contact method, I use their name, and ask them a purposeful question. "Luke, have you written a paper like this before? Can you tell me what your favorite or least favorite part was?" I don't try to trick them or embarrass them by asking a question I know they can't answer. I just subtly let them know where I want their attention.

3. Proximity. So maybe the talking continues even after eye contact and invitation to the discussion. Next, I try proximity. If I'm standing by a student while I'm teaching, they have to be intentionally and blatantly disrespectful in order to continue their disruptive behavior.

4. Call parents or send to office. On a rare occasion (Friday the 13th, a blue moon, a pig flies, etcetera), I will encounter a student who doesn't seem phased by any of my usual protocol. If I know a student is purposefully defying my number one and only classroom rule (Be respectful), I call their parents that day to discuss the issue. If the problem is truly distracting, and other students are not able to learn because of the noise, I ask the student to wait for me in the hallway until I have time to speak with them one-on-one, or I send the student on a pass to the dean's office. Rarely is this the case.

Consider: You may find it beneficial to lessen the amount of time you are spending on direct instruction. If you find you are having repeated issues during times when you are "on the stage," try allowing students more control with additional student-centered work time. Also, sometimes offering students different choices of what they can work on during lectures helps to engage more learners.

Problem:

The last thing you want to do at the beginning of class is have a line of five students waiting to collect absent work as they watch you running around, trying to find stacks that are missing or buried, or realizing you ran out of copies of the worksheet they need. All this while the rest of the class sits and socializes.

Solution:

I've tried many different options for handling absent work. Ultimately, it comes down to your organizational strengths and tendencies as a teacher. Two approaches have been the most successful for me.

1. Digital: If you're riding the digital wave, it's easy to organize assignments on your platform. It's also simple to quickly make notes about what you do in class each day. If you can keep up with updating your lesson plans and uploading assignments, all you really need to tell students is that everything they need is on Google Classroom, or Haiku, or Blackboard - whatever system you use.

2. Traditional: Some students and/or parents don't have access to technology at home or simply prefer paper copies. With this approach, students are assigned an accountability partner at the beginning of the year. If a student's partner is absent, he or she is supposed to collect an extra assignment for that person. If you've ever tried this method, you know it doesn't always work. Maybe both partners are absent, or maybe one forgets. So why do I do this? Simply assigning these accountability partners prioritizes absent work in my mind. Some students will remember to collect their partner's homework. They will remind me they need an extra paper, which reminds myself to make sure I have extras set aside for all absent students for that period. I have accountability partners write the missing person's name on their papers, paperclip them together, and put them in a folder for that hour: 1st hour, 2nd hour, etcetera. When students ask for their late work, I simply get it out of the folder and hand it to them.

Problem:

Secondary teachers witness a lot of drama. Fights, breakups, gossiping, family tension - teenagers have difficulty focusing in class because of issues like these. Often, they ask to go see their counselor, the principal, or a favorite teacher when they are upset. Other times, they ask to call their parents or go see the nurse. I also frequently have students ask to return a book to the library during English class. Whatever the request, students are always wanting to see support staff during class time.

Solution:

As educators, we have to make our expectations clear at the beginning of the year (as with any rule). I tell my students the best time to visit support staff is before school, during study hall, or after school. Still, they ask. When they do, I encourage them to wait until a more opportune time. "Let's see if we can wait until the end of class." or "I'd be happy to write you a pass to see your counselor during your study hall. Does that work?" If they persist, I let them go. It's not a battle worth fighting. However, teachers should definitely call parents if the scenario becomes routine or chronic.

These solutions have given me peace of mind and provided a smoothly run classroom for years. Take these ideas and run with them, tweak them to fit your circumstances, or toss them entirely. I often find that my classroom management issues reduce significantly when I've spent time building relationships with students.
Hop on over to Language Arts Classroom to read about a different intentional approach for each of these five common secondary classroom management issues. I do this, and she does that.
What issues are the most pressing in your classroom? Tell us about your classroom management predicaments and solutions in the comments.

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5 Common Classroom Management Issues in High School - Reading and Writing Haven

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Whether you've landed your first teaching job, you've been in the classroom a few years, or you're a seasoned veteran, certain classroom management issues rear their ugly heads every year. In this post, read about effective ways to address five of the most common classroom management issues for secondary teachers.

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Great Genius Hour and 20% Time resources including grade level success stories, why you would want to do Genius hour, how 20% time works, how to get started, how to work through issues, and how to communicate with parents about the projects.

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The Power of Student Ownership in Developing Self-Direction and Student Agency

This post is loosely based on a chapter from my latest book . Thank you to anyone who has left a review on Amazon and spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat. It's been so cool to watch people respond to it.

Not long ago, you could follow a formula. Work hard, study hard, go to college, and climb the corporate ladder.

It wasn't about choice or passion or interests. It was about compliance. It was about putting in your time so that you could make it in the world. And it worked - not for everybody and not all the time - but for enough people that society embraced it.

We live in an era where robotics and artificial intelligence will replace many of our current jobs. Global connectivity will continue to allow companies to outsource labor to other countries.

The corporate ladder is gone and in its place, is a complex maze.

Our current students will enter a workforce where instability is the new normal and where they will have to be self-directed, original, and creative in order to navigate this maze.

This is a terrifying reality.

And yet . . .

There is a hidden opportunity in all of it. True, the rules of have changed. But that also means students can rewrite the rules.

We often hear that our current students will work in jobs that don't exist right now. But here's another reality: our current students will be the ones who create those jobs.

Not every student will create the next Google or Pixar or Lyft. Some students will be engineers or artists or accountants. Some will work in technology, others in traditional corporate spaces and still others in social or civic spaces. But no matter how diverse their industries will be, our students will all someday face a common reality.

Every single one of them will need to think like an entrepreneur in order to thrive in a changing world. They may not invent a company but they will have to invent and reinvent their jobs in order to stay relevant. In other words, they'll need to be nimble and adaptive.

For this reason, I've spent the last few years interviewing entrepreneurs in a wide range of industries. The two questions I've asked each time has been, "What do you wish you had learned in school?" and "What are the required skills to thrive as an entrepreneur?"

Over time, I've come to believe that it's less about a set of transferable skills and more about a mindset. This is why I've started asking, "What does it mean to think like an entrepreneur?"

The most common answer is, "you have to be a self-starter."

In other words, entrepreneurs stand out because they don't wait their turn. They don't wait for an opportunity. They don't hope to be called on. They don't expect an instruction manual. They are self-starters who turn an idea into a reality into a business. They write their own rules.

But they aren't a special breed of people. In fact, as Adam Grant points out, they are just as scared as you and me. But (and this is key), they are more scared of what will happen if they don't pursue an idea than if they fail.
Students need to be self-starters.
It doesn't end there. Starting something is one thing. Many great ideas fizzle out within a few months when people lose interest.

There's an often overlooked gritty and difficult side to entrepreneurship that shows up every time you hear people use the phrase "It's a grind." They are usually referring to the hard work of being a self-manager. If being a self-starter is all about sparking innovation in the midst of chaos, self-management is all about knowing how to stick to deadlines and routines.
Students need to be self-managers
We often use the expression "self-directed learners" to describe a similar mindset. That phrase encompasses being both a self-starter and a self-manager.

With that in mind, here are seven ways to help students think like entrepreneurs.

Sometimes creative work requires structure. Students often struggle with a completely open process. They rush into creating something new without thinking about planning or purpose and then they're disappointed with the results. They have a tough time getting started.

Structure isn't a bad thing if it promotes student ownership. Sometimes you need a framework for your creative work or a road map to help you along the way. You still get to make the decisions but the structure actually amplifies the creative work. This is why I'm passionate about design thinking. It's a structure that empowers, rather than limits, student ownership.

Design thinking is a flexible framework designed to get the most out of the creative process. It's used in a diverse range of industries: in the corporate world, in social and civic spaces, and in higher education. The structure enhances rather than inhibits student voice and choice. When students engage in design thinking, they own the entire creative process.

Design thinking works within the standards in every subject. It's a flexible approach that you can use with limited resources. It isn't something new that you add to your crowded schedule. Instead, it's an innovative approach to the work you are already doing - a process designed specifically to boost creativity and bring out the maker in every student.

Students will take initiative when something matters to them. This sounds simple, but it's actually a challenge. It requires teachers to tap into students' interests and passions. It involves making the subject accessible enough that students feel that they can take charge. It's that magical thing that happens when students get so excited about an idea they learn in your class that they pursue it on their own at home.

Carve out time in your schedule where students can self-start on their own learning. It might be an inquiry-driven Wonder Day or it might be a longer Genius Hour / 20% Time Project. It might involve students blogging, where they choose the genre, the topic, and the format.

But this also needs to be paired with the opportunity to engage in project management. This begins with goal-setting. With a strong sense of what they are doing and where they are going, students begin to set goals. These might be learning goals or project goals. They then monitor their progress and reflect often on how they are doing and what they need to do next in order to improve.

Sometimes students have an idea of something they want to learn but they lack the tools, resources, or materials to make it happen. But when teachers provide the tools, students are able to take the initiative and build something, learn something, or pursue something that had previously been unimaginable.

Students need to feel the freedom to select the tools on their own. They can select the resources and materials while also deciding on the processing that will work best for them. So, when doing research, they might use notecards or a spreadsheet. When managing their project, they might keep their tasks on a shared document or on a shared calendar. But in these moments, they move from using strategies because the teacher told them to do it and toward choosing strategies because it helps them accomplish their goals.

Fear is the biggest barrier to self-starting. It might be the fear of failure, the fear of not doing it the right way, or the fear that others might not like your work. So, students end up having an idea of something they want to learn, but they never pursue it. As a teacher, you can battle this by encouraging creative risk-taking.

