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Particularly with projects in which students have choices in the kind of learning products they create, making sure everyone is on the same page with regard to how that work will be assessed is critical. Encouraging students to create their own assessment rubrics has a number of benefits. Among these are: 1) It allows students to reflect on the learning outcomes in connection to their own work; 2) It encourages them to think critically about what is important about their work; 3) It can help engender a sense of agency and ownership over their own learning experience; 4) It makes it easier for students to self-evaluate their own work and check their progress.

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When students design their own assessments, they get a tremendous amount of ownership over their learning. They can utilize their own interests and passions to demonstrate their understanding of concepts. Engagement goes up, and they develop some really creative ideas. For example, I have had students do final projects on social media, like Instagram or Twitter. Some have created their own websites and podcasts. Another one started work on a musical. And finally, after 21 years of teaching, I had a student create an interpretive dance.

However, the big problem is this: how do you grade a bunch of projects that are so fundamentally different? One rubric won't fit all of these projects for a couple of reasons:

1. There is no way that I can measure the success of something like a dance and something like a podcast with the same instrument.

2. I'm not an expert in a lot of the areas that students are working in. They are, either from prior experience or because they figured it out along the way.

Student Designed Rubrics

The solution is to have students design their own rubrics. By doing so, they take ownership of what quality work looks like for whatever they're doing. And this actually makes the grading easier, which I'll get to below.

The rubrics below are from a recent project in which students were reading novels they selected themselves and designed their own assessments. They started working on the projects at the same time they started reading and created their rubrics once they had decided what they wanted to create.

Where to Start

Of course there are factors that I want them to be assessed on, so I don't give them total control. For this project students had to demonstrate how the author of the novel explored a particular theme of their choosing.Therefore, I wanted to assess them on their understanding of theme, as well as their ability to find support from the text. There isn't a specific state standard that addresses audience. I created one because I wanted students to focus on a particular audience as they designed their projects.

As a district we had already done the work to develop mastery rubrics from the state standards. I grabbed a few that we had developed and tweaked the language when needed to make it more specific to the task. I followed the format of mastery rubrics: achieving is what you get if you meet the standard, extending requires going above and beyond, and developing falls short of meeting the standard. (I assume not seen is self explanatory.)

Since I wanted the project to be out of 80 points, although it didn't really matter what the point value was because it was 30% of their grade.

This left 50 points for the students to divide up as they saw fit to create their rubric. They had to have five new categories, but they didn't have to all be worth 10 points if they wanted to emphasize certain things over others. I told them to consider the following:

Skills: What are the skills that you had to learn or had to already possess in order to do the project successfully? Have you demonstrated them?

Quality work: What does your work need to look like in order to be considered high quality? How can you measure that? They may not have the resources to make something truly professional, but there are some production values that they can always employ.

Publication: Is your work in a place where people who are interested can access it? Have you tried to get it in front of those people?

Quantity: Is there a certain number of something you'd like to create, such as blog posts, podcasts, or videos?

I shared my initial rubric with the students, had them add their categories, and share it back with me. We then had a conference about them to make sure everything would work well and we were both happy with the end result.

In some cases I thought that the students had set hard to reach goals and encouraged them to dial it back. In other cases they had two skills in one category, and failure in one would make it impossible to get a perfect score even if they nailed the second. In that case, I told them to break it up into two new categories.

An Example Student Designed Rubric

Here's an example of the categories a student designed for her project. She created a soundtrack of sorts in which she selected songs to accompany certain parts of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, she didn't just select the songs. She learned how to play them on the piano because that's her passion.

She had two things at play here. She wanted a category the captured the technical aspects of the performance, but she also wanted a website that was clear and easy to navigate, which involved figuring out how to embed the songs on the site. Here's what she came up with:

If you'd like to see what she did, you can check it out here.

The Final Grade

Once students hand in their project and I look at them, they bring a rubric to me that they score based on what grade they think they deserved. We have a five to ten minute conversation where together we figure out the score we both think they earned.

It's important to remember at this point the learning has already taken place. There's no point in being too critical at this point (in fact, I end up being pretty generous.) And my experience has been that the kids are pretty honest, and in a lot of cases harder on themselves, than I would be.

Troubleshooting

There are some aspects to this that you'll have to manage. It is of course possible to game the system and set the bar low so you don't have to do much work. That's when you have to push them to do more than they think they can do or want to do. I also had students that wanted to change their rubrics after their first submission because they changed their project in some fundamental way. I didn't have a problem with this, but you run the risk that they are changing it simply because they can't budget their time to get everything accomplished. I recommend only allowing one revision, and only before a certain date.

If you'd like to read more on using design thinking in the ELA classroom; check out these posts:
Getting Started With Student Generated Assessments in ELA I've Been Thinking About Design Thinking Student Project Think Tanks David Rickert is a high school English teacher in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. He has been teaching for over 20 years and has taught virtually every grade and every subject. David is passionate about developing lessons that make difficult language arts subjects fun and engaging. He is also an author on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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The Power of Student Designed Rubrics - David Rickert

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When students design their own assessments, they get a tremendous amount of ownership over their learning. They can utilize their own interests and passions to demonstrate their understanding of concepts. Engagement goes up, and they develop some really creative ideas. For example, I have had students do final projects on social media, like Instagram or Twitter.

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Something that can be used in coordination with or as an alternative to having students create their own rubrics for assessment is deciding the form of the assessment itself. This encourages student-creativity both in terms of the product they end up creating and their ability to make sure their interests align with the needs of the course. Having students decide on the process of assessment can instill a sense of independent learning and ownership over the knowledge and sills gained.

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With classmates, parents, teachers, and even the Roanoke County schools superintendent standing before him, high school senior Bubba Smith took a deep breath and set the two-story Rube Goldberg machine into motion.

The contraption, which performed a series of complicated actions to lift a banner, was part of Bubba's fourth-quarter grade for his AP Physics class. Students in physics and the AP Calculus class worked on the machine for nine weeks and then presented it during Hidden Valley High School's end-of-year exhibition of students' projects, most of which they designed themselves.

"We were doing stuff we don't normally do in a classroom," Bubba said of his project. "We don't play with PVC pipes and ropes in the classroom."

His classmate Ryan Crosser agreed. "A normal project is the same thing over and over again. It's very structured-school is very structured," he said.

Student-led assessments like this one are, in many ways, antithetical to the structure of the typical fill-in-the-bubble test. Students are asked to demonstrate their learning and knowledge in a meaningful way and to reflect on their own performance.

Nestled in the heart of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, the Roanoke County district has joined 10 other districts in the state that make up a Networked Improvement Community focused on implementing student-led assessment to bring about a deeper level of learning. The community is underwritten by the Assessment for Learning Project, a multiyear $15 million grant-making and field-building initiative led by the Center for Innovation in Education at the University of Kentucky.

The project, supported through private philanthropy, is seeding 17 cutting-edge approaches across the country that vary in size and scope, to better understand how assessment can play into a more personalized, student-centered, competency-based learning process.

"The way we've been thinking of assessment that is driven by accountability-assessment with a capital A-isn't delivering on the kind of learning and the kind of relationships that kids really need to succeed," said Sarah Lench, the project's director. "There's a broader definition of student success than proficiency on English and math tests."

Getting Teachers on Board

In Virginia, the 11 districts involved in the network are all grappling with different student-led assessment questions, including which grades to start with and what the assessment itself can look like. But the community has highlighted some key themes to guide its work: The assessment process must be meaningful to the student. The student receives feedback throughout the process, not just at the end. The student clearly demonstrates learning or growth. The student assesses his or her work. And, above all, students should be active participants in the assessment process.

One of the biggest challenges of this work is changing people's mindsets, said Shannon King, the manager of the Best Practices for Teaching & Learning program at the Fairfax County school system, which oversees the 11-district community.

"Teachers have to be willing to give up control and trust that students are going to do amazing things," she said.

To get there, most districts in the network have found that teachers need professional development, although a consensus hasn't emerged on what that should look like.

In the nearly 14,000-student Roanoke County district, for example, the professional development has been job-embedded.

While student-led assessment is not mandatory for teachers, they are encouraged to visit the classes where it is happening, said Rhonda Stegall, the director of secondary instruction for the Roanoke County district.

Hidden Valley High's work in the student-led assessment area is the most advanced in the district. Hidden Valley Middle School had its first exhibition of student-driven projects this year, and other schools in the district are interested in participating in the future.

Consultants have also worked with interested teachers to guide them through the process of letting students take more control of their learning, Stegall said. At Hidden Valley High, the transition has been slow but steady.

Four years ago, only eight teachers were interested in trying student-led assessments. Now, three-quarters of the 70 teachers in the school, from all subject areas, take part, said Stegall, who had previously been the principal of Hidden Valley High when they started the program.

