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tips for video calls for teachers - Bing video

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5 tips: Classroom video calls for eLearning, distance learning

Video calls are one of the ways we stay connected to our students and staff during eLearning days. At the time of this post update we are all currently engaged in distance learning days for what may be the remainder of the academic school year.

So how can we get started with video calls or how can we continue to utilize them to create a valuable learning experience for our students? Here are some tips and ideas.

1. Choose your platform for video calls.

There are lots of options out there and most are very easy to use. Skype, Zoom and Google Meet are all easy to use video conferencing platforms. Check them out and choose the one that's right for you.

2. Give your students some norms ahead of time.

When students know what's expected, it helps them to do what's right. This is especially helpful when students are in a remote learning environment, where you -- the teacher -- aren't on hand and keeping a watchful eye. The infographic above can provide some guidance.

3. Set an agenda for your class.

This is helpful for students -- and for parents. Students like to know what the plan is. They like to know how long they must maintain their attention and how much is left to cover. (Adults like this, too!) Even a very basic agenda can help them keep track of how much is left to do.

4. Give everyone an easy way to check in when they log on.

This helps the teacher know who is present -- and lets the students know who else is in the call. Students can do this through the chat window with a simple "hello". Answering a fun question, like "What's your favorite superhero?" or "What did you have for breakfast?" can put an engaging twist on it. Check-ins like this mean you don't have to "take roll" in front of everyone.

5. Keep the pace steady.

Keeping a steady pace means that you're more likely to end the call on time. Momentum is key. With children or adults, when it seems like the speaker is spinning his/her wheels, it's easy to lose focus. Giving students a way to engage with you can maintain this momentum, too. Ask them for a thumbs up to the camera if they're with you. Use another app like PearDeck, which lets you deliver slides that students can interact with. Check out this post from Stacey Roshan for more ideas for keeping classes connected with Pear Deck.

5 ideas: Building student relationships during elearning, distance learning

During elearning times -- especially extended ones -- relationship-building is crucial. If your class is full-time distance learning, student success and morale will depend on it. If you're temporarily doing distance learning, building relationships virtually will help with the disruption to social connections and routines.

Here are some ideas for using video calls to help students build and maintain relationships with each other -- and with their teacher.

1. Do a check-in call.

How are you doing? How are you feeling? Is there anything we can do to support you? Especially in times of isolation and crisis, this may be the most important question asked in an educational setting. In the video interview below, Global Teacher Prize Top 10 Finalist Mike Soskil shares how students and teachers can foster empathy, humanity and compassion during remote learning times.

2. Let students share what they've been learning.

Students learn a LOT outside the confines of school. They have their own interests, their own curiosities. What have they been learning? Give them some face time in a video call to share with the class.

3. Do a book talks discussion.

Independent/voluntary reading is one thing that students can do outside the classroom that has immense academic benefits. It relates to growth in vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal fluency, and more (Cullinan 2000).

But what will students read? Suggestions from fellow classmates can get them excited about a new book. A class book talk via video call encourages students to read new titles -- and establishes voluntary reading as a cool thing that is done in your class!

4. Interview guests for the class.

No matter where students are when they participate in class video calls, there are likely others around them. The adults surrounding them have vast experience to share. Even the children around them have something to teach others! Let a few students bring a guest on camera with them. Have them ask a few pre-determined questions, and try to stick to a time limit. Let fellow students ask follow-up questions. This keeps learning going, but it also helps the class get to know their fellow classmates -- and their families.

5. Share traditions and daily life.

Learning a little bit about classmates' daily lives -- or the traditions that their families practice -- can build relationships and help students know each other better.

20 ideas: Using video meetings with students

Educators have access to LOTS of video meeting platforms. Microsoft schools are likely using Teams video meetings or Skype. Google schools are going with Google Meet. Zoom, Blue Jeans and FaceTime are other options.

The question most teachers have isn't which platform to use. It's how to use it with their students.

The stereotype for remote learning is to do video lectures. Get students on a call. Teach them like you would from the front of the room. Students listen.

There are lots of ways to break out of that stereotype! In this post, you'll find many options for using video meetings with your students. Some are more traditional. Some are just for fun! Check out this list and find what makes the most sense for you and your students.

1. Whole-class Instruction

Teach to the whole class. This is what people typically think of when they consider educational video meetings. However, it's only one option (as you'll see below). Keep direct instruction to a minimum and find ways to engage your students. If they struggled to follow along with direct instruction in the classroom, it's likely they'll have an even harder time remotely.

Consider using Pear Deck. Here is a video to get started with Pear Deck in Teams and Pear Deck for Google Slides and here is an Overview Video of Pear Deck.

2. Small Group Instruction

Small groups can make personal interaction easier and more effective. Create your small groups intentionally. When you have them set, creating a private channel for that group in Microsoft Teams will make scheduling and launching meetings easier.

Using Google Classroom? Consider setting up a temporary Class with just those kids - and then delete as needed. Make this a more fluid experience where kids come in and out of a special small group class you have set up.

3. Follow-up for Missing Assignments

If a subset of students haven't turned in a particular activity or project, a small group meeting with those students can get them back on track. Consider awarding badges to students through Microsoft Teams or Classroom to get them engaged.

Using Google? You can quickly see missing assignments and send email messages to those students and engage them in a smaller group.

All Platforms: Consider gamifying your classroom using sites like Class Dojo and Classcraft . These sites can increase engagement --very important during remote learning. Tip: Classcraft is offering their platform for free until the end of July 2020.

When they can't meet in person, students miss their classmates. They want to see their faces, hear their voices, and know that they're safe. Schedule a check-in call with no other agenda than checking on each other and socializing. Your students will benefit - and they will thank you!

Use Flipgrid for asynchronous check-ins. For more on Flipgrid, check out this FREE online course.

Giving students opportunities to present to each other helps them develop oral speaking skills. These presentations don't have to be long or even formal PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations. Consider making a habit of having every student do a one-minute summary of what they've been working on or learning. When presenting is a regular part of class, students work on those speaking skills all the time.

In Microsoft PowerPoint: Have students use the Presenter Coach option to help students with their presentation skills.

In Google: Have students use Screencastify to record their screen and themselves with a webcam as they practice the presentation.

Read-alouds are good for all students - including older ones. According to the University of Iowa Center for Teaching, here are the evidence-based benefits of read-alouds:

Reading aloud creates a classroom community by establishing a known text that can be used as the basis for building on critical thinking skills that are related and unrelated to reading.

Discussions generated by reading aloud can be used to encourage listeners to construct meanings, connect ideas and experiences across texts, use their prior knowledge, and question unfamiliar words from the text.

Reading aloud gives students an opportunity to hear the instructor model fluency and expression in reading technical or literary language. "Through intonation, expression, and attention to punctuation, the reader demonstrates meaning embedded in the text."

Reading aloud helps students learn how to use language to make sense of the world; it improves their information processing skills, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Please note: this is not popcorn reading. A good way to engage your students during a read-aloud is to start the process of sketchnoting with them. Here is a great article called A Simple Way to Get Your Students Sketchnoting.

Make connections with parents. They're an equal partner to ensure the success of their children. Keep them in the loop. Inform them of what their child has been doing right, as well as anything that needs to be addressed. When parents know how they can support learning from the home, it becomes natural and reinforces what's taught in the classroom.

Tip: Use Flipgrid to allow parents to leave comments or kudos as you progress through remote learning. Keep the responses private however.

8. Virtual Guest Speakers

Invite someone to join your Teams meeting or Google Meet to speak to your students. It doesn't have to be anyone famous or high-profile (although that would be fun and it never hurts to ask!). Have some predetermined questions and let students ask questions through the chat or on camera. Go over norms and expectations with students before the call begins.

Find virtual guest speakers: The Microsoft Educator Community has a database of hundreds of virtual guest speakers. Or you can just reach out to any individual yourself and ask!

Where could your students go in a Teams meeting? It could be as simple as the dentist office down the street, or as impressive as an international voyage!

Find virtual field trips: Check out the Microsoft Educator Community's database of dozens of free virtual field trips. Or brainstorm people and places that would make for a great trip and just ask!

Google Arts and Culture is a great place to get started visiting hundreds of places of interest. Take your students to Paris for the day and visit The Louvre or Musee d'Orsay. Use this virtual trip for writing prompts or larger lesson ideas.

10. Collaborate with Another Class

Remote learning does not have to end our ability to collaborate with other classes; in fact, it makes it easier and much more fun. Find another class to meet with (maybe just another class in your own school or one in another country) and to work on a project together or just share ideas. Host a virtual town hall on learning remotely where students share their best practice ideas and how it is going. Can you imagine how cool it would be to hear from kids in Australia how their remote learning is going? This is a great way to get kids more excited and engaged.

