# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2018 SSR_ An Investment with Returns Original

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Listen to this post as a podcast:
Sponsored by Raymond Geddes and Kids Discover

This is an excerpt from a letter written to a Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper in 2002 by a first-year math teacher, a man who was vehemently opposed to block scheduling.

"I am...a first year high school math teacher. (My school) operates on a block schedule - a concept I had never even heard of until I accepted (this) teaching position. My observations of block scheduling have been a shocking education for me. Block scheduling has resulted in less emphasis on core content and more on gimmickry. Classes used to be places where serious learning took place. No more. Under block scheduling, they have become little more than glorified playtime periods. Classes used to consist of core subject material being communicated to students by individuals rich in knowledge and experience. Now teachers are no longer teachers, but merely guides - glorified baby-sitters, if you will. Under block scheduling, the students are now in groups trying to "discover" facts that used to be communicated instantly when teachers actually taught. It's obvious that this format wastes valuable class time - and that doesn't include the time students waste by talking, singing, and becoming restless all-around as a result of the lengthened class periods."

This letter articulates the concerns some teachers, parents, and even students have about block scheduling, where class periods last 80 to 100 minutes and only four classes are held each day. This type of schedule became popular in middle and high schools in the 1990s as an alternative to the traditional schedule, where students attend the same six to eight classes, 45 to 50 minutes each, every day. The idea behind the change was that with less transition time between classes, fewer instructional minutes would be wasted, and the kinds of behavior issues and bullying that can crop up during class transitions would also be cut down. On top of that, having extended blocks of time would give teachers the opportunity to dive more deeply into their content.

And in many cases, schools have been successful with block scheduling. They've even found solutions for some of the problems it presents, like offering shorter periods for classes like math and band, where consistent daily practice is more important. But one issue with block scheduling seems to persist, a problem that is highlighted in the letter above, a problem that is still voiced by teachers and students today: The ineffective use of the longer block of instructional time.

So that's what we're going to focus on here. We'll start by looking at the mindset that causes a lot of block scheduling's biggest problems. Then we'll quickly review some best practices for teaching in the block. Finally, I'll walk you through five specific structures you can choose from to plan solid, interesting instruction for an extended class period, the kind of teaching that will make those 90 minutes fly by.

The Big Problem: A Lecture-as-Teaching Mindset

Some of the challenges associated with block scheduling boil down to logistics, like needing more time for AP courses. These issues can often be solved with creative scheduling tweaks.

But the rest of it, the criticisms lobbed at block scheduling and the problems that can crop up with it, can almost all be traced back to one mindset, a single strong, pervasive belief about teaching, and that mindset is this:
teaching = lecture
This mindset, the belief that lecture is the only "real" way to teach, causes all kinds of trouble in block scheduling.

Let's go back to the math teacher who described the extended classes in block scheduling as "glorified play periods" in his letter. One likely reason he felt that way was because he saw his co-workers doing something besides straight-up lecturing. Here's a line from his letter again, where he longs for the good old days of traditional scheduling: "Classes used to consist of core subject material being communicated to students by individuals rich in knowledge and experience." What could he possibly mean besides lecture?

In this teacher's mind, anything that wasn't lecture couldn't possibly be "serious learning," and therefore all the other non-lecture-based activities he observed in his colleagues' classrooms were a waste of time.

And to an extent, he may have a point. We don't know what was going on in his colleagues' classrooms. Maybe the other teachers were using some highly effective techniques that he was just unfamiliar with. Or maybe, if his school was like some who don't invest enough in training teachers in different methodologies, they really were just screwing around. Because if teachers don't have a well-rounded repertoire of instructional strategies, methods that they know are effective, they will only use lecture to teach, and that gives them one of two choices:

1. Lecture for the full 90 minutes, which bores students to tears, can lead to behavior problems, and ultimately has a negative return, since student attention spans can't be sustained for longer than about 15 minutes. So in this case, you're "covering" a lot of material, but students aren't learning it.

2. Lecture for half the period, then give students the second half for "homework time." This is also ineffective, because that means students are actually learning only half the material over the course of a semester or year. This is typically the reason why some teachers object to block scheduling: They say they can't "get through" as much material. But if these teachers knew more strategies, that remaining time could be used for instruction that would actually hit more learning targets.

Best Practices on the Block

Do not rely solely on lecture.
This advice comes from every teacher I have talked to and every piece of research I have read about successful block teaching (for a good summary, see Queen, 2002). Although I do believe a brief, dynamic lecture every now and then is an efficient way to deliver instruction, and does not need to be abandoned entirely, teachers who lean too heavily on it are doomed to failure in a longer class period. Instead, use a variety of instructional strategies, many of which we will get to in a little while.

Switch activities every 15 to 20 minutes.
Students get restless when they are required to sit still or do the same thing for long periods of time, so unless they are working on a task that will truly engage them for a full hour (and we'll get to these later on), look at your class period as a series of 15- to 20-minute chunks of time and switch activities in each chunk.

Overplan.
If you've ever finished your planned activities in a 50-minute period and found yourself with ten awkward minutes to kill, imagine how much worse it is when you have 30. So plan for the essential activities, but also build in some extras that would be nice to get to, but aren't essential. Meagan Brockway, a high school history teacher in Greencastle, PA, says, "Block scheduling requires planning for more than you can accomplish and then continually readjusting based on student needs." This readjustment may vary from student to student and class to class. "If I have a class that is tremendously behind, then it is a matter of looking at the 'extras' and either cutting those out completely to get to the content needed OR if it is a class that is up for a challenge, then I give them extended time to complete it on their own."

Use a smart pacing guide.
One of the challenges of block scheduling is "fitting in" all of the content you might be used to teaching on a daily schedule. Pacing guides, which are used to map out when you will address each learning target or standard throughout the year or semester, are essential to make sure you use class time wisely. But these often value "coverage" over actual learning. The late educator Grant Wiggins, who always offered incredibly insightful ideas on authentic learning, wrote a great post on designing pacing guides that help teachers hit the most essential standards but also build in time for re-teaching and extension when necessary.

5 Structures for a Block Class Period

To make the most of your extended class period, consider one of these five structures, which you can mix and match over the course of a marking period, depending on your instructional needs. For the sake of convenience, I'm going to assume we're talking about a 90-minute class period, but you should obviously make slight adjustments if your block is longer or shorter than that.

The Classic

This would look the most like a typical lesson, except you would have time to do it right and include ALL the bells and whistles that we all know a good lesson should have:

(10 min) An engaging anticipatory set to pique students' interest, build relevance, bring concepts out of long-term memory or just set the stage for learning. This is a step we often skip over when we are pressed for time. (For ideas, see my post on anticipatory sets or this one on How to Approach Your Teaching Like a Master Chef.)

(15-20 min) Some kind of direct instruction, where the teacher delivers the day's lesson through a lecture (Yes! In small doses this is okay!), doing a demonstration, showing a video, having students read through some kind of text or do an interactive online lesson.

(30 min) Student application of the content. This might take the form of individual practice, reciprocal learning, or some other kind of group work.

(15-20 min) An assessment of the content or skill, followed perhaps by re-teaching to those who need it and an extension activity for students who met the standard.

(10 min) A reflection or other kind of wrap-up, where the value of the lesson is reinforced.

Whitney Schultz, who teaches 80-minute blocks of English at a high school in Baltimore, MD, uses this kind of structure on most days, mixing up the activities within each of the segments. "That 10-15 minute review and 10-15 minute introduction might instead be a 20-30 minute quiz followed by self-grading; or, in my AP class, it might be 20-30 minutes of daily AP practice followed by 40-50 minutes of text discussion/analysis. I've found it's easier to fill 80 minutes than try to trim down what I cover each day!"

The Workshop

In this structure, students would spend the majority of time working on their own projects. The class period might start with a brief (10-minute) mini-lesson, and it would ideally end with some kind of a wrap-up, sharing, or reflection time, but at least a full hour would be spent working independently or in groups on a long-term, hands-on project. Meanwhile, the teacher would circulate, conferencing individually with students as needed or using an appointment system like the one used at the Apollo School.

In an English language arts class, this could be independent writing or reading, or a mixture of both, depending on what each student happens to be working on at the time.

If you are running a self-paced math class, or are delivering instruction through hyperdocs or playlists, where students work at their own pace through a series of lessons, then during the hour, students would just get started from wherever they are in the materials.

In any class that has implemented Genius Hour, this time could be devoted to research, writing, or working on presentations.

The Lab

One big, focused activity takes up most of the class period in this structure. Class may start with some kind of an introduction and end with a reflection or wrap-up, but at least an hour is set aside for an activity where the whole class digs into a single meaty task. In this case, the task itself is designed to be active and engaging, so the rule about switching every 15 or 20 minutes is waived. The big activity could be any of the following:

Simulations or role-plays, which can be incredibly useful in helping students understand complex social studies or science concepts.

A debate, socratic seminar, or some other long-form discussion strategy

A project-based learning activity

A virtual field trip

Jigsaw or another cooperative learning activity

An actual lab (hello, science!)

Sketchnoting: This idea comes from Jana Maiuri, a middle school English teacher in Oakland, California, who will occasionally set aside a whole class period for students to create sketchnotes on a given topic. It starts with "a ten minute rapid-fire warm-up...followed by a kind of 'okay, show me everything you know about commercial fish depletion in a sketchnote in the next 90 minutes.' Then in the next class we do two concentric circles and everyone gets two minutes to present their sketch: three vital facts, the most unique or compelling thought, and one artistic accomplishment or challenge. The movement and the art are engaging and thought provoking." (To get started with sketchnoting, see Vicki Davis' comprehensive post on sketchnoting here.)

The Performance

At the end of a learning cycle, students should ideally have some kind of final product to share with peers, or even outside visitors. A 90-minute block class would be ideal for sharing and celebrating this student work. This performance could take many forms:

Student speeches

Film festival

Gallery of physical or digital products

Skits

Poetry or other readings

The Variety Pack

On some days, you might opt to just give students a fast-paced mixture of activities, some that might review previously learned content, some that introduce new stuff, others that do a bit of drill and practice, and even some that are just there for fun and enrichment. These can be handled in a station rotation model, with student-selected learning centers, or just by having the whole class do a a series of smaller activities together. Here are just a few possible activities you could include:

Any kind of skills practice, flashcard work, or retrieval practice

Watching a short video clip

Independent reading

Journal writing

Having a short philosophical chairs debate

A short read-aloud from a book you're reading together as a class

Small group work with the teacher

Games like Kahoot or Crumple & Shoot

So whether you're brand-new to block scheduling or you've already been doing it for years, I hope you've found at least one new idea to help you make the most of that extended class period and never again be accused of running a "glorified playtime period." ♦
References
Queen, J.A. (2002). Block scheduling revisited. Phi Delta Kappan, 82(3), 214-222.

There's more where this came from.
Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Come on in!!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whether you're brand-new to block scheduling or you've been doing it for years, these strategies will have you handling those 90 minutes like a boss.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
shs block schedule instructional resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SHS Block Schedule Instructional Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Block Schedule Revisited (some great descriptions of successful strategies)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As a longtime fan of Marie Lu-I bought her debut novel Legend on the day it released-I was excited and intrigued by the concept of , the first novel in this duology. It focuses on Emika Chen's selection for and participation in the Warcross Championships, an international esports tournament for a game that sounds like a more technologically-advanced version of Overwatch. Yet Warcross, for its focus on innovative technology, was itself not very innovative at all, containing a lot of predictable elements ranging from the romance to the "plot twists" at the end.

With the release of Wildcard, I was interested to see the direction Emika's story would take, and in many ways, Wildcard is a much better book, though it lacks the action-packed virtual reality sequences that make Warcross fun. Wildcard focuses much more on intrigue, taking Emika and the other members of the Phoenix Riders team on investigations and into thrillingly dangerous situations.

