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Online community that allows for communication, assessment, conferencing, etc.

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Teachers can easily track and show growth of students understanding in an individual assignment from start to end. Levels added to questions will be reflected in reports.

What do individual DoK Levels help you assess?

Level 1: Recall - Focus here is on specific facts, information, details, and procedures e.g specific definitions, details, applies simple steps.

Level 2: Skills and Concepts - Processing of conceptual knowledge, comparing and contrasting, extracting main points, interpreting facts etc. More content knowledge required here than Level 1. Actions require more than one step.

Level 3: Strategic Thinking - Focus is on reasoning based on deep knowledge: which include understanding and rationalizing thoughts, manifesting them into achievable steps. E.g Drawing conclusions from Examples, citing evidence to support a logical argument, concept based explanations.

Level 4: Extended Thinking - Focus is on applying complex reasoning, experimental design, and planning over an extended period of time. It requires extended investigation (research) and time to process information and problem solving. Students are required to make multiple connections, relate ideas to specific content area(s), and select an approach from among many as a solution.

Below, are some examples from the Actively Learn instructional team of questions with increasing levels of DoK.

Download the PDF Depth of Knowledge Question Stems.

To learn more about the DoK framework, please refer to Brenda Mathew's DoK framework.

Add Depth of Knowledge Levels:

STEP 1: Select "Options" then "Add DoK"

STEP 2: Select the DoK Level you want

View a student's proficiency by DoK Level in your Student Reports [Team Plan]

This will give you real-time metrics on how your students are engaging with texts and how they are performing by DoK Levels.

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Teachers can easily track and show growth of students understanding in an individual assignment from start to end. Levels added to questions will be reflected in reports. What do individual DoK Levels help you assess? Level 1: Recall - Focus here is on specific facts, information, details, and procedures e.g specific definitions, details, applies simple steps.

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Group Activity to teach Online Expectations

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Group Activity to teach Online Expectations

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Online discussion format for remote learning

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Parlay is an AI-powered instructional platform that helps teachers facilitate meaningful, measurable, and inclusive class discussions. Join over a million teachers and students. Start using Parlay for free in your class today.

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Best Practices

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This section provides principles and tips to help you teach, regardless of whether your class is fully in person, fully online, or a little bit of both.

Below you'll see general advice, a variety of course types, and tips on encouraging student engagement. To keep things simple, we're focusing on the most common and most effective online teaching practices. Reminders that are equally relevant to in-person instruction are marked with an *asterisk*. You can also find a comprehensive guide to Designing Your Course for Online Instruction: Principles and Tips, as well as resources on teaching with masks.

We've broken up the teaching tips according to the common teaching styles (lecture, case, small group discussion, and hands-on). Feel free to jump to the section most appropriate to your course.

Some General Advice

Teaching with Masks

We recommend:

Getting Started: Recommended Process

1. *Determine your content, pedagogy, and assessment.

2. Plan your asynchronous-synchronous mix, including video, non-video, and peer learning communities.

3. Decide - for both asynchronous and synchronous instruction - when and how you will:

Content, Pedagogy, and Assessment: Guiding Principles

Let's start with some fundamentals. See also Designing Your Course for Online Instruction: Principles and Tips.

*The basis of teaching is the same for every modality: strong emphases on content, pedagogy, and assessment. Careful planning on these three factors remains central to successful teaching - both residential and online.

The forms of teaching interaction may change: even as the online instruction often precludes certain forms of in-person contact, it creates opportunities for new ways to interact. Well-planned, intentional uses of online technologies can encourage and facilitate even more "lean forward" behaviors and more interaction with and among students. For example, as described below, you can increase learner engagement by:

Identifying learners' questions about the material

Using polls and other interactive technologies to get a sense of students' experience, comprehension, and reactions ("reading the room")

Inviting specific students' answers (cold calling)

Opening the floor to general discussion of particular questions

Having students engage in small "buzz group" conversations via breakout rooms

Creating opportunities for synchronous or asynchronous student collaboration via tools like Google Docs, Miro, etc.

Focus on your pedagogy, not the medium: the principles of pedagogy that are effective for online teaching - video, simulation, text, etc. - are similar to those that are effective in the residential classroom. They allow students to engage with material dynamically and across multiple learning styles. These principles apply not only to synchronous teaching but also, importantly, to asynchronous content creation.