No need to stop IEP meetings or even pull-outs. Use a virtual meeting to make these extraordinary students feel that they are still connected and have the support they need.

Virtual office hours are a hit during remote learning. Keep a consistent time and be there for your students so they know they can reach out at the same time each day.

13. Would You Rather Debates

This activity asks students to evaluate choices and explain their thinking These questions are a great way to get a conversation started in a fun and interesting way. Don't forget to ask students "Why?" after because this can be the best part of the conversation.

Have kids guess things like characters, time periods or scientific facts. Rules: Players take turns asking only "yes" or "no" questions in an attempt to figure out the answer. Ask as many as 20 questions.

15. Movie and Netflix Reviews

Help kids learn to communicate and write by doing mock movie reviews during a team meeting. Assign a few kids each session to go as a fun way to start a meeting or get a conversation started.

Students take the place of characters, concepts, or even a time period in a virtual talk show. Each student takes the "hot-seat" to answer questions showing their comprehension of an idea from the viewpoint of a person or idea being studied in class.

Students Use two pieces of paper and write Hot or Not and then as the teacher talks about ideas in content the kids decide whether this is Hot (good) or Not (not so good) and then defend their choices. One fun example would be on the topic of The Fall of the Roman Empire The idea could be higher taxes to help support the large Roman Military. Kids could decide if that is a HOT or NOT idea, and then explain why.

Students come to the meeting with Two Truths and a Lie about a literary character, historical figure or event, or math or science concept.Then see if the other students can figure which statement is the lie and why. You can even prepare a collaborative doc that students can see ahead of time.

Students love to doodle and remote learning makes a great way to have them do this collaboratively. They can interpret stories, ideas or people and compare their doodles with their classmates.

Microsoft: Use OneNote and a collaborative notebook

Google: Use a collaborative Jamboard

Need more information? Get students Sketchnoting with these introductory videos and learn the why by watching Slyvia Duckworth explain the importance and research behind this strategy. All this is curated into this Wakelet.

20. PowerPoint Brain Dump

Once your class is ready to start, find a volunteer who is ready to fun present and start the first random slide deck. The volunteer must then present on those slides to the group. You can give people an entire slide deck each or have them tap out to other members after a few slides. Keep the slides to a minimum by using only visuals. The key is getting people to improvise and have fun while practicing their communication skills under pressure!

12 steps: Using video calls for guest speakers

Once, I got the fantastic opportunity to teach a lesson in a fifth grade classroom. The teacher, who knows me, asked, "Would you like to do something special with them?"

Ooh, YES, I responded. I knew exactly what to do.

They had been studying natural disasters and had not talked about hurricanes yet. Hurricanes had been very much in the forefront of news broadcasts and the minds of everyone in the United States with Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria blowing through within weeks of each other.

We needed to talk to some kids who had ridden out the hurricane in their homes. So that's what we did.

The process we used to find and connect with virtual guest is one you can follow, too. These steps work for traditional face-to-face classes as well as virtual, remote classes.

Steps for successful guest video calls:

1. Decide why you want to do it and what you're curious about.

Why was it important to do this video call? For me, it all starts with the importance of communication. It's constantly surging up the lists of important job skills for the future.

Plus, collaboration will be increasingly important. As easy as communication - even global communication - is anymore, the phrase "better together" comes to life more and more.

What are you curious about? This is a great question to brainstorm with students. There's a variety of ways to find topics:

Full-year topics

Topics based on current unit or lesson

Topics with a thread throughout several units

Current events topics

Curiosity topics that connect to content

2. Brainstorm the kinds of people who can help.

You don't have to know the people you might get on a video call. But when you know the type of people you're looking for, you can do something with that. Think of the kind of expertise and experience you'd like your guests to have.

3. Start targeting a list of potential guests.

I list six places to find virtual guests and field trips in the section below this one But before we do that, know this first ...

This is the part that gives teachers anxiety the most. Part of it is interacting with people they don't know. The other part is fear of the unknown - and fear of failure.

Now that we know what the common fears are, we can start to confront them.

Interacting with people you don't know: People are generally helpful - especially when kids are involved. (Plus, if the worst thing they can say is "no", just move on if they do.)

Fear of the unknown: You might not have done this before, but teachers all over the world do it all the time and rave about the results.

Fear of failure: If you can't find anyone that will help, you're back where you were when you started - no worse off than before. The potential consequences are nearly non-existent, but the potential benefits are off the charts.

​

4. Start reaching out.

You never know who you'll get until you start reaching out. Case in point: A sixth grade girl wrote a fan letter to basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal. He surprised her by saying he would Skype with her school and imparted some great wisdom. See the video call here!

It can also come together faster than you think. Don Wettrick is an Indiana educator who teaches a class called "Innovation and Open-Source Learning." His students were curious about the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Don encouraged them to reach out to any sources they could find on both sides of the issue. Within DAYS, they had set up video calls with people in Israel and Palestine and were asking their questions to them personally.

5. Get your video call platform up and running.

Get a Skype account and install Skype. OR log in to Google and go to meet.google.com. OR make sure your FaceTime is ready to go.

Does this step seem out of place? Worried about having the tech set up before you start finding virtual guests? If so, YOU may have things out of sequence. Here's why:

Focusing on learning the tech first can be a never-ending cycle. Plus, there's so little about Skype/Google Meet/Zoom/FaceTime that you really need to know to make this happen.

If you get your guest(s) lined up first, you'll be forced to get your tech ready and you'll figure out only what you'll need to make it happen. This keeps you from getting stuck in the techy mud, so to speak.

6. Start scheduling.

Get on your virtual guest's calendar - and get it scheduled on yours. Coordinate. And don't forget about the time zone. Be overzealous about stating which time zone you'll be using. (Often, I'll state both my time zone and my guest's time zone every single time I list a time just to be safe.)

7. Make a plan for each call.

There's no magic formula here. You don't have to take a class to come up with a plan. Envision how the conversation might go and how it could fulfill your goals and those of your guest.

"Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan." - Margaret Thatcher

Like Margaret Thatcher suggests, "work your plan" - change it as necessary as the day draws near or even while the call is going on.

Oh, and communicate your plan with your guest. When your plans are in sync, you can both help each other reach your goals for the call.

8. Do a practice call.

This is the easiest way to ward off technical glitches that can derail your precious time together. Do a practice call a day or two before the live call with your class. Make sure you can connect and the audio and video work. If there are problems, you have time to fix them (or get someone to help you fix them!).

Don't worry about it being awkward. I've done tons of these practice calls. If you're worried about the awkwardness, here's the script for most all of my practice calls:

Say hello. Smile.

Thank them for agreeing to do the call. Tell them why you're excited to be doing the call. Continue to smile.

Ask if the video and audio are good on their end. Tell them it looks good on your end. (If there are problems, see if you can work them out together.)

Ask any questions you have. See if they have any questions. Smile while asking.

Confirm the time/date/length of the call.

Thank them again. Smile. Hang up.

Also check out the 5 tips for successful guest video calls below.
9. Prep your students for the call.

There's not much to this, either. Let them know what your plan is. Discuss behavior expectations. Encourage students questions, brainstorm some possible questions and leave them on the board so kids can use them as necessary. Tell them why you're excited to be doing this and why you think it'll be great for everyone.

Planning a guest video call on an eLearning day

Having a guest speaker join your class on an eLearning day is a great way to bring the world to your students no matter where they are! There are a few tips for successful video calls that will help make your guest video call a fantastic experience for everyone.

10. Initiate the call.

I almost always do a quick message (via Skype or email or however we're communicating) the day of to ask if my guest is still good to go. I'll usually do another message an hour or less beforehand. (I'll ask, "T-minus one hour until we talk. Everything still OK?".)

Aim the camera so your guest can see as many students as possible. Try to get students on camera as much as possible.

Call as close to the appointed time as possible. Avoid being early or late. If you're going to be late, keep your guest in the loop.

While the call is going on, enjoy it with your students! Don't stress too much about having "the perfect call." Learn right along with your students.

Ask unplanned follow-up questions. These are the best. They encourage students to be good listeners. When they just ask pre-written questions, they miss out on the best discussion topics - the ones that come up during conversation!

When students talk, have them look into the camera (not at the screen), state their name and ask their question/make their point loudly and clearly.

When you're done, smile and say thank you. Let the students get on camera and say goodbye, either by crowding around the camera or by pointing the camera at everyone.

11. Reflect on the call afterward.

This is important. It lets students process what they just saw and heard. It also helps remind them of important things they learned in the call.

Simple questions like "What stood out to you?" or "What did you learn?" or "What was most important to you?" can reap huge rewards. Address any teachable moments by asking targeted questions about a specific guest response or statement that needs more discussion or explaining.

There are LOTS of digital tools that let your students continue to connect with a partner classroom - or guest speaker! - after the call ends. You can use ...