Spoilers for Warcross and Wildcard follow!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a longtime fan of Marie Lu-I bought her debut novel Legend on the day it released-I was excited and intrigued by the concept of , the first novel in this duology. It focuses on Emika Chen's selection for and participation in the Warcross Championships, an international esports tournament for a game that sounds like a more technologically-advanced version of Overwatch.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Find a Book (Campus Library) - Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find a Book (Campus Library) - Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bookshare | An Accessible Online Library for people with print disabilities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bookshare makes reading easier. People with dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers can customize their experience to suit their learning style and find virtually any book they need for school, work, or the joy of reading.

# data[].attributes.body
Simple Guide For Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Conversation calendars can be incredibly useful for smaller and larger classrooms, and are formatted so each student is communicating something useful to the teacher at least once a day. At the beginning of the year, teachers can utilize the calendars to learn students' interests, struggles, and successes. If the entries are personal, students can circle which ones they would like their teacher to read. Once students are comfortable with this format, however, calendars can be used to assess curricular understanding. By designing questions that give insight into students' comprehension, teachers can monitor classroom growth in a curricular area on the individual and holistic level. Calendars are a fast and easy way to connect to a classroom. Below is an example of a Conversation Calendar entry that might be used for assessment:

As you can see, Conversation Calendars not only create dialogue between teacher and students, they create constant learning opportunities for both parties. Attached is a downloadable calendar to use with your classes!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Conversation calendars can be incredibly useful for smaller and larger classrooms, and are formatted so each student is communicating something useful to the teacher at least once a day. At the beginning of the year, teachers can utilize the calendars to learn students' interests, struggles, and successes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I don't know about you, but when I sit through a faculty meeting or professional development session of any sort, I start getting antsy by the 30-minute mark. If you can relate, just imagine how your students must feel when they've been sitting for too long. Educational brain breaks are the perfect way to help your students redirect their energy and focus when they start to fade.

I find it super-beneficial to incorporate quick mindful, physical, and mental check-ins with my students as a regular part of my classroom routine. These breaks include all types of movement, yoga and breathing exercises, as well as jokes, quick videos, and more. The activities I use have helped me throughout my lifetime, so I love sharing them with my students. Here are my favorite educational brain breaks that are sure to increase productivity and give your kids a much-needed way to unwind before the next lesson.

Mindful Educational Brain Breaks

1. Use transition times for mental check-ins

Transitions are a big part of the elementary school day. When I first started teaching 19 years ago, I was surprised by just how much time it takes to get ready for specials or to bring students back from centers. It's hard not to feel like that's lost time. That's why using transition time for mental health check-ins is such a game changer. Mental health check-ins can help students get in touch with their emotions, refresh and recharge, acknowledge and cope with negative thoughts and overwhelming feelings, and be more focused throughout the day.

2. Pretend to breathe like an animal

Source: Stephanie Sanders

This video shows students how to pretend to breath like some of their favorite animals. The snake breath involves hissing while slithering from side to side, while the whale breath has students pretend to breathe out through a blowhole! Tap into creativity by picking other interesting animals and acting them out through breath.

3. Do a 10-minute guided meditation

These guided meditations are educational and are perfect to use as brain breaks whenever you and your students just need to breathe. Catch your breath with any of these 20 guided video meditations.

4. Practice "focus ball" breathing

Walk your kids through the following exercise: Stand or sit with legs and feet together. Bring your palms together in front of your chest. Keep your fingertips touching as you pull your palms apart, forming a ball with your fingers. Press your fingertips together until you feel the muscles in your hands and arms activating. See if you feel your core tighten too. Now close your eyes and as you breathe in, inflate your ball, and as you breathe out, flatten the ball by pushing your palms together. (Repeat these instructions for 60 seconds).

Learn more: Mindful.org

5. Try the old ear-nose switcheroo

This is a quick and easy challenge to reset the brain. Instruct kids to touch their left ear with their right hand and at the same time touch their nose with their left hand. Then have them switch their hands and touch their right ear with their left hand and their nose with their right hand. Switch back and forth a few times. Then have them close their eyes, take a deep breath, and blow it all out.

Learn more: YouTube: Ear-Nose Switch

6. Take a yoga break

Source: The Pyjama Foundation

Inspire kids to move, stretch, and practice mindfulness with yoga. These printable yoga cards make it easy to incorporate yoga into your educational brain breaks. Each page includes a picture and description of the pose, and each page includes poses of increasing difficulty from level 1 to level 5. And don't worry, it's not a huge time commitment. The sequence on each card is designed to take only a few minutes.

7. Stretch it out

It's never a good idea to spend too much time sitting in one position. Allow kids to take a break and bring some flexibility back into their spines. Have them stand with their feet shoulder-distance apart. Put their left hand on their hip and raise their right hand overhead. Lean to the left and stretch their arm as far as they can to the left. Repeat on the right side. Then stand tall and slowly roll down one vertebra at a time until their hands reach the floor (or at least their shins). Have them take a deep breath then slowly roll back up. Repeat as necessary.

Learn more: Mom Junction

8. Focus on sound

Have kids sit quietly with their eyes closed. Ring a chime or gong. Have them listen carefully to the chime, feeling the vibration in their body as the sound reverberates and then slowly fades. Tell them to breathe slowly and deeply as they focus on the sound.

9. Do a quick mindfulness activity

Mindfulness activity cards provide great educational brain breaks. Stash a pack in your desk and pull them out whenever you need them. Each card will give a prompt for kids to try that will let them refocus and recharge. Perfect for moments when you need to bring down the energy in the room.

Buy it: Mindfulness Cards for Kids at Amazon

10. Chill out with this cross-body exercise

Have kids stand tall and cross one leg in front of the other while pressing the outsides of their feet together. Now have them cross their arms over each other at the wrists. Clasp their hands and curl their arms into their chest. Take a few breaths, and uncross and cross the opposite way for a few more breaths.

11. Float with jellyfish

When you really need to take the energy in your room down a notch, turn off the lights, set a timer, and put on a calming video. For example, Cat Trumpet put together a jellyfish aquarium video where kids will find themselves under the brilliant blue sea in the middle of a swarm of jellyfish. They'll be mesmerized by the slow, fluid motions and lulled into calmness by the soothing music.

12. Break out the hot hands

This is a good break when you sense a weariness in the air. Have kids rub their hands together vigorously until they warm up. Tell them to close their eyes and place their hands over their eyes. Instruct them to breathe deeply as they clear their minds and refocus.

13. Try cat and cow poses

Source: Flow and Grow Kids Yoga

Have kids start on all fours and then give them the following instructions to complete the cat and cow yoga poses: Place your shoulders over your wrists and hips over your knees. Arch your back to the sky and tuck in the tailbone (cat pose). Let your head fall between your arms. From there, sink the belly towards the ground, and lift the chest and chin (cow pose). Gently alternate between the two poses while breathing deeply.

14. Do nothing for two minutes

Never underestimate the power of stillness. When the energy gets a little ramped up, and it's time for the entire class to take a pause, have them drop everything and glue their eyes to the screen as you show this countdown. The gentle lulling of the waves and the sight of the sun sparkling off the water will reset their nervous system in a jiffy.

Learn More: Calm

15. Spread your wings (in slow motion)

Walk your kids through this winged movement: Sit cross-legged on the floor. Stretch your arms down by your sides with your palms facing inward toward your body. Slowly raise both arms while rotating hands forward. When your arms reach shoulder level, your hands should be facing forward. Continue raising arms, slowly rotating palms so that by the time hands are overhead, palms are facing each other. Slowly lower arms, repeating the rotation (palms facing each other, palms facing forward, palms facing sides) until they are once again resting at your sides. As you raise and lower your arms, stretch them as long as you can, as if you are scraping the sides of the room and the ceiling. Repeat slowly three times, breathing deeply.

Physical Education Brain Breaks

16. Play Silent Ball when you have downtime

You can play a quick game of Silent Ball anytime, anywhere. Play a quick three-minute game right before dismissal or before transitioning to a new activity. All you need is a small squishy ball. The rules are simple: 1) stay quiet and 2) don't drop the ball when passing it around. This activity is one of those educational brain breaks that builds a positive classroom community, fosters friendly competition, and boosts nonverbal communication. Enjoy the silence.

17. Line up in unique ways

Kids are very social and curious beings. Most of them love to chat with one another at any chance they can get. Lining up to leave the room for anything is the perfect chance for them to mix and mingle. Make a more productive use of this time by having students line up in special ways. Some fun ideas include lining up in alphabetical order by name, by birth date, or by height order.

18. Just jump!

Sometimes kids just need to bounce their energy out. Have them pretend they are bouncing on a mini-trampoline (this will keep their movement on a vertical plane instead of all over the room), and give them a couple of minutes to let loose!

19. Take a cue from the stadium

Here's one for a group of kids-start the wave! Beginning at one end of the room, kids stand up and throw their arms overhead, bringing them back down as they return to their seats. Each row follows until you reach the other end of the room. Amp it up by encouraging your kids to tap their feet or tap their hands on their legs so that they are in constant motion. This activity works great on Zoom too!

20. Stir the pot

Have kids visualize they are standing in front of an enormous cauldron. Inside the cauldron is an ooey-gooey pot of caramel. Take hold of a large stirrer and plunge it to the bottom of the pot. Slowly begin to stir in a clockwise direction. Have them use their whole body to help get a full range of motion in their wrists and shoulders. Instruct them to throw their hips into the action. After a minute or two, reverse the direction.

21. Make it rain

Conjure up a rainstorm! Sitting or standing at a desk or table, have kids tap one finger on the desk, then two, then three, then four, then their whole hand until you all feel like you're in the middle of a deluge. Work your way backward from five down to one as the storm ebbs away.

22. Energize with these

First, instruct kids to touch their left elbow to their right knee, then touch their right elbow to their left knee. Switch back and forth, going slowly at first, building speed until they are going at a vigorous pace. Next, do some windmills by standing tall with their feet shoulder-width apart and their arms stretched out. Bend at the waist and touch their right hand to their left toes, then their left hand to their right toes. Switch back and forth.

23. Make X's and O's

Walk kids through the following exercise: Sitting in a chair with your feet on the ground and legs together, curl your body into your lap, folding yourself into a tiny O shape. Next, open your arms and legs wide, forming an X shape with your body. Pull back into an O shape, then back out to an X shape. Repeat three times.

24. Energize in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Get hearts pumping with a quick sequence of exercises. Call out five actions for your students to do as quickly as they can. For instance, five jumping jacks, four push-ups, three sit-ups, two squat jumps, and one tree pose.

25. Take a cruise on an imaginary skateboard

Have your kids line up next to a wall and place one hand on the wall. Tell them to plant the foot closest to the wall and swing the other leg, as if pushing off the ground on a skateboard. Start slowly, with tiny swings, moving up to power pushes. Repeat on the other side.

26. Take a break to groove

Music is a great way to reset the mood in a room and raise the energy level. Put on a fun song and have a 30-second freestyle dance party. Here's a big list of school-appropriate songs for kids.

27. Or take it to the next level

Teach your kids the steps to popular dances such as the Cha-Cha Slide, the Macarena, or the Kidz Bop Shuffle.

28. Ramp up with a round of cherry pickers

This easy activity will get your students' hearts pumping and give their brains a boost. Have them jump up off the ground, then down to the floor into a push-up position. From there, instruct them to hop their feet up into a frog position, then pop up to a standing position.

29. Clap on, clap off

When you say "clap on," kids clap their hands vigorously together. When you say "clap off," they stop as quickly as they can and freeze. Or follow along with this a fun video.

30. Skip it out

When the energy is fading and kids need to get their blood flowing, put on a peppy song and pull out the imaginary jump ropes. Have kids skip or jump rope in place until the song ends.