Asynchronous-Synchronous Mix

Based on your own pedagogy and teaching style, you can be flexible in choosing the right mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Online teaching can heighten interactivity. Take advantage of the opportunities for students to "lean forward" and to engage with you, your TFs, your guest speakers, and each other. Long lectures, on the other hand, do not work well in online teaching, either in synchronous sessions or asynchronous materials. Your school's Teaching and Learning Center can help you develop course content, lesson plans, and asynchronous approaches.

Norms and Expectations

Set classroom norms: if using Zoom to convene your course, circulate clear expectations for student participation. For example, consider including language like this in your syllabus.

Our class will meet through the Zoom online conference system. Our success as an online class will depend on the same commitment we all bring to the physical classroom. We will adopt the same rules and norms (take notes; participate by asking and answering questions; wear classroom-ready clothing). For everyone's benefit, join the course in a quiet place whenever possible. Turn on your video whenever possible. Mute your microphone unless you are speaking. Close browser tabs not required for participating in class.

Audio quality matters: use a good headset or a USB microphone. (See Configure Your Teaching Space for more information on optimizing your audio.)

So do time zones: remember that students may not be in the same time zone as you. Consider amping up your energy (especially in synchronous teaching) to engage students who are participating very early or late in their day. For students who don't or can't attend a live session live, create opportunities to engage in a peer discussion, write an individual response, or simply watch a recording of the class.

In technology, less is more: it's often better to use a few tools well than many tools ineffectively. Familiarizing yourself with a handful of important features of Zoom and Canvas can take you a long way.

Accessibility

Students have a range of abilities, and not everyone will disclose their challenges. Your course likely has students with learning or sensory disabilities. They are not required to tell you, and they may not feel comfortable telling anyone. Rather than asking them to identify themselves to you, employ practices (like those below) that reach a wide variety of learners.

*Text is universal: assistive technologies (such as screen readers, magnifiers, etc.) are nearly always designed to work with text. If you send images to your students, include textual descriptions so that students using these technologies can follow along. If you use video chat such as Zoom, assign someone (ideally a TF) to create a transcript or closed captioning throughout the session.

*Some students need additional processing time: don't expect everyone to understand everything after being told once. Share slides, transcripts, chat logs, videos, and images for students to download and examine afterward. This will especially help students with dyslexia and other reading impediments.

*Select accessible resources: some online resources have already had substantial work done to improve accessibility. Videos produced by HarvardX (available through DART via your HarvardKey) have captions, and images have alternative text descriptions included. YouTube allows viewers to suggest caption improvements on many videos. Virtual meetings can be accessible in Zoom due to the available keyboard shortcuts for navigating without a mouse and closed captioning created either by a third party service or a meeting member. Interactive simulations such as the PhET tools are usable by the blind. Check to see whether your resources indicate WCAG AA 2.0/2.1 compliance, or Section 508 compliance.

*Take care of your own hands and posture: pay attention to your tendons (and your shoulders). Take breaks, and encourage your students to stretch periodically. For more suggestions, visit Harvard's Environmental Health & Safety group, which has a self-assessment for computer ergonomics.

Course Types

Lecture-oriented Courses

If you are preparing to move your lecture-based course online or to rethink online or asynchronous elements of it, it is helpful to remember that long lectures do not work well in online teaching, either in synchronous sessions or asynchronous materials. (See Designing Your Course for Online: Principles and Tips.)

Creating and uploading your materials

*Break up text-heavy presentation slides: be aware that online, perhaps even more than in the classroom, students will read first and listen second. Consider PowerPoint's "Animation" feature (or equivalent) that allows you to show just a bullet or two at a time.

*Organize your course materials using Canvas modules.

*Integrate library resources and other digital materials.

Asynchronous: Prerecording

Although they take time to create, prerecorded lectures can be as engaging as the best live lectures: you can do multiple takes, edit the recordings, and integrate graphics or animations. They are also less vulnerable to unanticipated bandwidth issues that may arise with live sessions. You can even use them in future versions of your course, whether online or face-to-face. Here are a few simple tips to get you going.

Provide an explicit roadmap at the beginning, outlining the content you're going to be covering.

Break down the lecture into shorter segments (3-5 minutes). A long pre-recorded lecture can be deadly to watch.

Intersperse the lecture clips with reflection questions, polls, action prompts, and other interactive elements. Try to make the learning experience "inductive" rather than entirely didactic.