12. Choose other guests to flesh out the experience you want.

One call doesn't have to be the end! Would someone else have contrasting or differing views? Showing students both sides of an issue and letting them decide can be powerful and a great skill to prepare them for the real world.

Video calls are some of my favorite classroom experiences and can enrich practically any lesson! If you haven't tried them, give it a shot.
You probably already have the tech. You have curious students. Pick that low-hanging tech fruit!
What questions do you still have about using video calls in the classroom? What would you add based on experiences you've had?

5 tips for successful guest video calls

1. Start small.

If it's your first experience with classroom video calls, you don't have to go big right away! Get your feet wet by setting up a call with someone you're familiar and comfortable with. That could include a teacher in another building (or your building!), a family member or a friend.

2. Make sure you have the right time and time zone.

Time zones are important! Before doing a call, be sure to ask your guest what time zone he/she is in. Decide what time you'll call in each other's time zones. A simple Google search "time in Panama City" (or wherever your guest is) can help you figure it out.

3. Consider a virtual field trip as one of your first calls.

If you want to dip your toes in the video call waters, virtual field trips are great. If you book them through the Skype in the Classroom website, all of their field trips are totally free. They're great for beginners because, often, you connect on the call with a guide who takes over and talks with your students. You stand back and watch the magic happen!

4. Mystery Skype calls are fun entry points to more calls.

A Mystery Skype is a learning game that two classes play together. Two teachers get their classes connected on a video call. Those classes have no idea where in the country (or world!) the other class is. They ask each other yes/no questions back and forth until they can narrow down the state or country. They're so much fun, and they're a great icebreaker activity between two classes that can continue to do video calls together.

5. Use great video call etiquette.

By following some tips, your students can look good and be well received in video calls. Here are some of my suggestions:

Aim the webcam at the entire class so the guest in the call can see all of you (if possible).

Have individual students (or pairs or very small groups) come to the camera to interact with your guests.

Have those students identify themselves by first name at least the first time they're on camera (maybe every time they're on camera).

Ask students to look into the camera when they talk (and not at the screen). This maintains good eye contact.

Go over appropriate behavior for students who aren't talking but are on camera. Often, a little silliness is fun and builds the bond between classes - if students know when it's appropriate!

6 resources: Finding virtual guests and field trips

One of the top questions I hear about classroom video calls is: "Where do I find people?" There are LOTS of sources for finding great classroom connections, virtual guests, and virtual field trips. Here's where I'd go to find them, whether you're in a face-to-face classroom or in a virtual/remote learning setting:

Skype in the Classroom

Microsoft's Skype in the Classroom site (SkypeInTheClassroom.com) offers a database of thousands of teachers, hundreds of guest speakers and dozens of free virtual field trips. With contact information. This is often the EASIEST option.

Twitter hashtags

#mysteryskype is one of the most viewed Twitter hashtags in this space. Whether you're looking specifically for a Mystery Skype game to play with another class or not, it's a GREAT place to find other educators using video calls. Other top hashtags: #skype2learn and #skypeMT (for Skype Master Teachers, a community of people who can help!).

Your own social media and family/friends

​ You might be surprised who can help you find the right virtual guest. Ask for ideas on a Facebook post (yes, your personal Facebook account). Someone you went to high school with that you haven't seen in years just might have the perfect contact. You never know until you ask!

Empatico

​​This free tool helps connect classrooms around the world. Empatico (empatico.org) empowers teachers and students to explore the world through experiences that spark curiosity, kindness, and empathy. We combine live video with activities designed to foster meaningful connections among students ages 6-11. It's free to educators everywhere.

Nepris

​The goal of Nepris ( nepris.com) is to reduce the barriers between industry and education. For decades many of us have been involved in discussions about creating opportunities for all students to gain exposure to the real world. With Nepris, teachers don't have to spend endless hours and time outside of the classroom to recruit and plan for guest speakers. They provide companies the opportunity to efficiently and effectively extend their education outreach efforts. Normally, Nepris offers a free trial and a paid plan with unlimited live sessions. However, during 2020 school closures, Nepris is offering free access to live chats and recorded sessions.

Use your ninja Google skills

I've used this Google search tip to find the perfect virtual guest. I learned it from Skype Master Teacher Dyane Smokorowski (aka "Mrs. Smoke"):

Go to google.com.

Type in "site:twitter.com" and your topic. (Do this even if you don't have a Twitter account.)

You'll find Twitter users with your topic in their profile. They're likely to be sharing about this topic already and willing to help you.

Start clicking on names and reach out!

Looking for even MORE eLearning or distance learning resources?

Our eLearning page has TONS of resources for bringing learning directly to your students no matter where they are!

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Classroom video calls. You can do this. Here's how. - Ditch That Textbook

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Communication benefits from the use of body language, voice level, hand gestures, and other visual and audible cues to signal conversational markers.

22 Simple Tips For Video Calls For Teachers https://t.co/Vg6XVKsYpP #distancelearning #elearning

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Communication benefits from the use of body language, voice level, hand gestures, and other visual and audible cues to signal conversational markers.

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Communication benefits from the use of body language, voice level, hand gestures, and other visual and audible cues to signal conversational markers.

22 Simple Tips For Video Calls For Teachers https://t.co/Vg6XVKsYpP #distancelearning #elearning pic.twitter.com/7Vm2AKQKE7
— TeachThought (@TeachThought) December 11, 2020

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Communication benefits from the use of body language, voice level, hand gestures, and other visual and audible cues to signal conversational markers.

22 Simple Tips For Video Calls For Teachers https://t.co/Vg6XVKsYpP #distancelearning #elearning https://t.co/7Vm2AKQKE7

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Communication benefits from the use of body language, voice level, hand gestures, and other visual and audible cues to signal conversational markers.

22 Simple Tips For Video Calls For Teachers https://t.co/Vg6XVKsYpP #distancelearning #elearning https://t.co/7Vm2AKQKE7

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Communication benefits from the use of body language, voice level, hand gestures, and other visual and audible cues to signal conversational markers.

22 Simple Tips For Video Calls For Teachers https://t.co/Vg6XVKsYpP #distancelearning #elearning

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In the Spring of 2020, the global pandemic suddenly thrust families and educators everywhere into an uncharted space of involuntary remote learning. None of us were prepared for such a drastic lifestyle change, and parents were forced to figure out how to juggle working while educating their children at home. Children were abruptly disconnected from their friends with hopes of returning to school in the fall.

But children across the globe were disappointed to learn they would not be returning to the classroom, and as a parent, you might be asking yourself, "Is remote learning having a negative effect on my child's mental health?

This article will discuss remote learning and its potential negative and positive effects on your child's mental health. We'll also discuss ways you can help improve your child's mental health during remote learning.

Is Remote Learning Having a Negative Effect?

It doesn't require an expert to know that children are struggling with remote learning. Ask any parent, and they will tell you about the changes they see in their children since it began. Of course, distance learning does not impact all children the same. Each child is unique and brings their own personality, strengths, and weaknesses into the experience.

The 4-H National Council recently surveyed teens, and 70 percent of responding teens reported they felt depressed, anxious, or highly stressed; 61 percent said the pandemic had caused them to feel lonely.

In addition to depression, anxiety, and stress, other adverse effects remote learning can have on your child's mental health include:

Reduced motivation

Does it feel like you're always trying to get your child moving to get to their computer classes or get their schoolwork done? Does your child lack motivation, whine, and complain about not wanting to "do school?" If so, you aren't alone; parents and children around the world are experiencing similar challenges.

For children of all ages, connected relationships with their peers usually spark motivation. Kids are accustomed to interacting with other students and teachers as they work in groups, participate in classroom discussions alongside friends, and banter during break times. They aren't accustomed to sitting in front of screens in isolation, and lack of social interaction can reduce your child's motivation. High school students report lacking the peer-driven incentives to get their college applications completed and sent. Additionally, that increased time in front of a computer screen can cause sleep disturbances leading to other negative behaviors.

Sleep disturbances and negative behavior from increased screen time

Dr. Laura Sterni, director of the Hopkins Pediatric Sleep Center at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, has expressed concern about the increased use of digital media remote learning requires and the negative impact on sleep cycles.

Blue light emitted from the computer screen affects your child's circadian rhythm, the body's internal clock, and causes sleep deprivation. In turn, sleep deprivation affects your child's brain and mental health.

The amygdala is your emotional control center. It resides in the brain's prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotions, memory, and decision-making. Research reveals that sleep deprivation disrupts the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala leading to difficulty in emotional and impulse regulation.

According to Jennifer Katzenstein, director of psychology and neuropsychology at the Hopkins All Children's Hospital, this disruption can lead to problems with a child's mental health. She noted that college students have a tough time creating the organizational skills and distraction-free environment necessary to stay on track academically. These challenges can impact their mental health by producing anxiety

Before you get discouraged, let's discuss the positive effects remote learning can have on your child's mental health.