31. Make like a blender

Tell kids it's time to make fruit smoothies. Ask them to pretend they are in a blender and they are strawberries (or blueberries or bananas, etc.). Dramatically pour orange juice or yogurt into the air in front of you. Tell kids when you flip the switch that they need to wiggle and jiggle (separately, not together) until they are each individually blended up. Start with a slow speed, moving up to medium speed, fast speed, and finally turbo speed. And then reverse it! Start at turbo speed and go back to slow speed.

32. Celebrate with a silent cheer

This activity is perfect for the end of an activity or a sustained amount of work time-especially for kids who are learning remotely. Let kids stand up and silently cheer and gesture in celebration. How animated can they get?!

33. Do a full-body workout

This kid-friendly exercise video is great for your body and brain! Kids can follow along through a set of workout moves that will get their blood pumping.

34. Play popcorn

Students will all be sitting in their chairs, and at any time, a student can jump up and say, "Pop!" Once they do, that student remains standing. If two students pop up at the same time, everyone takes their seats, and the game starts over. How quickly can the entire class pop without having to start over?

35. Hit the wall

Pushing against a solid object is a good way to displace extra energy from your body. Have kids stand facing a wall with their arms stretched out in front of them, palms on the surface of the wall. Push the wall away with all their strength for a count of ten. Relax for five seconds, then push again. Other activities they can do at the wall include calf stretches and wall push-ups.

36. 3, 2, 1 blastoff!

Instruct kids to stand and then squat down with their hands on the ground in front of them. All together, count down 3, 2, 1. When you get to zero, they should push up like a rocket, jumping as high as they can-letting all of their energy burst from their center.

37. Quick as a snap, wink

This is a quick and easy refocusing activity. Tell kids to snap their left fingers while they wink their right eye. Switch to snapping their right fingers while winking their left eye. This activity is particularly effective for younger learners who may find both activities challenging.

38. Balance break

A great way to get kids out of their chairs is to practice balance. Have them hop on one foot. Then up the ante by having them stand on one foot and bend their other knee out in front of them.

39. Tabletop push-ups

Kids can use their desk, a chair, the side of their couch-anything really. Have them place their hands on the table and focus their eyes in the center, moving down slowly and pushing back up.

40. Try some facial gymnastics

Have kids get their silly on for 30 seconds. Tell them to wiggle their eyebrows up and down as fast as they can. Then try to raise one eyebrow at a time.

Mental Brain Breaks That Are Educational

41. Take a comedy break

Comedy is a great release when the atmosphere is feeling a little intense. Show a funny video clip or have kids volunteer to tell a joke or pose a few silly riddles. We have compiled a number of jokes by theme on WeAreTeachers for kids of all ages for guaranteed laughs. For example, your students will love one of our most recent additions, 34 Cat Jokes for Kids. From there, you can find dog jokes, seasonal jokes, food jokes, and much more.

42. Share fun facts

In addition to joke compilations, we have plenty of fun fact lists on our site with themes that will thrill your students. Plus they're an educational way to teach your students new information during brain breaks. Get started with these fun feline facts to accompany the jokes above. Meow!

43. Practice another language

Source: startasl.com

Teach your kids the alphabet in sign language. Use brain breaks to practice by singing the ABCs while signing the letters. Then practice vocabulary words by spelling them out loud while signing the letters.

44. Find out how it's made

Remember that classic Sesame Street video about how crayons are made? We watched in awe as crayons rolled off the assembly line, wrapped in paper, and then slipped into those familiar cardboard boxes. Kids today are just as fascinated by how things are made! Here are our favorite videos about how things are made-from fireworks to LEGO.

45. Take a doodle break

According to researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, downtime is essential for brain health. Kids need time for their growing brains to integrate and process the vast amount of information they receive each day. In other words, it is actually beneficial to give our kids time to allow their minds to wander. Try this: Set a timer for three to five minutes and let kids silently doodle with pencil and paper or a dry-erase board and marker while soft, calming music plays in the background.

Learn more: Sage Journals

46. Try a directed-drawing activity

Directed drawing activities walk your students through the process step-by-step so anyone can create their very own masterpiece. Teachers can lead the session by drawing on the whiteboard or chart paper while students follow along. Even better, there are plenty of videos on YouTube that lead the lesson, giving you a little break too. We have done the work and gathered some our favorite free directed-drawing activities for kids. Grab your favorite art supplies and get creative!

47. Gather your favorite GIFs

Make a slideshow of your favorite GIFs and have your kids act them out. Funny animals are a good place to start!

48. Find the object

Kids don't even have to get out of their seats for this one, but they can! Have one student start by finding an object and saying, "I see something beginning with the letter [fill in the blank]." The first person to guess the item correctly gets to choose the next object. This can be a fun one to play on Zoom too! You can have kids add in additional clues to help.

49. Clap for a little call-and-response

Pep things up with a little call-and-response clapping. It's simple to do and is often used in the classroom to get students' attention. Simply clap out a pattern that your kids will repeat back to you. Switch out the pattern a few times until everyone is focused and engaged. Alternatively, try a vocal call-and-response. Sing out a few riffs and have kids echo the tune back to you.

50. Color yourself mellow

Even grown-ups have picked up on the coloring craze as an excellent way to calm down and zone out. Put on some nice mellow background music, set a timer, and pass out some of these free mandala coloring pages.

51. Try a brain-break spinner

One way to make sure educational brain breaks are effective is to change up activities. Check out these online movement spinners for Wheel of Fortune-type games that help you add variety to brain breaks!

53. Would You Rather?

Students of all ages love participating in Would You Rather? videos, which can be found all over YouTube these days. Each video is approximately 8 minutes long, and students are given two scenarios where they choose which one they would rather participate in. Topics range from food items to activity choices to places to visit and more. As students choose the scenario, they move to either the right or left side of the room. Students then perform 30-second rounds of a specified exercise before repeating the process with another choice. Some of our favorite Would You Rather? channels include PE with Mr. G, Phonics Man, and Fix and Play. Students love when their teacher participates with them in the fun!

Learn more: PE With Mr. G

52. Write it out

Don't underestimate the power of journaling or creative writing. Give your kids a 5- or 10-minute break to open up a page of their notebook and write about anything they'd like. They don't have to share it with the class or do anything else with it; just use the quiet time to focus on something they love and want to write about.

Educational Video Brain Breaks by Grade Level

54. Brain-break compilations by grade level

If you are looking for a sample of brain breaks suitable for your students by grade level, look no further. We have created separate links of 25 videos each for individual grades at the elementary level. Go down the list and find your favorite!
Kindergarten Brain Breaks First Grade Brain Breaks Second Grade Brain Breaks Third Grade Brain Breaks Fourth Grade Brain Breaks Fifth Grade Brain Breaks
What educational brain breaks do you love? Share them in the comments!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Quick, easy educational brain breaks that will help students re-energize, refocus, and give their brains a much-needed boost.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Build students' sense of engagement by incorporating activities that get them out of their seats to work with course content.

©Alamy Stock Photo/Photo Alto

For a high school English teacher, it seems as though every time of day has a reason why students may feel more tired, lethargic, or less engaged: It's the morning, or it's right before their break, or it's after lunch, or the school day is almost over. And I don't disagree-learning and school can be demanding, exhausting, and not always entertaining.

But adding more movement and discussion into the classroom can awaken your students' interests, passion, and sense of community. While getting students out of their seats may be intimidating for some of us, or seem chaotic, there are so many strategies that are easy to implement, and you will surely see the difference in your students' energy levels.

Four Corner Discussions

Replace anticipation guides with a classroom four corner discussion. Before reading a text or at the beginning of your new unit, come up with a few debatable statements that are relevant to what you are learning. For example, here are a couple of statements I use with my ninth-grade students as we read Romeo and Juliet: "True love can conquer all problems," and, "Our lives are governed by fate," among others that are relevant to the text. Then, I divide the room into four different corners: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. Make sure to label these corners of the room to make this activity easier.

After announcing a statement, have students stand still for a few moments so they can think about their position and then tell them to move to the corner of the room where they can discuss their position with like-minded peers. After giving two to four minutes of small group discussion time, pause their conversations and have a short whole-class discussion with representatives from all sides. Then move on to the next statement. This increases movement while students practice their speaking and listening skills, along with their academic language.

Gallery Walks

Gallery walks are a commonly used strategy in the classroom to get students to walk around the room and interpret or analyze different materials displayed on desks or walls. Perhaps you are a history teacher and you want students to observe several primary sources, or maybe you are an English teacher who wants to expose students to a variety of poems or short stories. You don't have to stick to words-students can observe, discuss, and reflect on images as well.

Gallery walks are relatively easy to prepare for, while getting students out of their seats and engaging with content. This activity allows for higher exposure to your content, which is a great way to front-load a topic or to have students dig deeper. Recently, my students did a gallery walk to observe and discuss a variety of political cartoons, poems, and articles all around the unit theme of Power and Oppression.

Depending on your class size, you may want to post or display five to 10 artifacts that you would like students to interact with. Allow students to walk freely with a partner or a group to the different artifacts and either have a small-group discussion or write down their answers for you to review later on.

Silent Discussion Boards

Another way to increase movement and collaboration is through silent discussion boards. Around the room, put up poster paper or butcher paper, each with a question written on it. The questions should be open-ended and relevant to the topic you are currently teaching. Have students silently walk around the room and write their answers on the poster paper. They are able to walk freely and should write on each poster paper more than once.

As the conversations grow, students are essentially creating a collaborative mind map with their peers. They can stem off each other's statements and ask their own questions, or respond to another classmate's ideas. As they return to the different discussion boards, they can see how each conversation has grown and evolved.

This activity is particularly empowering for more introverted students who may otherwise not feel as confident about sharing their opinions.

Musical Discussions

This activity can be used as a community builder or as a way for students to further discuss a topic or concept from your classroom. As you play music, the students walk around the classroom. Once the music stops, they find the closest person to them. Ask a question that they discuss with their partner. This could be get-to-know-you questions like what their favorite TV show is or a content-related question for them to explore together.

You can instead ask the question before starting the music to give students more thinking time and to alleviate any anxiety that students may feel about talking to others.

This is a fun activity to get students moving and socializing with students in the class that they otherwise may not interact with much. It also takes out the awkward panicked feeling of a student needing to find a partner for an assignment.

These four activities are simple, easy ways to awaken your class and increase engagement. Having students moving and talking not only builds important social and public speaking skills but also adds some fun to the learning environment that empowers and engages learners.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Build students' sense of engagement by incorporating activities that get them out of their seats to work with course content. ©Alamy Stock Photo/Photo Alto For a high school English teacher, it seems as though every time of day has a reason why students may feel more tired, lethargic, or less engaged: It's the morning, or it's right before their break, or it's after lunch, or the school day is almost over.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Taking a moment to focus on your breathing can help you manage stress, listen more deeply, and defuse tense classroom situations.

The work of teachers and administrators is not rocket science-It's more difficult. Students need many skills to achieve learning, including creativity and innovation, empathy, and patience. Considering the huge responsibilities that educators bear, it's not surprising that stress is a constant companion and adversary. Noticing how we breathe is one small way to manage the potential effects of stress.

Stress in schools has many sources-external mandates, curriculum expectations, dissatisfied stakeholders, and the necessity to make learning magic happen. Stress can motivate us to do our best work, or devour our confidence from within-keeping us from doing what we know is best for those we are charged with developing into the next generation of citizens.

Medical researchers have shown that when stress is mishandled or ignored, the risks can increase for many health conditions, including "obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, depression, gastrointestinal problems, and asthma."

Practicing deep mindful breathing can help us deal with stressful situations like being stuck in traffic, being late for a difficult meeting with parents or our boss, or facing a challenging class. Studies support approaches to mindful breathing, and taking time for restful breathing can help us maintain the calm needed for clear thinking.