Insert yourself - a personal story, humor, or editorial commentary - into the lecture.

Prerecorded material and live content can complement each other powerfully. Consider prerecording certain segments of your lecture (some material you want the students to reflect on before class, or an explanation of key terms or concepts) and leave the rest for synchronous sessions. For detailed guidance, see Prepare Your Content in Advance.

Synchronous: Presenting your lecture

*Create a detailed agenda, including how much time you will ask students to spend on collaborative work, solo writing, or group discussions.

Practice (at least once) in advance: if you are lecturing online and have assistance from a TA/TF, rehearse using the Share Screen and switching among windows you intend to display. If you're teaching solo, practice clicking between Zoom's presentation mode, screen share mode, any slides or presentation materials, and any other technologies like whiteboarding tools, polls, or videos.

*Make your transitions explicit: be sure to provide clean, well-defined transitions between activities or discussion topics.

*Watch your pace and keep an eye on students' comprehension and engagement (see Engaging Students Remotely). Some instructors report that students absorb and process information at the same rate as in person; others have found they can only cover one-half to two-thirds as much material as they can in the physical classroom. Check in with your students more frequently than you might normally, to make sure that they follow the material and remain engaged.

Configure your Zoom settings and preferences to support your teaching: you can turn off the entrance/exit chime, allow or prevent students sharing their screens, pre-mute everyone, etc.

Close all the computer windows you won't be using (particularly personal email, messages, etc.) prior to the class.

Keep your students in front of you: Zoom's gallery view lets you see 25-49 students at a time (depending on your screen and computer's capabilities). You can also move from screen to screen to see even more.

Be visible: it helps your students remain engaged if they can see your face as you present your material. Set up your devices so that even when you're using Screen Share students can see your face at the same time as the materials being displayed. If you want to be able to see your students while you share your screen, you may need to log into Zoom via two devices at the same time. This allows you to share your screen on one device (e.g., a tablet for whiteboarding) while having the gallery view of students on the other.

Adapt your board work: if you usually use a blackboard or whiteboard as part of a class session, you have a number of options. Note that if you're accustomed to multiple simultaneous boards you may need to adapt to showing a single screen's worth at a time. See Boardwork from the Bok Center for suggestions.

Engaging students in lecture-oriented courses

It is difficult to listen to a lecture attentively on a small screen. Consider taking advantage of pedagogical tools in Zoom to keep them engaged, such as breakout rooms, questions and discussions via Chat, polling, annotations, or invited Q&A (using Raise Hand). See Engaging Students Remotely for more tips and opportunities.

Assessing participation in lecture-oriented courses

In classes where participation is a heavy component of the grade, be sure to let students know early and often what forms or participation you will be tracking and how often you expect them to participate.

Encourage students to use Chatto participate. Chat can draw in students who have great ideas to contribute yet may be somewhat quiet during discussions or debates. Reminding students that the quantity and the quality of their chat comments contribute to their participation grade can help limit frivolous chat and improve the sophistication and quality of the chat threads.

One-on-one or small-group meetings can be held using Zoom almost the same way as in-person. But it is important to maintain the same norms around minimizing distractions as in the classroom. Your level of engagement will determine the students' level.

Case-based Courses

Several features of small or large case-based courses transfer well to an online because Zoom and other technologies have various interactive features built in. Here are tips to consider when teaching a case-based course.

Calling Patterns and Practices

Keep your students in front of you: Zoom's gallery view lets you see thumbnails of 25-49 students at a time (depending on your screen and computer's capabilities). You can also move from screen to screen to see even more.

*Discussion transitions: be sure to state clean, well-defined transitions between discussion topics.

Use Chat to decide on calling patterns: tracking the Chat feature can be useful in deciding which students to call on next - for example, if a particular student notes through Chat that she/he disagrees with the student speaking, or has some additional data to provide. As one faculty member noted, the advantage of Chat is that it's like "reading students' thought bubbles" - an advantage over the physical classroom.

*Role plays/debates between students: you can request two students to "role play" a situation like you would in the physical classroom.

*Warm and cold calls: you can "cold call" a student just as you would in the traditional classroom, instead of waiting for them to raise their hand. For "warm calls," you can message them privately in Chat before you call on them.

Raising hands: this feature works like the physical classroom. Have students use the Raise Hand feature in Zoom to answer questions. When you open up a conversation to students, you can pause a beat to let a number of people raise their hand and then pick according to whatever calling pattern you want. Call on students by their names.