Positive Effects of Remote Learning

Despite some of the recognized adverse effects that remote learning may have on your child, children have the chance to thrive, and many are flourishing in the new digital learning environment.

Families are experiencing strengthened family bonds. Students have opportunities to increase the critical life skill of self-regulation as they brain-storm strategies to get their assignments completed effectively and on time.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that at least 20% of students are bullied at school. For those students, learning at home might be the first time they have felt safe in an educational environment, leading to increased self-confidence and higher academic achievement.

How to Help Your Child's Mental Health During Remote Learning

In addition to being concerned about if remote learning will negatively affect your child's mental health, it can feel quite lonely trying to unexpectedly facilitate your child's education, particularly if you're navigating work at the same time.

It may not feel better to hear that you aren't alone because it is so hard, but know that more and more resources are becoming available as mental health and education professionals respond to families' needs. Consider the following tips:

Seek out supportive resources. The Child Mind Institute supports parents with family resources for remote learning and offers help to navigate remote education's emotional and mental impact on children and parents. CASEL also provides links to help you with social and emotional learning while your child is remote learning. The American Psychological Association offers tips to motivate your child.

Adequate sleep, healthy nutrition, and exercise are essential. This triad of healthy habits will create the best possible foundation for your child's mental health. Create a routine bedtime and wake-up time. Provide brain-boosting foods like kid-friendly fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats. Take frequent breaks away from the computer desk and get your child outside if you can. You can take walks and ride bikes to refresh.

Create a designated school space. A separate area for school can help your child mentally refresh when they take breaks from school responsibilities.

Create time to connect with your child. Ask questions. Listen with intentionality (no phone in hand). Eat meals together and talk. Simply be together.

Have fun. Remember to enjoy this time. For many families, the pace has slowed because of fewer extracurricular activities. Take this unique time to model how to overcome unexpected challenges and enjoy life and one another.

Seek support from a licensed mental health professional. It's an unprecedented time in history, and the entire family is impacted by the lifestyle changes necessitated from coronavirus and remote learning. If you are concerned about your child's mental health, Eunoia Counseling can help. Contact us today to discuss your concerns with one of our skilled therapists. We are privileged to come alongside you and provide valuable tools to protect your child's mental health while remote learning successfully.

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Is Remote Learning Having a Negative Effect to My Child's Mental Health

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In the Spring of 2020, the global pandemic suddenly thrust families and educators everywhere into an uncharted space of involuntary remote learning. None of us were prepared for such a drastic lifestyle change, and parents were forced to figure out how to juggle working while educating their children at home.

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Some teachers and students find that online learning has benefits, and their experiences highlight ... [+]
Getty

In recent weeks, amid the stresses caused by COVID-19 and the resulting closure of virtually all schools, some have found it easier to learn and teach-or at least, no more difficult. Three stories about some unexpected benefits of remote learning hold lessons for how to get schools to serve all students more effectively.

Classroom Management: For Veronique Mintz, a New York City 8 th-grader, the enforced shift to distance learning has been a godsend. In an op-ed for The New York Times, the 13-year-old describes what a typical class was like at her school before the pandemic: students repeatedly talking out of turn, destroying classroom materials, disrespecting teachers, and hitting and kicking each other. In her three years of middle school, she says, she encountered only a few teachers "who had strong command of their classrooms."

Now, with recorded video lessons, Veronique can work at her own pace. Math is easier because the teacher has the time to explain concepts and hold online office hours. Before, "he spent at least a third of class time trying to maintain order."

"The fact that I am learning so much better away from the classroom," Veronique concludes, "shows that something is wrong with our system."

The new regime may be working better for her, but it's clear that many-perhaps including her disruptive classmates-are falling behind. Remote learning and other kinds of education technology generally benefit high-achieving students but hold others back. What can Veronique's experience tell us about how to boost learning for all students?

One clue is that Veronique says her school "puts a big emphasis on collaborative learning; approximately 80 percent of our work is done in teacher-assigned groups of three to five students." There may be more of it at Veronique's school than others, but group work is a widespread practice; during their training, teachers are told that it's preferable to direct instruction.

But, like many other teenagers, Veronique complains that group work forces conscientious students to discipline their peers and cajole them into doing their share. It also undoubtedly contributes to the classroom disorder that interferes with her ability to learn-and that of others. Not only have cognitive scientists found that group work is often ineffective, it makes classroom management far more difficult. While teacher-training programs tout the supposed benefits of collaborative learning, they spend little time on how to maintain control of a class-even a traditional, teacher-led one.

Student Comprehension: Becky Cary, a biology instructor at Duke University, says the switch to online learning has made it easier to figure out when students haven't understood a concept-which, it turns out, happens way more than she'd realized.

In the classroom, Cary told the APM podcast Educate, she would often have trouble getting students to answer questions-out of fear they would give the wrong answer, she speculates. But when teaching over Zoom, she uses its polling function to have students answer multiple-choice questions anonymously. Engagement has skyrocketed. But she's also found that many are misunderstanding the content.

"There were some points where I threw in a question that I thought was going to be an easy one," she told Educate, "to sort of get things going. And just over half the class got that one wrong."

She realized that the students who volunteered to answer questions in class were those who understood the material best, giving her a false sense of confidence that her message had gotten across. Now, armed with the knowledge that "half the room is not with me right now," she can try to clear up misunderstandings before it's too late.

Cary finds the ability to instantly check all students' understanding "exhilarating," and it's something she'll miss when normal classes resume. But maybe it doesn't have to stop. There are ways to use technology to do anonymous polling in face-to-face situations-or Cary could regularly administer brief multiple-choice quizzes in hard-copy form.

Cary's experience is no doubt representative of what goes on in many classrooms-including many below the college level. As part of their training, K-12 teachers are encouraged to skip over "lower-order" aspects of thinking, like basic comprehension, and go right to "higher-order" tasks, like analysis. They may find that students have trouble engaging in those higher-order tasks. But the problem often is that students haven't understood the material in the first place-and you can't analyze what you don't understand.

As Cary found, quizzes can pinpoint misunderstandings. In addition, cognitive scientists have found that frequent low-stakes quizzes are an excellent way to help students absorb and retain information.

Content-Rich Curriculum: Kyair Butts, a 6 th-grade teacher in the Baltimore City public schools, says that the switch to remote learning would have been far more difficult a couple of years ago, before his district adopted a new kind of literacy curriculum.

Before, he says in a blog post on Curriculum Matters, he would have been "fretting about building out lessons" and "whipping up packets" designed to boost students' reading comprehension skills. As in many districts, teachers were largely responsible for creating the curriculum themselves, and outside of math, the focus was on having kids read disconnected texts and practice "finding the main idea" or "making inferences." Not only does this common approach place a burden on teachers to find texts and activities that lend themselves to that kind of practice, it doesn't boost comprehension.

But two years ago, Baltimore schools adopted a new kind of literacy curriculum that focuses on building kids' knowledge rather than on largely illusory comprehension skills. And, says Butts, it turns out to be well suited to teaching at a distance.

Not having to come up with his own content has given him time to find workarounds when kids don't have the books they need-for instance, online videos to flesh out a unit on forensic anthropology. It's also much easier for parents to help kids with their assignments. Rather than scratching their heads over how to "find the main idea" in a paragraph that doesn't have one, they can engage kids in discussions about the content of what they're learning.

"It's low burden for families to ask basic questions about a topic," Butts writes. Those could include, "What did you wonder about X? What is happening? If we look at this deeper, what do we learn?"

The quality of the work students are doing remotely is just as high as before, Butts says. And kids find the themes in the curriculum engaging-some of them, like "courage under fire," especially so in the current environment. Butts also appreciates the recorded videos of lessons created by the publisher of the curriculum his district uses, Wit & Wisdom. Called Knowledge on the Go, the series is freely available online to anyone.

When schools return to something like normal, perhaps educators and administrators will glean lessons from experiences like these. They could start using group work more sparingly, ensuring that all students have understood what's been taught, and adopting literacy curricula that build the kind of knowledge that equips children for academic success. It shouldn't take a pandemic to point up basic defects in the way we go about teaching-but let's hope that reforms in these areas can serve as silver linings to a horrific crisis.

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For Some, Remote Learning Has Surprising Benefits

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In recent weeks, amid the stresses caused by COVID-19 and the resulting closure of virtually all schools, some have found it easier to learn and teach-or at least, no more difficult. Three stories about some unexpected benefits of remote learning hold lessons for how to get schools to serve all students more effectively.

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What technology can and can not replace in the classroom

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What technology can and can not replace in the classroom

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What can technology replace in the classroom? While it isn't enough to make up for unengaging learning models, done well technology can change everything.

