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A little inspiration for you and your students. A powerful, yet simple task that can really change your perspective...Please watch and share.

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Navy Seal William McRaven: If You Want To Change The World, Make Your Bed!

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Upcoming FREE Webinar through Chalk.com on Curriculum Mapping

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Upcoming FREE Webinar through Chalk.com on Curriculum Mapping

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Learn how to make decisions about curriculum in the post-pandemic era. Understand the learning loss and learning gains. Determine what to cut and what to keep from your curriculum.

️ April 22nd - Webinar #2 - How to Unpack Standards and Personalize Learning Targets

Learn how to craft learning targets that engage students. Understand how to align, unpack, and layout standards.

️ April 29th - Webinar #3 - How to Design Virtual and In-person Instructional Plans that Engage Your Students

Learn how to design lessons for virtual and on-site learning. Understand how to group learners and curate engaging activities. Support students with different kinds of instructional plans.

️ May 6th - [Bonus Session]: Panel Discussion- How School Districts and Independent Schools are Curriculum Mapping

In this final session, we will have 3-5 school leaders sharing their best practices on curriculum mapping and diving deeper into how they led successful mapping projects at their schools.

In these sessions, registrants will be given time to ask questions and learn from the best in education. Each session is estimated to take one hour with overflow time for Q&A. We hope to see you there!

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Curriculum Mapping with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs

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In this free webinar series, Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs will walk you through what it takes to create, manage, and review curriculum maps throughout the year to maximize students' potential for success.

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Professional Development Webinar: The Scope of Colleges

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Professional Development Webinar: The Scope of Colleges

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If you're looking for webinar to fulfill one of your education goals for your professional development, this one is excellent.
This webinar explores why and how faculty must align and connect course objectives, course learning outcomes, and program learning outcomes with syllabi, class lessons, and assessment plans. The facilitator explains curriculum mapping and how it affects student success. Participants learn to identify the disconnect between instructor, student, and employers, and how to connect course objectives to employers’ demands.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

Clearly identify and solve problems associated with learning outcomes.

Properly restructure program curriculum mapping.

Help students successfully transition from the college classroom to the workforce.

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The Scope of CollegesThis webinar explores why and how faculty must align and connect course objectives, course learning outcomes, and program learning outcomes with syllabi, class lessons, and assessment plans. The facilitator explains curriculum mapping and how it affects student success. Participants learn to identify the disconnect between instructor, student,

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The Scope of Colleges This webinar explores why and how faculty must align and connect course objectives, course learning outcomes, and program learning outcomes with syllabi, class lessons, and assessment plans. The facilitator explains curriculum mapping and how it affects student success.

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If you're feeling the heaviness of the school year and teaching during a pandemic, give this article a read.

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Schools, Not Teachers, Must Reduce Stress and Burnout—Here’s How

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Educators’ health and well-being should be prioritized in school culture; school leaders can help create the conditions for that.

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I was 21 years old when I first stepped into a college classroom as an instructor. My master's program had assigned me to teach a composition course and gave me a brief orientation to teaching the week before the semester began. I was so close in age to my students, so nervous about how they would perceive me, and so uncertain about what I was doing that I had precisely one goal for the first day of the semester: Get through it.

I managed to achieve that modest goal. But over the course of the next couple of decades of full-time teaching, I have become much more aware of the extent to which the first day of class sets the tone for everything that follows. In her book, The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom With the Science of Emotion, the psychologist Sarah Rose Cavanagh explores how humans quickly make initial judgments of people, on the basis of thin slices of evidence. "On the first few days of class," she explains, "students will be forming their impressions of you, and this impression may be more important than much of what you do later."

On that first day, I would argue, your students are forming a lasting impression not just of you as a teacher but of your course, too. Their early, thin-slice judgments are powerful enough to condition their attitudes toward the entire course, the effort they are willing to put into it, and the relationship they will have with you and their peers throughout the semester.