*Polls (private or public): with Zoom's polling features (or other tools like Mentimeter or PollEverywhere) you can get group results in real time, then reveal them later.

*Checking in/reading the room: unmuted students can inadvertently start talking at the same time; you will not be able to read body language easily; and those less inclined to speak may disappear more easily. To address these issues, be more diligent about pausing and asking if anyone else has more thoughts before jumping to the next topic.

Board Plans

if you usually do "board work" as part of a class session, you have a number of options. Note that if you're accustomed to multiple simultaneous boards you may need to adapt to showing a single screen's worth at a time. See Boardwork from the Bok Center for suggestions.

Closing the Case

Summary slides work as they do in the physical classroom. In addition, consider inviting students' reflections on the case too through Chat or a shared space like a Google Doc. Such written summations can be powerful complements to the discussion portion of the class, so consider archiving these reflections for each class.

Assessing Participation

In case-based classes, participation is a heavy component of the grade. Student comments can be more easily recorded since Zoom retains a video archive of the entire class.

In an online setting, consider using students' Chat comments and reflections as additional inputs to a student's participation grade, and a supplement to the spoken word. This can help draw in students who may be somewhat quiet in "speaking," and can also help limit frivolous chat. If you decide to use Chat in participation grading, you should be sure to let students know about this norm before you start teaching.

Small Group Discussions

One-on-one or small-group meetings: virtual one-on-one or small-group meetings can be held using Zoom almost the same way as in-person. But it is important to maintain the same norms around minimizing distractions as in the classroom; your level of engagement will determine students'. If you're using open office hours, the Waiting Room allows you to provide a single Zoom session ID and the ability to invite only selected individuals into the discussion.

*Code review: you can use Screen Sharing to meet with an individual or group of students to review code. Authorizing Remote Screen Control enables one to take control of the other's shared application and allows for navigation, text entry, etc. on the remote computer. When you cannot meet synchronously with a student to provide feedback, consider resources such as Pastebin and JSFiddle, where students can upload their code and you can create revisions with comments.

*Collaborative problem solving and brainstorming: digitally annotate using the Whiteboards feature. Allow others in the session to annotate on the same board to share ideas and problem-solving methods. A tablet (used as a second screen) is useful for handwriting.

*Ask questions: have students use the Raise Hand feature in Zoom to answer questions. Call on a student by name and "Allow to talk" (unmute).

Cold call: you can "cold call" a student just as you would in the traditional classroom, instead of waiting for them to raise their hand.

Keep your students in front of you: Zoom's gallery view lets you see thumbnails of 25-49 students at a time (depending on your screen).

Hands-on Courses

Lab courses: one of the biggest challenges of teaching online from anywhere is sustaining the lab components of classes. Since many labs require specific equipment, they are hard to reproduce outside of that physical space. Consider the following as you plan to address lab activities:

*Define what the lab should achieve: different lab activities serve different purposes. See Remote Labsfrom the Bok Center for scenarios.

Take part of the lab online: many lab activities require students to become familiar with certain procedures, and only physical practice of those processes will do. In such cases, consider whether there are other parts of the lab experience you could take online (for example, video demonstrations of techniques, online simulations, analysis of data, other pre- or post-lab work). Save the physical practice parts of the labs until access to campus is restored.

Investigate virtual labs: online resources and virtual tools might help replicate the experience of some labs (e.g., virtual dissection, night sky apps, video demonstrations of labs, simulations, YouTube videos). Those vary widely by discipline, but check with your textbook publisher, or sites such as Merlot for materials that might help replace parts of your lab during the closure.

*Provide raw data for analysis: in cases where the lab includes both collection of data and its analysis, consider showing how the data can be collected, and then provide some raw sets of data for students to analyze. This approach is not as comprehensive as having students collect and analyze their own data, but it can keep them engaged with parts of the lab experience during the closure.

*Increase interaction in other ways: sometimes labs are about providing time for direct student interaction. Consider other ways to replicate that type of interaction or create new online interaction opportunities, including using available collaboration tools like Breakout Rooms, Annotation Tools, and Whiteboards in Zoom, Slack, etc.

Chat: keeping a simultaneous chat stream can bolster the conversation and allow more students to get their questions answered - and voices heard.