What Technology Can & Cannot Replace In The Classroom - https://t.co/SXgHgeobC2 #edtech

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What can technology replace in the classroom? While it isn't enough to make up for unengaging learning models, done well technology can change everything.

What Technology Can & Cannot Replace In The Classroom - https://t.co/SXgHgeobC2 #edtech https://t.co/UZDBojp41b

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What can technology replace in the classroom? While it isn't enough to make up for unengaging learning models, done well technology can change everything.

What Technology Can & Cannot Replace In The Classroom - https://t.co/SXgHgeobC2 #edtech pic.twitter.com/UZDBojp41b
— TeachThought (@TeachThought) December 11, 2020

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What can technology replace in the classroom? While it isn't enough to make up for unengaging learning models, done well technology can change everything.

What Technology Can & Cannot Replace In The Classroom - https://t.co/SXgHgeobC2 #edtech https://t.co/UZDBojp41b

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
What can technology replace in the classroom? While it isn't enough to make up for unengaging learning models, done well technology can change everything.

What Technology Can & Cannot Replace In The Classroom - https://t.co/SXgHgeobC2 #edtech https://t.co/UZDBojp41b

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What can technology replace in the classroom? While it isn't enough to make up for unengaging learning models, done well technology can change everything.

What Technology Can & Cannot Replace In The Classroom - https://t.co/SXgHgeobC2 #edtech

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Techniques that aren't a "one size fits all"

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Techniques that aren't a "one size fits all"

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This week I decided to focus on classroom management techniques for middle schoolers... This is a time when kids are going through many changes and I feel that this is also a time when, as a teacher, I can make a huge impact on them.
This article discusses behavior modification and why it is important to build those relationships with our students. Really great ideas!

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Managing the middle school classroom is a notoriously difficult task. After all, middle school teachers face, on average, 125 students per day, most of whom are dealing with some level of social, personal and cognitive challenges due merely to the fact that they are reaching the precocious stage of early adolescence. Beyond that, many will also experience, in tandem, a drop in their self-esteem during this time.

Research shows, however, that middle grades teachers who are able to effectively foster personal interactions, thereby developing personal relationships with each of their students, achieve a far-reaching benefit. In fact, studies show that teachers who are able to develop positive relationships with students not only achieve an increase in academic performance from those students but also experience far fewer behavioral challenges. With those kinds of results, the next question becomes very simple and clear: How does a middle school teacher develop those types of relationships? Here, we'll explore some proven effective middle school classroom management strategies.

Why Is Relationship-Building Important?

All interpersonal relationships require getting to know another person in order to better understand their needs. This is also true of middle school teachers, who face the unique challenge of creating high-quality, interactive lessons at a critical time in their students' own personal development. In fact, the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development reported that multiple studies on adolescent development showed a significant drop in both academic motivation and academic achievement during the early adolescent years, especially when students reach seventh grade.

At the same time that this drop in academic interests reaches its height, the desire for positive social interaction (with both their peers and adults) intensifies. Truly, at the adolescent stage students are attempting to create self-definition and to carve out a meaningful place in their own sphere, which includes their families, their community and yes, their school. It will take an out-of-the-box approach to reach students at this stage in their development. In effect, the relationship-development approach deals with developing the whole person, not simply focusing on them academically.

This is not, however, meant to suggest that teachers must work to become well-liked by students; instead, the teacher takes a personal interest in his or her students, establishes clear learning objectives and models positive behavior in an equitable fashion. In effect, reported S. Wolk in a 2003 report entitled "Hearts and Mind," by effectively implementing this strategy, "their relationships are their teaching."

Behavior Modification Strategies

Even with the best possible implementation of relationship-building, the fact is that certain students are just going to be a bit more difficult to reach. In these circumstances, one of the best strategies you, as a teacher, can take is to simply demonstrate empathy toward the student. Empathy is not to be misconstrued as putting forth effort to demonstrate caring; empathy is simply to see things through another's perspective. Thus, the other person, in this case the student, feels understood. This is a highly effective tactic to employ with a difficult adolescent.

Another effective tactic, which comes directly from the discipline of positive psychology, seems counter-intuitive at first. The skill involves acknowledging the negative behavior as a skill rather than as a disciplinary problem. Though the student may be well-developed in an area that could be destructive in the classroom, by acknowledging it as a skill, the teacher can then reframe and redirect the skill. For example, the class clown could be complimented for his comedic skill; that skill could then be redirected to a more positive use. The result is often a greater sense of respect and loyalty to the teacher, thus diffusing the previous disruptions. The result is often a greater sense of respect and loyalty to the teacher, thus diffusing the previous disruptions.

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Middle School Classroom Management Strategies | Resilient Educator

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Managing the middle school classroom is a notoriously difficult task. After all, middle school teachers face, on average, 125 students per day, most of whom are dealing with some level of social, personal and cognitive challenges due merely to the fact that they are reaching the precocious stage of early adolescence.

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Kids are still developing at this stage and as a teacher, I feel that this stage should truly be embraced because I can make such a positive impact on kids at this stage.

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Kids are still developing at this stage and as a teacher, I feel that this stage should truly be embraced because I can make such a positive impact on kids at this stage.

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Children experience more profound and rapid changes in their young adolescence (ages 10 to 15) than at any other time in their lives. Although infancy is also characterized by extensive growth, "infants are not the conscious witness of their own development," in the way that adolescents are (National Middle School Association, 2010, p.5). The classroom management strategies of middle schools must therefore support students as they move from self-centered morality toward principle-based morality, thus developing their lifelong sense of right and wrong.

Students at this age are still developing these characteristics at wildly differing paces among individual students, and cannot be expected to have mastered consistent application of their developing skills in the area of self-management. What, then, is an educator to do? At the most basic level, a teacher must truly appreciate (and, if possible, love) this developmental stage, not in spite of its foibles, but because of them. Then, the teacher must create a classroom environment that fulfills middle schoolers' competing needs for structure and for independence. Classroom management is not discipline and consequences; it is culture and connection.

Share Expectations Early and Clearly

It is critical that teachers communicate, from the outset, two types of expectations for student behavior: procedures and norms. Procedures are clear, specific operational processes by which students complete tasks or solve problems in a classroom with some level of autonomy. They include answers to questions like, "What do I do when I enter the classroom each day?" or "How does my teacher expect me to signal that I have a question or a need?" Procedures should be conveyed in multiple formats and must be taught, modeled, assessed, and revisited as needed, as one would with any other content in a classroom.

Norms, on the other hand, answer the question "How will we treat each other?" The answer to this question may be the linchpin to setting up a successful, supportive, and positive learning environment. The most effective means of establishing norms involve asking students a series of questions through which they collaborate with each other and the adult(s) to create a social contract of which they have shared ownership. Students agree to hold themselves, each other, and the teacher(s) accountable. This is especially meaningful to adolescents as they "seek to become independent, but continue to need support and boundary-setting from adults," (National Middle School Association, 2010, p.59).

Build Positive Relationships

Building positive relationships with students begins with an attitude of caring. As a classroom teacher, it should be a primary goal to establish positive rapport with students by getting to know their interests, their strengths and weaknesses as a learner, and what shapes them as a person.

Teachers build trust and learn about their students by asking students to share highlights of their life in and outside of school or to jot down how they are feeling on a sticky note and put it on the board next to a corresponding picture. One may post a daily question to an online learning platform in which students are asked to share something about themselves.

Providing positive affirmations and showing a genuine interest in students are two of the most impactful ways in which teachers establish positive relationships, and the key to each is to become constantly vigilant for opportunities for these types of interactions. In a positive learning environment, encouraging, positive conversations far outnumber negative, discipline-based conversations. In creating a classroom culture, the teacher must also consider the types of relationships being fostered between students and look for opportunities to help students form healthy peer relationships.

Utilize Student Choice

Students' need for autonomy and independence can also be met by allowing for student choice. Let students choose the manner in which they demonstrate their learning on a topic from a menu of options. When students have demonstrated the ability to treat one another with respect, allow them to choose a partner whom they believe will help them be successful (if the teacher has built positive relationships and made the expectations clear, their choices will likely be surprisingly positive). Provide flexible seating options that allow students to decide how they are most productive and comfortable. The key to allowing student choice is to establish clear expectations and make all of the choices acceptable outcomes.

Acknowledge Your Mistakes

Another important factor in establishing a positive classroom culture is helping students to develop a growth mindset. A key piece of that process is acknowledging and even embracing mistakes. By modeling for students that people make mistakes, a teacher has the opportunity to showcase that it is not one's mistakes but one's response and reaction to mistakes that define us. By showing students that they can laugh at their own mistakes, re-assess a situation based on new information, change their thinking when they are wrong, or simply apologize and accept responsibility, teachers give the students permission to do the same and show them how it is done.