"[Teachers have] spent the last 10 or 12 years learning how to teach to the test, so it's hard to break away from that mindset," she said. "Ultimately, this is really good instruction, and they see that this taps into students' enthusiasm and engagement."

Research shows that when students have a greater sense of agency, they perform better, said Eric Toshalis, the research director of Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit that runs the Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative, an effort aimed at investigating and sharing knowledge about student-centered learning approaches.

"Learners' attention and engagement tends to be optimized whenever they are put in a position to own the information, to be driving the questions that are asked, and to have a role in deciding how they'll be assessed," he said.

"The locus of control in that particular learning activity moves from the instructor to the student. Like all of us, [when] the student has the experience of feeling like they are in control of ... and proficient at something; they understand in greater depth."

At Hidden Valley High, state test scores stayed the same after the school began implementing student-led assessments-they didn't increase, but they also didn't drop. Teachers had been concerned about the scores dropping, Stegall said, but once they saw the results and realized students were excited about learning, they were sold.

"The morale was really low when we were focusing on the test and the disaggregation of data-that's the only thing we were talking about," Stegall said. "Before, the [tests] had control over [their profession]. Now, they're starting to take back some of that control. The morale has gone up; the enthusiasm, the passion for teaching is back."

During the exhibition night, teachers in Roanoke remarked on how much more engaged students were with these projects, which made their job more fun, they said.

"I love the inquiry-based and project-based learning," said Beverly Newbern, a history and psychology teacher at Hidden Valley High. "You never see them light up otherwise. They're out of their chairs-the same chairs your great-great-grandparents have been sitting in since 1901."

'Assessment Is a Process'

Another challenge has been to differentiate student-led assessment from a science-fair-type project, Stegall said. Initially, she said, a lot of the projects were "fluff," while teachers learned how to incorporate meaty content and the state standards into students' projects.

Now, checks of understanding are built into the process, along with quizzes, tests, or written components. At Hidden Valley High, students often go through protocols, where teachers and fellow students ask probing questions and discuss concerns about the project to make sure it is academically rigorous. And at the end, students have to evaluate their own work. The teacher determines the final grade, based on student self-assessment, peer assessment, and other benchmarks. Stegall said some teachers ask their students to explain the grade they deserve and why, providing information to back up their assertion.

As King, who oversees the Virginia network, put it: "A test is an event, and assessment is a process. It's really embedded in that teaching and learning cycle."

And that process can be challenging for students, Stegall said. "Some of our top-level kids, they really struggle with projects. They're good at taking tests," she said. "Their strength is direct recall of information, writing it on a piece of paper."

During exhibition night, students pointed to real-world skills as their main takeaways from their projects.

The students who worked on the Rube Goldberg machine learned how to collaborate with different personalities, Bubba said, adding that he had to learn to delegate instead of handling everything himself.

"It wasn't like a physics lab. ... It was something that failed, and we had to fix," said senior Matthew Whitely, who also worked on that project. Groups of students built components of the machine separately, and when they put it all together, it didn't run smoothly-the first time, the second time, and all the way up until the day of the exhibition, when it finally worked.

"We had to deal with failure," Whitely said.

The Virginia network, which is more than halfway through its two-year, $202,500 grant, hopes to collect quantitative and qualitative evidence in the fall that this type of assessment is improving student outcomes.

Meanwhile, the Assessment for Learning Project plans to introduce a new grant program soon for its existing grantees. The goal of the second grant will be to fully integrate these assessment reforms into education systems' operations, said Lench, its director.

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What Happens When Students Design Their Own Assessments?

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With classmates, parents, teachers, and even the Roanoke County schools superintendent standing before him, high school senior Bubba Smith took a deep breath and set the two-story Rube Goldberg machine into motion. The contraption, which performed a series of complicated actions to lift a banner, was part of Bubba's fourth-quarter grade for his AP Physics class.

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Prior to handing over the reigns to students with regard to assessment, it is important to make sure students receive the  guidance needed to stay on the horse, so to speak.

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In this final blog post of a four-part series, I provide examples of student-designed performance assessments and strategies for supporting the design process. This work is part of a series of convenings with educational leaders offered by the Vermont Agency of Education to improve personalized, proficiency-based assessment by strengthening local comprehensive assessment systems.
Student-Designed Assessment: Huckleberry Finn
What might a student-designed assessment look like? David Rickert in The Power of Student Designed Rubrics offers an example. Although Rickert provides a "mastery rubric," students are empowered to develop individual projects to meet identified standards-based expectations:

Theme: Determine a theme of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details.

Support: Cites strong and textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inference drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Audience: Strong consideration of an audience in project design is evident.

After Rickert shared his initial rubric with students, they are provided the opportunity to develop additional rubric categories related to their specific project and asked to consider the following: skills, quality work, publication, and quantity. This co-developing of a rubric allows students a level of control over how their project will be assessed.

One student, Elli Tai, uses her passion for piano to musically represent various scenes in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn through a Piano. She describes each scene and then her justification for the music selection. For instance, the South Side Stomp is used to depict Huck as ". . . a lively, free-spirited boy." She explains, "He loves his freedom, and wants to live adventurously by his-and only his-rules. Huck is miserable while living with Widow Douglas and having to follow her rules (Chapter 1)." Elli then justifies her music choice: "Jazz is a musical style loved for its freedom of expression. This song has an energetic, slightly rowdy tempo, a fun swing style, and thrill-seeking runs." She not only selected each piece of music, but also learned how to perform the pieces in a professional manner.

This student-designed performance assessment was then reviewed by participants to determine strengths of the assessment as well as potential areas of improvement. A tool, The Student-Led Performance Assessment Review Template from the Virginia Student-Led Assessment Networked Improvement Community, allowed educators to review the assessment by looking for evidence related to:

Voice and choice;

The Assessment process and products;

Students' goals, self-assessment, and reflection; and

Feedback opportunities throughout the process.

Although the Huckleberry Finn performance assessment had many positive attributes, some areas for potential improvement were also identified. The goal is to use tools like the Student-Led Assessment Review Template to objectively review student-designed assessments and ensure that these assessments provide evidence of rigorous learning related to standards or proficiencies.
Supporting the Design Process: The Student Assessment Template
In an effort to support the development of student-designed assessments, content specialists at the VT Agency of Education constructed this DRAFT Student-Designed Performance Assessment Template in Padlet (also shown below) so that educators and students can provide feedback to improve the process. It mirrors performance assessment templates created for educators. Additionally, since personalized learning plans are required for all Vermont students in grades seven through twelve (See Act 77), the template intentionally aligns with the critical elements of a Personalized Learning Plan (PLP): student goals, action steps, achievement of action steps, reflection, and revision.

This alignment highlights the connections between the personalized learning planning process, student-designed assessments, and PLPs, because students are designing and assessing their own learning. Some student-designed assessments can be used as both tools for assessment in the classroom and as non-assessed entries in a student's PLP. As examples of this dual purpose, sample PLPs for the Arts, History, and STEM were used to help clarify connections.

This convening provided an opportunity to share a student-designed assessment template draft with educators and receive feedback regarding the language in the document, the length, and the various components. Our next step will be to work collaboratively with students to get their feedback for revision. The authors of Learning to Improve strongly advise innovators to check with the "users." Since students are the intended "users" of this document, it is vital that we get their feedback. In the past, when students have been given the opportunity to provide feedback on our work, they have always helped to improve it. Their perspective is extremely valuable.
Closure
At the end of the day, we revisited our initial question: What do you think are the most essential components of student-designed assessments? Participants talked about how student-designed assessments can empower the learner and respect their ability to identify evidence that documents the learning that has taken place. Our hope is that in the near future, we will have examples of Vermont student-designed assessments to share with others.
Learn More
Pat Fitzsimmons is Proficiency-Based Learning Team Leader at the Vermont Agency of Education. She collaborates with educators to implement proficiency-based learning and assessment systems that are student-centered. She has worked with various stakeholders to construct a Vermont Portrait of a Graduate and co-authored numerous documents related to proficiency-based learning. Before moving to state-level work, Pat was the Science Specialist for the Barre Supervisory Union in Vermont. She also fondly remembers her first fourteen years in public school as a kindergarten teacher. Pat was the first kindergarten teacher in Vermont to receive the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Education.

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Supporting the Development of Student-Designed Performance Assessments - Aurora Institute

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In this final blog post of a four-part series, I provide examples of student-designed performance assessments and strategies for supporting the design process. This work is part of a series of convenings with educational leaders offered by the Vermont Agency of Education to improve personalized, proficiency-based assessment by strengthening local comprehensive assessment systems. Student-Designed Assessment: Huckleberry Finn What might a student-designed assessment look like?