So that first class meeting is a big deal. You want to give students a taste of the engaging intellectual journey they will undertake in the coming weeks - and you have great flexibility in how you go about it. Helping you to make that opening session as effective as possible, whatever your discipline, is the goal of this online guide. What you can expect to find here:

I'll start, as we academics so love to do, with a little bit of theory - specifically, four core principles that can help shape your planning for the first day of your course.

Next, I'll cover the logistics of a successful first day, including managing the space and technology as well as getting to know your students.

To show you how to put the principles and the logistics into practice, I will provide examples of what a good set of first-day activities might look like in four disciplines.

I'll finish with some suggestions for how to support the good work you have done on the first day with some follow-up activities.

As you devise your plan of attack, these four principles can help you decide which activities and approaches will best draw your students into the course and prepare them to learn.

Principle No. 1: Curiosity

Too many college courses are presented to students as boxes of content: "British Literature From 1800 to the Present," "Inorganic Chemistry," "Principles of Sociology." We walk into the room on the first day of the semester, open this box of knowledge and skills for the students, hand it over, and expect them to give it back three months later in the form of a final exam. The first class meeting usually affirms that approach. We tell students all about what we will cover throughout the semester, even though they might have no particular or prior interest in our subject matter.

Instead, consider the first day as your best opportunity to spark students' curiosity and invite them into a fascinating intellectual journey. In his book, What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain argues that instructors should build and present learning experiences around deep questions and problems. Highly effective college instructors recollect what first fascinated them about their discipline, pay attention to what fascinates students today, and make a connection with those issues at the opening of the semester. Such instructors reflect upon why the course should matter, and work to convey the significance of its content to students as well as to their world beyond the classroom.

All of which is why I can't recommend strongly enough: Do not begin the first day of the semester by immediately handing out the syllabus. Instead, spark their curiosity about the content first, and then demonstrate - with a review of the syllabus - how the course content can help satisfy that curiosity. (I'll offer some examples of how to do that in various types of courses below.)

Principle No. 2: Community

We do not teach brains on sticks. We teach human beings who are inspired by wonder, driven toward community, beset by fears and anxieties, and influenced in countless other ways by aspects of their lives beyond the purely cognitive. For both you and your students, those emotions will be at a peak on the first day of the semester, and they can have a significant influence on what happens in your classroom.

You can support those emotions on the first day by fostering a sense of community in the room - even one filled with several hundred students. The intellectual journey you are taking together comes in the form of a caravan, and while you might be the leader, you want all of them to contribute to the learning experiences you will be creating for them. How do you convey that?

Humanize yourself to the students. Talk with as many of them individually as you can, and provide opportunities for them to meet and communicate with one another. Humanizing yourself can take the form of humorous asides, occasional self-disclosure, or a more formally narrated description of your own intellectual journey. Don't overdo it, though. Too much humanizing can easily tip into oversharing. Keep the primary focus on the course rather than on yourself.

Get students talking to one another. Some faculty members like icebreakers or warmup activities on the first day of class, and you can find a treasure trove of practical suggestions for such activities from the Equity Unbound team at OneHE.I'm not an icebreaker person, and you don't have to be, either. If you feel more comfortable staying focused on course content, by all means do so. Divide students into pairs or small groups, give them a simple course-related task to complete, and offer a brief injunction before they start: "Make sure you introduce yourself before you start talking."

Greet each student, if you can. That's impossible if your course has an enrollment of 200, but it's easily done in a class of 20 or 30. Instead of standing at the front of the room and calling out students' names from the roster sheet, get to class early and walk around, asking students for their names and a fact or two about themselves: class year, major, hometown. Let them know you're glad they have joined you for the semester.

The more comfortable the students feel with you and with one another from the beginning, the more comfortable they will be participating throughout the semester.

Principle No. 3: Learning

You don't have to wait until the second class meeting for students to start learning in your course. But that doesn't mean you have to jump right into content delivery on the first day. Here are two ways to get them learning on the first day.