Don't Engage in Arguments

As middle schoolers are confronted with the inconsistencies and contradictions of the world around them, their need for justice and accountability to moral standards leads them to be more prone to argue with adults. There are several things to keep in mind in order to avoid engaging in an argument with a student:

All statements do not require an immediate response from the teacher. For instance, a student can say, "I don't want to" in response to a request. Rather than arguing with that student, a teacher can simply walk away. After walking away, the teacher has an opportunity to observe whether the student complies with the request in the end, which is the objective, after all. They could also decide, without the emotional pressure of the initial interaction, if there is consequence that should be implemented as a result of the interaction.

If the student does not comply, the teacher can use the "broken record" strategy. Simply restate the expectation using the child's name and move on to dealing with another issue or student, giving the child time and space to make a decision.

It is essential that the teacher's tone of voice remains neutral and that the adult remains in control of their own emotions.

Use Humor

Humor can be an enormously effective strategy in a classroom, but it can be tricky. When using humor it is important not to make a student the butt of a joke or to use sarcasm to get a laugh. Although students at this age may be able to understand and apply sarcasm expertly to others, they remain vulnerable to even perceived slights from adults. Humor in the classroom should always remain positive and supportive in regards to all the members of the class. For this reason, self-deprecating humor, "dad" jokes, puns, and silly antics are the best types of humor to be implemented with middle schools. In the information age, one cannot discount the use of a good meme to drive a point home, either!

References

National Middle School Association. (2010). This we believe: Keys to educating young adolescents. Westerville, Ohio: National Middle School Association.

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Middle School Classroom Management Tips - TeachHUB

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Children experience more profound and rapid changes in their young adolescence (ages 10 to 15) than at any other time in their lives. Although infancy is also characterized by extensive growth, "infants are not the conscious witness of their own development," in the way that adolescents are (National Middle School Association, 2010, p.5).

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 I feel that this goes along with building relationships with our students and having appropriate teaching methods that helps to foster those relationships.

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 I feel that this goes along with building relationships with our students and having appropriate teaching methods that helps to foster those relationships.

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This is truth! 🙌 https://t.co/AlUxIK2gFg

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This is truth! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/AlUxIK2gFg
— TeacherGoals (@teachergoals) November 16, 2020

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This is truth! 🙌 https://t.co/AlUxIK2gFg

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This is truth! 🙌 https://t.co/AlUxIK2gFg

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I think part of having great instructional methods is based off of the personal relationships that we have with our students. 

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I think part of having great instructional methods is based off of the personal relationships that we have with our students. 

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Strong student-teacher relationships are critical for learning, but it can be a huge challenge during distance learning—especially with middle and high school students. Here are 5 teacher-tested ways to strengthen connections with your students.

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Strong student-teacher relationships are critical for learning, but it can be a huge challenge during distance learning—especially with middle and high school students. Here are 5 teacher-tested ways to strengthen connections with your students. https://t.co/wsaqAqD1vT

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Strong student-teacher relationships are critical for learning, but it can be a huge challenge during distance learning—especially with middle and high school students. Here are 5 teacher-tested ways to strengthen connections with your students. pic.twitter.com/wsaqAqD1vT
— edutopia (@edutopia) November 22, 2020

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Strong student-teacher relationships are critical for learning, but it can be a huge challenge during distance learning—especially with middle and high school students. Here are 5 teacher-tested ways to strengthen connections with your students. https://t.co/wsaqAqD1vT

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Strong student-teacher relationships are critical for learning, but it can be a huge challenge during distance learning—especially with middle and high school students. Here are 5 teacher-tested ways to strengthen connections with your students. https://t.co/wsaqAqD1vT

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Strong student-teacher relationships are critical for learning, but it can be a huge challenge during distance learning—especially with middle and high school students. Here are 5 teacher-tested ways to strengthen connections with your students.

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This website that was on twitter has some great instructional teaching methods that are learner centered such as:

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This website that was on twitter has some great instructional teaching methods that are learner centered such as:

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1) Cooperative which uses small groups that work together to accomplish a common goal or task
2) Games-can be used to teach concepts, challenge what the learner knows or to give the learner a break
3) Presentations-These are learner presented assignments that the students can do either individually or in groups.

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This video has some great ideas and information on how to get students to understand why it is important to learn about Social Studies. There are 3 main reasons why it is important for students to learn Social Studies. 

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This video has some great ideas and information on how to get students to understand why it is important to learn about Social Studies. There are 3 main reasons why it is important for students to learn Social Studies. 

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1) You are human
2) You live in a society
3) You need to survive

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In a plain and simple way, Mr. Beat explains why everyone should learn social studies. Music by Electric Needle Room (http://electricneedleroom.net) and The Ancient Tapes (https://www.facebook.com/ancienttapes). All images are in the public domain. Every year I have students who go: "(groan)(whine) ugh, why do have to even learn social studies?"

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With the year 2020 being one that many will never forget, for many reasons, this is a great blog to get ideas on how to keep your students engaged and to really learn about the election and the process. It has many great resources within this blog to get the students to interact with each other and with the teacher. These are things that are essential in making sure that my students are engaged and invested in their learning.

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With the year 2020 being one that many will never forget, for many reasons, this is a great blog to get ideas on how to keep your students engaged and to really learn about the election and the process. It has many great resources within this blog to get the students to interact with each other and with the teacher. These are things that are essential in making sure that my students are engaged and invested in their learning.

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I just wanted to let everyone know that my entire store will be 20% off today (9/7/2020) in celebration of Labor Day. Lots of digital resources to choose from as seen below.

Enjoy the day (and the sale)!

Best,
Matt @ Surviving Social Studies

So, how does Murder, She Wrote fit into a history class? The answer is - perfectly! We start with the basics in my history class... fact, opinion, inference, and corroboration. We could go through a boring PowerPoint in that first week defining all of those terms, do a formative assessment where I can see if they understand the difference, blah, blah, blah... that's not my style. I want these kids to get into the mindset of history, have fun while they're at school, and do activities that will trick them into learning. Angela Lansbury comes through with Murder, She Wrote and never lets me down.

So, many years ago I thought, how can I make this... not boring. It just so happened my daughters were little... watching Beauty and the Beast... and I heard the voice of Mrs. Potts. I was like, "Oh my gosh... I know that voice, but how? It's the Murder, She Wrote lady!" This was way before Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube. I went to the public library... sure enough... they had the whole series. I knew I needed to give it a try.

I went to work that Saturday and put the video in... took pictures of all the characters... and the rest, as they say, is history. It honestly wouldn't matter which episode you use. If you want to use the one from this example.... it is called Coal Miner's Slaughter. I've used many different ones over the years, but this is a surefire hit. Murder, She Wrote is available on Amazon Prime. I, of course, recommend viewing the episode before you use it so you know when to stop.

If you use Coal Miner's Slaughter... I stop at 16.51 for Inference #1 (then you can burn through the advertisements with the projector and sound off). This is where you'll ask students to share their facts, opinions, and inferences. I then stop again at 33.04 for Inference #2... and ask for facts, opinions, and inferences. Finally, I stop again at 41:35 (this is critical! When the phone line is cut...STOP!) This is where students make inference #3 and I ask questions using the same tactics as before. It's fun to say, "OK, well...let's finish this tomorrow" and you'll hear a "NOOOOOO!!!" in unison, which is always fun.

Once they learn who did it there's a lot of fun conversations in class. I promise you, no matter what you do for the rest of the year... you can always refer back to this lesson and the terms fact, opinion, inference, and corroboration. This is the sheet I give students. You can make the same for yourself by just playing whichever episode you'd like to use and take pictures of each character.

It really is a lot of fun and a great way to get the kids involved right away!

Enjoy!
Matt @ Surviving Social Studies

Don't forget to keep your students safe by having them come up one at a time for help this year! Works like a charm! Just click on the image.

It's nice having resources that I can use as an extension to what we are learning about in class. For example, right now we are learning about Manifest Destiny in our history class and students were introduced to President James K. Polk. They don't hear that name much when it comes to presidents because they've usually only heard of the "big names" such as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Kennedy. The other day I saw a student flipping open the cards until they found James K. Polk and then read the information on the cover. Then they flipped open the next two president cards to see who came after.

​That's exactly what I wanted to have happen with these!

This Presidents of the United States Bulletin Board is available in my TpT store along with the Election Word Wall that will come in handy this fall during election season!