Creative risk-taking means students will experience some level of failure. There will be mistakes. Things won't work properly. Students can have the best-developed plans in the world, but ultimately life will happen. But then the internet goes down for a day. A group member gets sick for two days. You have a fire drill and then an unplanned assembly. A few students hit a creative block and suddenly feel stuck.

In these moments, students will need to solve problems and deal with issues as they arise. Things will break. Plans will change. This is the frustrating side of student-centered learning. It's messier than a tidy worksheet. And yet, when students are able to tackle these challenges, they grow into problem-solvers and critical thinkers.

Show your students how you are self-starting in your own life. If you're writing a novel, tell your students about it and share your fears and struggles as well. Allow them to see that self-starters aren't people with an immense ego or unwavering self-confidence. Let them inside of your head and see how self-starters not only look for opportunities but also create them.

And yet, self-starting without self-managing will lead to a lack of follow-through. This is your chance to model the project management process. Here you take a larger task and break it down into sub-tasks and eventually deadlines. You think realistically about what is needed in terms of time, resources, and concrete actions. I've tried using project management framework and handouts but eventually, I realized that each student had a different style of managing details. The real power is in learning the thinking process. It requires students to see the big picture, the details, and the complex relationship between the two.

Point out when you see students taking charge and self-starting their own learning. It might be something as small as choosing their own enrichment activity when they finish early or finding some geeky interest and running with it.

But when you see those moments of self-direction, celebrate it. Those little habits lead to that self-starting mindset.

Self-starters aren't lone rangers. They are often connected to peers and mentors who help them navigate the process. The same is true of students. At an older age, this might mean a shadowing opportunity or the introduction of a guest speaker. At a younger age, it might mean helping parents or guardians find venues where students can pursue these interests on their own.

This is part of why we included the "Launch to the world" piece of the LAUNCH Cycle. If we want students to think like entrepreneurs, we need them to know what it means to design things for a real audience.

If we want students to think like entrepreneurs, they need to make things. You can't learn this type of self-direction and self-management with packets of worksheets. If we want students to develop this mindset, they need to work on projects.

Real projects.

The kinds of projects that matter to them. The kind where they are in the driver's seat. And that's why students need to own the creative process.

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Seven Ways to Help Students Embrace an Entrepreneurial Mindset

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The Power of Student Ownership in Developing Self-Direction and Student Agency This post is loosely based on a chapter from my latest book . Thank you to anyone who has left a review on Amazon and spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat. It's been so cool to watch people respond to it.

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As students work to define the problem they want to investigate, Crevier's only requirement is that it connect to accounting and that it be something the student could feasibly accomplish within the 10-week time frame he has allotted. He usually gives them this project several weeks into the second semester, and he allocates a 50-minute period every Wednesday to in-class work.

Crevier has designed some tools to help students brainstorm ideas and to help them realistically scope a project that will fit into the 10-week schedule. He mostly does this by holding individual conversations with students about the problem they want to tackle, helping them to shape it, make it more specific, and at times narrow the scope. Before they begin researching, he also makes them backwards-plan the 10-week cycle starting from a clearly defined end product. They have to map out what must happen each class period before that end goal, with deliverables for each day of work. If they reach the first class period and there's clearly too much work left over, they have to rethink their project.

"That's my favorite skill that they learn because I know they walk out of here with the ability to create, schedule and manage their own projects," Crevier said. And, often students haven't had many opportunities to practice this type of intentional planning because the teacher has done this work ahead of time, defining deadlines, deliverables and rubrics. One of Crevier's favorite things about 20 percent time is that students do that work.
STAYING ORGANIZED
Crevier quickly learned that even when students have clearly defined problems and end products in mind, it's easy to get off track when searching for digital resources. He helps students stay on task with a project tracker, a simple Google spreadsheet he developed.

Students write the objective for the day in the first box, and then at three times during the class period a timer goes off, telling students to fill in the next box with what they accomplished during that third of the period. Crevier likes to link this system to the business world through the idea of "billable hours." At the end of class, there's a box for "pre-work" needed to successfully stay on schedule for the next class period. That "pre-work" is homework before the next Wednesday in-class work period.

He has also built in reflection after each 20 percent work period with a Google Form he calls the " 3 N's." Students have to answer three simple questions:

What do you need from me (the teacher)?

What's your newest knowledge?

What would you never do again?

Crevier has found that requiring regular reflection as part of the process helps students recognize the process skills they are learning. Crevier values the process as much as the product, but wants students to see their growth along the way as well.

Crevier has also found that while students research things online all the time, they don't always have good systems to stay organized for a long project that may morph along the way. To help scaffold the process, he gives students a Google Doc for research, shows them how to use the "Explore" function, and demonstrates how Google will automatically generate footnotes for them. This saves kids a lot of time going back to find resources when compiling their bibliographies.
ASSESSMENT
One of the goals of "Genius Hour" projects is to give students more independence in their learning. Crevier believes that should extend to assessment or else the whole endeavor rings false. So, he works with students to co-generate the grading rubric depending on the essential deliverables of their project. Crevier uses RubiStar to create these rubrics, although there are other digital rubric generators that work as well.

"My main focus through all of it is that it's about the journey," Crevier said. "They may end in a totally different place than they said they would." That's why half of students' final grades on the project comes from the process -- the reflections, problem-solving and revelations that come up along the way. Crevier has found that if the process isn't the number one target, then the content never gets as deep as he'd like.

Although students push back against this assignment at first, finding it confusing and challenging compared to the direct instruction they're used to receiving in Crevier's class, he has found that with scaffolding they do get better at managing their time, staying on task, and ultimately creating interesting solutions and products to real problems.

One of his students was undocumented and found the college application and scholarship process daunting because of her legal status. Her passion project was to create a web resource for other students in a similar situation, complete with scholarship resources, calculations for the cost of private school loans, and breakdowns on the benefits of spending the first few years of college at a less expensive community college.

Crevier has no doubt that the class time he has carved out for these projects is well spent and he encourages hesitant educators to dive in, even if letting go of control is scary at first.

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Tips And Tricks To Keep Kids On Track During Genius Hour Projects

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As students work to define the problem they want to investigate, Crevier's only requirement is that it connect to accounting and that it be something the student could feasibly accomplish within the 10-week time frame he has allotted. He usually gives them this project several weeks into the second semester, and he allocates a 50-minute period every Wednesday to in-class work.

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Laura  Randazzo – Solutions for the Secondary Classroom

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This post is the last of an occasional series documenting my entry into project-based learning. This semester, my students participated in 20Time, a 12-week experience where they chose a worthwhile project to complete (somewhat) on their own using 20 percent of our class time. You can read more about the path that led to this project here.
Now that the year is done and I've enjoyed some hammock time, it's time to reflect on this 20Time adventure.

When the student speeches were finished in late May, I was 90 percent certain I wanted to give this pilot project permanent status in the curriculum. After talking candidly with different groups of students about their experiences in our last few weeks of school, I'm now 100 percent certain that this project will be a spring semester fixture in my classroom.

My 20Time plans were far from perfect (I'll chat about some alterations for next year below), but the overall project was definitely worthy of the time it gobbled. First, though, if you'll indulge me, I want to share three of my students' 170 projects (Want more? Here's a list of 50 other unique projects my students tackled.):

1. Balm Buddy is the creation of T.T., a student who sketched, computer-drafted, and ultimately built 32 pocket-sized lip balm keychain holders using our engineering department's 3D printer. T.T. used online software to draft the model and then sweet-talked our engineering teacher into letting him use the lab after school. A few sheets of plastic later and T.T. had built a working prototype of an invention that could be the Next Big Thing in keyring accessories. (The red is nice, but imagine it as a monkey or koala - cute, right?) T.T. also wrote a business plan and researched patent laws as part of his project.

2. S.G. changed from YouTube content consumer to content creator with the successful launch of her own YouTube channel, Sashagreenbean. In 12 weeks, she posted nine videos - a productivity level many adult vloggers would struggle to match. S.G. is hooked on the medium and plans to continue building her channel and subscriber base this summer and beyond. My favorite is her Mother's Day post from early May - it's such a sweet treat and features many of my (adorable!) students:

3. Finally, B.B. dazzled the class with a built-from-scratch RC truck that can race up to 40 mph. Once he popped off the shell, he became a surgeon, deftly explaining the inner spaghetti bowl of wires and connectors. He also designed a single-sheet set of directions in "kid talk," so middle-schoolers could follow his steps. Finally, he closed his speech with a Hollywood-style video of his truck rounding corners and completing jumps in scenes would rival the latest summer blockbuster.

Several times, I was so impressed with students' project presentations, I sent "attaboy/attagirl" emails on the sly to their parents. Feedback from the homefront was overwhelmingly positive, as parents enjoyed watching their kids lose themselves in their work. Ah, yes, the power of flow. Here is one parent response I received:

Now, not all of the projects were this successful. In weeks 4 and 5, a handful of my kids (thinking back, probably five or six) approached me with requests to switch projects; I refused in the kindest way, reminding them that their struggles were the whole point of this project. Instead of bailing, we brainstormed. Some were able to get back on track, others weren't. In every case, lessons were learned.

When projects failed, it was either because the original plan was too grand in scope (solution: scale back and complete one baby step toward the larger goal) or the student wasn't truly passionate about the project. Several students said they weren't able to spend any out-of-class time on their projects (which is fine; homework was never a requirement), but I would argue that a student who couldn't find any extra time in his life to work on the project wasn't really passionate enough about the selection to begin with.
What the kids had to say:
1. Content creation is hard. My students are consumers, zoning out on YouTube channels, binging on Netflix, trolling through Instagram/Snapchat/Whatnot. Actually creating that content is a whole different thing and many of my students now have a deep appreciation of what it takes to build a blog following or YouTube subscriber list.

2. Distraction-free environments are rare and necessary. Many students said they allowed themselves to be pulled off course by phone notifications or other interruptions, especially when facing the harder parts of their projects. The successful 20Timers learned to turn their phones off or leave them in another room.