Using Video

Effective video can be asynchronous, synchronous, and a complement to other forms of engaging with students. For overall guidance, see Designing Your Course for Online: Principles and Tips. For specific recommendations, see The Fundamentals of Video and Audio Production for Online Teaching.

Engaging Students Remotely

During Class: Engaging and Energizing

*Reading the room: unmuted students can inadvertently start talking at the same time, you will not be able to read body language easily, and those less inclined to speak may disappear more easily. To address these issues, be more diligent about pausing and asking if anyone else has more thoughts before jumping to the next topic.

*Amplify your course with guest speakers: online, experts are one click away. Inviting guests to join your course session can promote engagement, diversity, inclusion, and enthusiasm.

*Encourage community: the sense of presence will be enhanced when everyone shows their face via their webcam. Consider asking students to turn on video as a key part of participation, since it is easier to engage with the class if you can see them, and students are more likely to pay attention if they know they're on camera. The gallery view can be helpful here. However, recognize that some students may feel uncomfortable sharing their living/studying circumstances. Remind your students that virtual backgrounds can help protect cybersecurity, improve equity, and reduce visual distractions.

*Stretch times: consider encouraging students to "stretch" every 20-30 minutes for 30 seconds. It can be harder to focus attention on a screen than in a classroom, and you and they will benefit from a brief moment of physical activity.

*Breakout groups: if you want students to participate in smaller "buzz groups", you can consider using Slack or twitch as a chat platform that complements Zoom, and/or provide a prompt for group work via collaborative tools like Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets. Alternatively you can use Zoom's Breakout Rooms functionality for discussions or video-enabled group work.

During Class: Questions and Discussions

*Invite and respond to questions: if your class normally is a large-class lecture format with Q&A, consider inviting students to ask their questions in Chat. (See Additional Tips on Engaging Students.) If you have a TA/TF, they can pick a few questions for you to answer at the appropriate moments or, say, every 10-15 minutes. You can also consider asking students to use the Raise Hand feature in case they have an urgent question. (Zoom makes this easier than a standard lecture hall.)

*Use polling to get many responses quickly: poll tools like Poll Everywhere, Mentimeter, and Zoom's polling features let you ask students questions and use ScreenShare to show the distribution of responses. When used well, this can be a powerful complement to the lecture or discussion.

*Encourage students to reflect: for example, say "I'd like you to think about ....", take a short pause, and then if appropriate, provide an answer, or solicit answers from the students. Again, the Chat feature can be helpful in having students record their reflections.

*Post answers later: consider posting responses after class to particular Chat questions that you didn't have time to address during the session.

*Code review: you can use Screen Sharing to meet with an individual or group of students to review code. Authorizing Remote Screen Control enables one to take control of the other's shared application and allows for navigation, text entry, etc. on the remote computer. When you cannot meet synchronously with a student to provide feedback, consider resources such as Pastebin and JSFiddle, where students can upload their code and you can create revisions with comments.

*Collaborative problem solving and brainstorming: digitally annotate using the Whiteboards feature. Allow others in the session to annotate on the same board to share ideas and problem-solving methods. A tablet (used as a second screen) is useful for handwriting.

Ask questions: have students use the Raise Hand feature in Zoom to answer questions. Call on a student by name and "Allow to talk" (unmute).

*Cold call: you can "cold call" a student just as you would in the traditional classroom, instead of waiting for them to raise their hand.

*Office hours: if you're using open office hours, the Waiting Room allows you to provide a single Zoom session ID and the ability to invite only selected individuals into the discussion.

Outside of Class: Discussion Boards and Student Collaboration

Not all classroom discussions need to be synchronous. In these cases, you can use the Canvas discussion forum feature. Decide what kind of discussions will be most beneficial to your course: topic-driven or social-driven. Your discussion prompts and how you evaluate your students' responses should reflect that decision.

*Topic-driven: this type of discussion board works especially well for highlighting readings or helping your students focus on key parts of your course content. Provide specific conversation points and prompts that may relate to a reading or a lecture. Make sure to build in space for reflection or debate in your discussion prompts. Students should want to know what their classmates are thinking about!

*Social-driven: this type of discussion board works especially well if you want your students to connect the course with current events or their own projects or work. Your discussion board serves as a digital "water cooler" for your class. Your discussion prompts can be more general, such as asking them to post about the specific topic of the week.

You can also enable and encourage student-to-student collaboration through tools like Slack.