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Designing the environment to draw out the child's natural curiosity

Freedom of choice of workspace position, and either collaboratively or individually

Research has shown that it's very important for children to move  (2:12)

Students can be responsible for themselves, their peers, the equipment and the environment

Having access to both indoor and outdoor learning environments

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A Child-First Approach to Classroom Design

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From the layout to the color scheme, every component of the Montessori classroom design is intentional.

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Think of the tools and the environment that you are in. Design an environment that is aesthetically pleasing for you to be productive in. How do you arrange / include things that make you feel good inside?

Being productive while listening to music. Studies do show that music does slightly reduce focus but that is offset by increasing the fun factor and staying power (persistence) to continue

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I WAS WRONG - The Real Secret of Productivity

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"Why do they (teachers) keep talking about the real world out there? This is my real world."

Give students the choice on what technology they use and how they use it in the classroom

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Student-Centered Learning: It Starts With the Teacher

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Teachers encourage student-centered learning by allowing students to share in decisions, believing in their capacity to lead, and remembering how it feels to learn.

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We can’t throw out everything we know about the world of the classroom: the importance of building relationships, the value of one-on-one and small-group time, the sheer insanity of expecting young children to listen to an adult talk for longer than 10 or 15 minutes. Use the 10 commandments to empathetically engage with your students in an digital classroom.

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Remote learning can feel like trying to play soccer on the moon, but the kids are still kids, and teaching is still teaching. We can't throw out everything we know about the world of the classroom: the importance of building relationships, the value of one-on-one and small-group time, the sheer insanity of expecting young children to listen to an adult talk for longer than 10 or 15 minutes. In fact, we need to hold to those principles even tighter.

Here are 10 ways to do that.
1. Build in one-on-one time.
These one-on-one interactions don't have to be long-just a five-minute check-in once a week or "office hours" when kids can sign up for a time to talk to you.

When my school went to remote learning last spring, the weekly one-on-one reading conferences I held with each child were the only part of my day that still felt normal. After a student read to me for a minute or two, I'd ask them a couple of questions about the book. I'd give them a "glow and a grow"-something they'd done well as a reader and something to work on. After that, we'd just talk. I'd ask how their families were doing and what they'd done for fun that week.

Over the course of a school year-even this weirdest, hardest of years-moments of teacher-to-student connection accumulate. They work the gradual magic that turns a class full of strangers into individual children we know deeply and hold close to our hearts.
2. Meet with small groups.
Kids can tell the difference between a two-way conversation and a teacher monologue. True conversations happen a lot more naturally with five or six kids than 25 or 30.

Remote learners still need the same kinds of small groups they needed during face-to-face instruction: guided reading groups, literature clubs, and tutorials for struggling students who might need a little preteaching or remediation to keep up with the next day's math lesson.

After a whole-class lesson, send the kids to breakout rooms to discuss the content in smaller groups, while you orbit among the rooms. These small-group settings are especially critical for shy students and English-learners, who tend to be a lot more comfortable talking in front of a few kids than the whole class.
3. Find informal ways to keep getting to know your students.
Some of the most meaningful conversations with my students happen when I invite a handful of them to have lunch with me in the classroom. The kids share all kinds of things, from their favorite superhero movie to how much they miss their older brother who's deployed with the Army. Lunchtime hangouts can happen via Zoom, too.
4. Give the kids time to hang out on their own.
One of the best things my son's teacher has done is to leave the Zoom open during lunch and recess for kids who want to hang out free of the watchful gaze of their teacher. They show each other their favorite Lego sets, play Minecraft in tandem, or gossip about new crushes. One of the things remote learners need desperately right now is unscripted social interaction with other kids. That happens more naturally when adults aren't around.
5. Get students up and moving before they turn into zombies.
Incorporating stretch breaks, dance sessions, and snack breaks is even more critical in the Age of Zoom than during a normal school year. Send students on scavenger hunts around their house. Send them on little expeditions outside to get some fresh air and sunlight while collecting roots and seeds for a science lesson. Their bodies, brains, and tired eyes need the break. Ours do, too.

6. Go for quality, not quantity, of time online.
Making a child of any age stay on a screen from 8:00 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. should be against the Geneva Accords. Four days a week, my son spends three hours on Zoom, with a 20-minute break in the middle. That feels like a good upper limit for a 9-year-old. The rest of the day is spent working on his own or meeting up in small-group sessions that last half an hour or so.

Make sure your whole-class screen time is purposeful-a combination of read alouds, 10-minute mini-lessons, independent work, and class discussions-and keep it as short as your district allows.
7. Give the kids a chance to laugh every day.

My favorite part of the morning is hearing my son crack up, usually when his teacher is telling a funny story or hamming up the characters' voices in a read aloud. Read the kids books that will make them laugh-like Mo Willems' Piggie and Elephant series for lower elementary or the classic Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar for upper grades.
8. Teach to this moment.
There has been a misguided tendency to cram as much regular content as possible into remote learning. We have to teach in a way that acknowledges a deeply traumatic pandemic, economic crisis, and ongoing violence against Black men and women.

My daughter's teacher is doing a whole unit on epidemiology. Teachers like Jessica Stovall, featured in the documentary series America to Me, weave anti-racist education into the fabric of their classrooms.
9. Listen.
The kids we're teaching this year have a lot on their minds and hearts. Sometimes what they need most is for us to stop talking and just listen.

Ask how they're doing, what they're thinking about, what most excites or troubles them right now. Then listen deeply to their answer.
10. Show yourself the same grace you show your students.
If teachers are going to make it through this relentless year, we have to be kind to ourselves. It's hard to teach the way we want to while surviving a pandemic. But we show up for kids and families every day. We offer them our love, kindness, and reassurance that we will all get through this hard time together.

Our students don't need us to have all the answers. They just need us to walk alongside them as they find their own.

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The 10 Zoom Commandments for Elementary School Teachers (Opinion)

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Remote learning can feel like trying to play soccer on the moon, but there still are basic principles of teaching we can cling to, writes Justin Minkel.

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Letting students to make a choice during language workshop. That way, students acquires ownership and independence in their learning.

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Differentiating in a student-centered way using technology tools (Leo)

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Differentiating in a student-centered way using technology tools (Leo)

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There are many ways to differentiate, and teachers can choose between 4 components based on their current student achievement, interest or abilities in a student-centered way:

Assessment:  This provides a measurement of what our students currently understand and their gaps in knowledge or misunderstandings.  If done properly, assessments can provide a wealth of information about our students.  To be able to differentiate, you must understand the needs of your students to be able to make adjustments to instruction.  Technology is a great tool to address this in a student centered approach and here are some examples:

·         Poll Everywhere

·         Quizlet

·         Quizziz

·         Nearpod

·         Flipgrid

·         Recap App

Content:  This is the area where many teachers would consider differentiating their student learning based on achievement or special needs.  Technology is nearly a perfect medium for this type of differentiation as it allows us to present information in different ways to make content accessible to learners of all achievement levels.  Examples of how this is done for student-centered classrooms:

·         Newsela

·         CK12 Flexbooks

·         MyOn

·         The Kid Should See This

Process:  This is a traditional area that can be greatly enhanced with student-centered technology as there are significant opportunities to update current pedagogy.  Technology makes the process for learning much easier and this also allows gamification to make learning fun again!  Here are some technology tools to help us do this:

·         Breakout EDU

·         Duolingo

·         CommonLit

·         Read & Write For Google Chrome

·         EdPuzzle

Product:  This is the category where students can demonstration their mastery through a project or product that allows students freedom in how they will show what they’ve learned.  Technology provides so many different ways to demonstrate knowledge through product, and this really transforms the classroom.  Some technology tools for student-centered differentiation of product:

·         BookCreator

·         Instagram and Snapchat

·         SeeSaw

·         Canva

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Personalized learning, Differentiation and Individualization are being used interchangeably in modern classroom pedagogy.

Personalization: the learner and teacher collaborate to drive learning and determine needs, plans, and learning design.

Differentiation: the teacher drives instruction and adjusts the learning environment for groups of students.

Individualization: the teacher drives and accommodates learning needs for an individual learner.

The difference with personalization is that provides an emphasis on "student agency", and thus they have much higher involvement in decision making. Here are some examples of how it has been applied by different teachers across the United States:

Teacher Kendra Rosales, Edison High School in Huntington Beach Union High School District, CA demonstrates innovative personalization in her math class using a screencast to onboard students to the personalized learning process. In each math unit, her students choose how they want to move their learning forward within a lesson using modalities they are most comfortable with. All students begin by using a learner profile with “I can” statements to code their prior knowledge on a topic as beginner, progressing, or mastery. Students then provide evidence of learning for each code. This gives students a voice in their learning process as co-planners, and Kendra noted, “This opened the world for my students!”