3. There's a passion/productivity curve, and it seems to look something like this:

If my students had known that other people were facing similar highs and lows, they told me it would've been a bit easier to ride those first choppy waves to get to the calmer waters of project creation. We didn't collectively discover this curve, though, until we were midway through students' reflection speeches.
Lessons I've learned:
1. If they're doing it, I have to do it, too. Students agreed that the fact that I was doing my own 20Time Project added a ton of value and motivation to their experience. If I'm going to keep using this in my classroom, I'm going to have to keep trying new things. (What'll it be next year? Drawing? Roller derby? Juggling fire?)

2. They will surprise me. Some of my highest academic achievers painfully struggled (which I sort of expected from those Excellent Sheep), while some of the kids with the lowest academic scores just killed it (which I didn't expect at all). In every class, I had at least one moment of wonder when a lower-achieving kid presented a marvel of a project. The takeaway? I need to build more authentic hands-on learning opportunities throughout my entire year, not just for 20Time.
What will I change?
1. Add better accountability. I tried a mid-point check-in with my juniors, but it took me more than three class periods to conference with everyone. Unfortunately, that's time in my calendar I just don't have, especially since I've already carved out three days for Guppy Tank presentations and 12 days for work sessions. So, taking a student's suggestion (thanks, Mackenzie!), I'm going to assign Accountability Teams. At the 4-week and 8-week marks, those teams of four students will be given class time to meet and show teammates what they've been working on, what they've accomplished so far, and what they plan to do with the remaining time. My hope is that seeing what other students are creating will motivate those who are losing steam and the teams can help brainstorm pathways around roadblocks. And, yes, I'm going to assign the teams (at least one high-, medium-, and low-performer per group) rather than allow free-choice groups.

2. Add a Support Our Bloggers day in the computer lab. Many students built blogs or channels, but it's disheartening to labor over a post only to have no audience. A "like" or encouraging comment goes a long way in making a blogger feel like he isn't talking to a wall. Next year, I'll work in a surprise lab day about halfway through the project, posting a list of blogs/vlogs on my class website and an assignment to read/view and comment on at least three classmates' entries. I think this will be a good shot of motivation for that large group of content creators.

3. Celebrate with some sort of end-of-the-project gallery. We were able to glimpse the projects as screenshots during the students' speeches, but everyone really wanted to see/touch the tangible items that were created and/or explore the digital channels/pages. Maybe this will look like a science fair or tradeshow with booths in the multipurpose room? Not sure yet, but I know I want to have some sort of wrap-it-up experience.
The Takeaway:
Why do we go to school? It's not (surprise!) to learn specific poetry terms or mathematical formulas. We're at school learning how to learn - and we should want that learning to continue all our lives. This project took students' nuts-and-bolts skills and provided an opportunity to use those tools in a meaningful way. It's entirely possible that the seeds planted in this spring semester will grow into future passions and, hopefully, careers for my students. We must use the power of our classrooms to foster this kind of growth.

The kids (mostly) loved 20Time, parents unanimously loved it (lots of affirmations and not one complaint email/call - when does that happen?), and I definitely loved it because I learned so much about my students and about myself. That's what I call a win.

Teach on, everyone!

[UPDATE: During my 20Time adventure, fellow teachers in both the real and cyber worlds asked many great questions and requested that I put all of my materials together in one convenient spot. You can now click HERE to access all of my 20Time blog posts and free materials in one grab-and-go location. Hope this packet is helpful!]

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This post is the last of an occasional series documenting my entry into project-based learning. This semester, my students participated in 20Time, a 12-week experience where they chose a worthwhile project to complete (somewhat) on their own using 20 percent of our class time. You can read more about the path that led to this...

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CyArk is an organization building an online library of 3D models of the world's cultural heritage sites. Mount Rushmore is one of the places that CyArk features in their galleries of 3D models. You can find the entire collection of places here.

Applications for Education
In the CyArk lesson plan collection you will find a handful of lesson plans about the mathematics connected to Mount Rushmore. Scroll down to items 17 through 26 to find the lesson plans about Mount Rushmore. In these lesson plans you will find activities for teaching measurement, geometry, and algebra. There are lesson plans available for K-12. Some lessons are as simple as identifying shapes while others are as complex as predicting when two cracks on the surface of Mount Rushmore would intersect over time.

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Geometry at Mount Rushmore - A Math Lesson

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CyArk is an organization building an online library of 3D models of the world's cultural heritage sites. Mount Rushmore is one of the places that CyArk features in their galleries of 3D models. You can find the entire collection of places here.

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Adding interactive elements makes it possible to pack more information into a diagram, chart, or image. You could do this to enhance the references and digital handouts that you give to your students. Likewise, your students can add interactive elements to their diagrams and images deliver more thorough explanations. Here are three ways to create interactive images and diagrams with tools that you're probably already using.

Google Slides has a lot of capabilities that often go overlooked. One of those capabilities is the option to link slides so that viewers don't have to necessarily see them in a chronological sequence. By linking slides you can create an interactive diagram in Google Slides. In this video I demonstrate how to create an interactive diagram in Google Slides. You can try my diagram yourself by viewing the slides here.

PowerPoint can also be used to make interactive diagrams. I made the following video that demonstrates how to make interactive diagrams in PowerPoint.

Google Drawings can be used to create interactive diagrams, but because you only have one frame to work with, it is better suited to making interactive images as I demonstrate in the following video.

Here are the week's most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. 10 Free Apps for Elementary School Math Lessons
2. How to Create an Interactive Diagram in Google Slides
3. 5 Ways to Use Comics in Social Studies Lessons
4. Virtual Tours of Ancient and Modern Greece
5. 300+ Free Economics Lessons, Videos, and Educational Games
6. Loom 2.0 - Create and Edit Screencasts
7. Eight Lessons in Teaching History With Technology
Online Professional Development
There are only two days left to join the 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group. After Monday the group will be closed to new members.

You can join Teaching History With Technology or G Suite for Teachers at any time. Use the code "construction" this weekend to get a discount on registration.

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Three Ways to Create Interactive Images & Diagrams

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Adding interactive elements makes it possible to pack more information into a diagram, chart, or image. You could do this to enhance the references and digital handouts that you give to your students. Likewise, your students can add interactive elements to their diagrams and images deliver more thorough explanations.

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Some students will come up with projects that are too simple with answers that could be easily Googled. We introduced the students to 'High Order Thinking Skills' and built these into the planning forms students complete. Projects need to include elements of synthesis, evaluation, and creativity with the minimum requirement adjusted for individuals.

We provide students with a list of verbs appropriate for the top levels of Bloom's taxonomy and help them use these in framing their topics.
4. Some students design a project that has nothing to do with their passion
A student might have a passion for surfing and decide they are going to write a book about the history of the sport. The problem is they have designed a project where they will need to be a historian, a researcher, a writer and you know they don't enjoy doing any of this. Maybe with the right topic, they will gain a wider interest in these things but most likely they will quickly dream of days at the beach.
5. Some projects are just not possible
It can be hard to say no to a project but some are just not feasible. A classic example is a student who wants to design a better tennis racquet by selecting the right mix of shapes and materials. The problem is that the modern tennis racquet uses high tech composites and even with million-dollar R&D budgets the differences between one design and the next is hard to prove.
6. Time & Scale
Some projects will clearly take longer than you have available, others are simply too large in scale or will rely on the involvement of too many people. Setting manageable goals and working to an achievable timeframe is important. At the same time, you need to ensure that the concerns over time constraints are genuine.

Creating a detailed timeline with estimates of how long each phase will take is beneficial on many levels at this stage. For the students, the conversations around how long the project will take can include some rewarding reflection on how they approach tasks and can assist in their development of an understanding of their learning style.

Some students need time to talk about their project and unpack ideas socially, others need quiet time to think through the steps, some just dive in and fix mistakes and redirect their plans as they go. (See Learning Lessons From Albert Einstein for more ideas here.)
7. Too many changes
One of the challenges for some students has been the ever-changing project. They select one topic, discover they don't like it, or encounter a problem they can't easily solve and change to another topic. A week later and the process repeats. Setting a definite deadline after which there can be no changes is important. In the end, the students work out that they have to make their ideas work.
8. Just enough planning
Over the years we refined the level of planning the students were required to do before commencing on their projects in earnest. The initial version required great detail and length processes for developing focus questions and setting targets.

For some students and some projects, it worked well but for others it got in the way. Eventually, we got to a point where the planning had just enough detail, so we know the students have an understanding of their project and that we can support them along the way. View our simplified planning template
9. Relying on experts and building a team
Many of the projects students have explored over the years fall outside of the expertise of their teachers. I have no idea how to sew for example and have been of equally little help to students who are basing their projects around dance or music.

Across the school, we have found amazing partners with the skills we needed and in most cases, they are keen to spend time with a student who they share a passion with. Building a team of support around the project is key to its ultimate success. Being mindful of the workload within this team is also important.

We have had some colleagues so keen to help that they become overloaded and although they never complained we had to be careful in managing the demands on their time.

10. Collaboration & Self Organized Learning

Because this is a Personal Passion Project we have not included team projects. Nevertheless, collaboration between students is an important part of many projects. Where possible foster the opportunities for collaboration while allowing each student to maintain control of their project. The power of collaboration will lift the quality of the projects as students share ideas and encourage each other to go beyond expectations.

Collaboration will also solve some of the problems with projects outside the teacher's comfort zone. This year I had a group of students focused on game development and their ultimate success was a direct result of the community of like-minded learners they created around their projects.

