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Formative assessments can be a challenge for teachers, but they are essential for rigorous and intentional instruction. If a teacher wants to improve their formative assessment practice, Kahoot! is a great place to start. Kahoot! allows teachers to implement quizzes, exit tickets, and assessment reviews in a fun, game-like manner, but it still provides useful data (Kahoot!, 2022).

For example, Kahoot! (2022) describes how teachers can evaluate graphs and reports to "get actionable insights" in where to take instruction and provide reinforcement for learning struggles. Furthermore, activity leaderboards create a game-like atmosphere that engage students while also allowing the teacher to "assess class progress in real time" (Kahoot!, 2022).

Make sure to go to the website and check out how everything works!

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Flipgrid: Using Video to Create a Learning Community

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Flipgrid: Using Video to Create a Learning Community

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The lifeblood of any classroom is student participation, but all teachers know it is difficult to get every student to participate in class. Flipgrid, a tool allowing students to create short videos, can alleviate those concerns.

In my experience, I have had students use Flipgrid to create videos that allow them to respond to discussion post prompts on their own time. They can practice their responses before posting or editing those responses, allowing them to respond thoughtfully, but it gives them a safe way to practice speaking publicly (Gonzalez Lopez, 2022, para. 4).

However, Flipgrid can also be used to build a strong classroom culture. Technology can allow teachers to "amplify student voices" by "mak[ing] room for more students to share their thoughts, ideas and knowledge at the pace that works for them" (Shinde, 2021, para. 11-13). Flipgrid is designed with that mission in mind by encouraging teachers to give students time to craft thoughtful responses. With time, teachers will be able to take the training wheels off, so to speak, and students will begin to feel more confident responding in class. I have too many examples to count of students feeling overwhelmed by classroom discussions, but they share profound ideas in Flipgrid. By the end of the year, they have the confidence to share those ideas in class. Furthermore, teachers can use additional strategies to create a strong learning culture, such as allowing students to create videos to celebrate their backgrounds or developing teacher-created content that models expectations (Garcia Lopez, 2022, para. 7, 10). These strategies will make students more comfortable in your classroom setting.

Of course, teachers should always look into how to operate Flipgrid in a safe way, so I recommend looking at the website's how-to section. If you want to use a scaffold to support a classroom culture of rigorous discussion, Flipgrid is a great start.

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Tennessee Electronic Library (Tennessee Secretary of State, 2022)

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Tennessee Electronic Library: Helping Students Navigate Credible Resources Online

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Tennessee Electronic Library: Helping Students Navigate Credible Resources Online

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Media literacy is an essential skill in today's world, but teachers struggle to find the time to teach these skills in between standards, remediation, and testing. Luckily, my Tennessee colleagues can use Tennessee Electronic Library, and I hope out-of-state followers have similar resources. This resource will allow you to guide students toward credible academic resources and news articles, but at the same time, it will help students practice independent research.

Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) operates exactly like the name says -- as an online library. According to the website, students can "access to over 400,000 electronic resources including magazines, scholarly journals, podcasts, videos, e-books, test preparation materials, federal census records, Tennessee primary source materials, and more" and "all types of nonprofit libraries participate in TEL and benefit from the wide range of information TEL databases offer" (Tennessee Secretary of State, 2022, para. 2-3). A resource of this nature is large enough to give students the impression of navigating the wide-open internet, but it is narrowed down to the verifiably strong resources. A perfect sandbox from which to launch into real research.

Additionally, the website breaks its resources down by those that are relevant for elementary, middle, and high school students, which is a benefit for teachers as they seek to develop content for instruction. As an administrator, I would love to have this as a tool to guide my teachers to different supplementary materials.

Finally, teachers should familiarize themselves with each type of database because they can help with different assignments. History teachers will love using ProQuest and the Tennessean for its plethora of primary resources, and English teachers will enjoy using LitFinder and Gale OneFile for their access to literary texts and literary analysis articles. Teachers from all content areas will find the Opposing Viewpoints database useful because it provides students with strong articles on real-world controversial issues, such as immigration and the death penalty. This will allow students to develop thoughtful arguments on various issues they find important, which is vital for media literacy.

Because of the diversity in content, TEL allows for "personalized learning experiences" that allow students to "develop preferences for certain subjects" (Bharti, 2022, para. 34). Students can dive deep into the topics that interest them through various databases. Teachers won't be able to build curriculum around this resource, but as a supplement to rigorous instruction, it is essential. Take the time to familiarize yourself with this resource -- you will love it!

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Goodreads: Using Social Media to Build a Classroom Community for Reading

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Goodreads: Using Social Media to Build a Classroom Community for Reading

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Perhaps the best way to know a person is to know what they are reading.

Reading should not always be a solitary effort, and if a teacher truly wants to build a love of reading among all students, then he or she must make it a social, collaborative effort. Goodreads can provide that community.

Goodreads is a social media site that allows readers to track books they have read, create future reading lists, review those books, and develop personal reading challenges (Cybil, 2017). Best of all they can share these things with friends. Teachers will find that this site offers a variety of ways to develop a culture that instills a love of reading, but first, check out the Goodreads advice on how to set up a classroom group, which will be essential for helping your students succeed while reading. As argued by Shinde (2021), teachers need to provide places for students to learn, so you will want to ensure this forum is supportive of learning (para. 10).

Teachers can use a plethora of strategies on Goodreads. For example, you can simply allow students to set and share reading challenges for each month (i.e. one book a month), but if you want to make it even more collaborative, you can encourage students to recommend books to specific classmates (Cybil, 2017, para. 5-8). This strategy will allow students to build connections through shared interests, and if they have shared interests, they will build relationships in the classroom.

Teachers can take the strategies in an even deeper direction instructionally. For example, they can encourage students to write thoughtful book reviews that are focused on analyzing standards being currently taught in class, or the teacher can assign a common reading where students must participate in discussion groups (Cybil, 2017, para. 9-14). They should be encouraged to use textual evidence in these cases.

The best teachers lead and model by example, and the platform provides teachers the ability to "share [their] own love of reading" through the site by using its features with students and sharing their reading lists (Cybil, 2017, para. 15). In many ways, this last feature of Goodreads is the most important. Students will feel emboldened and enlightened to use the site thoughtfully after they see their teacher review a book, or leave a thoughtful comment on another's reading recommendation. Furthermore, interacting and connecting with teachers on a safe site of this nature will "enhance student-teacher relationships" and help students "develop a growth mindset [around reading] and improve their social-emotional skills" (Shinde, 2021, para. 8).

Goodreads is great way for teachers from all content areas and grade levels to not only connect with students, but to also instill a lifelong love of learning. So give it a shot!

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A Beginners Guide to Microsoft OneNote (Collaboration Coach, 2022).

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Microsoft OneNote: The Ultimate Classroom Notebook

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Microsoft OneNote: The Ultimate Classroom Notebook

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Microsoft OneNote is the primary tool I use to organize my classroom content. The link I have provided outlines better than I could how to start using the features of this program, so please check that out.

As a teacher, I use it to organize content based on the type of assignments they are completing. For example, is the assignment a quiz, a daily work assignment, or a set of notes? If you tell students the section to go to, they will always be able to access the stream of relevant content in each of those areas. You will not have any problems placing links and uploading for students to access.

Furthermore, students can create their own notebooks to organize the digital content you provide, and since the program is cloud-based, students cannot use the excuse, "I lost my homework."

It is tough to get started, but you will quickly love this program.

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A Beginners Guide to Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10