Ask students to try a cognitive task before they are ready. That's one of the most effective ways to spark learning, according to excellent evidence. This trying-before-they're-ready can take many forms: It might involve attempting to solve a problem before they have the skills they need to be successful, or working to complete a challenging task that they will face again at the end of the course. The idea is to require students to draw upon whatever knowledge they might bring into the room. As they retrieve and work with that knowledge, they are creating what the authors of Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning call "fertile grounds" for new knowledge and skill acquisition. Moreover, the students' partial or unsuccessful attempts to complete the task will give you a clear view of the current state of their understanding - knowledge you can use to shape the opening weeks of the course.

Invite students to think about the course from a metacognitive perspective. (But don't freak them out by using the word "metacognitive.") In other words: What kinds of learning strategies will they have to use in order to be successful in the course? What kinds of support will they need from you to make those strategies work? Which strategies have been effective, or ineffective, for them in the past? For example, ask students on the first day to reflect upon the best and worst classes they have taken in your field (or related fields), and to describe what made those courses successful for them, or not. Put their responses on the board. Then invite them each to draw up a list of individual actions they will need to take to do well in the course, and a list of actions they would like to see taken by you and their peers. Those lists can be shared and discussed in class, or afterward on the learning-management system.

Whichever approach you use, the most important element is basic: Set aside a chunk of class time on that first day for students to engage in cognitive work of some kind. Writing class? Have them write on the first day. A problem-solving course? Have them work on a problem. A discussion-based class? Get them talking. The point is that if you want your students actively engaged in learning throughout the semester, actively engage them in learning on the first day.

Principle No. 4: Expectations

The previous three principles will guide you in devising creative, engaging activities for opening day. But you can't ignore the fact that students will bring a host of expectations - things they will want to know right away - into the room with them. What shape will the course take? What materials will they have to buy? What tests, projects, and other assignments will they be required to complete? Are there any special obligations (such as field trips or community service) that might differentiate your course from a typical one?

An important practical reason for answering those questions on the first day is that not all students who show up will remain enrolled. Although you might be tempted to take it personally, my experience as an academic adviser suggests that students tend to switch in and out of courses during the first week because of logistical issues in their academic and personal lives. A student might discover on the first day that three of her courses require extensive amounts of writing, and decide to postpone one of them until next semester, so as not to be overwhelmed with deadlines. Or a student might switch into another section after he discovers that you have a required field trip that conflicts with a family wedding.

So allot at least some time of Day 1 to outlining the parameters of the course beyond subject matter: materials, assessments, policies, key dates and deadlines. You'll have all of that information handily available to you in the form of your carefully constructed syllabus. I don't recommend reading the entire syllabus aloud in the first class. Give students copies in print and online, and then highlight the major elements. Set aside time for questions. Some instructors give students a no-points or low-stakes syllabus quiz on or immediately after the first day of class, ensuring that they get familiar with the most important aspects of the course.

To put the four core principles into practice requires a few practical considerations before the semester starts. Doing some advance work to familiarize yourself with the students, the space, and the technology available in the classroom will support the activities you have planned.

The Students

I often teach English composition, a class designed for first-year students at my college. Some years ago, I planned a first-day activity that asked students to think about what they had learned in their high-school writing classes. When I arrived in the classroom, however, I discovered - while looking over the roster for the first time - that more than half of the students were sophomore and juniors who had put off taking composition until now. My first-day planning fell apart, and I had to devise another strategy on the fly.

I learned from that experience the importance of taking a close look at the roster in advance of my planning, and uncovering whatever I could learn about the students before the semester began. At my college, the roster lists only the class year and contact details of each student. But even that basic information helps me understand the level at which I should pitch the opening of the course, and the kinds of first-day activities or examples that will resonate with the actual students in the room, instead of the ones I imagined would be there.

Your institution's learning-management system offers you opportunities to gather information about your students. You can send a message, or post an announcement, before the first class asking them to introduce themselves - via a discussion post, a short video they make with their phones or laptops, or an email sent directly to you with some basic information about themselves.

Being able to recognize and make connections with students on the first day will go a long way toward creating that strong sense of community in the course.