Focusing on breathing offers a way to manage situations involving others who are stressed, including learners, colleagues, and parents. When people are agitated, their fight-or-flight response may be triggered, which can escalate a situation. Noticing our breath and consciously practicing deep breathing can help us stay grounded and not succumb to the chaotic or negative energy of others, so we can avoid making a tense situation worse. Mindful breathing allows us to stay focused on the issues, and help others to a place of safety and real conversation.

Develop Your Breathing Muscles

Mindful breathing takes practice. According to many sources, including researchers at Johns Hopkins University, people normally take 12 to 16 breaths per minute. That's 720 to 960 breaths per hour-or 17,280 to 23,040 per day. Those ranges are for a person at rest and not in a state of stress. We tend to take breathing for granted, so it's no wonder that when we're asked to focus on breathing, we may struggle.

Noticing your breathing can help you maintain calm in stressful situations, but success takes ongoing practice. You can take a yoga or meditation class, or simply practice for five minutes three to seven times a week.

Diaphragmatic breathing-inhaling deeply to fill the lungs with air-causes the lungs to press down on the diaphragm, which pushes the belly out. After inhaling, exhale slowly, releasing the breath. Notice how the belly flattens and the air rises and expels from your nose or mouth. Diaphragmatic breathing has positive health benefits, as indicated by studies from Trinity College, Dublin, and Beijing Normal University. I've created a YouTube playlist that collects nine videos you can watch to explore further.

Practice Listening Through Breathing

Have you ever shared something important at a meeting, and had the next person speak over you or immediately after you stop speaking? Those moments can make you feel like what you said was not heard nor valued-even if that was not the intention. You can't stop others from doing that to you, but you can avoid doing it yourself, by practicing pausing before speaking-simply take one or two breaths.

You can also set a rule or norm for discussions in classrooms and stakeholder meetings: Each person must take a breath before speaking after someone else has said something. Taking a breath creates a pause in the conversation. It gives everyone a moment to digest what was just said. It signals to the last speaker that her ideas are being considered.

Practice this breathing norm with students during protocols like Socratic seminar, debates, and other discussion experiences.

Take a Breath Before Acting

When a student disrupts a class by expressing anger or frustration, our instinct is to act immediately, before the situation gets worse. Instead, take one or two breaths, using the time to survey the situation and the environment. Those precious seconds could provide critical information. What emotion is the student showing? What is being said? Are the people around him showing shock, fear, or humor? What is the person's history?

You can process much of this information in the space of two breaths, and that moment can help you maintain your calm to determine the best courses of action for that individual and that situation.

Breath: The Gift That Keeps Giving

Imagine that you're running a 100-yard sprint at top speed and immediately on finishing you must make important decisions. Do you think those will be your best decisions?

Teaching and leading can be stressful. Many people-students, their parents, and other stakeholders-demand the educator's attention. The stress can wear down anyone and lead to outbursts of anger or frustration that can make issues worse, by escalating something minor into actions that cannot be taken back.

Pause a moment and take one or two diaphragmatic breaths. This simple action is a gift to yourself and to the people you're supporting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Taking a moment to focus on your breathing can help you manage stress, listen more deeply, and defuse tense classroom situations. The work of teachers and administrators is not rocket science-It's more difficult. Students need many skills to achieve learning, including creativity and innovation, empathy, and patience.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sketching smiley faces, hearts, and myriad shapes in the margins of notebooks is the classroom pastime of choice and a sometimes irritant for educators. Historically, teachers and parents have regarded doodling as an idle endeavor that detracts from the learning process.

However, researchers have discovered that doodling can actually inspire creativity, engage students academically, and help hold their attention. Read on to find out how doodling can facilitate the learning process.

Keeps the Brain Active

Even the best of teachers is not going to be able to hold every single student's attention all the time. Different presentations appeal to different students, which is why individualized education has received so much attention lately. For the students whom a lesson fails to engage, doodling can keep the brain active and on task while also allowing doodlers to personalize the message of the lesson to themselves.

When the brain doesn't receive adequate stimulation, it will begin producing its own content, thereby diverting the thoughts into the world of fantasy. Doodling keeps the brain in the moment and attuned to the task at hand.

Improves Memory Recall

Several studies have demonstrated that doodling can improve recollection of the material the student is learning while drawing. For example, a study done by the University of Plymouth had subjects listen to a long, monotonous voicemail message listing the names of people attending a party. The group instructed to doodle while they listened remembered 29 percent more on an unexpected memory quiz than the group who only listened. Similarly, a study from the University of Nottingham found that taking visual notes while studying science material can help enhance learning, engagement, and reasoning.

Some teachers have encouraged students to draw as part of their note taking in class. Lori Rice, a teacher in Wamego, Kansas, teaches her students to use sketch notes, a way of incorporating drawings and symbols into note taking. "I feel student engagement and learning increases with sketch-noting," Rice told Education Dive. "Drawing the vocabulary, as well as the other connections in the lesson, helps them retain the information."

Encourages Creativity

Doodling can guide the brain into outside-the-box thinking and kick-start the creative process, especially for students struggling with verbal reasoning and text-based lessons. Doodling is a low-stakes activity that empowers students to explore material without fear of judgment or failure. Any poet or writer knows that the fastest way to stymie the creative process is to critique as you go, and doodling avoids that pitfall. When students doodle, they recruit deeper neural connections than with pure verbal reasoning, and the result is a deeper connection with the material.

Recruits Additional Senses

Educators have known the benefits of multisensory learning for a long time now, and doodling qualifies as a visual learning tool. For one, doodling can help capture incredibly complicated and nuanced information quickly and concisely. For instance, drawing an animation of mitosis might do more for a biology student than reading about it for hours. Likewise, studies show that the more senses recruited in learning, the better the concept is cemented in the learner's mind. Doodling activates the visual senses to help further engage the brain.

Doodling may still have a bad rap in education, but attitudes are shifting. The scientific support of doodling in the classroom is overwhelming-with many benefits, from improved memory to longer attention spans.

Does your student like to doodle? Have you found doodling to be effective when learning new information? Let us know in the comments section.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Surprising Benefits of Doodling in the Classroom - Learning Liftoff

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sketching smiley faces, hearts, and myriad shapes in the margins of notebooks is the classroom pastime of choice and a sometimes irritant for educators. Historically, teachers and parents have regarded doodling as an idle endeavor that detracts from the learning process. However, researchers have discovered that doodling can actually inspire creativity, engage students academically, and help hold their attention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Quick activities that can be used to check for understanding or emphasize key information at the end of a lesson.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here by Jay McTighe work both in the classroom and remotely.

Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo

Using formative assessments designed to check for understanding and provide students with feedback and support is one of the most effective ways to improve and enhance student learning. Yet because of the need to cover large amounts of information and develop many skills, teachers may not take time checking to make sure students understand a concept or can effectively apply a skill, and, if they don't, figuring out ways to improve their learning.

Thankfully, there are practical, proven formative assessment techniques that teachers can use as a quick "pulse check" to gauge students' understanding. The eight techniques here can be applied across grades and subject areas in virtual, hybrid, and in-person learning environments.

The results of these checks should not be graded since the purpose of formative assessment techniques is to obtain feedback to use in improving teaching and learning, not to evaluate learning. It's important that students understand the purposes of these techniques, that mistakes are OK-and even expected-and that they will not be graded on their responses.

Thumbs up: I understand _____ and can explain it in my own words.

Wave hand: I'm not completely sure about _____ and doubt I could explain it.

Thumbs down: I don't yet understand _____ and cannot explain it.

Ask students to display a designated hand signal to indicate their degree of confidence in their understanding of a concept, principle, or process. For example:

Self-assessment and self-reporting can be unreliable, so use a random calling technique to periodically select students with their thumbs up (e.g., pull names out of a bowl) and ask them to explain.

In virtual learning environments, students can signal on camera or post designated emojis to signal their understanding levels.

Present students with a few binary-choice statements or questions containing an understanding or a common misconception and have them select a response (e.g., True or False, Agree or Disagree) and share it via a whiteboard, cell phone app, or hand signal (e.g., thumbs up or down). This efficient technique is particularly effective to use in checking students' prior knowledge or potential misconceptions before beginning new instruction.

True/False: When dropped from the same height, a bowling ball will land before a marble.

Agree/Disagree: Is this an example of alliteration?

Here are a couple of "choosing" formats with examples:

In virtual learning environments, students can use the chat box feature to record their choices, or respond to a poll.

3. Picture It

Draw a visual web of factors affecting plant growth.

Develop a concept map to illustrate how a bill becomes a law.

Create a story map or sequence diagram showing the major events in the story.

Visual representations, such as graphic organizers and concept maps, are widely used to enhance learning, and can also be used as formative assessments. Have students create a visual or symbolic representation (e.g., a graphic organizer, web, or concept map) of information and abstract concepts and then be prepared to explain their graphic. Picturing techniques are especially useful to see if students understand how various concepts or elements of a process are related.

In virtual learning environments, students can post their visuals on a Google slide or Pinterest board, or in Nearpod or Jamboard.

4. Troubleshoot It

1. Identify the flaw or error, and (even better)

2. Correct it.

One of the most efficient and effective quick checks for understanding involves troubleshooting. Present students with a common misconception or a frequent procedural error. See if they can:

Present a rough draft of writing and ask students to serve as an editor to mark compositional and grammatical errors.

Have students review work on a multistep word problem to identify computational mistakes and reasoning errors, and correct them.

In a photography class, show photos reflecting common compositional errors or flawed exposure or lighting, and have students recommend needed corrections using photo editing software.

Their responses will provide a quick check of the depth of their understanding.

5. Summarize It

Compose a tweet in 280 characters or less answering the question: What is the big idea that you have learned about _____?

Record a one-minute podcast or vodcast using an app on a smartphone or tablet to summarize the key concepts from one or more lessons.

Prepare a weekly letter to your teacher (or parents) summarizing something that you now understand as a result of your learning during the past week.

Here are a few examples of this technique:

Create a "real life" word problem to see if other students understand how to calculate surface area.

Locate a news article or blog post that presents an example of the tension between individual rights and the common good.

Find examples of symmetry somewhere in our school or on the playground.

Understanding is revealed when students can transfer their learning to new situations. Accordingly, one of the best checks for understanding is to see if students can apply material in a somewhat novel context. This technique includes asking students to find or create new and novel examples to illustrate a newly learned concept.

Develop a five-minute lesson to teach a younger student about how supply and demand can affect the price of things. Use one or more specific examples that we have not discussed.

Your friend has been absent and missed the last two lessons where you learned about community helpers. Draw a picture of at least five helpers in our community to help them understand the concept of a community helper.

This is a more involved, but valuable, formative assessment technique. Ask students to teach a new concept or skill to someone else-a new student, a student who has just returned from absence, or a younger child. You'll be able to gauge their degree of understanding as you review or observe their lesson. Here are two examples:

In virtual learning environments, students can record a lesson using a laptop, tablet, or cell phone camera.

8. Analogize It

A more sophisticated technique invites students to develop an analogy or metaphor to illustrate a newly learned concept or skill. The effectiveness of their explanatory analogy or metaphor can give you insight into their understanding. However, be cautious when interpreting student responses to this technique-a student may very well understand a concept but be unable to generate an appropriate analogy. Asking students to explain their analogies will give you further insight into their understanding.

A fraction is a part of a whole like a wheel is a part of a bicycle.

Formative assessment is like tasting a meal while you're cooking because it provides feedback that a cook can use to make adjustments to improve the meal.

Here's a prompt for students: A _____ is like a _____ because _____.

Students can also create visual analogies (combining techniques 3 and 8). In virtual learning environments, students can post their analogies and metaphors in a chat box or on a Google slide or Pinterest board.

Note: Several of these techniques (especially 1, 2, 5, and 8) can be naturally used in conjunction with another popular formative assessment technique-an exit card-given to students at the end of a class period or end of the school day.