Here's some more interactive social studies bulletin boards I use throughout the year as well as Word Walls I include for the different units I teach. One of the best things is when my student helpers ask if they can take down bulletin boards and put up new ones. That saves me a ton of time and they enjoy the task... or the candy they get for helping :)

Super Tuesday, OPEC and Russia quarreling, oil prices dropping, the Fed cutting interest rates, and more people testing positive for Coronavirus every day...Whew! There's a lot going on in the world! My goal with this stock market activity isn't to go too in depth about stocks, corporations, monopolies, CD's, bonds, mutual funds, or compound interest. My goal is for my students to

make connections between issues happening in the world impact businesses and the global economy.
ALL of these headlines can be tied into a highly-engaging learning experience for your students through this stock market activity. I have used this activity for years as a classroom competition, but never before have I had a year where there has been so much going on in the world at once that directly impacts the results of this activity!

Every student is given $50,000 to invest into 10 different companies using the Nasdaq web site. If students want to work with a partner then the partnership gets $50,000 (they can't combine their money and start with $100,000).

​What's nice about this activity is that it you have an instant hook of engagement to start class every day by pulling up the NASDAQ web site to see how the market is doing. If you use the Google Drive version you can easily open up and project a student's stock pics on the screen, copy and past their stock symbols into the NASDAQ site, and then see how their stock picks are doing at that moment. What's nice about using the NASDAQ site is that stock prices are updated every 7 seconds

I have students look at the 52 week hi/lo of the stock they'd like to buy to see if they are buying their stock at an opportune time. If they like Nike products, then I have them do a search for Nike on the NASDAQ site. If they like binge-watching movies on Netflix, then buy Netflix. This help bridge their personal connection to businesses and how the events of the world impact those businesses, thus impacts their money.

What if they can't find the stock information of a business they want to invest in? That might happen. Some companies like Chaco, who makes a popular sandal, is not it's only publicly traded company. They are under a "parent company," and their parent company is called Wolverine Worldwide, Inc, and the stock symbol is WWW.

My classroom competition usually runs for a quarter of school (9 weeks) and we see who made the most money at the end of the competition on selling day, which is when students sell every share of stock they have at the going price at that time. What's nice about this activity is that you don't have to be good at math or technology because all of the formulas are already created and will calculate the profit or loss for students as seen below.

This really is a lot of fun to do with your students... especially with all that is the news right now! It was interesting asking students why stocks would be down on Super Tuesday and hearing a responses like, "Maybe people are waiting to spend their money until they know who might be a possible president." Then we saw stocks go up a bit on Wednesday to see if that idea played out. Sure enough, it did. Then hearing more stories as the week went about about the Coronavirus, then watching CNN 10 and hearing about Russia and OPEC being at odds causing oil prices to tumble and seeing what that did to the rest of the market. I love that this resource gets kids talking about the world.

Here's a peek at how the stocks have been performing over the past week that my student teacher and I chose.

Here's what other teachers who used this resource had to say about it...

If you'd like to give this stock market activity a try then just click the image to the left. I'd love to hear how it went for you and your students in the feedback section of the review, or feel free to comment on this post.

Enjoy!
​Matt @ Surviving Social Studies

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That is literally the million dollar question, right? Sometimes when students ask, "Why do we have to do this?" I'll respond with, "Because it might help you earn over a million dollars more in your lifetime than if you don't." Then I start walking away. Within a few seconds I'll hear, "Wait...what?"

...and there's the hook.

I always have these packets printed and ready to go for when this happens:

ll pause class because this is ALWAYS one of the best teachable moments of the year. I'll say to students, "Can we talk about money in your life for a couple of minutes?" (That usually gets their attention.) I might then say something like, "If you didn't have to go to school and could be done today and just start working, would you do it?" Some of the class will say, "YES!" and others will shake their heads, "No."

When I ask, "Why?" I'll often get responses like:

" It just seems like school is such a waste of time. Like, when am I ever going to use algebra in my life anyway?"

"Really, Mr. K, no offense, but I don't know why we have to take a history class if I want to be a mechanic some day."

"I'd still go to school because I want to get a good job when I'm older."

This is when I know the hook has been set and it's time to reel them in. I'll say, "Those are all definitely valid points, and I'd be happy to discuss all of your answers individually, but have any of you ever played The Game of Life?"

​[This is when I'm always blown away by how many have played this game that's been around since 1860!] I'll ask a student who has played the game to explain it for others that haven't played it before. Once they're done I'll ask, "In T he Game of Life how come some jobs you get pay more than others do?" The typical responses of:

"Some jobs require more skill."

"You have to go to school longer to be able to do certain jobs."

Then I'll ask them if they know what percent of students who start high school in the USA will finish. I'll take a number of guesses and then write on the board, "85%," and then let them know that the flip side of that means that 15 out of every 100 students in the USA who start high school choose not to finish for a variety of reasons. I'll add to that, "When I think about those 15/100 I often wonder if anyone has showed them what I'm going to show you. Want to see?"

This is where there's a resounding, "Yes!"

I'll select some students to hand a packet to each of their classmates. Once they have one I'll say, "Yes, yes, yes... I know... this looks like just another packet of homework that you've seen a million times in your life. The only difference is... you don't have to do it. It matters to me, but it also doesn't matter to me if it doesn't matter to you. What I can tell you though is the information inside of here might actually change your life. So let's start... but you'll want to get your calculators out because this is YOUR money we're going to be talking about here so I don't want you to miss out on some money."

As students begin to look through the packet I find it amazing how many students that don't normally dive into schoolwork actually dive into this.

You'll need computers, calculators, and need to be prepared to answer a lot of questions and help students double check their math because they want to know if they've got it right. That's a good thing.

As you move through the activity with your students you'll realize that you're doing something that really matters to them. I love that.

I've encouraged students to build upon their skill set my entire career. It doesn't matter to me if a student wants to be a surgeon, a welder, a police officer, a teacher, a dental hygienist, or a marine biologist. They need skills.

Maybe a four-year institution will provide them with the skill set they need to do what it is they want to do. Maybe it will be a two-year technical college, and maybe it will be something completely different. The main point is that they're seeing the math, money, and dedication behind what it is they want to do. That, too, is a good thing. Enjoy!

​Matt @ Surviving Social Studies

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​For the best deal on my financial literacy activities for middle school students check out my 5-pack of economics resources. Just click on the image to take you to my store on Teachers Pay Teachers!

I love Fridays when we start class by watching CNN 10. If you haven't incorporated this into your weekly schedule, I don't think you'll regret giving it a try!

One of our goals throughout the year is to find connections from the past to the present and what might be happening in the future. CNN 10 helps bring about some great discussions!

There is also a segment called "Ten Second Trivia" where your students will call out loud their guess to the correct answer. Once the answer is revealed, CNN 10 will do a 2-3 minute story about that topic. These trivia/news segments will tie into something that is happening regarding that topic in the news today so your students will see why it is important.

I have two free resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store that connect with CNN 10 that you might find helpful in your own classroom.

The first is "My CNN 10 Journal" that has 180 days of journal entries available for your students. You, of course, wouldn't have to use all 180. Maybe you do one per week, or just use it a few times throughout the year. The additional sheets can just be deleted.

Students will journal about a story that stood out to them from that day's news, a summary of the story, and make inferences about what they think might happen next with the story.

An additional resource that works well with the "My CNN 10 Journal" is an end of the year research project called "The Year in Review." Students will create a booklet that has a variety of stories that happened over their school year such as a worldwide event, national event, local event, something from sports, entertainment, and even a feel-good news story among others.

This is a nice way to end the year with students, and they are also nice booklets to keep year after year so students can see what was going on in the world through the eyes of students that were there before them.

The other free CNN 10 resource I have is the CNN Hero of the Year resource that allows students to look at the Top 10 individuals who CNN has selected to possibly win the $100,000 prize to help aid the charity they are working on. This resource is totally free and will be updated yearly to focus on that specific year's CNN Heroes.

Links to each person's video story are available as well as a persuasive writing assignment for students to choose one of the heroes they would like to see win the top prize.

Instructions are also included for you to create a Google Form survey so your students can see how their hero ranked compared to others in your class/classes.

CNN 10 never disappoints, plus it gives you 10 minutes per class on Fridays to quickly enter grades, fine-tune that lesson you're working on, or take care of the hundreds of things you need to complete as a classroom teacher!

Enjoy!
​Matt @ Surviving Social Studies

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One of my all-time favorite topics in history stemmed from the night of March 5, 1770; The Boston Massacre. There was so much happening around this event, which makes it such a riveting topic for your students. There were colonists feeling as though they were being unfairly taxed, the King of England authorizing a standing army in the American colonies, and a prominent lawyer and patriot, John Adams, voluntarily risking his life, his profession, and his place in history by representing Captain Preston and the British guards who were on trial for murder.

In this lesson your students will view an edited version of the HBO mini-series, John Adams, and will decide the fate of Captain Preston and the British guards by choosing a verdict and completing a CER (Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning) assignment as a final task. CER is probably something you've heard quite a bit of talk about in your district and maybe haven't quite found the right topic to allow your students to try one. Well, here you go!