This is a perfect demonstration of students adopting a self-organized learning environment as they connect with their passions.
11. The invisible safety net
For the Personal Passion Project finding the right levels of scaffolding, teacher input, and guidance is one of the challenges. We want the students to feel that they are working independently while maintaining an appropriate level of support. In many ways, we are wanting to provide an invisible safety net that allows the students to take risks independently while having the support they require.
12. Documenting the process and ensuring time for reflection
Giving time to active reflection on the process has been important. Students need to be able to take a step back and assess what they have achieved and what remains to be accomplished. Sharing these ideas with peers is most beneficial and allows you to train the students in reflecting on their learning and in giving feedback to their peers.

The act of reflecting on the process has also benefitted many students when it is time to share their projects with the world as their audience is as interested in the process as they are in the product. This is particularly true for projects where the process is not obvious or is underestimated by the audience. A good example is game design projects in which the finished product does not reveal the level of knowledge and effort that was required.
13. Real Audiences
For all learning adding a real audience for the students is critical, too much of what students do is produced for an audience of one. The Personal Passion Project presenting to an audience at the end of term 'Gallery Walk' has been critical in ensuring the success of the projects. The students gain a real sense of achievement from this day and the feedback is always genuinely positive.

In the future, we are planning to move to a 'Genius Hour' model with students engaging in a scaffolded program of project management skill development throughout Semester One that leads into planning for and completing a Personal Passion Project across Semester Two. The difference will be that the learning experience will be distributed across the year, one hour per week.

We hope that this fits with the demands of the new syllabus from a time perspective while retaining the best parts of the present model. Certainly at the end of the year, we will reflect and share what has been learned.

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The Genius Hour Design Cycle: A Process For Planning

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Some projects will clearly take longer than you have available, others are too large in scale or rely on the involvement of too many people.

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What needs to be cited and what doesn't need to be cited in a paper is a question that has confounded many students over the years. Common Craft has a new video that addresses that question and more. Citations and Citing Your Work teaches students about the differences between in-text and full citations and how they work together.

Disclosure: I have an in-kind business relationship with Common Craft.

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Citations and Citing Your Work - New Common Craft Video

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What needs to be cited and what doesn't need to be cited in a paper is a question that has confounded many students over the years. Common Craft has a new video that addresses that question and more. Citations and Citing Your Work teaches students about the differences between in-text and full citations and how they work together.

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The school board approved the IGSS program on the condition that students could choose to have the narrative assessments teachers give to students translated into more traditional letter grades at the end of each semester. Students apply to the program during sophomore year for participation junior and senior year. English, history, science and art are taught through interdisciplinary projects three hours a day. While teachers plan broad thematic units, student choice is a hallmark of the program and teachers offer a lot of personalized attention. IGSS is meant to be small, so there are only 40 students at each grade level. A team of three teachers works collaboratively to weave an interdisciplinary experience for each class.

"There are lots of kids who just cruise through and never get fired up about anything. That's who we are really built for," Vargas said. Rather than covering specific content, teachers develop broad themes and let students dive deeply into aspects of the topic that interest them, guiding them to think deeply, research in directions they haven't thought about and improve their writing.

Is Otherness a fundamental category of human thought? #essentialquestions #igssOutside #deBeauvoir pic.twitter.com/wUOkRFMcnm

- IGSS (@IGSSers) January 23, 2017

This style of learning came as a huge relief to Nora Grubb, who graduated from the IGSS program and went on to attend Skidmore College. "I felt really disenchanted in my early years in high school because I was around competitive people but not in the way I would have imagined," Grubb said. "They weren't competitive with themselves. They were competitive with other people and they weren't interested in widening their scope."

She said freshman and sophomore years she did a lot of schoolwork, but never felt intellectually challenged. She loved that the teachers in IGSS were interested in her as a person, not just as a number passing through. "It tapped into the curiosity I had about myself and the world around me, and the teachers were incredibly encouraging of that and wanted to have conversations about that."

Teachers keep detailed notes about how students are progressing, including written feedback given directly to them on their work, but nothing is graded on a 100-point scale and no letter grades are given. The idea is to learn from conversations and feedback to continue making the work better. Despite the gradeless world IGSS teachers have tried to create, some students do opt for grade translation, often because they worry colleges won't recognize the work they've done without it.

"We have a dirty little moment where all the qualitative stuff becomes just a grade," Vargas said. "And then it becomes just as arbitrary as any other grade in that moment," added Lindsay Arado, a history teacher in the program.

When they started the program, Vargas and Arado wanted IGSS to be about joyful learning without the pressure of grades. They knew that the thousand little decisions a teacher makes about rewarding or withholding points are arbitrary and that grades most often serve as a compliance tool, a way to force students to do their work. They didn't see that system as ultimately serving the greater goal of creating passionate learners who know themselves deeply, who can direct themselves, take criticism, and who are always pushing to improve.

Peer editing, even under a table, is so valuable for our students. #peereditingfort pic.twitter.com/GBXqElng9Y

- IGSS (@IGSSers) January 4, 2017

But the school board and parents were uncomfortable with the idea of a gradeless learning community; they thought it would hurt students' chances for admission to the top colleges. That's why grade translation is an option. Still, many students ultimately prefer not to get grades. And, now that the program has a track record of getting students into excellent colleges, parents and school leaders have become more accepting of the structure.

"It wasn't necessarily the teachers who dominated the classroom," Engelman said. "It was more we are here together; I will learn from you and you can learn from me." Now an urban studies major at Brown University, Engelman says she sees that type of intellectual exchange in her college classes, but hadn't experienced it at New Trier until she entered IGSS.

'Rather than just learning information and learning specific facts, we were learning how to learn and that felt a lot more meaningful.' Kirby Engelman, IGSS alumna

Engelman admits she was hesitant to give up the traditional model at first. It was all she knew. So her first semester of junior year she opted for grade translation. "Grades or no grades you get a written narrative about every assignment and how you are as a student, which showed me how unnecessary grades were," she said. She also found the system more motivating. "Rather than just learning information and learning specific facts, we were learning how to learn and that felt a lot more meaningful."

All juniors at New Trier, whether participating in IGSS or not, are required to write a massive research paper. In IGSS, students get to choose their topic and the year is largely structured around a deep dive into an area of passion. Engelman chose to research Colony Collapse Disorder, assembling a community of experts from professors to professional beekeepers and USDA officials in a community who shared a passion for honeybees. She knew nothing about honeybees going into the project.

"Looking back I don't know how I had the guts as a 17-year-old to do this, but I just decided I had the authority to email anyone I wanted," Engelman said. And for the most part, all these experts wrote back to her. She then continued to extend her passion for honeybees by convincing her parents to let her keep bees in the backyard and making a film about the experience for her senior capstone project. She also wrote an elementary school curriculum on Colony Collapse Disorder and the important role honeybees play in ecosystems, which she taught at several nearby schools.

Engelman didn't take a traditional path after high school. She first went to the Savannah College of Art and Design because she liked working with her hands. She enjoyed her time there and did well, but she missed the deep intellectual thought she'd experienced as part of IGSS so she transferred to Brown. Her mom credits the IGSS program for her admittance there.

"My transcript, instead of being a single piece of paper, is this honking written explanation of everything I ever did as a student," Engelman said. "I think that's a lot more telling to universities than a letter grade." Despite what might seem like a wandering path, Engelman says she's never doubted her ability to succeed.

"I do think that, I don't know why or how, but I do think that the IGSS program makes you willing to try new things and makes you see the potential in yourself," Engelman said. She says friends from the program feel similarly capable and their approach tends to be, "let's do this thing called life even if it's not going perfectly."
CHALLENGES OF TEACHING IN IGSS
Teachers in IGSS have the challenging job of keeping student interests at the center of learning while creating loose plans to hit on the skills they want students to learn. They admitted it's challenging to design learning experiences that are flexible enough for students to find exciting entry points to the work, while offering enough structure to support deep exploration. Most students, no matter how bright, struggle to completely self-direct without guidance, especially after years of being told exactly how to do well.

"We often describe the planning as building the plane as we fly it," said Mac Guy, a junior English teacher in IGSS. "But there's something terrifying about that." It can be stressful and overwhelming to go into a three-hour teaching session without feeling on top of the plan. "At the same time, every year coming into IGSS it's going to be something new that's interesting and it's really going to challenge me to be creative," he said. In many ways that challenge is also what makes the program such a stimulating teaching experience.

Brainstorming predictions for @Isabelwilkerson's #thewarmthofothersuns at @NewTrier203 pic.twitter.com/OBYHC4tzqt

- IGSS (@IGSSers) November 17, 2016

These teachers believe deeply that they are creating a valuable educational experience for students, but it was hard for them to let go of their previous mindsets as well. Vargas said at the outset they made a commitment not to assign any busywork. "That's been really good for me and powerful and impactful," but it has also challenged him to think about why he felt history should be taught in a certain order or feature certain characters.

"I had trouble letting go of that narrative," Vargas said. "It made me realize that a lot of my teaching throughout my career has been draped around the story of history." He's fought to make everything he teaches feel authentic and connected to students, but he still misses the familiar narrative he used to teach.

This program has also forced teachers to collaborate and communicate much more than they did when they taught 40-minute class periods on their own. And perhaps one of the hardest things to overcome is students' learned behaviors around schoolwork. Halfway through the year students are still asking about points and whether they will lose credit if a writing assignment is too short. While that frustrates the teachers, they understand how deeply ingrained the grading system has become for American students. And, "We're asking some of our kids to not get grades for some of their best work," Guy acknowledges.

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When Schools Forgo Grades: An Experiment In Internal Motivation

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The school board approved the IGSS program on the condition that students could choose to have the narrative assessments teachers give to students translated into more traditional letter grades at the end of each semester. Students apply to the program during sophomore year for participation junior and senior year.