While these techniques can provide valuable information about the effectiveness of teaching and the quality of students' learning, they're not ends in themselves. Instead, they should be seen as the first step in a " feedback cycle." The next step is to act on that feedback-reteaching something that many students failed to learn; correcting misconceptions that may be revealed; and/or providing scaffolded support to students who need it. Moreover, when students are given feedback, they must also be given opportunities to use it, such as revising their work, practicing the skill, or correcting errors. (Getting feedback without a chance to use it is like eating without digesting!) Then, the formative assessment cycle reboots as revisions can be assessed again, with progress noted and new learning goals set.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here by Jay McTighe work both in the classroom and remotely.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

# data[].attributes.body
By Teens for Teens

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teen Ink, a national teen magazine, book series, and website devoted entirely to teenage writing, art, photos and forums. Students must be age 13-19 to participate, register and/or submit work. Distributed through classrooms by English teachers, Creative Writing teachers, Journalism teachers and art teachers around the country

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sponsored by Listenwise and National Geographic Education

Even before 2020, building relationships between students was an important ingredient in making school great. When students feel socially comfortable in a classroom, when they feel like they are among friends, when they feel known and seen, when they trust the people around them, they are more willing to take academic risks, ask questions, and even attend class. Creating this kind of environment in your classroom isn't really difficult, but it does require a conscious effort: While some relationships might grow organically no matter what you do, many more will develop if you take deliberate steps to make them happen.

Right now, while we're still in the middle of a pandemic, that principle is even more true. Across the world, social isolation is causing more people to experience depression and anxiety, and that's as true for students as it is for everyone else. Setting aside time for social interaction is not just a "nice to do," it really is essential. And I fear that in too many places, it's getting overlooked.

From a personal standpoint, I've seen my own kids, who are in middle and high school, beg to stay home from their twice-a-week in-person school days; they talk about the drudgery of sitting still all day, the feeling of not knowing anyone in any of their classes, and the anxiety around speaking up or getting things wrong in front of peers, all of which indicate a lack of interactivity-not enough time being spent on relationship-building between students.

This isn't a surprise: Like so many other districts, ours has done its best to adjust to constantly changing circumstances, and everyone-from the superintendent to building principals to classroom teachers-has been incredibly flexible, compassionate, and willing to do just about anything to make this school year work. But they all have a million things on their plates: Making the tech work. Getting through the curriculum. Keeping everyone, including themselves, safe. It's not a huge surprise that socializing isn't at the top of the list.

What I have to offer today is not grounded in any kind of formal research; it's just a list of ideas for generating more high-quality social interactions between students, whether they're remote or socially distanced in person. (I got most of this from your responses to this tweet and this follow-up one.) We'll talk about breakout rooms, other collaborative tools, improving participation in whole-class Zoom meetings, and some stuff that's just for fun. Whatever we do, now more than ever, it's crucial that we do something to get our students talking to each other.

In Person, but Socially Distanced

In conversations about wanting kids to get back to in-person schooling, social benefits are often high on the list of reasons. But I suspect that safety protocols, masks, and social distancing have paralyzed a lot of teachers when it comes to making those social interactions happen.

While it's obviously harder to enjoy the hands-on projects, games, and collaborative activities you did before the pandemic, I believe teachers are creative enough to figure out work-arounds. And anything is better than nothing at all.

So instead of throwing in the towel, challenge yourself, your colleagues, and your students to invent ways to do the things you used to do, but safely.

Can you play team Pictionary with whiteboards, six feet apart? Probably.

Can students interview each other through masks and report to the class about what they learned? Yes.

Is there a way to replace physical movement in certain games with digital movement, so in-person students can interact with their voices but "move" in a virtual space and stay safely spaced out? Yes. Earlier this year, I offered my own work-around for this called the Avatar Classroom. I'm sure others have come up with their own solutions, but this is one to consider or adapt.

Can you have whole-class discussions at a physical distance? Absolutely. Many of the structures in my big list of class discussion strategies can be done spaced out in masks. No, it won't be exactly the same, and not being able to see the bottom half of anyone's face limits our ability to communicate, but again, something is better than nothing.

Breakout Rooms

Most popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Google Meet now give you the ability to put participants into smaller meetings, or breakout rooms, for small-group discussion and collaboration. But just sending students into these rooms won't usually get you good results, and teachers all over the world have been learning what works best through trial and error. You can see all of their responses in this tweet. Here, I've put together a summary of the most common tips.

Roles

One of the most frequently mentioned tips was to assign roles to students. At the bare minimum, designate a group leader to start the discussion and keep everyone on task; this will prevent students from going into the rooms and waiting for someone to start.

Other students could be assigned to keep track of time, share their screen so everyone can look at a shared document or other online project, and report the group's findings after returning to the larger meeting room.

Several teachers mentioned that students prefer having the teacher assign the roles, rather than having students do it.

Clarify what the roles actually mean ahead of time; different students may have different ideas for what they're supposed to do.

One teacher adds an icebreaker element to role assignment by saying something like, "The student with the smallest shoe size will be the group leader today." This sets up a quick, fun conversation to start off the breakout session.

Grouping

The ideal size of a group ranges from 2 to 5 participants, with 3 to 4 being even more frequently mentioned. In general, smaller groups work better, but you also have to consider your ability as a teacher to pop in and out of groups; if you create too many small groups, you may not be able to get to them all often enough. (For a deeper discussion of the differences between ideal sizes of virtual and in-person groupings, listen to this interview with Peter Liljedahl on the Making Math Moments Matter podcast.)

Once groups are formed and seem to be working well, several teachers reported that it's best to keep grouping the same for an extended period of time, because the comfort and familiarity of working with the same people tended to get kids to engage more fully.

Consider getting student input on group formation. If it's possible to put students with people they want to work with, things tend to go more smoothly.

When groups are first forming, give them a few icebreaker questions or another fun activity to help participants get to know each other.

The Tech

Before moving into breakout rooms, have everyone turn on their cameras and unmute their microphones so there's no delay doing that inside the groups.

Try using two devices: One to move into breakout rooms, and the other to monitor the main meeting room.

Make sure students know how to use the "Ask for Help" button or other features that allow them to get your attention.

The Tasks

Breakout rooms work much better if the instructions are specific and clear, with a rubric if possible. Make sure students have access to the instructions once they are inside the breakout rooms.

Groups are also usually more successful if students are expected to return with some sort of response or product to share with the larger class.

Having some kind of collaborative project was the most frequently mentioned tip for breakout rooms: This can be a shared Google Doc (have each student type in a different color so you can see who contributed what), a Google Slide, a Padlet, a Canva design-the possibilities are endless.

Just like in the classroom, any assignment will get better engagement if the task actually matters to students, so if you're not getting the response you want, relevance may be the root of the problem.

Monitoring

When students are first getting used to breakout rooms, try to get one or more other adults or teachers to help you monitor and visit the rooms. This will allow you to cover more rooms and give students the support they need.

Let students know how you will be monitoring and communicating feedback to groups so they know where to watch.

Many teachers don't always go into the rooms to visit, but instead monitor the work as it's being done in a file. Here's a brilliant idea: One teacher creates a single Google Slides presentation and assigns a different slide to each group for recording their work. Doing this allows the teacher to just scroll through the slides to monitor work in all groups at once, rather than toggling between files. If you go to the View menu and choose Grid View you can actually see thumbnails of all slides at once, which will give you a birds' eye view of activity. Other options are apps like Classkick, Formative, or Pear Deck, which also let you see more than one screen of student work at a time.

General Tips

Model the desired behaviors and practices for breakout rooms. One group of teachers recorded their own mock Zoom session to demonstrate these protocols and made that video available for students to watch.

Most teachers have found it helps to set a time limit. Keep it short, especially at first; once students gain more experience, they can build their stamina to longer lengths of time.

It's not necessary to have every single breakout group report back when everyone comes back to the main room; it's ok to randomly pick a few groups to share, then get to other groups the next time around.

When students are doing individual work, try putting each student into their own breakout rooms so you can circulate and give one-on-one feedback.

Whole-Group Video Conferencing

Students are generally going to be more shy in a video conference; usually as the number of faces in the room goes up, the less willing most people are to speak. This is not that different from a physical classroom on the first few days of school, where students don't all know each other, the culture hasn't been well-established, and no one is quite sure what the rules are and what happens when you break them.

So if the school year is well underway but you're still getting low participation in whole-class video meetings, a few tweaks to your approach might help. I covered this topic in a post called When You Get Nothing But Crickets; it's about improving participation in face-to-face discussions, but it translates pretty well to virtual environments. Here's a summary of the most relevant tips:

Specify the type of response you want.

Sometimes students freeze up because they're not sure what you're looking for, and they don't want to be wrong. They'll be more willing to participate when they know the kind of answer you want. For example, you could say, "In a minute, I'm going to ask a question. What I want you to do first is think quietly about your answer. Then I'm going to ask for three volunteers to share their answer with the group."

In virtual settings, it's also absolutely essential that you have established clear protocols for HOW to respond. Should they just unmute themselves and start talking? Use a hand-raising protocol? Type something in the chat first? Without clear protocols, most students will default to doing nothing.

Ask for a show of hands first.

Instead of just throwing out a question and hoping someone volunteers to answer, ask something that everyone can respond to with a show of hands, then call on one person to elaborate. So rather than say, "How was everyone's weekend?" you could say, "How many people watched a sporting event this weekend?"

Ask individual students direct questions.

When you ask a general question to the whole group, most students won't have the confidence to volunteer a spontaneous answer. But when you call on individuals to share their thoughts on specific questions, you immediately lower the risk and make it safer to talk.

Give processing time.

When a question is asked and silence follows, it's hard to know whether the grid of faces on your screen are confused, thinking, or just shy. But one thing that's certain is that many people need a bit of time to think before responding to a question, so build that in: When you ask a question, tell students you're going to give them 30 seconds to think about their answer, then you'll call on someone. Even better, have them write down a response; then everyone will have something to share when the time is up.

A Note About Behavior

I'm hearing more about behavior issues in video conferencing sessions, especially in the elementary grades. I get the impression that some teachers are spending an awful lot of time correcting student behavior and punishing students for things like not looking at the camera or doing distracting things. This feels like a terrible use of whole-class time, but I don't have a lot of answers to this problem yet. If you've found good solutions to this issue, please share them in the comments below.

Collaboration and Discussion Apps

Quite a few platforms offer tools and spaces where students can conduct robust conversations, academic or otherwise.

Group Messaging: Microsoft Teams allows teachers to set up a controlled environment where students can send individual or group messages and create topic-specific subgroups for more focused conversations. Slack and the recently popular Discord offer similar spaces, but they currently don't have as many structures set up for student use. And Voxer has always been one of my all-time favorite tools for asynchronous voice communication.

Project Management: Trello, Kanbanchi, and Basecamp give users a place to assign tasks, plan timelines, discuss ideas, and keep track of important documents.

Discussion: Kialo and Parlay both offer wonderful frameworks for written discussions, including libraries of great topics for discussion.

Plain Old Fun

Laughter is one of the best ways to relieve stress and build community, and has there ever been a time when we needed both of those things more? Setting aside time for students to just have fun together is a very good use of time.

Games

Any kind of icebreaker can be played at any time to give students a chance to get to know each other better: two truths and a lie, short peer interviews, or any of my three favorite icebreakers.

Some schools are setting aside times for students to play social, interactive games like Among Us, Minecraft, and Roblox.

Games like Kahoot, Quizizz, Gimkit-which are great for academic content-can be played with non-academic topics as well. Students could even work in pairs to write questions for games to play as a class.

Virtual Lunch & Recess

Some schools are setting aside time for students to have lunch or "recess" in less structured video conferencing rooms where they can just chat. Even if only a few students take advantage of this, if they do so regularly it can provide incredibly important social opportunities where there might otherwise be none.