Assessment

Consider the following approaches. See also Designing Your Course for the Fall: Principles and Tips.

Additional Resources

Below are additional tools and materials that you may find useful depending on the kind of course and pedagogy you use.

*Overall guidance: Harvard's Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) provides recommendations to help you teach your course, plan your class, and create a meaningful online experience.

Case-based courses: Harvard Business Publishing offers a portfolio of resources to help you move your class online.

*Reading-intensive courses: Perusall allows instructors to upload documents for learners to read and annotate. These annotations become discussions on the document as students comment on each other's ideas.

Lab courses: Remote Labs from the Bok Center

*Digital resources: Using digital resources to augment course materials

*Math and physics simulations: PhET, QuVis, Falstad

Flipping your course: the term "flipped classroom" describes the case when instead of using an in-class lecture format, instructors make their pre-recorded lectures available for students to view online, then use in-classroom time for discussions. The Harvard Kennedy School SLATE program has developed resources that may be useful as you consider this shift.

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Pedagogical Best Practices: Residential, Blended, and Online

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Below you'll see general advice, a variety of course types, and tips on encouraging student engagement. To keep things simple, we're focusing on the most common and most effective online teaching practices. Reminders that are equally relevant to in-person instruction are marked with an *asterisk*.

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1. General Plan

2. Canva

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Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - Canva

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Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - Canva

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Step by Step Guides for support with digital tools

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Good source of online readings

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"Middle Schoolers are complicated creatures. Many need academic support, but are acutely aware of anything that "otherizes them". With Newsela, I can provide all students a high-interest article they can dive into and no one feels left out or that they are reading something "different" from every one else."

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K-12 lesson solutions for every subject, student, and school. | Newsela

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"Middle Schoolers are complicated creatures. Many need academic support, but are acutely aware of anything that "otherizes them". With Newsela, I can provide all students a high-interest article they can dive into and no one feels left out or that they are reading something "different" from every one else."

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Course material for ELA, SS, Math, and Science. Features leveled readings, numerous texts and genres, and built in assessments. Also has skills practice.

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Freckle by Renaissance - Differentiation Platform for K-12

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Accelerate literacy equitably with differentiated resources.

K-12 coverage of standards and skills

Over 1,000 nonfiction and fiction passages that adapt to each student's level

Teachers can assign a specific standard for some or all students to practice

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Freckle by Renaissance | Reach Every Student at Their Level

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Freckle helps K-12 teachers differentiate instruction and reach every student at their own level across Math, ELA, Social Studies and Science.

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A collection of literature. Also has paired texts

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America’s reading comprehension crisis.

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Student can participate in your presentations. Great ways to assess student comprehension during a lesson

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Join the Peartember celebration for giveaways, exclusive templates, and more! Learn more >

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Pear Deck for Microsoft makes it effortless for educators to add interactive, formative assessments to their presentations and launch directly from Teams.

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Teaches online safety

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Interland is an adventure-packed online game that puts the key lessons of digital citizenship and safety into hands-on practice. Play your way to being Internet Awesome.

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Create your own jeopardy template online, without PowerPoint. Or browse the pre-made templates created by other people!

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contributed by Allan Carrington

The Padagogy Wheel is designed to help educators think - systematically, coherently, and with a view to long term, big-picture outcomes - about how they use mobile apps in their teaching. The Padagogy Wheel is all about mindsets; it's a way of thinking about digital-age education that meshes together concerns about mobile app features, learning transformation, motivation, cognitive development and long-term learning objectives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This year an objective is to build an online resource of how teachers have used the model, showcasing best practice and including research projects. We learned from our recent trip to China that they have over 14.5 million teachers. Yes, just teachers! And they all are extremely committed to change, hungry for professional development and collaboration.

Your own work on the Padagogy Wheel could help many thousands of educators in China, as well as others around the world. This will help students become excellent practitioners and graduates, leading their communities into transformational change and making the world a better place. After all isn't that why you became a teacher?

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

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The Padagogy Wheel brings together in one chart several different domains of thinking with education apps for learning.

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We believe in media that inspires and entertains families of all kinds. In technology that protects privacy and supports communities. In learning tools that prepare students and teachers for success in a connected world. Discover how we're working to make the digital world better for kids and families.

Discover our media ratings and reviews at Common Sense Media

Find our curriculum and classroom resources at Common Sense Education

See our most recent researchon the impact of media on kids

Explore our advocacy efforts around digital equity and tech accountability

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Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization working to make the digital world healthier, safer, accessible, and engaging for kids and families.