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The response to this series of posts about my experiment to give up traditional grading in my senior English class showed us that teachers are searching for a better way to assess student work - a way that helps build relationships and helps students grow. Here, you'll find links to the three parts of this series: Part I: Introduction to the experiment Part II: Mid-Year Check-In - How it's going, What I'm changing Part III: The Conclusion
Categories: Tags: alternative grading, best of 2015-2016 Rebekah O'Dell

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Best of 2015-2016: The "So, I Quit Grading" Series

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The response to this series of posts about my experiment to give up traditional grading in my senior English class showed us that teachers are searching for a better way to assess student work -- a way that helps build relationships and helps students grow. Here, you'll find links to the three parts of this...

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Last year, I began experimenting with standards-based grading and wrote a blog titled " Grading for Mastery and Redesigning My Gradebook. " My goal was to shift the conversation away from the accumulation of points and, instead, focus on the development of skills. Although I appreciated the immediate change that took place when I began grading based on my students' ability to master specific skills, I knew I wanted to go even further this year as I began N.E.W. School.

This summer I read Starr Stackstein's book Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School. In her book, Stackstein chronicles her journey ditching grades in a traditional school setting and offers some excellent strategies a teacher can use to go gradeless.

I found the sections titled "Track Progress Transparently," "Teach Students to Self-Grade," and "Cloud-based Archives" particularly helpful in planning for this year. In an effort to do all three of these things-create transparency, teach self-assessment, and archive work online-AND keep parents in the loop, my teaching partner and I developed a Google Document for the first unit of the year with 10 focus standards for each class-English, science, and technology.

We shared this "Ongoing Assessment" document with each student via Google Classroom. Their first task was to read through and rewrite the standards in a way that made sense to them. Then each student shared their ongoing assessment document with his/her parents as a "Comment only" document, so parents could follow their child's progress and post questions.

The "Ongoing Assessment" document was designed to encourage students to take ownership of both their work and the evaluation of that work. They are given time each week to assess their progress in relation to specific skills and reflect on their learning. It's their job to assess their skills on a scale of 0-4 and provide evidence from their body of work to support their self-assessment.

Another column is dedicated to teacher feedback. We post our assessments of specific pieces of work and include multimedia documentation of what we are seeing in class. Students are able to post comments and questions in response to our feedback and this often leads to a conversation about how to improve.

This strategy also provides parents with a window into the classroom and the work their child is doing, which alleviates some of the anxiety of not having an online gradebook.

At the end of the first 6 weeks of school, I'm required by my school to submit a letter grade for each student. To prepare for grade reporting, my teaching partner and I met individually with each student to agree on an appropriate grade. We used the Station Rotation Model to move students through a series of student-driven activities and assignments while we met with each student. In her book, Sackstein addresses the questions and concerns many teachers have about dedicating this much class time to conversations with students about their progress. She makes the excellent point that "how we spend our time in class is indicative of what we prioritize in education." She also presents a range of strategies teachers can use to create this time and space both in class and virtually, if need be.

We asked students to prepare for these conversations by preparing a formal argument. They had to begin by stating a clear claim about the grade they deserved for each class. Then they had to support their claim with 3 pieces of evidence from their body of work. Their evidence needed to be specific pieces of work they believe showed their level of mastery in relation to specific skills. If we did not feel the grade they proposed was appropriate, we would present a counterclaim and students had an opportunity to present a rebuttal. The conversations that ensued were fantastic! I'd argue these types of conversations are also crucial to success beyond high school.

Although the conversations required substantial time, it was worth it. My students had a real voice in their assessments. Grades weren't a surprise. Instead, assessment became a conversation. Students left our meeting with a clear sense of where to spend their time and energy to improve in relation to specific skills.

For those teachers looking for a different way to approach assessment, I'd highly recommend reading Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School!

This entry was posted in Learning and tagged grades, grading. Bookmark the permalink.

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Ditching Traditional Grades & My Online Grade Book

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Last year, I began experimenting with standards-based grading and wrote a blog titled 'Grading for Mastery and Redesigning My Gradebook.' My goal was to shift the conversation away from the accumulation of points and, instead, focus on the development of

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Commentary

Teachers should put the focus on learning, not letter grades

Editor's Note: This Commentary is part of a special report exploring game-changing trends and innovations that have the potential to shake up the schoolhouse.
Read the full report: 10 Big Ideas in Education.

Technology and social media continue to disrupt education. Classrooms are morphing into maker spaces; STEM labs and media centers are filled with fascinating electronic gadgets. Teachers spend less time in front of the class and more time in the middle of the action. Schools, teachers, leaders, parents, and students across the country are embracing this brave new world.

In the midst of rapidly changing technology, and consequently, pedagogy, there is another fundamental change I would argue more educators need to embrace. It's a growing movement to alter the one function of education that most stakeholders steadfastly refuse to revise: how we assess learning.

If you're interested in disrupting education far more than the 3-D printer or smartphone ever could, consider schools and colleges where there are no grades. Imagine classrooms where teachers never place numbers, letters, percentages, or other labels on students' work; where report cards don't exist; and where the GPA has gone the way of the dinosaur.

In a gradeless classroom, the perpetual lies that numbers and letters tell about learning would cease to exist. Honor and merit rolls would disappear. There would be no school valedictorian. Clubs that celebrate high performers would disband. Many colleges and universities would change how they admit incoming freshmen, and academic scholarships would need a makeover.

Moreover, teachers would learn how to effectively assess academic performance, and students would become independent learners, driven by curiosity and inspiration rather than by the empty promise of a "good" grade or the threat of a "bad" one.

Now, this may sound like only a big, perhaps even unrealistic, idea. But the gradeless classroom already exists in schools worldwide. While I don't claim to be the creator of no-grades learning environments, I and thousands of my colleagues across the United States and around the world have turned it into a movement that is helping educators reimagine how they assess learning.

Background: The No-Grades Movement

The Teachers Throwing Out Grades Facebook group, which I founded, is 8,000 members strong and shares daily ideas, strategies, and success stories about eliminating grades. Some have encouraged school leaders to completely change assessment, while others have spearheaded pilot teams that are modeling no-grades classrooms for their colleagues.

I went gradeless more than a decade ago, after half my students failed my language arts class one year. A thorough review of the grade book revealed an abundance of zeroes, indicating that students didn't fail; they just didn't complete the work. And I never gave them a chance to complete it.

The next year, I switched to an assessment system based on observation, feedback, iteration, and student self-evaluation. Students began completing all assignments, became more engaged learners, and even passed standardized tests at higher rates than their peers in classrooms with traditional grades.

There are four steps to creating a no-grades classroom that educators should follow:

1. Be accountable first to students. We owe students the best chance to learn, regardless of any overarching mandates we receive about grading. Don't worry so much about what colleagues might think and focus on what works for your students.

2. Tell parents exactly why you want to eliminate grades. When you explain that you want to provide detailed feedback on all activities and give kids a chance for real mastery learning, how can parents argue? Address their concerns and be transparent about how this will help students.

3. Team up with school and community leaders. Approach the decisionmakers with details about your plan to eliminate number and letter grades. Remind them that you're not eliminating the evaluation of learning. Outline the benefits of making assessment an ongoing, meaningful conversation that leads to mastery learning.

4. Bring students into the report-card conversation. If your district mandates report cards, you might not be able to escape assigning a number altogether. Sit down with your students at the end of each marking period and discuss: What work did they complete, and what skills did they acquire over time? How did students handle your feedback? Then, simply ask them to grade themselves.

Alternative assessment might sound like a daunting idea. But when we give students a break from fixating on an anxiety-producing score, we allow true learning to be the focus-not what's going in the grade book.

Background

One of the most hotly debated questions in education is the role of grades: How do teachers effectively assess student learning, and how do schools gauge progress in fair and adequate ways? Research has shown that grading is a solid predictor of student-success outcomes, but it is not always an accurate representation of what students actually know; in fact, it can both increase cheating and hurt student-teacher or peer-to-peer relationships.

Though educators have played with alternative forms of assessment for decades, school districts, individual teachers, and even states are increasingly questioning and replacing long-favored methods with more experimental practices. A driving force for the changes is the effect of grades on student motivation. As Alfie Kohn, a well-known critic of grades and test scores, has maintained, students often focus on earning a good grade at the expense of learning.

While alternative efforts have similar philosophies, they vary in execution. Standards-based grading, which is more common in elementary schools and picking up steam for older students, favors detailed feedback reflecting how well students grasp specific course objectives. Competency-based learning, for which students earn credit for mastering learning at their own speed, has also been gaining ground. The most radical of these approaches is the small but growing movement to dispense with grades altogether.

This is where Mark Barnes' work comes in. Barnes is the founder of Times 10 Publications, known for its widely popular Hack Learning series of more than a dozen books that re-imagine teaching and learning. Written by teachers, principals, superintendents, and instructional coaches, the books cover topics such as literacy, leadership, stress reduction, and project-based learning. Barnes is also the creator of the global Facebook group Teachers Throwing Out Grades.

The goal of the no-grades movement is to steer students away from passive learning and into a more active role in their schooling. The focus is on the learning process rather than the score, the pressure of performance replaced by an environment where students feel free to make mistakes, continuously self-evaluate, and develop deeper understanding. It also champions increased parent involvement and teacher feedback.

In an education system that counts on accountability, some parents and school leaders remain skeptical of such practices, especially for middle and high school students. Their concerns are over how students will receive fair credit and how higher and continuing education programs that require a GPA will view students without one. Evaluations can also be confusing to parents who are more used to the traditional A-F system.

The answer for the best route to assessment is not easy. But as more schools and teachers think about assessment in broader terms, there's clear recognition that the oft-used scales are not the only way, or perhaps the best, to measure what students know.

Published in Print: January 10, 2018, as Student Assessment

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Commentary Editor's Note: This Commentary is part of a special report exploring game-changing trends and innovations that have the potential to shake up the schoolhouse. Read the full report: 10 Big Ideas in Education. Technology and social media continue to disrupt education.