Performances

One teacher had her students perform a play in a video conferencing session and said they loved it.

Special Events

These are Zoom or Google Meet sessions scheduled for non-academic activities like cooking demonstrations, pet play dates, and craft hours, where participants are sort of busy with something at home, but hanging out together simultaneously.

Video Postcards

Pre-recorded video can go a long way toward helping students feel more connected to each other. Dave Stuart, Jr. shared his idea of sending students weekly video postcards, super-short videos of him at home, in his yard, with a pet, running errands, whatever-just sharing a quick thought with no academic strings attached.

An efficient way to do this with a whole class would be to offer a weekly Flipgrid prompt with a single question ("What was weirdest thing you ate this past week?") and allow students to participate if they want.

That's it for now. I hope you've found at least one idea you're going to try in the next week or so-not only will the extra socializing make your regular academic stuff go better, it's just something we all need more of right now. Your students need it, and so do you.

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Connecting Students in a Disconnected World

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sponsored by Listenwise and National Geographic Education Even before 2020, building relationships between students was an important ingredient in making school great. When students feel socially comfortable in a classroom, when they feel like they are among friends, when they feel known and seen, when they trust the people around them, they are more willing to take academic risks, ask questions, and even attend class.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sponsored by Pear Deck and Participate

As a middle school English teacher, I incorporated plenty of group work into my instruction. I did it for a number of reasons. Sometimes it was because a task seemed like a natural fit for cooperative learning, like days when I wanted students to brainstorm ideas together. Other times it was just to mix things up and do something different. And then there was the "fewer grades" principle: If I had 120 students and I gave an assignment to groups of four, that meant I would only have to grade 30 final products, rather than 120.

It didn't always go well, though.

Student contributions were uneven. Some groups were better at staying on task than others. A lot of time got wasted. Personalities conflicted. Absences created logistical headaches. Not only did I observe these problems as a teacher, I had also experienced them plenty of times as a participant in group projects. I was the classic "just let me do it all" person: Sensing early on in most situations that other group members weren't going to add much value, I ended up taking on most of the work myself.

Despite it all, I never quite gave up on cooperative learning as a teacher. Not only did I believe in its inherent value-that as humans, we need regular practice in working together on things-but I knew that research said it was a good thing. At least, I was pretty sure it did.

As I talk with teachers about this, I'm finding that my experiences have been fairly typical: Many of us want to use cooperative learning in our classrooms, but we wish we could get it to work better. So I went in search of answers by taking a look at the research and asking for help in this tweet and this one.

And now I have the answers to two questions.

First, Is cooperative learning worth it? What does the research say? Beyond academic research, are there philosophical, "human" reasons we should keep taking it on?

Second, How do we solve some of the most common problems with cooperative learning? After seeking input from scores of teachers and mining my own experiences, I've settled on a list of four of the most pressing issues with cooperative learning. For each one, I'll share some of the most effective solutions coming from practicing classroom teachers and organizations that have developed formal systems for collaborative work.

Let's begin.

Is Cooperative Learning Worth It?

If most of the cooperative learning we implement only gives us lukewarm results, it makes sense to ask if we should even bother. Why not just have students work alone all the time?

What the Research Says

I'm going to keep this brief: Rather than dig through piles of studies on cooperative learning, I found one big overview of decades of research that has been done on the subject (Gillies, 2016).

Here's the big takeaway: In general, when students work together, they make greater academic and social gains than when they compete against one another or when they work individually. But merely putting students into groups is not enough to realize these gains. To be effective, cooperative work needs to be structured so that it embodies five key components:

positive interdependence: Group members must work together to achieve a common goal.

individual accountability: Each member is responsible for doing his or her part.

promotive interaction: Group members help, support, and encourage each other.

effective interpersonal skills: Students are taught how to communicate, solve problems, and resolve conflict effectively.

group processing: Groups are given time to reflect on how well their group functioned and to make plans for improvement.

Beyond Research: Why Cooperative Learning Matters in the 21st Century

Apart from the academic and social gains cooperative learning has offered for generations, we now find ourselves in an era where it may be more essential than ever before.

For one thing, it gives students practice in the kind of skills that are becoming more desirable in the workplace. P21's Framework for 21st Century Learning includes collaboration as one of its essential skills. As manufacturing is automated and information can be obtained with a few clicks, higher-level skills like communication, creativity, and collaboration are more valued-these are skills computers can't really replicate. The work of human beings is going to involve more and more of those kinds of skills in professional spaces, higher education, and community life.

On a deeper level, we need cooperative learning because technology is really starting to limit our face-to-face communication. Even when we're in school together, we are on devices so much of the time. This can be wonderful and efficient, and it offers so many more opportunities to expose ourselves to new ideas, but it is stunting our ability to have regular conversations and robbing us of all the gifts that come with those interactions. Giving students regular opportunities to share physical space and actually talk through complex problems is a gift they may not get anywhere else, so yes, it's worth it.

Four Common Problems with Cooperative Learning

Problem 1: Student contributions are uneven; sometimes vastly uneven.

It came as no surprise to me that this was the most frequently mentioned drawback teachers experience with cooperative learning. This problem shows up in different ways: The academically strong students end up doing all the work, while others slack off or give up because they can't find a way in. Or maybe students contribute an equal amount, but they don't actually work together; instead, they just divide up the work, then copy off each other's papers.

Unfortunately, many teachers assume this problem is caused by students not wanting to work together, but I think it often comes down to two larger issues: First, students haven't been taught collaborative skills. And second, the task has not been structured for true collaboration.

Solving this problem is not simple or one-dimensional. It will most likely require several different approaches: explicitly teaching collaborative skills, using some type of structure so that roles and procedures are more clearly defined, and setting norms and expectations ahead of time.

Explicitly teach collaborative skills.
If students are going to do good collaborative work, they need to be explicitly taught collaborative skills.

Teach these skills in the same way that you'd teach academic material. Do role-plays, model the behavior you want to see, do demonstrations of what not to do. If needed, re-teach the skills throughout the year. Do not assume students have already been taught how to collaborate or that they should know better. Chances are very good that neither of these are true.

Train students on collaborative skills by working on shorter, easier projects at first, then have students reflect on how well they collaborated. Only have them tackle a bigger project after they have mastered the collaboration skills.

If you're going to teach collaborative skills, you need to identify what the skills are. One great set of resources comes from PBLWorks, where you can download rubrics for assessing collaborative work. Whether you use the rubrics to actually perform assessment or not, they can help you identify the skills needed for effective collaboration.

Use cooperative structures.
In my own classroom, I rarely did anything to actually structure group work. I was barely aware that formal structures existed for this type of thing. Since then I have learned that quite a few of these have been developed to provide a framework for collaborative tasks. To implement most of these well, some training or professional development will likely be necessary. Some of the structures that were recommended by teachers are listed here:

Team-Based Learning
Learn More
Popular in medical schools but applicable for K-12, this method groups students into heterogeneous teams that stay the same over the course of a whole semester. It includes steps that ensure each team member has prepared ahead of group work with pre-reading and other tasks, and has built-in structures for individual accountability. Team-Based Learning seems to be most appropriate for courses where students are expected to demonstrate learning of and think critically about a large body of content.

Agile Project Management
Learn More
This approach to managing large, complex projects comes from the world of software development. It breaks large projects into shorter cycles, where parts of the project are developed and then assessed for quality so the team can make changes as they go. Two of Agile's most well-known formats are Kanban and Scrum, which is now available in a version made specifically for schools called eduScrum. Agile seems most appropriate for project-driven courses, where students need to come up with creative solutions to problems, rather than courses driven more by knowledge acquisition.

POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning)
Learn More
This structure is most often used in science courses, but can be done in other content areas as well. In assigned, self-managed teams, students are given specific roles to carry out as they work through an activity designed to deepen their understanding of the content. Just like with Team-Based Learning, this seems to be best suited for courses that are more content-driven than those that focus on individual creativity or skills.

Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures
Learn More
Dr. Spencer Kagan's work on cooperative learning has been a teacher go-to for decades, giving us structures like Quiz-Quiz-Trade and Numbered Heads Together. The company offers professional development and lots of other resources, but probably the best (and most affordable) place to start would be with their book, Kagan Cooperative Learning, which provides a full overview of the structures and how they work. These are appropriate for all content areas and grade levels, but the artwork of the site and book suggests they are geared more toward grades K-8.

Solve in Time
Learn More
This structure was created to help teams solve problems with a design thinking approach. Students work through steps of clearly defining a problem, researching and understanding it, coming up with a solution, then sharing it.

Jigsaw
Learn More
This strategy isn't necessarily designed for projects, but rather for having students learn a discrete body of information together. Each group member is tasked with learning a chunk of the material, then teaching it to the rest of the group.

Establish norms and expectations ahead of time.
Rather than solve problems only when they come up, many teachers have students create group contracts before starting work. Developed with input from all group members, contracts outline members' expectations and describe how students will respond when problems arise. These resources can help you get started with developing contracts:

Problem 2: Interpersonal conflicts interfere with productivity.

Sometimes students just can't get along well enough to work together. These conflicts sometimes exist prior to a group's formation; students may have a history with one another that has nothing to do with your class. Personal problems can also arise after group work starts, as students discover personality traits that create irritation or conflict.

These kinds of conflicts should not be treated lightly. When students don't feel socially or emotionally comfortable with other group members, they won't be willing to take the kinds of risks that are necessary for learning. In a 2-year study, Google interviewed hundreds of its employees to determine what qualities made some teams more successful than others. They identified 5 key traits, and the one they said was most important was psychological safety. Similarly, a 2017 University of Washington study reported that students who "felt more comfortable" in their group showed a 27% increase in content mastery over those who did not (Theobald, Eddy, Grunspan, Wiggins, & Crowe, 2017).

Here are some ways teachers have optimized interpersonal dynamics in groups:

Start with team-building. For teams that will stay together for more than a class period, it's worth it to delay the academic work at first and focus on building the team relationship. One way to do this is through team-building games and activities. The website Playmeo has lots of these you can try.

Survey students ahead of time. Before creating groups, have students complete a form indicating which classmates they would prefer to work with and if there are any they would rather not. Recognize that for some students, the reasons for not wanting to work together could run deep with painful memories; do not dismiss preferences as students "just wanting to work with their friends."

Survey students during group work. Some teachers have students complete daily reflection sheets where they indicate how well they felt their group worked together that day. These can help you detect problems early on so they can be addressed right away.

Work with students to problem-solve. In some cases, rearranging groups or allowing some students to work independently may be the most logical solution. But at other times, the teacher can work with students who struggle in groups to develop better social and collaborative skills.

Elementary teacher Erin Gannon used some of the above solutions with a student whose dominant personality and poor impulse control made others ask to not be grouped with her. Gannon worked with the student one on one to practice strategies for giving others more opportunity to lead. She also talked privately with the other group members.

"We ALL came up with a plan together for what would happen if she started to 'feel prickly,'" Gannon says. "(The student) wasn't perfect but they genuinely cheered her on when she had good days. It took a lot of work but I would have devoted the same attention to an academic need. She was an excellent student, very sweet, with great leadership abilities, but that trouble working with others could really have hurt her down the road. I think my other students really needed to better understand the situation and not just shun her. If students are working in teams there should be a sense that we are all responsible for each other's success. Empowering them to be part of the solution is pretty powerful."

Problem 3: Off-task behavior wastes time.

Whether it's excessive talking, inappropriate device use, or general fooling around, a lot of cooperative time can be wasted when students just aren't doing the work they're supposed to be doing. Here are some ways to tackle this problem:

Do check-ins. Establish specific tasks or benchmarks that groups need to complete and show you when they're done. Breaking the larger project into smaller tasks not only keeps everyone moving, it can also tell you which groups are starting to fall behind the others. These check-ins can be required for individuals or for whole groups. Some teachers assign points or grades for these to add extra incentive.