Students at Rio Vista Middle School, Rio School District, CA are given choice in their learning environment. The educators created Blended Learning Hubs where students have a level of autonomy over the subject they learn, the modality, and the pace of their learning. Students are also expected to set the culture for how they will responsibly use technology at their school. Each student created a pledge that is displayed for ongoing accountability. Student agency empowers students to feel a part of and have some control over their learning experience.

Teacher Luz Velasquez, Baldwin Park School District, CA gave her sixth grade students the challenge to create a team website that would showcase the hard work they had done during the year. The website would be viewed at open house by not only their parents, but also by parents from other classrooms. Students had to review their work and decide on their best work to showcase. The authentic audience provided an opportunity for students to increase engagement and form a deeper connection to the learning process.

The Alief Independent School District, TX leadership team models how connectivity and collaboration can empower learners. The Alief leadership team used a Twitter Chat to enable teachers to collaborate and share best practices. For many teachers, this was their first experience using Twitter to collaborate with colleagues.

Teachers like Tara Hoopes shared, “Students want to be empowered and have a flexible learning environment.” While other teachers like Efigenia Zambrano realized, “The current system was designed for another age, and we are innovators changing education paradigms.” Teacher Brandy Jones summed things up by saying, “A huge shift is happening. Traditional approaches aren’t enough to create future leaders in problem solving and collaboration.” Alief School District is shifting traditional teaching and learning practices to dynamic 21st century learning experiences for students and teachers.

At Canal Winchester Middle School, OH, students’ familiarity with technology is woven into the learning experience. Welcome to the #Math SELFIE, where S.E.L.F.I.E is a way to guide students through the steps of solving math problems: S-Show your work; E-Estimate the answer, L-Look for careless errors; F-Find multiple solutions; I-Include math vocabulary; E-Explain your thinking #math “selfie”. This practice models how to have fun and be creative with technology concepts.

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Originally Published on EdNetInsight.com, May 26 2017

Personalized learning is no longer just a buzzword or a passing fad. In fact, more and more school leaders view the successful implementation of personalized learning programs as top priorities for their classrooms. In a recent survey, 86% of district leaders report that they have implemented personalized learning in their schools but also report that obstacles persist(1).

So clearly interest and intent are there, but what exactly is personalized learning, and how can educators successfully implement these programs in their classrooms?

What Is Personalized Learning?

Interestingly, a Google search on personalized learning delivers more than 26 million results, which is not surprising. In today's ever-changing world of education technology, the term "personalized learning" appears everywhere and carries with it various definitions and connotations. Often personalization, differentiation, and individualization are used interchangeably, and while they are related, it is important to note they are not synonyms.

Personalization: the learner and teacher collaborate to drive learning and determine needs, plans, and learning design.

Differentiation: the teacher drives instruction and adjusts the learning environment for groups of students.

Individualization: the teacher drives and accommodates learning needs for an individual learner.

Personalized learning is similar to differentiation and individualization in that each affects learning experiences via content (what is being learned), process (how the student learns the material), and output (the ways students demonstrate learning growth).

What makes personalization different is that it is student-centered and provides students more opportunity for agency around their learning. In personalized learning classrooms, you can observe practices such as planning and design conferences between the student and teacher, ongoing formative assessment that authentically involves students, and student learning portfolios that gather evidence of learning.

Why is there so much interest in personalized learning now? Teachers have always known that teaching to the middle meets the needs of few students. The problem has been that it is difficult to personalize at scale. But now, with the support of technology and more widespread accessibility, addressing students' needs is more possible than ever.

Don't Take a Leap - Build a Bridge

While many educational leaders are enthusiastic about personalized learning, the path from traditional instruction to personalized learning can be challenging. There are many instructional models and philosophies along the way, ranging from traditional teacher-driven to personalized student-centered. Emerging technology provides tools that allow educators and students to make choices based on data and options.

Many of the conditions are in place to support wide-spread adoption of personalized learning; however, expecting teachers to jump from traditional instruction to student-centered instruction will result in a difficult or impossible transition for many. To support the greatest number of educators to transition to personalized learning models, leaders need to build a bridge that plots out the steps of change. Four key elements to keep in mind for your teachers are:

Ensure that tools for personalized learning are available and provide support to reduce frustration.

Develop a variety of implementation models that allow teachers to move toward student-centered learning step-by-step rather than all at once.

Build in time for training and professional learning communities where teachers share successes and challenges.

Model a growth mindset, expect and value mistakes, and learn from them.

It's important to allow time for systems, tools, and philosophies to change and to provide success at interim points.

Hallmarks of Student-Centered Learning

As teachers journey from traditional roles to new roles as learning facilitators, their classrooms will begin to exhibit personalization, student agency, real audience, connectivity, and collaboration and creativity - the hallmarks of student-centered learning. Valuing and celebrating these hallmarks is one part of building the bridge that all educators can use to support the change to personalized learning.

Personalization is a student-centered environment where the learner and teacher collaborate to drive learning and determine needs, plans, and learning design.

Teacher Kendra Rosales, Edison High School in Huntington Beach Union High School District, CA demonstrates innovative personalization in her math class using a screencast to onboard students to the personalized learning process. In each math unit, her students choose how they want to move their learning forward within a lesson using modalities they are most comfortable with. All students begin by using a learner profile with "I can" statements to code their prior knowledge on a topic as beginner, progressing, or mastery. Students then provide evidence of learning for each code. This gives students a voice in their learning process as co-planners, and Kendra noted, "This opened the world for my students!"

Agency refers to the level of control, autonomy, and empowerment that the student exercises and experiences.

Students at Rio Vista Middle School, Rio School District, CA are given choice in their learning environment. The educators created Blended Learning Hubs where students have a level of autonomy over the subject they learn, the modality, and the pace of their learning. Students are also expected to set the culture for how they will responsibly use technology at their school. Each student created a pledge that is displayed for ongoing accountability. Student agency empowers students to feel a part of and have some control over their learning experience.

Audience in a student-centered environment refers to an authentic audience that goes beyond the teacher in the classroom. Students create learning products that are suited to communicate to various audiences, such as students and teachers in other classrooms or the local community. Opportunities for students to present their work to an authentic audience makes the work more relevant and meaningful, creating a deeper learning process for students.

Teacher Luz Velasquez, Baldwin Park School District, CA gave her sixth grade students the challenge to create a team website that would showcase the hard work they had done during the year. The website would be viewed at open house by not only their parents, but also by parents from other classrooms. Students had to review their work and decide on their best work to showcase. The authentic audience provided an opportunity for students to increase engagement and form a deeper connection to the learning process.

Connectivity and Collaboration empowers learners and enriches their learning through gaining multiple perspectives and the opportunity to iterate and improve thinking.

The Alief Independent School District, TX leadership team models how connectivity and collaboration can empower learners. The Alief leadership team used a Twitter Chat to enable teachers to collaborate and share best practices. For many teachers, this was their first experience using Twitter to collaborate with colleagues.

Teachers like Tara Hoopes shared, "Students want to be empowered and have a flexible learning environment." While other teachers like Efigenia Zambrano realized, "The current system was designed for another age, and we are innovators changing education paradigms." Teacher Brandy Jones summed things up by saying, "A huge shift is happening. Traditional approaches aren't enough to create future leaders in problem solving and collaboration." Alief School District is shifting traditional teaching and learning practices to dynamic 21st century learning experiences for students and teachers.

Creativity engages students in higher order thinking and activates intrinsic motivation.

At Canal Winchester Middle School, OH, students' familiarity with technology is woven into the learning experience. Welcome to the #Math SELFIE, where S.E.L.F.I.E is a way to guide students through the steps of solving math problems: S-Show your work; E-Estimate the answer, L-Look for careless errors; F-Find multiple solutions; I-Include math vocabulary; E-Explain your thinking #math "selfie". This practice models how to have fun and be creative with technology concepts.

Future Success

The world we live in and the career and learning opportunities that are available to students are changing rapidly. To help today's students be successful, we need to ensure they are developing flexibility, life-long learning skills, focus, and persistence - and personalized learning can make a huge contribution to those goals. School leaders who model the hallmarks themselves help ensure that a mindset and culture shift takes place in their classrooms. Valuing and celebrating the hallmarks of student-centered learning is one important way to support educator's transition from traditional instructional methods to those that will serve the needs of lifelong learners.