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This year, I am teaching two new grades in a new classroom in a new school with new colleagues and a new schedule. And with all that comes the delightful insecurity that comes with every new school year to some degree - the feeling that I've never taught anyone anything before, the fear that I won't know what to say, the general conviction that I have no idea what I'm doing.

And sometimes that isn't a bad thing.

Teacher insecurity can breed productive reflection and experimentation and letting go. Often, not knowing what's going to happen next leads us to something new.

This month, after a few weeks of getting-to-know-you-and-getting-to-know-mentor-texts, not knowing what was going to happen next lead me to a new writing study that I've long wanted to try but never before attempted: a whole study just about punctuation.

Here's what I taught, what students did, how I assessed it, what students thought, and why this worked so well:

Day One: What Do We Know About Punctuation?

I began by telling students that our first writing workshop of the year would focus on one of the Jedi mind tricks writers use to manipulate their readers ... punctuation! (Cue a mixed reaction of intrigue and groans.)

We started with a little diagnostic punctuation challenge ( Punctuation Challenge what I put together - nothing fancy). With a partner, students tried to identify a variety of "interesting" punctuation marks and brainstorm reasons writers might use that mark. They were free to use books around the room or their independent reading to help them. But there was no grade, no stakes, just a casual look at the knowledge students were bringing to the table as we began.

Day Two: Studying Children's Books

On day two, I brought stacks and stacks of pictures books from home - whatever my six and three year old had lying around. Truth to tell, I didn't spend a ton of time thinking about which books or why; I flipped through them quickly to see if I noticed any punctuation beyond commas and periods. If I did, I added it to the stack.

(If you want to be more intentional about this, there are great lists of picture books with interesting punctuation online and in Katie Wood Ray's perfect book Study Driven. Still, I don't think you need to be too picky about this; most well-crafted children's books have punctuation worth noticing.)

Students paired up again to find at least five instances of interesting punctuation at work. When they found a spot, they put a Post It on it, named the punctuation they observed, and described what it was doing in the text.

I encouraged students that it was okay to be informal and "unofficial" about this - no grammar terms were necessary. If a colon was described as "two dots", that was okay. The point was to notice, name, and describe its effect. (Of course, this is the central skill of reading like a writers.)

When they were done, I collected Post-Its and made a master chart of all the things students saw punctuation doing:

Days Three and Four: Grouping By Effect

This was great. We had done a lot of thinking and talking and observing of punctuation marks. But we weren't yet at a point that would move writers forward in their craft. After all, no writer ever has sat around pondering, "Hmmm...today I'd like to use a semicolon. What are some ways I might use one?"

That's ridiculous. Writers consider their intended effect, and then they figure out what punctuation can help them achieve it.

So, I passed out my chart above (arranged by punctuation mark) and asked students to work with their tables to regroup our collective findings by effect. Their three columned chart included: effect, punctuation marks that achieve this effect, and examples from mentor texts.

I initially only planned for one day, but it took groups one day to complete columns one and two, and then a second day to scour the room for examples from authentic, professionally-written texts. When they were finished, each student's notebook contained a two, sometimes three) page Punctuation Guide.

Day Five: Revising for Interesting Punctuation

Using their punctuation guide, students set out to revise a piece of existing writing to include interesting punctuation that would enhance their intended meaning.

(We happened to have a piece of on-demand writing on hand that students had written as a diagnostic. Any piece of writing - including casual notebook writing or a piece of writing from last year or a piece of polished writing from earlier in the course - would do.)

After adding their punctuation, writers added a comment to explain their intention and how punctuation helped them achieve it. I think students' reflection are always better when I give them class time to do them instead of sending them home. So, students had about 30 minutes to reflect on this writing study and add their annotations. Here are excerpts from Gordon (8th grade) and Faith (7th grade):

What the Kids Say

Students came to this study with many different backgrounds in punctuation. A few were actually already using semicolons correctly and peppering their writing with dramatic dashes. Other students learned the names of punctuation marks during this study. Thus, their impressions of the unit were wide-ranging, too. Here are a few excerpts from their reflective author's notes.

How a Punctuation Study Helped Me Achieve My Goals

This study helped me accomplish a lot of things at once. First, it helped bridge students' burgeoning understanding about mentor texts from pictures to written texts. Visual mentor texts provide such a wonderful way in for students, and so our first weeks of school had been spent working with Mari Andrew's brilliant illustrations and Ideal Bookshelves and Introduction Art. (Writing With Mentors has four beginning-of-the-year mentor-text-centered writing studies for you to use!) I sensed, though, that my seventh and eighth graders weren't ready to jump from visual mentor texts straight into paragraphs of written mentor texts. We needed an in-between study. Punctuation felt right because students could look at written texts without getting waylaid by the actual content of the words on the page.

Frontloading a punctuation study also let us tackle something big and important early on and all at once. We will talk about punctuation in our mentor texts and in our own writing all year long (this study by no means taught them all they needed to know). However, this study started a big conversation not just about punctuation but about the importance of every little choice a writer makes.

And studying punctuation as a big umbrella technique first - rather than as piecemeal mini-lessons sprinkled throughout our writing units - helped students build connections they might not have otherwise made. They could see that commas, parentheses, and dashes can sometimes to the very same thing to very different effect. And they can all be "right".

Which brings me to my favorite thing about this writing study. Studying punctuation not as a set of rules but as a writing technique that enables writers to make choices about how their texts is read and understood destabilized what my students thought they knew about English class. Coming into a new school is always unnerving because of the natural comparisons and "Well, we have always..."-es that arise. Parents and students alike enter with expectations of how the year will unfold.

At my school, seventh and (especially) eighth grade English have been exceedingly traditional in their pedagogy - sentence diagramming and all. I wanted to demonstrate early on that we would do things differently and more authentically from now on. Spending time in our first month discussing punctuation (rather than doing punctuation worksheets) as a set of choices instead of a set of rules was worth a thousand words. Nothing could state my teaching philosophy more clearly.
What do you think? Could this work for your students - as a beginning of the year study? As an in-between study mid-year? How do you teach punctuation in a meaningful way within the writing workshop framework? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Find me on Twitter @rebekahodell1, in the comments below, or on Facebook!

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Punctuation Study: A 5-Day Writing Study to Set the Tone for the Year

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This year, I am teaching two new grades in a new classroom in a new school with new colleagues and a new schedule. And with all that comes the delightful insecurity that comes with every new school year to some degree -- the feeling that I've never taught anyone anything before, the fear that I...

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Laura  Randazzo – Solutions for the Secondary Classroom

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She was pretty and quite bright. He was handsome and charming but not so smart. Together, they were the golden couple of the freshman class. She was in my 2nd period; he was in 5th, right after lunch.

A few months into the year, I noticed something peculiar. She, let's call her Sandy, did well on my vocab. quizzes but often missed one or two questions. He ("Danny" seems right) always bested Sandy's score. It was weird. Sandy was focused, a model student. Danny? Not even.

For the next vocab. quiz, I wrote two different versions with the same word bank. Sure enough, Danny wrote the morning class' answers in the exact order on his paper, earning a zero and my disdain. The kicker, though, is that Danny wasn't the only one. Nearly a third of my 5th period used some combination of 2nd period's answers, forcing me to realize I'd been terribly naive.

For awhile, I tried to stay ahead of the cheaters by writing separate quizzes for each of my five classes, but I quickly grew weary. I had better things to do with my Sunday afternoons. The next year, I tossed the above quiz format altogether and came up with an easy to prep, easy to grade, cheat-proof vocabulary quiz, one I've used now for about a decade.
Here's how it works:
Once a month or so, I'll give a vocab. quiz on a Friday before our SSR session. The quiz has just three questions.

1. I announce a vocab. word and have students write the word's definition.

2. I give a different word and students write an accurate synonym.

3. I say a third word and students write an accurate antonym.

The definition, synonym, and antonym don't have to be precisely the same words that we used in class to discuss our Words on Wednesday bell-ringer slides. They just need to be accurate.

You may have noticed that this year I'm trying to make more videos to share my ideas on YouTube. Here's the latest one with me talking about this same idea:

This three-question method is no prep and pretty much impossible to cheat on because I choose different words for each of my classes on the spot as I'm giving the quiz. It's also easy to grade. I mean, each quiz is only three questions long, so I'm almost always able to score and enter them in the grade book before students are done with their SSR session.

I don't print anything. Instead, students use a half-sheet of binder or scrap paper to record their answers. For a student with an IEP that requires written rather than oral instructions, I'll handwrite the three words on an index card before class and quietly slide the card to the kid when the quiz begins. I suppose you could write the three words on the board or project them as you give the quiz, but I haven't needed to take those steps.

One last reason to love this method is that make-ups are also simple. If a student's absent on a Friday, the make-up quiz takes about 90 seconds before school or at lunch. I give the kid three entirely different words than were given to her classmates and I don't even have her write down the answers. She just tells me her answers and I immediately enter the score into the grade book. Easy. Peasy.

Want to save prep time and keep kids honest? Give the three-question vocab. quiz a try. Teach on, everyone!

Photo credit: Sarah C. Stanley, Flickr, CC-BY-2.0.
Photo used as illustration only. These kids are not my actual Sandy and Danny.

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Outsmart the Cheaters: Vocab. Quiz Strategy

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She was pretty and quite bright. He was handsome and charming but not so smart. Together, they were the golden couple of the freshman class. She was in my 2nd period; he was in 5th, right after lunch. A few months into the year, I noticed something peculiar.

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Teaching vocabulary in high school? It can be difficult, but it can also be extremely rewarding. In this post, read about ideas for teaching vocabulary to older students and a simple but meaningful extension activity.
Word knowledge directly impacts students' reading comprehension. Vocabulary experts agree that in order to comprehend what they read, students need to know between 90 and 95 percent of the words they will confront in a text. If a student approaches a text with that level of readiness, he or she will be able to determine the main idea and make educated guesses about the meaning of unfamiliar words, which is how that student acquires new vocabulary indirectly.