I teach 50-minute class periods and am able to complete the viewing, and explanation of the CER to my students in one class period. Students then have time to begin their CER before the class period is over and then have time to finish outside of school or during class the next day. Click the image below to get this resource for FREE in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

What is nice about using CER in a Social Studies classroom is that this process helps students practice the skill of making a claim that they then support with evidence. We participate in National History Day each year where students create a project about a topic in history following a common theme. For example, the theme for 2020 is "Breaking Barriers." Students will have to develop a thesis and support that thesis with evidence they discover through their research. Using the CER method helps them make the National History Project a little easier for them to back up their thesis.

As a follow-up activity to the Boston Massacre Trial you might be interested in having your students analyze "The Bloody Massacre" by Paul Revere or recreate Revere's iconic image. Click the images below to find these resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Enjoy!
​Matt @ Surviving Social Studies

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My students and I have a lot of fun with little class competitions. I put students into groups of 3's and have the 20 pictures and 20 maps all cut up and put into plastic baggies.

Once each group has a baggie, I'll tell them that they will have 10 minutes of time to work together to collaboratively do their best to match the landmark to the location on the map. I use an online classroom stopwatch that can be displayed on my projector.

Students then work cooperatively and will make 20 stacks with the photo of the landmark on top of the map with showing the location of that landmark.

When 10 minutes is up, I go through the answers with them via PowerPoint and have them make a row of ones they have correct and another row of the ones they didn't have correct.

The team with the most correct at the end will get Dum-Dum suckers or Lifesaver mints (whatever I have in stock).

Sometimes things like this are a great way to spend 15 minutes starting a Monday to get everybody back in school mode, talking, and cooperating. It's a win-win-win all around!

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I just wanted to let everyone know that my entire store will be 20% off today (9/7/2020) in celebration of Labor Day. Lots of digital resources to choose from as seen below. Enjoy the day (and the sale)! Best, Matt @ Surviving Social Studies So, how does Murder, She Wrote fit into a history class?

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Virtual reality field trips can be a powerful learning tool that could be utilized to teach kids in a different way. The VR experience can take kids on field trips to places that they normally wouldn't be able to go. 

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Virtual reality field trips can be a powerful learning tool that could be utilized to teach kids in a different way. The VR experience can take kids on field trips to places that they normally wouldn't be able to go. 

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Virtual Reality (VR) field trips provide exciting educational experiences for students, whether you're teaching kids in a virtual classroom or a real one. In my last year of teaching, my social studies students took VR visits to iconic World War II locations, met a Syrian refugee in a Jordanian refugee camp, explored coral reefs, and learned about Cuban dance.

Preparation for VR field trips was easy. Since many of my students already had smartphones, the investment in a VR lab was relatively cheap. The goggles are inexpensive, about $6 a pair. They are made of cardboard and contain two lenses. Smartphones are placed inside the goggles, allowing students to experience a powerful three-dimensional environment with the inexpensive VR viewers. It's not as powerful, but you can have students simply access VR field trips on their computers or tablets, too.

The Google Expeditions website provides educational VR field trips. The App, downloaded on smartphones, is free. Teachers serve as field trip guides. For example, I showed my students eight panoramic scenes from World War II. We viewed a 360-degree photo of Pearl Harbor, while I explained the Japanese surprise attack on December 7th. Students entered a museum dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen, visited the beaches at Normandy for D-Day, and walked among the monuments and statues of the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park.

The still images were educational, but my students found Virtual Reality videos more powerful and engaging. There are a number of excellent VR video Apps useful for the classroom, including: The New York Times VR, The Discovery Channel 360 degree videos on YouTube, and Within.

On the Within App I found a poignant VR story of a 12-year-old Syrian refugee, Sidra, living in a Jordanian refugee camp. In Clouds Over Sidra our young narrator takes us on a tour her world, her tent, classroom, and refugee camp. Most importantly, students hear Sidra's hopes and dreams in her own words.

Students wearing the goggles were riveted by this video. The VR experience brought them into Sidra's world in a way that other mediums could not. After they watched the VR video, students discussed the experience with a partner, answering questions from the Clouds Over Sidra discussion guide I designed.

After partners talked, we had a class wide discussion with questions I projected from the Clouds Over Sidra slideshow. I also had my students read a 2015 Associated Press article, Refugee Tent Camp for Syrians Grows into a Busy Jordanian City. This deepened their understanding of the Syrian refugee crisis.

This experience convinced me of the power of VR in a classroom setting. For my next lesson, I asked students to find a short VR video with an educational purpose and to design a discussion guide. Students found an array of VR videos from exploring coral reefs to learning about the history of Cuban dance.

There was a lot of excitement as students shared their VR discoveries with classmates. You can see their enthusiasm in a short video I made, Take a Virtual Field Trip.

For teachers, the smartphone has introduced a level of distraction in our classrooms, especially when it comes to student texting and social media. However, you can make powerful educational use of all those small screens in your classrooms by taking Virtual Reality field trips with your students.

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A Veteran Teacher's Lessons: Virtual Reality Field Trips for Your Classroom

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Virtual Reality (VR) field trips provide exciting educational experiences for students, whether you're teaching kids in a virtual classroom or a real one. In my last year of teaching, my social studies students took VR visits to iconic World War II locations, met a Syrian refugee in a Jordanian refugee camp, explored coral reefs, and learned about Cuban dance.

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Being the best teacher you can be is better than being the teacher that you think others want you to be

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Being the best teacher you can be is better than being the teacher that you think others want you to be

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Teachers’ Things - Things Teachers Talk About! ⭐️ on Instagram: "❤️❤️❤️"

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1)By using task cards, it would help with the different depths of knowledge that students have because the task cards have different levels of learning.
2)Task cards can be used to introduce new material as well as to study for a test or to assess what the students have already learned.
3) Students can also use in small group instruction, centers or different stations around the room.

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You've heard about these types of resources a lot, but have you ever used task cards for Social Studies?

Task cards are a common instruction strategy for many age levels, whether it be whole-group instruction, groups, centers, etc.

In general, task cards provide differentiation for students by design. How can you take it a step further, though?

leveled task cards for social studies

What if you had a lesson plan that involved task cards, but they included various levels at different DOKs (Depths of Knowledge)?

Our task cards are perfect for students at any level and they come in a variety of topics. Most of the task cards have 4 levels, and some have 3. Either way, your students will be met where they're at.

Our task cards also include notes (Google accessible) for students to build or review background knowledge. They are also available digitally in BOOM Card form!
Here's a quick look at how they're set up:

Each task card has a main topic, sub-topic, directions, a visual (picture), question, and a task card level. The levels are located in the lower righthand corner of the card and also color-coded (the flags).

You can make them last longer easily by laminating them and keeping them in a safe spot!

Level 1

Level 1 questions are generally questions that recall information. These questions would be beneficial for students at every level, especially if you want to review information for students at a higher level.

Level 2

Questions at level 2 require some applicable knowledge and answers, usually a step above simply recalling information.

Level 3

At level 3, students really begin to think critically about their answers and how the question applies to themselves or real life situations.

level 4

At the highest level, students go even further in their knowledge to research, create, compare/contrast, and more. These questions are great for extensions and pushing higher level students to dig deeper.

When should i use task cards for social studies?

That's a great question! We use task cards for several different situations. Students love them, and it helps us assess them formatively, as well.

Task cards can be used to introduce information, especially with the included notes. They can also be used for review or preparation for assessments!

If you'd like to conduct small group instruction, students can use task cards at different stations, or centers, around the room. They can be completed in pairs, groups, or individually!
In what ways could you use task cards for Social Studies to differentiate? Tell us in the comments below!

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Task Cards for social studies: how one teacher differentiates - Secondary Social Studies Diversified

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You've heard about these types of resources a lot, but have you ever used task cards for Social Studies? Task cards are a common instruction strategy for many age levels, whether it be whole-group instruction, groups, centers, etc. In general, task cards provide differentiation for students by design.

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Teachers do much more than what is seen by students, parents, administration and the community.

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Teachers do much more than what is seen by students, parents, administration and the community.

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Teachers' Connection on Instagram: "@happyteacherrevolution is a MUST follow!"

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2,096 likes, 21 comments - teachersconnection on November 3, 2020: "@happyteacherrevolution is a MUST follow!". 

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Getting to know our students and building strong relationships with them and getting to know how they think, learn and make the choices that they do.

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Getting to know our students and building strong relationships with them and getting to know how they think, learn and make the choices that they do.

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SET ~ Elmhurst College on Instagram: "We all know how important strong relationships are to successful teaching. But in order to build strong relationships, we need to understand how our students think and why they make the choices that they do🌼✨"

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7 likes, 0 comments - secondaryeducators_ec on May 14, 2019: "We all know how important strong relationships are to successful teaching. But in order to build strong relationships, we need to...". 

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