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For students to share their own video, create performances, and practice oral responses.

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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One consistent enterprise experience for all use cases

Engineered & optimized to work reliably

Up to 1,000 video participants & 10,000 viewers

Easy-to-use, buy & scale

Most affordable, straightforward pricing

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Use when students need closed captioning during conference time

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Google Meet: Online Web and Video Conferencing Calls | Google Workspace

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Use Google Meet for secure online web conferencing calls and video chat as a part of Google Workspace.

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Outside of Schoology

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From Remote Teaching II

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Use captions during live meetings

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You can make it easier to follow what's being said in meetings by turning on captions, which show text of the conversation.

Note: If you record a video meeting, captions are not recorded and don't appear when you play the recording.

At the bottom of the Meet window, click Turn on captions or Turn off captions .

You might have to click More first.

Tip: If the captions are covered by your call controls, click anywhere else inside the Meet window to dismiss them.

Related topics

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You can make it easier to follow what's being said in meetings by turning on captions, which show text of the conversation. Note: If you record a video meeting, captions are not recorded and don't appear when you play the recording. At the bottom of the Meet window, click Turn on captions or Turn off captions .

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When you present slides, you can turn on automatic captions to display the speaker's words in real time at the bottom of the screen.

This feature is available in U.S. English only, using Chrome on a computer.

Step 1: Set up your microphone

To use captions with Google Slides, your computer microphone needs to be on and working.

Devices and microphones vary, so check your computer manual for instructions. Microphone settings are typically in the System Preferences on a Mac, or the Control Panel on a PC.

Google Slides uses the computer's microphone or an external microphone paired with the computer (such as a hand-held microphone).

Step 2: Present with captions

1. Make sure that you have a working internet connection.

2. On your computer, open your presentation in Google Slides.

3. To start presenting, click Present or press the shortcut for your browser:

4. To turn on captions, click CC or press the shortcut for your browser:

5. As you speak, captions appear at the bottom of the screen. Captions don't include punctuation.

6. To turn off captions, click CC or press the shortcut for your browser:

Note: Captions are not stored.

Tips for using captions

If you present slides over video conferencing software (such as Hangouts Meet), captions show up on the shared screen. To set expectations for your audience, it's a good idea to tell them that captions are from Google Slides, not the video conferencing software, and that only the speaker's voice is captioned.

Some people find captions distracting, so you might want to ask your audience before turning on captions.

Captions and your microphone automatically turn off if there's no activity on your computer for 30 minutes.

Troubleshoot captions

If captions aren't working, try these tips:

If possible, reduce background noise or move to a quieter room.

In your system and browser preferences, check your microphone settings.

Plug in an external microphone, if you haven't already.

Check that your microphone is plugged in and isn't being used by another application.

Change the input volume on your microphone.

Restart your computer.

Clear your browser's cache.

Note: Caption text is powered by machine learning and depends on audio input from the speaker, including the speaker's accent, voice modulation, and intonation. As language understanding models use billions of common phrases and sentences to automatically transcribe spoken words, they can also reflect human cognitive biases. As such, captions might not be a complete and accurate transcription of the speaker's words. Google is committed to making products that work well for everyone, and we're actively researching unintended bias, mitigation strategies, and ways to improve quality.

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When you present slides, you can turn on automatic captions to display the speaker's words in real time at the bottom of the screen. This feature is available in U.S. English only, using Chrome on a computer. To use captions with Google Slides, your computer microphone needs to be on and working.

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Google’s service, offered free of charge, instantly translates words, phrases, and web pages between English and over 100 other languages.

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Type with your voice - Google Docs Editors Help

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You can type and edit by speaking in Google Docs or in Google Slides speaker notes. This feature works with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari browsers. Step 1: Turn on y

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Fit for group play. Updated to a robot and not an actual person :)

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Hangman is a classic word game in which you must guess as many secret words as you can before time runs out! Challenge your friends and learn new words, one letter at a time!

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Fun games to play with students during down time.

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Boost reading and writing confidence across all types of content and devices, in class, at work, and at home.

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Tools to give all learners access to content and course work

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Exciting content and/or vocabulary practice and review

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Join a game of kahoot here. Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

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Engaging practice and review of content information. Great for test review.