For this reason, one of the best ways you can introduce your students to new words is by allowing them opportunities to learn vocabulary indirectly through reading experiences. Students can and should read on a daily basis - at all ages. Reading books at the appropriate reading level is the best vocabulary extension activity you can provide in any content area. Still, teachers need to introduce students to new words directly as well.

What are the keys to effective direct vocabulary instruction? Pinpointing the answer to this question can lead to powerful transformations in the way you approach vocabulary in your classroom. According to research, several key factors play into ensuring that students learn the words instead of simply memorizing them.

1. Size

The list size needs to be small and manageable. Determining an appropriate number for your students might be a process of trial and error. It depends on your students' age and ability, their existing background knowledge, and the sophistication of the words you are asking them to learn.

In my high school classroom, lists consist of ten to fifteen words, and I allow students two weeks to interact with them on a daily basis before I expect mastery. Less is more. Quality over quantity. When it comes to vocabulary lists, the cliches apply.

2. Presentation

Students need to hear and see the word used in meaningful and specific ways before we can expect them to do so on their own.

When I introduce words, I always do so via direct instruction, never by assigning a list and asking them to look up the definitions on their own. As I introduce the word, I engage students in meaningful discussions, whereby I can help them understand the word's derivatives and connections to the real world.

Direct instruction is a perfect time to use mentor sentences and allow opportunities for teens to see the words used contextually in literature

3. Practice

Students need to have ample opportunities to interact with the word every day. For this reason, I always make time for my students to study their words during class. You'll know when students have actually learned the words. They'll use them in their speaking and writing, and they will refer less to their notes during review.

Using brain-based vocabulary approaches will help to ensure the practice time you provide is worthwhile. When I complete a vocabulary unit, my students know we will continue coming back to those words throughout the year. This repetition reinforces the likelihood that students will retain the new words.

4. Engagement

Students need to be engaged when learning about new words. Teachers can accomplish this goal through choice and differentiation as well as by pulling in topics of interest. For instance, referring to current events, school controversies, and pop culture are just a few examples of how engaging students through associations will make learning more valuable and memorable. When teachers help students to truly love and appreciate learning new words, magic happens.

I have a passion for differentiating vocabulary instruction by learning styles and abilities. I'm always devising new ways for students to think about their words...different angles that might offer another perspective on how to use a word or remember it. In one of my favorite differentiated vocabulary assignments, I offer my students countless angles for approaching words on any list. Through creative questions, I prompt my students to analyze a word in unique ways. For instance...

Vocabulary Activity 1

Think about the meaning of this word: abase. I f you were to give this word a rating (think movie rating) for its appropriateness, what rating would you give it, and why?

This question would first require students to review the meaning. Abase means "to behave in a way so as to belittle or degrade someone. Then, students would need to think about that definition deeper. Does a word like abase deserve a G, PG, PG-13, or R rating, and why?

Obviously, there's no one right answer. Students might respond that it should be rated PG-13 because parental guidance is advisable when children are being mean to others. They might further explain that bullying is common in high school, which is why they rated it a PG-13 instead of just PG. Asking students this one simple question has allowed them to make connections to real-life (bullying and the idea that parental guidance is necessary when one child is abasing another), which strengthens their connection to the word.

Vocabulary Activity 2

Here's another example:
Create an acrostic poem using the vocabulary word. Make sure the poem reflects an aspect of the word and illustrtates how you think about it.
Students might then provide a written explanation of their acrostic.
The vocabulary word abase has a negative connotation. When I think of this word, I'm reminded of people who are afraid of those who degrade others. Students who are abased might be scared to go to school for fear of being belittled. Bullies often antagonize people by shaming them. Sometimes they do this in person, but more, often, they do it on social media. When victims are abased, their self-esteem is impacted.
After my students interact with a vocabulary word through the task cards and supplemental exercises, it's easy and effective to ask students to reflect on what they have learned with a simple extension activity.

Using the numerous answers they provided during the differentiated vocabulary practice, I ask them to select the associations they made that are the most powerful. I ask them, Which connections really help you to understand this word? Which connections helped you to have the "Ah ha! I get it!" moment? Using those responses, students create a mini poster. They can do this artistically by hand drawing, by making a collage, or by compiling ideas digitally.

Then, I use these posters to create a word wall. Each student will connect with vocabulary word differently, so the posters can be extremely unique. When they see their words displayed on the wall, it helps them to take ownership of their learning and feel as though they have contributed to their environment - win, win!
Do you have favorite vocabulary extension activities? Tell us about them! We'd love to learn from you.
Click on the image below to view the details of the differentiated vocabulary practice assignments that allow students to interact with their word from various angles in meaningful ways.

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A Fun Vocabulary Activity for Middle or High School | Reading and Writing Haven

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Teaching vocabulary in high school? It can be difficult, but it can also be extremely rewarding. In this post, read about ideas for teaching vocabulary to older students and a simple but meaningful extension activity. Word knowledge directly impacts students' reading comprehension.

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If you've bought into the idea that knowledge matters - that people can't really think critically or read well or even learn things without knowing stuff - then you're where I am. The whole skills vs. knowledge debate is a distraction built on a false premise.

So now what?

I've been wrestling with the Now what? for a lot of the summer. Knowledge-building has a chapter in the book I'm writing, it's got a segment in my all-day literacy workshop, and it's an important part of my teaching strategy moving forward. The trouble is I've yet to find a universal answer to how we can do this better, and that might be because there isn't one. What's helped me the most is looking to teachers who do knowledge-building really, really well, searching for principles I can draw from their work to apply to my own practice. In today's post, I want to highlight Erica Beaton's systematic, straightforward methods for teaching Latin word chunks in her English language arts courses.

Below, I've posted an article Erica wrote recently called "A Beginner's Guide to Vocabulary Instruction: Using Latin Word Chunks." If you're an English teacher who wants a better, saner approach to vocabulary instruction, then you'll be interested in the details of what Erica's talking about, and you may want to check out her resources for this: student study packs, flashcards, quizzes, and answer keys. But if you're not an English teacher, then you're with me (I'm scheduled for all World History courses again), and you can glimpse into exactly how one teacher builds lasting, kis-actually-use-this-stuff-after-they've-had-Erica's-class content knowledge with her students.

Specifically, watch how Erica does the following:

She targets a specific, manageable list of things she wants her students to know (in this case, 55 word chunks and their meanings). Importantly, these things are high-leverage - students can use these 55 pieces of knowledge to unpack a large amount of words in the English language.

She gradually introduces the list to students through direct and guided instruction, introducing no more than five words at a time.

She uses a series of low-stakes quizzes for students that steadily increases in difficulty as students learn more

She teaches students to use flashcards and makes time for brief knowledge maintenance games.

The results? Upper-level teachers can identify her students because they are the kids who independently break down complex words using their Latin word chunks knowledge.

So whether you want your students to memorize a set of key dates or the questions to the US Naturalized Citizenship Test or multiplication facts, I hope Erica's approach serves as an illustrative case study of how this kind of knowledge-building can be done. Without further ado, I give you Erica Beaton.

When I first started teaching, we used ditto machines and overhead projectors.

Take these dinosaur "tech tools" and pair them with 1) a random list of high-frequency SAT words and 2) a cloudy understanding of the Frayer model and you get the haphazard vocabulary instruction I used for years. Show kids a complex word each day. Ask them to draw 100+ corresponding graphic organizers. Expect them to nail the SAT.

Just like all those dried up Vis- à- Vis markers, this method didn't work.

What does research say?

Instead of teaching a random, "hard" word each day, shift your time to teaching students the most frequent Greek and Latin parts of words (i.e. prefixes, roots, and suffixes).

The experts have been talking about teaching word-level comprehension this way for years.

Kylene Beers notes in When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do that students don't "know how to use the... word parts such as root words and affixes to discern meaning" (2003, p. 35).

In fact, most kids don't even realize that words share similar parts let alone a common meaning.

Mike Schmoker, author of , explains that the most effective classrooms "repeatedly practice and master...the 50 most common transferable word chunks...to build up students' reading vocabulary" (2011, p. 104).

So we're not talking about some massive endeavor like teaching our students to actually speak Greek or subscribing to some reading program software.

In Deeper Reading, Kelly Gallagher says that type of vocabulary instruction "takes away from reading time, which is where the most effective vocabulary acquisition occurs. But students can benefit from knowing-that is, memorizing- some of the 'staples'" (2004, p. 72).

In other words, the highest performing teachers make time to introduce these word components to students and help them memorize these chunks so they stick.

What does it look like in practice?

To start, I highly recommend getting a copy of Gallagher's Deeper Reading. He shares his "30-15-10 List" (i.e., the 55 most common chunks) and how he rolls them out with his students. The reading comprehension growth my students have had is thanks in large part to his work.

Here, I've taken his idea and given a possibly more detailed rundown of how it looks in my room, including the specific documents my students use.

At the start of the year

Students complete a Latin Word Chunks pre-test. This is very quick, informal, and low-stakes. They use the correct answers from this pre-test to create a personal set of Latin Word Chunk flashcards. If you've read about my passion for content retention, you know how my students and I nerd-out on flashcards. We use these nearly every week in class, and students are expected to practice self-quizzing with them at home during the week.

Direct & Guided Instruction

After that, my students work from a Latin Word Chunk Student Study Pack that I created, drawing on Robert Marzano's research about best practice for acquiring vocabulary. In less than ten minutes, I can introduce five new terms. Together, we generate word examples that use the chunk and draw corresponding visual representations.

Students are expected to study their flashcards at home. However, we often use them in class to play a version of Memory to help reinforce strategies of self-quizzing. Otherwise, students use hand-held devices to play the various games on Quizlet. (Here's a link to my Latin Word Chunks folder on Quizlet. It also includes flashcard sets for all of the English 10 Literary, Poetic, and Rhetorical Devices.)