The Space

When I was a new teacher, still suffering from an excess of first-day jitters, a senior faculty member gave me some advice that had always worked to calm his own nerves. He would go to his new classroom a few days before each semester and get to know the space. He would make a full walking circuit of the room, getting himself comfortable with every corner, every angle, every perspective. That allowed him to teach more confidently on the first day.

I've been following that practice myself ever since - not only in my courses, but also when I have to give presentations at conferences or on other campuses. This ritual not only helps alleviate those first-day nerves but also informs me what kinds of adjustments I am going to have to make that semester for group work or other class activities. I see how much board space I have, whether the seats and chairs or table are fixed or have wheels, and whether I happen to be teaching in a space that has a thick column in the center of the room (as was the case on my campus until a few years ago until that classroom was, thankfully, closed).

Get a preview of the room before the semester begins. Stand at the front and say a few words. Write something on the board, then walk to the back of the room or sit in a seat. Envision yourself in the shoes of your students.

The Technology

If you plan to use any technology in support of your teaching - either on the first day or during the semester - you will, of course, want to test it in advance. How many times have you sat groaning inwardly while a conference presenter stands at the front of the room flummoxed by some technological issue that should have been addressed before the start of the presentation? Spending the first class session exclaiming in frustration at a confusing control panel won't set the stage for an effective semester.

Get into the classroom before the first day and test everything you might conceivably use throughout the semester. Plug in your laptop and make sure you know how to ensure it will appear on the classroom screen. If you're going to show a video, check the volume. If you're going to use polling or other activities that require students to use a connected device, ensure that the room has good wireless connectivity.

And remember that teaching technologies are not just digital - any tool that will support your teaching counts as technology. Make sure the board erases, the chairs can be moved, and that you have a space for your materials at the front of the room.

Do all of this well enough in advance so that you can contact your IT department or buildings-and-grounds office to resolve any problems before the semester starts.

The Wardrobe Question

Like it or not, students will notice what you are wearing and how you present yourself on the first day of class. If you wear casual clothes, encourage students to call you by your first name, and put the desks in a circle, you are forming a different impression than if you wear a three-piece suit, refer to yourself as "Doctor," and stand at a podium. Neither of those impressions is necessarily right or wrong, but they do have implications for the level of authority you project in the classroom.

Some faculty members wish to project a strong sense of authority, emphasizing their expertise and leadership. For them, more-formal attire and forms of address will support that perception. Others wish to present themselves as informal guides or companions on the course journey; casual dress and a relaxed manner can help convey that. New and younger instructors often feel compelled to emphasize their authority early in the semester, while this 49-year-old, in his 20th year of full-time teaching, feels pretty comfortable wearing jeans on the first day of the semester.

Of course, this question is an especially pressing one for female and nonwhite faculty members, whose authority tends to be subject to more criticism than that of white men. Across higher education, we should all be working to dismantle the prejudices that would lead students to question the authority of professors based on these aspects of our identities. But if you are concerned that some aspect of your identity might cause students to question your authority or take you less seriously as an expert in your field, you can find advice on how to proceed via the links in this paragraph.

Don't think you have to hit all four of the core principles in the first 50 or 75 minutes of the semester (although doing so is less difficult than you might imagine). Some well-designed activities can allow you to hit two or three at the same time. The following four models - for courses in English composition, history, psychology, and linear algebra - demonstrate how a set of well-designed first-day activities can put the principles into practice.

English Composition

This model draws from my own experience in teaching a composition course that has a "community-engaged" focus - my students interact with a local nonprofit organization throughout the semester, producing written material for its website. Here's how I spend the first day of class:

I arrive 10 minutes early. Roster in hand, I walk around the room and introduce myself to students, asking them questions about their major/intended major, hometown, and any previous writing courses they might have taken.

I make a brief introduction to the grounding principle of the course - that writing has the power to change their lives for the better, both in their academic work and in their lives outside of the classroom. Indeed, writing probably has already helped determine their future, in the form of their college application essays.

Students spend 15 minutes writing a paragraph in response to the following prompts: "When has a piece of writing, something you either either wrote or read, made a significant impact on your life? What qualities or context made that piece of writing so significant?"