(1) EdWeek Market Brief, March 2017

Janet Pittock is a Curriculum Director for McGraw Hill Education. With roots in elementary classrooms, Janet has a deep, personal commitment to personalized technology solutions that inspire and engage each student. She has taught elementary school, preschool, special ed, and Algebra 1 and has overseen marketing, product management, and product development in mathematics, literacy, science, and early childhood at Redbird, Scholastic, Creative Publications, Think Through Learning, and Harcourt Achieve. Janet has been fortunate to have learned from Marilyn Burns, Carole Greenes, and Skip Fennel through collaborating with them to publish books such as Do The Math, Groundworks, and Connect. She is active in national math organizations - volunteering on the board of NCSM as the editor of the monograph series, serving on the editorial board of NCTM's yearbook on Algebra, and leading the TODOS webinar task force. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Cassondra Corbin-Thaddies is the Director of Professional Learning at McGraw-Hill Education, where she supports district leaders with creating a vision and goals to design 21st century teaching and learning opportunities for students and teachers. In addition, she provides Blended Learning professional development experiences for school leaders nationally and internationally to promote best practices and coaching strategies to create the mindset shift required for personalized teaching and learning. As a transformative leader, Cassondra has been in the field of education for over 21 years. She has worked in government, non-profit, and for-profit agencies. Her work has included funding and managing county education programs, regional recruitment and implementation of tutoring programs, monitoring and quality assurance of educational services, and the facilitation of diversity and anti-bias curriculum to school leaders and students. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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Personalized Learning: A Student-Centered Approach for Learning Success

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Personalized learning is no longer just a buzzword or a passing fad. In fact, more and more school leaders view the successful implementation of personalized learning programs as top priorities for their classrooms. In a recent survey, 86% of district leaders report that they have implemented personalized learning in their schools but also report that obstacles persist(1).

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A great way to review lesson with students is to create an anchor chart together as a class and checking in with students what we have learnt and what is missing.

Another way would be to model what is needed for the assignment by using an example question and having students to work independently with the same format but with different question.

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Varying Assessments for a Student-Centered Classroom.  

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Varying Assessments for a Student-Centered Classroom.  

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Implementing assessments that enhances student-centered learning is crucial the success of each student. One way to do this is to create several different assessments per topic, for each student to choose from. These assessments should differ based on the four student learning styles. Below I have attached a reference that explains the VARK Model. VARK is an acronym for visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.  By understanding different learning styles, and incorporating them into each lesson, teaching environments will become a positive, student-centered climate.

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Now that school is back in session, it's important to develop lesson plans to help all your students learn in a way that fits their individual needs. When teachers understand the characteristics of different learning styles and associated instruction strategies, they are better able to address the instructional requirements of all their students.

Because every student learns differently, learning styles are widely recognized in both classroom management theory and education theory in general. "The term 'learning styles' speaks to the understanding that every student learns differently. Technically, an individual's learning style refers to the preferential way in which the student absorbs, processes, comprehends and retains information," Teach.com explains. For example, one student might learn best by acting a process out, while another might prefer reading about the topic instead.

The VARK Model

The learning styles of students depend on several factors, including their environment and other cognitive and emotional factors. Because every student is different, it's a good idea for teachers to develop classroom strategies that incorporate different learning styles for different types of learners. The VARK model helps teachers do this. It is an acronym that refers to the four learning styles: visual, auditory, reading/writing preference, and kinesthetic.

VARK is focused on the idea that students retain and process information differently and have "preferred learning modes" that allow them to learn their best. "Allowing students to access information in terms they are comfortable with will increase their academic confidence," Teach.com explains. It's important to note that, while everyone uses a combination of learning styles, most have a clear preference for one.

Understanding Learning Styles

Here is a breakdown of the four types of learners, along with tips for incorporating their needs into your lesson plans.

Visual

Visual learners prefer to take in information using charts, maps, graphs, diagrams, and more. Using images to explain concepts and ideas is the best way to reach a visual learner. However, this type of learning style does not include photographs or videos. Instead, visual learners learn best when information is presented using patterns, shapes, and other visual aids in the place of written or spoken words. One way teachers can differentiate their instruction for visual learners is by using graphic organizers to teach a lesson. A flow chart might be used to explain a scientific process, for example.

Auditory

This learning style describes students who learn best when information is heard or spoken. They benefit from lectures, group discussion, and other strategies that involve talking things through. "Often people with this preference want to sort things out by speaking first, rather than sorting out their ideas and then speaking," VARK Learn Limited explains. To help auditory learners learn, teachers can post audio recordings of lessons on the class website, or incorporate group activities that require students to explain concepts to their classmates.

Reading/Writing Preference

Students who have a reading/writing preference prefer information to be presented using words. They love to read and perform well on written assignments such as stories or book reports. "This preference emphasizes text-based input and output - reading and writing in all of its forms," VARK Learn Limited notes. A great way to help these students learn is by having them describe diagrams or charts using written statements. Then, they can study their notes later to better retain the information.

Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic learners learn best when they can use tactile experiences and carry out a physical activity to practice applying new information. "People who prefer this mode are connected to reality, 'either through concrete personal experiences, examples, practice or simulation,'" VARK Learn Limited explains. Give these students a working example of an idea or process, or task them with recreating experiments to illustrate concepts.

Knowing how to address the learning needs of your students is an important part of creating meaningful classroom experiences and helping them retain what they learn. To learn more about strategies for different learners, check out our course, Differentiated Instruction. It gives teachers the knowledge and tools to plan instruction that reaches a wide range of learners. With this course, you can engage students and effectively differentiate learning for better outcomes. And don't forget to explore our other professional development courses!

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4 Types of Learners in Education | Advancement Courses

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Now that school is back in session, it's important to develop lesson plans to help all your students learn in a way that fits their individual needs. When teachers understand the characteristics of different learning styles and associated instruction strategies, they are better able to address the instructional requirements of all their students.

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In addition to creating several types of assessments to meet the needs of each type of learner, giving students the option to choose one of the four assessments created will also enhance student-centered learning. Giving students an opportunity to take ownership of their learning, and displaying their understanding in a way that they choose, will help students apply their knowledge to the best of their abilities. The reference below helps to explain the importance of giving students a choice of how they display their knowledge.

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Differentiated Instruction

Elementary students have a better chance of showing what they've learned when they have a choice about how to show it.

©Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

Most classrooms are filled with students of varying academic abilities. Even within a gifted and talented classroom like mine, the ability levels can range drastically. As teachers strive to meet each student's individual needs, differentiation is key because it's about giving more opportunities for students to grow to their highest potential, and it is beneficial for all students.

In the digital era, we can provide all of our students with technological ways to enhance their learning, no matter their academic label. Every student is different and needs to be offered a variety of ways to show what they've learned in a way that reflects their individuality.

One way to differentiate within the curriculum is to provide students with choices for completing an assignment. Students learn in various ways, and we can let them show their learning in various ways. When I give my students a choice on how they'll complete a project, they have to meet certain criteria, but I allow them to find an outlet they find most enjoyable, such as creating a Google Slides presentation, a trifold board, or a pamphlet. Giving students a choice allows them to take ownership of their learning as well as create a product that feels authentic to them. They work on something that they're good at creating, or try something they want to get better at.

An excellent way to ensure differentiation is to have each student create an e-portfolio-a technology-based assessment tool that collects a student's authentic work samples, providing a quick way for a teacher to assess growth and skills. In a sense, the e-portfolio is a window into a student's learning, one that allows the student to choose what to include.

An e-portfolio can follow the student across grades, too. And once the time is spent creating one, the process of adding content becomes easier and quicker as the student adds to it in later grades. Since e-portfolios offer a way for students to show authentic learning, they allow students to exhibit their individual growth through their academic experiences.

Differentiating by Giving Choices

The best way to differentiate instruction is to give students a choice in how they show their learning. All students learn in their own way, and they need to be able to show their individual skills and interests. As long as they're able to demonstrate a certain skill, assessment should be more about the process than the product.

Giving choices may seem like more work for the teacher, and it can be, but it's also worthwhile because it encourages more students to take more ownership of their learning.

Adding a technology component to an assignment can drastically increase student engagement, especially if they haven't been given such options in the past. Using a novel app, such as Flipgrid, adds an element of fun while also giving students practice with tech skills.

But technology is not the only way to provide choice-try using choice boards, which provide students with many options for presenting content. Students may present the water cycle stages in a song, for example, or create a comic that lays out those stages. Such choices can be fun for the students, and can show teachers hidden talents their students possess that they wouldn't see otherwise.

Differentiating With Portfolios

Few applications offer the opportunity for students to reflect on their learning, but pushing students to do that is important in getting them to think about how they learn best and take an active role in their own learning. Quick assessment applications such as Flipgrid and Kahoot allow for student reflection, but the e-portfolio-which showcases an individual student's personality-is even better.

With e-portfolios, students reflect on their learning while putting their own mark on their assignments. Students are able to showcase their learning and the process they used to create their final product while individualizing it with their likes and interests.