Week-by-Week Quizzes

As I mentioned, I introduce five terms at a time with a quiz at the end of each week. The timeline is always slightly different depending on the needs of my students, but it might look something like what I share below. But first, please note, in total we typically spend about 30 minutes each week on vocabulary instruction (including the quizzes). This process looks complex but is quite fast when you and your students get into a rhythm.

Week 1: On Monday, introduce terms #1-5. On Wednesday, do a mini-review of #1-5. On Friday, take a #1-5 quiz.
The first assessment exposure to terms #1-5 means they are set on "Level Easy." Students know this means there will be a word bank and the terms are listed on the quiz in the same order as our Student Study Pack.

Week 2: On Monday, introduce terms #6-10. On Wednesday, do a mini-review of #1-10. On Friday, take a #1-10 quiz.

The second assessment exposure to terms #1-5 means they increase in difficulty to "Level Medium." This means there isn't a word bank for those terms, yet they stay in list order.

Since this is the first assessment exposure for terms #6-10, those items are on "Level Easy."

Week 3: On Monday, introduce terms #11-15. On Wednesday, do a mini-review of #1-15. On Friday, take a #1-15 quiz.

This is now the third exposure to terms #1-5, so they shift to "Level Hard" and are shuffled in order without a word bank.

Terms #6-10 move to "Level Medium" with their second assessment exposure.

And the new terms #11-15 start at "Level Easy."

Week 4: On Monday, no new terms are introduced, and we might do a mini-review of #1-15. On Wednesday, do another mini-review. On Friday, take a #1-15 quiz.
Terms #1-10 are both on "Level Hard," and #11-15 moves to "Level Medium."

Week 5: Same Monday and Wednesday with quick review. On Friday, take a #1-15 quiz.
All terms move to "Level Hard" before introducing a new set of five terms the following week and folding those into our memorization mastery.

I describe this scaffolded process to my students as "snowballing" [see image above]. We begin with a tiny cluster of snowflakes (i.e., amount of terms) and gradually pack on more snow over time, adding more and more until we have a snow boulder. This process supports proper content retention rather than just crashing an avalanche of terms at them, like I did in the past.

Depending on the strength of the students' memories, we're often able to move more quickly through this process before adding another set of five terms. When we get to the first 30 prefixes, I do the same pause and increase the level of difficulty. I don't always include every quiz in the grade book because the management of points can get ridiculous.

Results

Every year, I am amazed at how much impact this has on student reading comprehension. Upper-level teachers come back to me year after year saying how they can always recognize the kids that come from my class because of their ability to independently implement this vocabulary skill later on. So whether students are breaking down vocabulary on the SAT or applying their knowledge of these chunks to more authentic learning, I see the results of this method, and because of that impact, I want to make my student resources available to you. At this link, you'll find my total Latin word chunks package, and at this link you'll find just the quizzes and answer keys.

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Latin Word Chunks: A Case Study in Smart, Low-Stress Knowledge-Building - Dave Stuart Jr.

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If you've bought into the idea that knowledge matters - that people can't really think critically or read well or even learn things without knowing stuff - then you're where I am. The whole skills vs. knowledge debate is a distraction built on a false premise. So now what?

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I'm on a mission to get rid of assignments that consist of writing down vocabulary words and copying definitions from the text. In a digitized world, the equivalent of this is creating digital flashcards to "learn vocabulary."

Today's post is about a strategy that can be used to help students learn vocabulary.

Synectics is a problem-solving technique that promotes creative thinking by making a comparison between two seemingly unrelated terms/objects. The strategy of synectics forces students to make connections about vocabulary words in creative and uncommon ways. Because of this, students are more likely to remember vocabulary definitions.

How to use this technique with students

1.Provide vocabulary words along with words that are not related to the content.

For example, if the word is meiosis, you may provide the words:

clover bracelet octopus pinata

2. Demonstrate to students how to use the synectic:

Meiosis is like a _____________ because __________________.

Meiosis is like clover because meiosis is the division of a cell into four daughter cells, and clover has 4 leaves.

3. Allow students to create their own comparisons, either individually or in pairs. Students can use the comparison words you've provided or create their own.

4. Have students to create an image to represent their synectics.

5. Ask students to share their synectics with the class.

What we need to spend less time doing:

Asking kids to list vocabulary words and copy definitions.

Asking, "Who knows what _________ means?"

Giving students complex definitions to words.

Having kids look up definitions in the dictionary. (The teacher can use the dictionary to create student-friendly definitions that can be explicitly taught.)

What do you think we need to spend less time doing?

Will you join me as I aspire to be a vocab ninja?

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An effective vocab teaching strategy for any grade level

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I'm on a mission to get rid of assignments that consist of writing down vocabulary words and copying definitions from the text. In a digitized world, the equivalent of this is creating digital flashcards to "learn vocabulary." Today's post is about a strategy that can be used to help students learn vocabulary.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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August 14, 2017
Below is an infographic we created for the post we published last week featuring some of the best YouTube channels for Math teachers. 'These channels provide a wide variety of videos, tutorials and animated courses covering different mathematical concepts from Algebra to Geometry.'

This visual is also available for free download in PDF format.

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Some of The Best YouTube Channels for Math Teachers

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August 14, 2017 Below is an infographic we created for the post we published last week featuring some of the best YouTube channels for Math teachers. 'These channels provide a wide variety of videos, tutorials and animated courses covering different mathematical concepts from Algebra to Geometry.'

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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May 31, 2015
Today while we were browsing Google Docs Add-ons we selected these three tools specifically for math teachers and students. The apps will enable you to solve mathematical equations, create graphs, work on complex calculations, perform basic math/stat operations of cell values in a Google Docs table and many more.

"With the graph creator, you can type in functions and inequalities and it will create the graph associated with the functions and inequalities. You can also plot points in the same graph, find the line of best fit of those points, and specify a viewing window. As a new feature, you can select a table in a Doc and import the data into g(Math) to create a plot!"

2- Table Calculator

"This add-on helps users perform basic math/stats operations of cell values in a Google Docs table and insert the result with the click of a button. Operations include addition, multiplication, average, count, max, min and standard deviation. This free productivity tool will help you save time by performing calculations within Google Docs without using a separate calculator or using a spreadsheet."

3- Wizkids Cas

"Wizkids CAS is a Computer Algebra System that works with Google Docs' built-in equations.With Wizkids CAS users can:cSolve equations and plot graphs, Find numerical and exact solutions, Simplify and factorise expressions with variables, Drag and drop results and graphs from the sidebar in Google Docs."

Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

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3 Handy Google Drive Tools for Math Teachers

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May 31, 2015 Today while we were browsing Google Docs Add-ons we selected these three tools specifically for math teachers and students. The apps will enable you to solve mathematical equations, create graphs, work on complex calculations, perform basic math/stat operations of cell values in a Google Docs table and many more.

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9 Strategies for Motivating Students in Mathematics

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Keep your high school math students engaged with these techniques.

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Despite being one of the most important topics to prepare students for success in the world, financial literacy is not present in most classrooms. It also is not included in many pre-service teaching programs.

Fortunately, it seems more and more institutions are taking notice and stepping up to provide resources that educators can incorporate into the classroom at no cost.

Star Banks Adventure Game is one that provides an interactive way to help students grasp important real-world financial concepts. Student learn about 1) setting financial goals, 2) saving and spending wisely, 3) asset allocation, 4) earning interest, 5) inflation and even 6) diversification. It can be played on the web via a computer, laptop, or Chromebooks as well as on iOS and Android devices.

Students aren't the only ones who will benefit. Teachers and families can learn right along with students. On the resource page educators can start by taking a money smarts quiz and instantly get their results. Did you know saving just $166 a month after college in an investment with a 7% compounded rate of return, would earn you have half a million dollars upon retirement? If you did, you may score well on the quiz.

There is a whole site for families where they can access the quiz, find conversation starters, and find a 30 day calendar to financial literacy . The calendar provides activities that can be done and reinforced in the classroom or home. For example, one activity is visiting a bank. Something that could be a fun class field trip as well as an enlightening experience to do with a parent. Resources such as this are an important support for families. That's because despite the fact that 69% of parents want to set a good financial example for their children, most find talking to their children worrisome so are reluctant to do so.

Teachers have access to a helpful curriculum matrix that correlates to the national standards that put a smile on many administrator's faces. The Teacher version has a Classroom Mode that ties to the six key literacy concepts that align to standards in personal finance, economics and the Common Core. Teachers can break down the six concepts in the game and integrate them into existing lessons along with a host of educator resources they will find at Money Confident Kids.com . There they'll find teaching tools and activities such as downloadable magazines for students, printables, videos, conversation starters and more.

Educators can look under the hood at what their students are doing with a Teacher Dashboard . The Dashboard website helps teachers administer the game in the classroom and provides statistics that help compare different classrooms and track individual students' progress. Students will know their progress because they collect Trophies (for completing levels) and Graduation Hats (by completing Quizzes).

Innovative educators know the importance of teaching digital literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, and news literacy. The Star Banks Adventure Game provides educators with an interactive game, accompanying materials, and resources for parents that will help ensure students are prepared for success with financial literacy as well.
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STAR BANKS ADVENTURE and MONEY CONFIDENT KIDS are registered trademarks of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.

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A Real & Relevant Way to Meet Math Standards & Develop #MoneySmartKids

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Despite being one of the most important topics to prepare students for success in the world, financial literacy is not present in most classrooms. It also is not included in many pre-service teaching programs. Fortunately, it seems more and more institutions are taking notice and stepping up to provide resources that educators can incorporate into the classroom at no cost.

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This is a document started at the beginning of the 17/18 school year to discuss cell phone policies

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

Come back for more.
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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.