Use a timer. Several teachers said that setting a timer for the completion of certain tasks helped keep groups on track.

Look at the assignment. Students may have trouble focusing on the task because it doesn't really engage them. Maybe it's not personally meaningful to them, maybe it's too easy, maybe it's too confusing. Any of these shortcomings can make it much more difficult for students to stay on task, and no matter how many checks you put in place, if it's an uninspired or poorly designed assignment you'll be fighting an uphill battle.

Problem 4: Student absences can throw everything off.

Ideally, all group members will be present for the whole lifespan of a project. But things happen, and the longer the project, the more likely you are to have absent students. One missed day is usually not a big deal, but if a student misses multiple work days when the group should be actively collaborating, it becomes much harder for that person to make an equal contribution. Here are some ways teachers have found to work around this issue:
Plan ahead.

Design projects where some components require all group members' participation, but others are done by individuals and might even be considered "like to have" rather than "must have." That way if one person is unable to do their part, that part can just be dropped without impacting the whole project.

Make sure roles and responsibilities are clearly defined ahead of time for each student so that the "work" doesn't just get pushed around randomly. If a student is absent for a few days, it's clear what they need to do to catch up, and if they are unable to do it, the other group members can decide who takes on their tasks.

If students set goals together and include contingencies for absences in a group contract, then there will already be an agreed-upon plan to put into action.

Leverage technology.

Have students use a platform like a shared Google Drive or a HyperDoc for keeping all project materials in one cloud-accessible place. As long as the absentee has home internet access and is well enough to work, he or she can keep at it from home.

Some teachers allow groups to use Skype, Facetime, or Google Hangouts to video chat with the missing group member during regular class time.

If live video chat isn't an option, students could still document their meeting with video and share that with the absent student later.

Course correct.
If a student's absence lasts long enough to impact the group and the above solutions aren't working, the teacher may redistribute the workload among remaining members, remove the student from the group, and give that student an individual assignment to replace the group task. If you spell this out in the contract and/or rubric ahead of time, the process should be fairly straightforward.

A Few More Tips

Don't send work home. Because home environments vary so greatly and students have different access to materials, transportation, etc., it's best to keep all collaborative work in the classroom. Moreover, expecting students to meet outside of class time, especially if they are younger and don't have their own transportation, will automatically create problems within groups and from group to group.

Keep groups to 3-4 students. This seems to be the general consensus from expert readings to talking with individual teachers. Once a group gets larger than 4 it becomes easier for students to slip through the cracks.

Check out collaborative tech. While many schools are already using Google's collaborative tools, other tools have collaboration features that you may not be aware of. Some are built specifically for collaboration and project management, like Trello, Asana, Kanbanchi, and Slack. Other tools like Wakelet for curation and Canva for graphic design allow students to collaborate on projects from anywhere they have internet access.

The bottom line is this: If cooperative learning hasn't really worked for you in the past, don't lose hope. There are so many people out there who have come up with fantastic ways to get it right, so pick yourself and your students back up, try some of the stuff we've covered here, and see if you can make it better next time.

References:

Gillies, R. M. (2016). Cooperative learning: Review of research and practice. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(3). Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2902&context=ajte

Theobald, E.J., Eddy, S.L., Grunspan, D.Z., Wiggins, B.L., & Crowe, A.J. (2017). Student perception of group dynamics predicts individual performance: Comfort and equity matter. PLOS One, 12(7): e0181336. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181336

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Solutions for four of the most common problems with collaboration.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
New YA titles fall 2018

MORE new YA titles fall 2018

New YA titles fall 2017

2015 Kittle library inventory

Students from Kittle's class Favorites

UNH book list: Nonfiction Social Justice, Fiction, Non-fiction for Middle School, Recommendations for Students in grades 11 & 12, Science Fiction, Upper Elementary Speculative Fiction with a focus on Fantasy

UNH book list of Comics and Graphic Novels

UNH more books: Science Fiction, YALSA 2014 Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, Books for Middle School Boys, Dystopian YA Novels, Inspiring Readers with the Newest YA Literature Award Winners (NCTE Annual Convention 2012)

Best Books of 2011 (so far...)-Donalyn Miller

Book Talks for High School 2009-2010, Gettings Guys to Read (and in the Flow)

For Parents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Drive Brand Studio - Branding, Advertising, Marketing, Websites

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
New YA titles fall 2018 MORE new YA titles fall 2018 New YA titles fall 2017 2015 Kittle library inventory Students from Kittle's class Favorites UNH book list: Nonfiction Social Justice, Fiction, Non-fiction for Middle School, Recommendations for Students in grades 11 & 12, Science Fiction, Upper Elementary Speculative Fiction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Science of Attention: How To Capture And Hold The Attention of Eas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover the science behind capturing and holding the attention of easily distracted students with Open Colleges. Enhance your teaching skills today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Thanks to the wonders of neuroplasticity, adolescents are primed to improve their performance in school-and beyond. Here's how to help.

Adolescence is an exciting time as teenagers become increasingly independent, begin to look forward to their lives beyond high school, and undergo many physical, emotional, and cognitive changes. In that last category, teenagers can learn to take charge of their developing brains and steer their thinking in positive and productive directions toward future college and career success.

The brain's prefrontal cortex, which functions as the control center for executive functions such as planning, goal setting, decision making, and problem solving, undergoes significant changes during the teenage years. In an NPR interview, Laurence Steinberg, author of Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence, notes that ages 12 to 25 are a period of extraordinary neuroplasticity. "Science suggests that it's important for kids to be challenged and exposed to novelty in order to facilitate healthy development of brain systems that are important for things like self-regulation," Steinberg says.

1. They have the capacity to become functionally smarter. By their early teens, many youths have already formed an image of themselves as intellectually capable-or not. It's important to emphasize for students in the latter group that past school performance need not be a predictor of future outcomes, if they are willing to persist in the hard work that may be required when learning gets challenging.

2. Success in school is largely determined by the learning strategies students employ, and not by some innate talent for academics. Students across the continuum of current performance can learn and improve effective problem-solving and study skills to nudge their grades in a positive direction.

The potential that comes from neuroplasticity-the capacity to change the structure and function of the brain through learning-provides the foundation for two crucial messages for middle and high school students:

Tools for Self-Directed Learning

As they progress through middle and high school, students are expected to take on increasing responsibility for their learning, with more out-of-class assignments that require independent research, reading for understanding, and wider application of classroom lessons. Our new book, Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains: Metacognitive Strategies, Activities, and Lesson Ideas, suggests that learning and applying strategies to "explain it to your brain" can help students improve their study habits. We note some of those strategies here.

Creating diagrams, pictures, and symbols to represent key ideas as they take notes;

Summarizing passages in their own words (some students might enjoy the challenge of capturing the essence of an assignment in a tweet); and

Searching for cues about the most important content. For textbook assignments, students can go back and review features like key terms, subtitles, and informational graphics after their first reading to reinforce crucial facts. When reading fiction or poetry, identifying literary devices such as metaphors and symbols can help uncover deeper meaning.

Don't just read-learn. There can be a huge difference between reading the words on the page and learning from them. To think through the ideas in a reading assignment and improve recall of what they have read, students might benefit from:

Consider the source. Like the reading strategies included here, a careful consideration of the credibility of sources, especially online ones, that students consult and cite in their research projects is a learning strategy that will serve them well throughout their lives. Is the information presented fact or opinion? Is the objective of this resource to inform, to influence, or to entertain? Are the authors and/or the sources cited reputable and qualified to discuss this topic? Making these kinds of judgments is a crucial executive function for students to develop. In his book The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy, Robert Sylwester identifies this careful approach to vetting information sources as one of the "intuitive, logical, and predictive capabilities that will enhance the resolution of . . . emerging vocational challenges."

Create, then edit. Two common problems in academic writing are getting stalled out early on in writing the introduction and failing to edit the first draft carefully. Guide students to begin productively by putting in writing the information they want to convey without worrying about how they will word the first paragraph. That task will be much easier once they have laid out all the content they have gathered. And remind them to allow time to edit their papers not once, but twice, before turning them in.

Make a schedule-and stick to it. Planning and organizing are versatile executive functions that students will use in every subject and in their personal lives as well. For independent study projects, guide your students to develop a step-by-step process, to set dates to complete each step, and to build in extra time for unexpected issues, such as the need to conduct another round of research.

Read ahead to stay ahead. Encourage students to finish every reading assignment by reading a few pages ahead. This strategy can help improve understanding and recall by showing students how the information presented in one chapter is applied and expanded on in the next.

Become metacognitive about which study skills work best for you. Students will likely find that some of these strategies are more effective for them than others. Encourage them to try different strategies and to assess which ones get the best results for them. Some students may learn better in study groups, some by creating elaborate graphics to explore and connect the concepts they are studying, and some by reading and explaining the content aloud to themselves, to give just a few examples.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Teenage Brain Is Wired to Learn-So Make Sure Your Students Know It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thanks to the wonders of neuroplasticity, adolescents are primed to improve their performance in school-and beyond. Here's how to help.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The value of a tech tool is directly connected to the pedagogy behind it.

I've seen a lot of boring activities masquerading as innovative strategies because they incorporate all these cool tech tools. (The term "app-smashing" comes to mind here...) On the other hand, I've seen amazingly innovative ideas in education use some of the most primitive tools available to do awesome things with students.

So, and I'm sure lots of us know this, but it's important to remember that integrating tech and improving the educational experiences for students do not necessarily come as a package. I will be the first to admit that I've done activities that got too focused on the tech, and the learning experience was cheapened because of it.

The tool that is currently driving this home for me is EdPuzzle. I love EdPuzzle. It does what I was dreaming of for the majority of the first part of my career. Here's how it works: (1) you find or create a video, (2) you bring that video into EdPuzzle, (3) you embed questions and notes into the video, (4) you assign the video, and (5) you get data immediately about your students' understanding. The other nice piece is that they also have a library to pull from.

I use it all the time in my classroom. I have seen some great things happen in how my classroom operates because I'm able to leverage video in a new way.

However, I've also seen EdPuzzle used in harmful ways that creates passive "learners," diminishes the relationship between the teacher and students, and entertains more than it instructs.

This is where I think it's important to bring up this point: When we are utilizing video, just because a student's eyes are focused on the screen doesn't mean the student's brain is focused on the learning.

We might just be entertaining them. We might just be boring them. We might just be doing the equivalent of rolling in the TV cart so that we can kick our feet up and take the day off while the devices keep our students quiet and compliant. Too real? Have I been guilty of it? Sure. The part that worries me is that I'm seeing devices used that way more and more. Some of the least engaging classrooms I've see are ones that applaud themselves for being paperless. Paperless is great, unless it's just an excuse to do the same thing on devices and not interact with students.

So then, how do we use video, specifically EdPuzzle, in the classroom in ways that really increase the amount of learning going on? Here are a few options:

1) Station rotations

The beauty of video is that it takes us out of the role of having to deliver the content, which means it frees us up to interact more meaningfully with students. Without video, often those station rotations are mostly just practice. Now, we can actually use station rotations to deliver content while we work with other students in small groups.

Think about how awesome that is. Instead of having to talk at students, which is when their behavior usually goes south, now we can spend that time uncovering misconceptions, pushing students' thinking, or helping them make connections.

How does this work? Well, make one of your stations an EdPuzzle station. Assign all students a video, and then have them watch it and discuss it when they are at that station. Notice how I intentionally added "and discuss it" in that example. If students are just watching a video and then doing nothing with it, we are entertaining them, not teaching them.

2) Intervention

As an ELA teacher, I have a problem with reading novels ( you can read my full blog post about it here). One of the issues is that you will inevitably end up with students who get behind or don't understand something and then never get caught back up. Traditionally, we give reading quizzes as punishments for students who didn't read. What if we actually used those as true formative assessments where we took that data and actually helped students with it instead of harmed them?