A teacher may require some items to be present-such as name, class section, pictures of hobbies, or content-related materials-but seeing the ways that students make the e-portfolio their own is what a teacher wants. The e-portfolio is a tool that students can use to express their thinking in a way that is unique to them.

Teachers can assess e-portfolios to measure growth and skills instead of just knowledge of course content. Students are able to take ownership of what they have learned, choose how they present the content, and take control of their learning.

Differentiating allows students to have their voice heard, which can lead them to become self-motivated learners. And that in turn can help increase both their learning growth and their self-awareness of that growth.

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Elementary students have a better chance of showing what they're learning when they have a choice about how to show it.

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A beneficial way to help students with their learning is adding touch and movement to the class. Movement and physical interaction can help students retain information better as well as improve cognitive function, memory and critical thinking skills. It all begins with the teacher recognizing the physical and mental needs of their students.

Here are some ideas:

1. Sound, music and chants. Skills that benefit from music include attention, cognitive functioning, social interactions, speech and expression, literacy and auditory processing. A student-centered approach with children would be having a song choice board or voting.

2. Role-playing. Dramatic play and role-playing are great additions to the classroom and appropriate for any age. Role-playing can be used to learn new vocabulary and concepts, promote higher order thinking skills.

3. Pair, group and collaborative activities. Four corners, share and switch, and ball/toy toss spelling are a few activities that come to mind.

4. Physical/mental breaks and transitions. It's common that students, especially young ones, struggle with staying focused during long periods of time. According to research, brain and physical breaks reduce stress and increase productivity. Stretching, exercise, walking around for a minute or two and dancing are a few ideas to implement in the classroom.

5. Learning centers. Already common for younger classes, the learning centers or stations involve plenty of physical movement. The teachers can allow students to choose the centers of their preference either at the beginning or when they want to switch center.

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If you were to start singing "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" right now, I bet you'd have a hard time keeping your hands still. That's because most of us who know the song learned it with gestures, and things we learn with physical movement tend to stick.

We can apply that same principle to classroom learning, using movement to enhance learning from preschool all the way through college. Let's take a look at what the research says about movement-based learning, then explore six different ways you can add more movement to your instruction.

The Research on Movement

The concept of "learning styles" has overwhelmingly been labeled a myth by researchers, so attempting to determine which of your students are kinesthetic learners will not be a good use of your time. What is worth your time is using movement when working with all learners, because plenty of research backs that up.

In general, people learn better when information is presented in more than one way (Sankey, Birch, & Gardiner, 2010). In other words, if we take in information through more than one sense, we're more likely to encode it in long-term memory. This would include visual, verbal, and kinesthetic modes of learning.

Specifically, the use of gestures results in more enduring learning than learning without gestures (Cook, Yip, & Goldin-Meadow, S, 2010). So even the addition of a few small hand gestures can have an impact on how well students remember material.

Study after study shows that physical activity activates the brain, improves cognitive function, and is correlated with improved academic performance (Donnelly & Lambourne, 2011). This means any kind of physical activity, not just movement associated with the material we're learning, can benefit students academically.

Six Ways to Add Movement to Instruction

1. Total Physical Response

Developed for use with second-language learners in the 1960's ( Asher, 1966), Total Physical Response simply has students act out physical gestures to represent vocabulary words. Shown to be highly effective with both children (Singh, 2011) and adults ( Carruthers, 2010), TPR can also be used to help learners remember new vocabulary terms in their native language. In other words, it can be used in any content area, with any student.

This video from the Teacher Toolkit shows Texas teacher Michael Rowland using TPR with his third grade students, who are English learners.

And here is Craig Gaslow, another Texas teacher who teaches AP Human Geography, demonstrating how he uses TPR to teach three different models of diffusion:

https://youtu.be/9HtrVh2Dzzs

Finally, here are Scott Causer's high school students demonstrating a few earth science processes using TPR:

What strategies support learning? Here's high school science using TPR to recall processes in Earth Science -thanks Mr. Causer and team for modeling! @ESMSchoolDist @cultofpedagogy pic.twitter.com/njoAaVdBB9
- Naomi Trivison (@NaomiTrivison) March 30, 2019

2. Tableau/Snapshot

In this strategy, students create a physical "snapshot" with their bodies, a still picture that represents an idea.

This example, demonstrated by 4th grade teacher Stefannie Cundiff, comes from Teacher Toolkit:

Another example is explained in this Slides presentation by Tyler Jacobs, an Idaho-based high school ELA and social studies teacher. Click the image below to view the slideshow in a new window:

3. Simulations

In these, students demonstrate a concept with some kind of motion or interactivity. They could represent non-human components, like in the examples below, or they might actually take on the role of humans in a re-enactment of an event.

The first example comes from the University of British Columbia, where electrical engineering professor Matthew Yedlin has students simulate the difference between linear growth and exponential growth:

The second example, a simulation of the circulatory system, comes from Michelle Cliche, who teaches grades 4 and 5 in London, Ontario, Canada.

Ss learned about the complexity of the circulatory system by acting out delivery of blood through red & blue bean bags. S in middle is ❤️ directing blood flow to different organs. Later, we did this on playground climbers because heart has to pump 'up'. pic.twitter.com/dhzTqRTEOp
- Michelle Cliche (@Clicheteach) March 29, 2019

Finally, here's a different kind of simulation demonstrated by Amy Tepperman, where participants show fractions by placing different body parts on the floor, Twister-style:

An important note about simulations: If you are doing simulations about historical periods or events, proceed with caution. Many, many teachers have ended up traumatizing students with these types of simulations. This article from Learning for Justice explores the topic in depth.

4. Songs with Movement

Songs are another powerful way to teach concepts to students, and if the songs also incorporate movement, even better.

Dan Adler, a 6th grade science teacher in Lawrence, MA, regularly uses songs with physical movements to help his students remember challenging concepts. In this video, students demonstrate "Bodak Particles," a song about phase change sung to an instrumental version of Cardi B's song "Bodak Yellow." (Get a copy of the lyrics here.)

Check out our science scholars rapping about phase changes! pic.twitter.com/uO3sJQubgw
- UP Academy Leonard (@up_leonard) November 8, 2018

5. Virtual and Augmented Reality

The experiences offered by virtual and augmented reality allow students to move around in and interact with virtual objects and spaces in ways that would be difficult if not impossible to pull off in the real world.

Augmented Reality layers digital enhancements on top of objects in the real, physical world. Using a device, like a smartphone, loaded with AR software, users point it at a picture or physical object, and the software brings up some kind of digital element like a 3D animation, text, or a video. ( Pokémon Go is an example of an AR game.)

One set of AR tools that have tremendous learning potential comes from a company called Merge. Their Merge Cube is a handheld cube that can "become" a variety of objects when paired with the Merge Goggles, as shown below:

Virtual Reality immerses the user in a 360-degree environment, a computer-generated simulation, viewable through a VR headset, and allows them to move through and interact with that environment.

One outstanding source for VR experiences is Google Expeditions, which offers tours to over 500 different locations: historical landmarks, national and state parks, underwater sites, and up-close studies of scientific phenomena.

And if you don't find the exact tour you want, you and your students can even create your own expeditions with Google Tour Creator.

6. Brain Breaks

I left this one for the end because it's the easiest to implement. This brain breaks guide from the University of Texas summarizes the research on the connection between movement and academic achievement and offers dozens of ideas for brain breaks that can be put into action immediately.

Brain break videos are super easy to find on YouTube, especially for younger kids. My daughter came home from first grade years ago excited to demonstrate this one for me:

But what about older kids? High school math teacher David Sladkey has written a a book, Energizing Brain Breaks ( Amazon | Bookshop.org), that has ideas for all ages, even middle and high school kids who may not be as comfortable with the Tooty Ta. in this video, students demonstrate a simple toe-tapping brain break:

Tips for Getting Started

Don't overdo it. Attempting to add a movement component to every concept students learn would not only be too time-consuming, it could also get old, shifting from a fun novelty to something that causes students to slump over in their seats and say, Not THAT again!!

Get input from students. When coming up with gestures or movements, you don't have to rely solely on your own brain. Ask students to help you come up with ideas. Involving students in the process will help them remember concepts better and will increase the likelihood that you'll end up with really effective movements.

Know what works for your students. Some of your students may not be comfortable with or physically able to do certain movements, so keep that in mind and make modifications based on ability and need.

Use movement for retrieval practice. Rather than using movement in a single lesson, apply the principles of retrieval practice by repeating the movements in short practice sessions, spacing them out over time, and interleaving concepts with one another.

For younger students, meaningful gestures matter more. While adults learn from both iconic gestures (those that have some meaning in relation to the concept they are connected to) and beat gestures (those that have no inherent meaning but are just tied to particular "beats" in a sentence or phrase), younger children learned more from iconic gestures (So, Sim Chen-Hui, & Low Wei-Shan, 2012). So when working with younger students, try to make the gestures match the concepts in some way.