Next, I ask students to introduce themselves to two or three people sitting near them, and to work in small groups to create a list of qualities of powerful writing. After 10 minutes, I shift the activity to a classwide discussion. We use the whiteboard to list and categorize the qualities they have identified, noting along the way the ones that connect with our learning objectives.

The class finishes with a review of the syllabus, with a focus on how the community-engaged learning they will complete has the power to make an impact.

After students leave, I take a picture of the board, with the intention of showing students the images on the last day of the semester and inviting them to consider how their perspectives have changed.

A History Survey Course

This model comes from an excellent blog post by Cate Denial, chair of the history department at Knox College, on how she conducts the first day of the semester in her lower-level history courses.

After introducing herself, she offers students the opportunity to ask any question about her they would like. "I do this," she explained to me in an email, "because I will be asking so many questions of them during the term, it only seems fair to let them start by asking a whole lot of questions of me! Those questions vary wildly - from whether I have pets to what we'll be covering in the course, from my favorite binge-watch on Netflix to how long I've been at Knox."

Then she hands out a "document packet" of sources related to a single historical event. The content of each packet varies from student to student; some items are in every packet, others are not. For this exercise, Denial chooses a historical event that she will not cover in the course, in order to ensure that all students - including those who might have signed up for the course because of existing interest or expertise - will have to struggle with unfamiliar sources.

Students are put into random groups - selected in advance by the instructor - and asked "to put the sources in the order that makes the most sense to them, and tell the story the sources supply." This activity, Denial says, takes 15 to 20 minutes. Afterward, each group is asked to share their story with the class.

No two stories end up alike, and Denial then leads a discussion about that, which allows her to introduce a core theme of the class: "History changes as more sources are found, old ones are re-examined, and new theories suggest new interpretive frameworks. For the duration of the term, every student in the class will be a working historian, putting sources together to understand one part of our collective past."

She finishes the day by distributing the syllabus and assigning students their first homework assignment: Annotate the syllabus with comments and questions. This serves dual purposes: allowing her to introduce the skill of annotation and encouraging a close reading of the syllabus. She and the students discuss their annotations in the next class session.

An Upper-Level Psychology Course

Sarah Rose Cavanagh, an associate professor of psychology at Assumption College and author of The Spark of Learning, uses a slide presentation to guide students through the first day of her upper-level "Brain and Behavior" course. Here's how it works:

First she introduces herself, with a focus on her academic background and research, along with some personal (dog-related) information.

Knowing that many students in this course are there only to fulfill a mandatory "biological" cornerstone of the psychology major, she announces that she is, nonetheless, determined to convince them that the subject matter is fascinating. She presents some philosophical puzzles (What does it mean that we're using the organ we're studying in order to study ... the organ we're studying?). She talks about remarkable cases of brain injury and recovery. And she shows a trailer for a popular movie suggesting that we could become cognitively limitless through neuroenhancement.

Working in small groups, students anonymously complete an assignment aimed at testing their background knowledge of the brain - their ability to label its parts and functions, the parts of a neuron, and other foundational concepts. This exercise provides both a refresher for students and a benchmark of where this particular group stands in terms of previous preparation.

Next, Cavanagh collects information about her students. They each fill out a sheet, listing their name and major and answering two key questions: "What one topic do you hope you will learn about this semester?" and "What is one weird thing that your brain does?" The latter question is always good for some memorable tales. Brains are weird.

Discussion in her course happens in a variety of ways, some of which involve students moving around the classroom. To demonstrate how this works and to set it as the norm on the first day, she shows students slides with "You Must Choose" statements on them. Then she asks students to move to the side of the room concordant with their views and explain their choice to people standing near them. Some of those choices relate to course content ("True or False: You use only 10 percent of your brain") and some are simply designed to loosen up and engage the students ("Star Wars or Star Trek"? "Cats or Dogs"?).

She finishes with a final set of slides featuring highlights of the syllabus and previews of the course content to come.