This is where EdPuzzle comes in. For example, when I teach Lord of the Flies to my freshmen, whenever they are assigned any reading to do on their own, they come back and take a quick assessment on it. This comes in a variety of forms, but the important part is that it lets me red/yellow/green my students. My red students then move into EdPuzzle to watch a summary and then do some assignment where they demonstrate their new understanding. The rest of the class, and this is important, does something with high engagement to deepen their learning. The high engagement piece is important because it encourages students to actually do the reading.

How does this work? Well, get your assessment ready and find a summary video of your topic (or whatever) that you assign to students in EdPuzzle. This makes it quick. Instead of waiting a day or two to get feedback and reteaching, students can get caught up and fill their learning gaps immediately so they don't get behind.

3) Guided Writing

This is a differentiation strategy that I use with my students when they are writing and want extra scaffolding. I used to try to walk all my students through different elements of their paragraphs at the same time, but the reality with writing is that nobody does it at the same pace. This was a headache for me for a while. However, EdPuzzle has become my best friend here, and it allows me to differentiate support really easily. For students who want it, they can log into EdPuzzle and see a video where I walk them through how to write a paragraph. In that video are pauses and notes that tell students to complete each step of the process as they go through the video.

It has been so nice for me. For students who are already confident in their writing, I don't have to hold them back while I explain things to other students. For students who want extra time, they don't feel rushed to complete their work just to keep up. With EdPuzzle, students can complete their writing at a pace that maximizes their own learning.

How does this work? Find a video that walks students through the process, and then add in comments that require students to stop and engage in the learning. This kind of in-and-out process with video is a fantastic way to use it. Short bursts of content via video followed by immediate application. It doesn't get better than that.

Final Thoughts

When using EdPuzzle, or any video platform, try to use the following guidelines:

1. Keep videos short. No one's learning any more from a 25-minute video than they are from a 5-minute video.

2. Embed discussion. Passive brains aren't learning brains. Students have to be talking to be processing their learning. Plus, a silent classroom isn't the goal.

3. Use it sparingly. If students come in and sit on the computer every single day, they'll hate your class. Get students in and out of the devices. Have completely unplugged days.

4. Make the information immediately applicable. Students need to know why they are learning the content, what they are learning it for, and how they are going to use it. Give them something to do with the content right away.

Video in the classroom can be transformative. It can also be really harmful to student learning. So, let's be like Spiderman and use this great power with great responsibility.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Maximize the Effectiveness of EdPuzzle in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The value of a tech tool is directly connected to the pedagogy behind it. I've seen a lot of boring activities masquerading as innovative strategies because they incorporate all these cool tech tools. (The term "app-smashing" comes to mind here...)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While Stand and Deliver may have been a captivating movie, it's not exactly the most captivating way to share information with students. With the rise of the Age of Information, no longer do teachers have to be the disseminators of information through direct instruction all the time. Instead, here are a few different approaches that change you from "sage on the stage" into more of a "guide on the side."

1. Inductive Learning

One of my new favorite ways to help students grasp a concept is through inductive learning. The concept behind inductive learning is that students look for patterns in information to help them identify a rule or set of guidelines.

For example, when we often teach what a theme is in literature, we typically start by giving them the answer; we define theme. Only after that do we look at examples.

Inductive learning flips that on its head. You would give students a number of different theme statements, some good and some bad. Some might not actually be theme statements. Students will organize those into different groups based on patterns they see. The teacher could then check to see what groups students have made with their themes. Then, the students could try to formulate some rules, guidelines, or a definition for what makes a strong theme statement. This allows the students to use critical thinking skills to create a new sense of understanding.

Check out this video for more information.

2. Flipped/Blended Lessons

The premise of a flipped or blended lesson is that the direct instruction is done through video or some other medium other than the teacher to free up additional time for the teacher to work with individual students or groups. New tools like PlayPosit ( video tutorial) or EdPuzzle ( video tutorial) allow teachers to embed assessment and interactive elements directly into the video.

For example, in a math class, imagine half the class has learned a previous concept essential to moving on to the next concept, but the other half of the class hasn't. Instead of instructing the entire group about the next concept that half the class isn't ready for, the teacher could use a blended approach to the lesson to create time for remediation and intervention.

The teacher could find a video that clearly explains the upcoming concept and use a platform like EdPuzzle to embed assessment to check for understanding. Then, the students who had mastered the previous content and were ready to move on could watch the video independently while the teacher worked with the rest of the class to reteach some of the previous content.

This frees up the teacher to be more responsive to student needs.

For an example of what blended learning actually looks like in the classroom, check out the video below:

3. Curation Projects

This takes the flipped lesson idea and adds more student ownership to it. In a curation project, students will go out to YouTube or the web and find a collection of information related to the topic. Most importantly, students will rank the effectiveness of those instructional resources and justify their rankings.

For example, in a science class, let's say you were learning about the structure and components of a plant cell. Instead of the teacher putting a diagram up on the board and talking through it, students would have to search the web for videos or resources that taught them about plant cells. Once they had found a few, they would have to rank them based on which on they thought did the best job teaching the content.

The ranking is incredibly important in the process. It not only requires them to evaluate the source for reliability, but it also requires them to demonstrate a strong understanding of the concept, skill, or content to be able to clearly explain their ranking.

4. HyperDocs

The HyperDoc might fall into the flipped or blended category, but I wanted to separate it out. HyperDocs are ways to create student-paced lessons that incorporate more student choice and interactive elements.

A HyperDoc lesson allows you to use a Google Doc (typically, though it could also be another platform that allows for embedded links, like Google Slides) to share information, encourage discussion, and gather assessment data all in the same place. The cool thing is that the teacher doesn't need to be in front of the room for any of it.

For example, let's say you wanted to teach students about the Civil War. Instead of just having the whole class watch a video or giving a long lecture about it, you could create a HyperDoc. You would want to start with something to engage students, maybe a question like, "What do you know about the Civil War?" just as a way to get them thinking. They could record that onto a platform like Padlet. Once they've done that, the next part of the HyperDoc could ask them to get into groups and jigsaw a few historical documents from the Civil War that all have to do with how and why it started, which would lead them into a few discussion questions that they would have to answer.

There are thousands of different ways you could go with this, but the core concept is that students are doing the information discovery themselves.

(Note: One thing that I really want to emphasize, with all the strategies but HyperDocs especially, is that students need to be communicating and processing out loud through interactions with peers. A student sitting in front of a computer by themselves all class period isn't the ideal to shoot for.)

Check out his amazing HyperDoc resource for more information and ideas: CLICK HERE!

5. Educational Escape Rooms (or BreakoutEDUs)

I put this last because it can end up being the most labor intensive, but it is without a doubt the most fun. If you've ever been in an escape room where you have to work together with other people to solve problems and unlock/discover clues, this uses that concept but in an educational context.

The teacher develops problems, challenges, or a set of questions in advance that the students must solve in order to get past each stage. Ideally, these problems require students to research or gain an understanding that they didn't previously have in order to complete each stage. When they solve each stage, they will get a combination or password that allows them to move on to the next stage. You can do this either digitally or physically. I'll give examples of both below.

In an ELA class, students are learning how to use basic commas. The teacher identifies each stage as the following: (1) Commas with lists, (2) commas with compound sentences, and (3) commas with introductory phrases.

For each phase, students must correctly answer five multiple choice questions, each of which is connected to a letter or number (eg. - the multiple choice questions for one correspond with A, B, C, and D, whereas question two's answers correspond with 1, 2, 3, and 4). At the end of the section, the students must enter the corresponding letters and numbers in a password box at the bottom of the Google Form. (Tip: you will need to set up "data validation" for this question in Google Forms.) If the students answered all five questions correctly, they move on. If not, the password is incorrect, and they have to go figure out which letter or number should be changed.

Once they get through all three stages, they win

Using the same example from before (the three stages about commas) but without technology, the teacher would need to set up different stations around the room with information about the concept for each stage (either videos set up, the teacher present and giving small group instruction, or text resources).

Students will begin with stage one by answering questions on a worksheet, using the resources available to them to help them identify the correct sentences. Once they have solved it, they should get a password or combination that will allow them to move on to the next station. (Hint: a really fun way to do this is to pick up a couple lockboxes with combination locks, and the correct answers will give students the code for the lockbox, which holds the next set of problems for them to solve.) If you don't have lockboxes, the teacher can require every group to tell them the password before they are allowed to move on.

Here's a real example of how an escape room/breakout works in a classroom:

Final Thought:

No matter how you do it, the goal is to remove yourself as the guardian of information and instead help students navigate the complicated ways we learn and gather information on our own.

If you have more ideas, please paste them in the comments below!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Step Down from the Stage: Alternatives to Direct Instruction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While Stand and Deliver may have been a captivating movie, it's not exactly the most captivating way to share information with students. With the rise of the Age of Information, no longer do teachers have to be the disseminators of information through direct instruction all the time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Growing up I loved those 'choose your own adventure' stories. The possibilities were endless, and half the fun was choosing incorrectly. You'd make the wrong choice and be abducted by extra-terrestrials, questioned on their planet, and then hopefully make it home alive. There was a sort of joy in choosing wrong because you would immediately figure out whether or not you chose correctly and then could go back and try again.

I never connected this to the classroom until I stumbled across the concept of hinge point questions. I understood the basic concept of differentiation, but I always assumed the differentiation happened between classes. You would have students do an assessment at the end of class, and then at the beginning of the next class you would do some differentiated activity. The concept of hinge point questions made me begin to ask myself this question: "How immediate can I get in my differentiation?"

That question was my Pandora's box. I began trying out strategies in class with color-coding answers with follow-up tasks and pairing students up based on answers, but through it all I still wondered, "Can I do this faster?"

In his great TED Talk titled "Can Skateboarding Save Our Schools?" Dr. Tae brings up the fact that skateboarders are constantly getting feedback in real time. When they don't land a trick, they immediately get feedback (from their board, the pavement, gravity, etc.) and adjust their practice based on that feedback. Then, they try it again. And again. And again. And eventually, they get it.

So then my question switched from "Can I do this faster?" to "Can I give immediate feedback in real time?" Impossible? Not exactly.

To do it, though, we have to merge the 'choose your own adventure' stories, Dr. Tae's skateboarding advice, and technology. (See poorly drawn mind map for illustration.)

I needed some way to do the following things:

Identify specific misunderstandings students had about a concept

Give the student feedback as soon as they answered incorrectly

Reteach that material immediately

Reassess the student in-the-moment to see if the reteaching worked

Yeah, this was my first thought:

Despite the seemingly insurmountable challenge, there was an answer: Google Forms. More specifically, I found the answer in Google Forms' "Go to Section" feature. For the full explanation, watch the video below.

By doing this, I found my way to give students immediate feedback on whatever we were working on. Not only that, but I could provide different instruction to any number of students at the exact same time! Is it as good as being able to sit down with each student one-on-one? Absolutely not, but it does help catch misunderstandings that can be pretty easily addressed or retaught without a long conversation.

With this method, and I truly believe this is the most important piece of it, students saw the value in making mistakes. They weren't penalized, but they were able to actually learn by making mistakes. So often we preach the value of learning through failure, but how often do we set up our classes to truly reflect this mindset?

Other ideas for how to differentiate instruction and feedback in-the-moment during a class activity? Leave a comment below. I'd love to gather more tools to better help my students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
So They Didn't Get It. Now What?: Differentiation with Google Forms

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Growing up I loved those 'choose your own adventure' stories. The possibilities were endless, and half the fun was choosing incorrectly. You'd make the wrong choice and be abducted by extra-terrestrials, questioned on their planet, and then hopefully make it home alive.

# data[].attributes.body
Reassessment Guidelines

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I teach, I write, I travel, I talk—to help students become better readers and writers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
minilesson template with guiding questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.