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Wayground - The world's most engaging learning platform

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Find and create gamified quizzes, lessons, presentations, and flashcards for students, employees, and everyone else. Get started for free!

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Engaging Vocabulary Practice

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Quizlet has study tools to help you learn anything. Improve your grades and reach your goals with flashcards, practice tests and expert-written solutions today.

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Different styles of presentations, which includes gallery walks, newspaper format, and more..

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Content Creation: Best Presentations, eCards & More | emaze

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Content creation with the help of AI. From amazing presentations and websites, to eCards and more, create beautiful visuals with our ready-to-use templates.

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Engaging and interactive presentation formats.

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Beyond google slides

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Easy to use online poster that allows for group collaboration

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Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - Canva

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Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - Canva

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Digital Citizenship: What It Means, How to Teach It, and the Resources You Need

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Learn about teaching digital citizenship to students. You need to do more than keep up with technology trends.

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Online poster tool what is much more complex. Does not allow group collaboration

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Sign in to Venngage to create free infographics.

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Summer is over. The days at the pool have come to an end and all the kids have returned to fill the building with their energy and excitement for learning! Mrs. Fuddyduddy is feeling the mix of dread and excitement that comes with each new school year. "This year will be different," she thought to herself as she left the office on that first "setting up the classroom" day. She needs 4 things to unlock the best school year yet: a new set of engaging lessons, an organized classroom, patience, and energy! Your task is to help Mrs. Fuddyduddy start this year on the right foot. Work through the challenges on each page (above). When you have solved all the challenges, click the "Breakout!!" link above to check your answers and help Mrs. Fuddyduddy unlock the key to a great school year!

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Summer is over. The days at the pool have come to an end and all the kids have returned to fill the building with their energy and excitement for learning! Mrs. Fuddyduddy is feeling the mix of dread and excitement that comes with each new school year.

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Better Sharing, Brighter Future

"Twenty Years of Creative Commons (in Sixty Seconds)" by Ryan Junell and Glenn Otis Brown for Creative Commons is licensed via CC BY 4.0 and includes adaptations of the multiple open and public domain works. View full licensing and attribution information about all works included in the video on Flickr.

Creative Commons is an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to grow and sustain the thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture we need to address the world's most pressing challenges and create a brighter future for all.

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The nonprofit behind the licenses and tools the world uses to share

For over 20 years, Creative Commons has supported a global movement built on a belief in the power of open access to knowledge and creativity. From Wikipedia to the Smithsonian, organizations and individuals rely on our work to share billions of historic images, scientific articles, cultural artifacts, educational resources, music, and more!

Wikipedia

55+ million articles

Every one of Wikipedia's 55 million plus articles are shared openly and freely using a CC license.

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All images of public-domain works in the Met's collection are openly available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

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Many of the lessons found on Khan Academy are openly licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA.

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Every one of Wikipedia's 55 million plus articles are shared openly and freely using a CC license.

The Met

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All images of public-domain works in the Met's collection are openly available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

Khan Academy

100,000+ lessons

Many of the lessons found on Khan Academy are openly licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA.

Wikipedia

55+ million articles

Every one of Wikipedia's 55 million plus articles are shared openly and freely using a CC license.

The Met

492,000+ images

All images of public-domain works in the Met's collection are openly available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

Khan Academy

100,000+ lessons

Many of the lessons found on Khan Academy are openly licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA.

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One year after Creative Commons (CC) hosted an exploratory Open Culture Roundtable, in Lisbon, Portugal, which initiated the Towards a Recommendation on Open Culture (TAROC) global initiative, nearly 50 stakeholders from all continents gathered again for a strategic workshop, in Lisbon in May 2024. In this blog post, we share a snapshot of key highlights.

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Open Culture
Cropped, Open Culture Strategic Workshop by Filipa Alfama, CC BY 4.0

One year after Creative Commons (CC) hosted an exploratory Open Culture Roundtable, in Lisbon, Portugal, which initiated the Towards a Recommendation on Open Culture (TAROC) global initiative, nearly 50 stakeholders from all continents gathered again for a strategic workshop, in Lisbon in May 2024. In this blog post, we share a snapshot of key highlights.

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CC staff photos are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Gratitude to Sara Jordan Photography.

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Creative Commons is an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to grow and sustain the thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture we need to address the world's most pressing challenges and create a brighter future for all.

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Used for delivering videos with comprehension checks along the way :)

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!