References

Asher, J. J. (1969). The total physical response approach to second language learning. The modern language journal, 53(1), 3-17.

Carruthers, S. W. (2010). The total physical response method and its compatibility to adult ESL-learners. Retrieved from http://tesolteachers.net/t.pdf

Cook, S. W., Yip, T. K., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2010). Gesturing makes memories that last. Journal of memory and language, 63(4), 465-475.

Donnelly, J. E., & Lambourne, K. (2011). Classroom-based physical activity, cognition, and academic achievement. Preventive medicine, 52, S36-S42.

Sankey, M., Birch, D., & Gardiner, M. (2010). Engaging students through multimodal learning environments: The journey continues. In Proceedings ASCILITE 2010: 27th annual conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education: Curriculum, technology and transformation for an unknown future (pp. 852-863). University of Queensland.

Singh, J. P. (2011). Effectiveness of total physical response. Academic Voices: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 1, 20-22.

So, W. C., Sim Chen-Hui, C., & Low Wei-Shan, J. (2012). Mnemonic effect of iconic gesture and beat gesture in adults and children: Is meaning in gesture important for memory recall?. Language and Cognitive Processes, 27(5), 665-681.

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Physical movement makes learning stick better, and today we're exploring six ways you can add more movement to your classroom.

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During distance learning, it is hard to keep track of students' reading progresses. Epic is a digital library with unlimited access to books, award-winning literature, audio books, and videos. So students can choose which books to read according to their own interests.

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Taking trips to the library occasionally in small groups will allow students to be closer to a book itself. Kids, especially early years, need to feel comfortable in the library as they will roam around to look for books that interest them.

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RazKids is another reading resource which allows more systematic learning. There are 29 different reading difficulty levels and students can also take corresponding quizzes after reading books.

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Letting students choose their own comfortable spaces or even create a Zen corner to read books will allow friends to feel more passion towards reading.

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Taking one step further to make connections between the book and the real word will help students feel reading is meaningful and also take ownership in learning. Inviting guest speakers, conducting experiments, going on field trips, and even doing a classroom activity will boost student agency.

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Encouraging students to read for fun will make kids feel comfortable about reading. They will feel less pressured and truly feel the joy of reading.

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After reading books, we can ask students to create books on their own! They will learn to think like authors and behave like community citizens. This is an example of how I would conduct PBL on reading.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Student Centered Collaborative Learning (Blythe)

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Student Centered Collaborative Learning (Blythe)

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Collaborative Learning can be very beneficial for students both academically and socially.  Student centered approaches allow students to take ownership of their own learning. Adding techniques that require collaboration also help students socially by helping them learn to talk effectively and listen attentively to one another. They must collaboratively organize the information and determine the best way to learn it and then present it to others. Nestor D. Roselli discusses the benefits and many different techniques in the following article.

Some techniques he mentions are:

Chain Brainstorming
Group Debating
"Fish Tank" Group Discussion

Read Roselli's article below:

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The Jigsaw technique is a great student-centered technique that requires and is based on collaboration. With this technique, students work within small groups while collaboratively and thoroughly researching one specific part of a topic.

Students then mix up the groups in such a way that each group contains one person who has become an "expert" in each subcategory of the topic. The experts then have the responsibility of teaching the group their category. At the end of the activity, students have both taken control of their own learning by collaboratively researching the subcategory thoroughly with their original group. They are then learning to effectively communicate to teach that information  to their peers in the second group arrangement.

Read more about the Jigsaw Method here:

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The Jigsaw Method Teaching Strategy - TeachHUB

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Knowing how to successfully complete part of a whole task is a crucial life skill all students should have. Learn about the jigsaw method teaching strategy.

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The think-pair-share technique is another student centered approach that is based on student collaboration. With this technique, the teacher gives a general topic but then it is up to the students to pair up and discuss, discover, and share their findings about the topic or question. Although the teacher does somewhat guide the activity with a question or topic, students can take it in many different directions. Often as students the share their findings at the end, it can be quite surprising how many different takes there were and the class learns much more as a result of this student centered collaborative technique. You can learn more about the think-pair-share technique here:

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How well do your students communicate in class? If they tend to be shy participants, there's a learning tool you can use to help them think independently, pair up and discuss with a classmate or in small groups, and share their knowledge with the class. Developed by Frank Lyman, a professor at the University of Maryland, in 1981, it's simply called Think-Pair-Share. I'm a big fan of this collaborative discussion strategy, especially with my primary students.

How It Works

The teacher asks an open-ended question and students think quietly about it for a minute or two. Then every student pairs up with a partner and they discuss the question for two to five minutes. Finally, the whole class engages in a discussion where students raise their hands and share all the thoughts and ideas they've gathered.

With young children, it's best if the teacher models the technique with a volunteer so the class knows what to do. Just make sure to emphasize the rules of this exercise with your students. They must use their inside voices, take turns, and avoid interrupting their partner. Some teachers even pass out work sheets so students can write down the questions and their thoughts.
Further Reading: We Spy: An Interactive Classroom Activity
The Benefits

Some students feel safer and more relaxed when talking in small groups, rather than having to speak in front of the entire class. The Think-Pair-Share activity gives them the opportunity to feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts. In addition to fostering social skills, this strategy also improves students' speaking and listening skills. When pairs brainstorm together, each student learns from their partner. This can help students expand their vocabulary as they learn new words from their peers and build on their prior knowledge.

I found this activity to be particularly useful when I was substituting in the elementary grades. Whether I incorporated it into the daily lesson plans that were left for me or created a fill-in lesson with my own open-ended questions, the discussions generated by the children in the class were truly interesting. One piece of advice: Make sure your students stay on topic. Once, as I strolled the classroom during this activity and I heard a lot about costumes and parties-too bad the question I asked wasn't about Halloween!

When your class finishes a book, use Think-Pair-Share to check their comprehension. Invite your students to discuss the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why) to understand all parts of the story. Have them discuss who their favorite character was and why. Ask them, "What if you changed the plot of the story? What would happen if...?"

Make use of the Think-Pair-Share strategy when dealing with word problems. These complex situations can sometimes be difficult for young children to grasp, and this strategy can help your students work together to find the correct answer. You're not limited to word problems, either. Pairs can review the steps to finding the product or quotient in simple multiplication and division problems, too.

There's a wide variety of scientific topics students can discuss. For instance, if some students are struggling to understand the process of plant growth, why not lead a discussion on how plants start as little seeds and grow into the final product? Space travel is also a great discussion topic. How much do your students know about the International Space Station? How do astronauts live, eat, and work?

Use this strategy to spark conversations about your social studies curriculum. Because many areas of this subject connect to real life, this activity can also help you to get to know your class. Try asking questions like "Why is it important for families to work together?" or "How does your family celebrate holidays?" You can connect these inquiries to the class curriculum, learn about your students, and give your students the opportunity to bond and learn about each other.
Further Reading: Creative STEM Professional Development Activities to Plan Now
Whether you're a veteran teacher or new to the game, the Think-Pair-Share technique can be an effective tool for fostering discussions in the classroom. This cooperative activity can be used with kids of all ages, even middle and high school students. Any method that can stimulate a student's curiosity in a fun manner is a teaching tool to add to your book of tricks.

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How to Use the Think-Pair-Share Activity in Your Classroom

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How well do your students communicate in class? Try using the Think-Pair-Share strategy to engage students in effective discussions.

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Some very traditional techniques can be adapted into student centered techniques that require collaboration. One example of this that I did in my own class this year was group choice projects. I gave my students a broad topic: Insects. I had them select what they would like to research and then grouped them based on similar interests. Students were then given a choice of two ways that they wanted to present their research. The choices had to include one artistic thing and one informational thing. Choices for the artistic choice were: build a 3d insect, draw an insect, make an insect poster, create a video featuring the insect, or craft the insect out of classroom materials. The informational choices were: write a paper about the insect, create a power point presentation about the insect, write a book about the insect on paper, or write a digital book about the insect.

This technique promoted student centered learning about the specific insects and promoted effective collaboration as well. Students then learned many facts about different insects from one another's group presentations. Overall, students were very excited to choose their own insect and projects. I was very impressed with the amount of information that was presented!

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28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies

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Choice boards allow students to select activities they will complete to practice a skill or demonstrate understanding. See the example of the choice board.

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In this learning strategy, student questions, ideas, and analysis are highlighted and fostered, focusing on the student perspective regarding a particular open question or problem. This strategy is particularly useful for initial student engagement, leading students to move beyond basic knowledge to a deeper understanding of critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning, and creative problem solving. Within inquiry-based learning, various components of a lesson can include case studies, group projects, and research projects, among others. More in-depth connections to the material provide opportunities for students to hone skills that are highly valuable in the world in which we now live.

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What is Inquiry-Based Learning?

Inquiry-based learning is a form of learning based solely around questioning to seek knowledge. At times, inquiry-based learning is presented as a problem or scenario for students to solve. In all formats of the inquiry-based learning process, student exploration is at the forefront of the teaching and learning experience.

Inquiry-based learning takes place when students formulate questions, research answers to their posed questions, share their answers and new knowledge, and then reflect about the process. Rather than having the classroom teacher determine the topic or targeted questions of a unit of study, the students are given autonomy to determine the questions about the topic they want to further explore.

While there are several different types of inquiry-based learning, the result is the same. Students are using open-ended questions to direct their own learning based upon their own interests. They are making connections and deepening their learning. This kind of learning closely matches the belief of Confucius: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." Inquiry-based learning allows students to truly understand content and increase comprehension.

What are the benefits of Inquiry-Based Learning?

This style of learning promotes a child's curiosity and the opportunity for collaboration, which in turn increases student engagement. When students have ownership of their learning, their interest level increases, which certainly leads to higher comprehension skills. A deeper level of learning takes place in this style of learning. Instead of a traditional style of learning that often involves teacher talk, teacher-posed questions, student memorization, and student recall, students are planning and implementing their own learning. Teachers become a facilitator of learning. A true love of learning is evident through this process.

Inquiry-based learning is a powerful way to provide true differentiation for students. It also builds self-direction and independence. It nurtures students' passions and hobbies. Inquiry-based learning greatly increases the motivation among learners of all ages.

Inquiry-based learning supports the 5 Cs in education: communication, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and citizenship. Making self-to-text, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections increases comprehension, another important "C" in reading. Through inquiry-based learning, students are making numerous connections when they are posing questions, researching information, answering questions, and sharing their knowledge with classmates. Recent studies have indicated that inquiry-based learning increases student achievement and levels the playing field for children from various backgrounds and cultures. When students are surveyed, they express how they prefer inquiry-based learning to traditional learning.

Inquiry-Based Learning Strategies to Implement in Your Classroom

Practice makes perfect, even in the implementation of inquiry-based learning. Students need to learn protocol and expectations of inquiry-based learning, especially if it's a new style of the teaching and learning process.

A strategy that can be used to introduce and implement inquiry-based learning strategies is to turn a lesson into a problem or project-based learning experience. In problem-based learning, teachers present a driving question before beginning a unit of study. One of many inquiry-based learning examples before a citizenship unit could be: What would our school be like without rules?

Project-based learning can also be used as a unit of study, or rather a unit of exploration. Students can be given the opportunity to actually play and explore with pumpkins, magnets, or a classroom pet to learn about plant life cycles, magnetic materials, or animals. Students can create a list of questions they want to study and find out the answer to like: Why do pumpkins come in so many different sizes? How do you know if something is magnetic? or What do we need to take care of the hermit or hamster?

A learning strategy that supports questioning can be used to create a wonder wall. Students can write questions about a particular topic or their own interests on post-its that can be added to the wonder wall. The wonder wall can then be used to determine the next topic of study. Teachers should also create a classroom environment that supports all questions as valid and promotes asking great questions. Great questions are those that can lead to student research and can't be answered with a simple yes or no.

School librarians are an asset when inquiry-based learning takes place. They can teach students how to select the best books or tools to research a topic. In addition to taking trips to the school library, another effective strategy is to use technology. Students can use a variety of student-friendly online research tools to gain information. They also can use a learning management system like Google Classroom to promote collaboration and communication through a question and response forum.

Teachers and students have the flexibility to create a learning environment that meet the needs of everyone in the class. Inquiry-based learning is an effective way to create a place where children enjoy finding the answers and sharing their knowledge with others.

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What is Inquiry-Based Learning? - Graduate Programs for Educators

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Inquiry-based learning is a form of learning based solely around questioning to seek knowledge. At times, inquiry-based learning is presented as a problem or scenario for students to solve. In all formats of the inquiry-based learning process, student exploration is at the forefront of the teaching and learning experience.

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 Student-centered Collaboration approaches 

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 Student-centered Collaboration approaches 

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There are lots of activity we can do in class that requires collaboration. Here is the most common and popular activity:
In class:

Jigsaw

Think-pair-share

Debating

Group Discussion

Peer assessment

Group project

Online learning:

ePortfolio

Peer assessment through google document

Discussion Forum

Group discussion

Group project

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Top 3 Collaboration Activities for your eLearning Course

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Top 3 Collaboration Activities for your eLearning Course

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Educational technology tools have enabled multiple channels of collaboration within the online learning environment. However, these tools are futile if the course facilitator or trainer doesn't know how to use them or even ignores their existence!

In this article, we'll share the top three forms of collaboration activities for your eLearning course that have proven to enhance eLearning experiences.

Effective Collaboration Activities: Types and Ideas

eLearning strategies, specifically the ones regarding collaboration, seem to increase every week, so we need to narrow them down and identify the ones that are proven to improve learning achievement and performance. Training experts highly encourage the use of the following collaboration activities - methods:

· Small group assignments
· Online field trips
· Group work on case studies
·Simulations
· Shared facilitations
· Homework forums
· Asynchronous discussion of the assigned reading
· Blogs or online journals that allow learners to reflect and comment on each other's reflection
· Jigsaw activities where learners solve components of a large project in groups, and then bring their work together to form the whole project.
· WebQuests, where teams are sent out for online scavenger hunts to find the solution to a problem.

3 Top And Proven Collaboration Activities

Best practices indicate three forms of collaboration activities that lead to richer, and more effective, eLearning environments.

1. Learner Website/ePortfolio

An ePortfolio can be a very helpful weapon in your learners' arsenal, and can be used for other courses as a form of a collaboration hub.

Require learners to visit at least five ePortfolios of their peers and comment on their work in the commenting area. Communicating and discussing professional skills under ePortfolios is a great way to break the ice in the online learning environment. It also enables learners to realize their worth and potential, as well as the gaps in their professional skills.

A good ePortfolio is evidence of learning and performance that takes years to complete. A good start is the development of a website that contains the following webpages:

a. About me: On this page, learners share their images, videos or other forms of identity they are comfortable with - including an avatar. Learners talk about themselves. They explain their current professional status and their aspirations for the future.

b. Skills and Projects: This page can have links to projects and samples of technical skills (for example, Photoshop projects etc.) that the learner has completed over the years.

c. CV: On this page, the learner uploads their CV to give their readers a complete idea of their background.

d. Reflections: Here, learners can write down their observations on their performance and their lessons learned.

2. Location Based Games - Augmented Learning

This form of learning is one of the most exciting, according to learners. Trainers usually think that augmented learning is hard to implement but, nowadays, there are several tools available to create games that are based on a historical or geographical backdrop.

It is similar to geocaching, except these games are linked to course objectives and based in a location where everyone can participate physically. Performance can be improved significantly if a location-based game is developed for the work context of the learners. After solving all problems presented in the location, guided by the game played on the learners' smartphones, learners receive a score that determines the quality of their performance. For example, check out this great Game of Thrones eLearning game.

While these games are very interesting to implement, they are indeed time-consuming to create. Perhaps the best feature of these games is the degree of customization achieved for a learning situation. Games like these involve all learners and require participation for achieving points. Learners are regularly in touch with each other through the game's social media.

3. Discussion forums

This is one of the oldest, yet still the favorite form of online collaboration activities. The course mentor posts different topics to observe the level and quality of learning demonstrated by participants. The success of this form of collaboration depends mostly on the course mentor. The goal is to categorize the questions according to the course learning objectives. Any negativity needs to be addressed and weeded out at an early stage.

A point awarding strategy is also versatile in discussion board activity - a way to motivate all learners to participate and provide their input. Experts tell us that we reveal more about ourselves through text as compared to speaking.

Discussion forums activities not only encourage collaboration, but they also provide a venting outlet for learners while they receive multiple feedback from their peers.

Wrapping up

Give these tips a shot next time you plan an eLearning course. Not only do these strategies encourage a strong social presence, but they also promote recognition of talent and skills. Collaboration is all about frequent and regular contact with peers to obtain the updates on a project or a task. Try integrating these three strategies in your next eLearning course and enjoy a better social interaction with your learners.

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Top 3 Collaboration Activities for your eLearning Courses

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Educational technology tools have enabled multiple channels of collaboration within the online learning environment. However, these tools are futile if the course facilitator or trainer doesn't know how to use them or even ignores their existence! In this article, we'll share the top three forms of collaboration activities for your eLearning course that have proven to enhance eLearning experiences.