A Mathematics Course

This model comes from a blog post by Derek Bruff, director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching, who wrote a book on the use of personal-response systems (often called "clickers") and peer instruction in the classroom. Since those tools form an essential part of his teaching, he gets students using them on the first day of his linear-algebra course.

Before the first class, he identifies a math problem that students should be able to solve by the end of the semester, and phrases it as a multiple-choice question. One such problem gives students information about changes in the spotted-owl population and asks them to consider the following question: "Given these rates, in the long run does the population increase, decrease, or level off?"

Students work in small groups to come up with an answer, and then register it via their clickers. By displaying and discussing their responses, he guides them to the correct answer.

Then Bruff proposes another question, this one more complex than they are prepared to answer.

He concludes by noting that the course content will fill the gap between what they were capable of doing on the first day and what they could not yet master: "This [exercise] allowed me to make the point that we'll have to develop some mathematical modeling tools in order to analyze this situation accurately and make valid predictions. This, I hope, provides students with some motivation to learn about those tools later in the semester."

By engaging students in this kind of activity on the first day, Bruff is shaping their expectations about the kinds of in-class activities they will experience throughout the semester. He finds that students often expect a "chalk-and-talk" math class, which isn't how he teaches. They're more open to active learning pedagogies if they know from the first day that that's how his class operates.

And what about the syllabus? Bruff hands that out to students at the end of the first session, asking them to read it and bring questions to the next class. He finds the syllabus discussion less inviting than his problem-solving activity, particularly for the nonmajors who typically take his math courses, so he saves all the syllabus talk for Day 2.

One more issue to keep in mind as you plan for the first day: Context matters. What works for first-year students might not work as well for seniors. Obviously you can't ask students new to college to reflect upon their previous college science courses. Likewise, students in a senior seminar might already know one another, so icebreaker activities will be superfluous for them.

Whatever you do on Day 1 will require some follow-up. Here are three pathways you can use to extend the reach of your first-day activities.

The Learning Management System

A quick and easy way is via your institution's learning-management system. Record a brief, informal video to convey your impressions of what students produced or discussed in class. Show your enthusiasm for a great start, remind them about any conclusions drawn, and point them to aspects of the course that will connect to the first-day activities. If you don't like making videos, do it in writing. You could supplement both approaches with links to relevant resources, articles, or videos.

In either case, finish your response, recorded or written, by pointing forward. How does what you accomplished on that first day set the stage for what will happen on the second day, the third, and beyond?

The Next Class and Beyond

Or, you can do all of that in person on the second day of class. Produce a PowerPoint with the key findings from your first meeting, or a word cloud with their impressions of the course content. If the students created a list of activities that would help them succeed in the course, pull their ideas together into a one-page handout for successful learning.

As the semester continues, find small ways to link your opening-day activities to the current course content. In a senior seminar I teach on 21st-century British literature and culture, we watch a segment of the 2012 London Olympics on the first day, and analyze what it tells us about the British values that the organizers wanted to project to the world. As the semester continues, I refer back to those values whenever we can. Occasionally students, too, will refer back to that video in our class discussions, a connection I always affirm.

The Last Day of the Semester

I always like to close the course by pointing students back to where we started - in part, because I like to show them how far they have traveled in their learning. In my survey course on British literature, on the first day we do a group brainstorming session in which I ask students to tell me what associations they have with the word "British." Their impressions are always woefully limited - they always mention the royal family, for example, and never say a word about the enormous impact that immigration has had on Britain in the past half-century. On the final day of class, when I show them images of the board from the first day, they can see how deeply their knowledge of British history and literature has grown.
From the start think about how to connect the first day to the last day, and vice-versa.
Your efforts to link back to Day 1 will have the greatest impact if you can show students visually what they did. So put that on your agenda, too, for the first class. Take pictures of the board that day. Make copies of worksheets or surveys they filled out. Keep discussion-board posts or videos preserved throughout the semester. Now pull those bits of evidence together into a quick presentation.

The First Day Online

The four core principles that will guide you to an effective first day in a face-to-face classroom will do the same work for you in an online course.

In the opening module of an online course, you can still identify and emphasize a problem or question to spark the curiosity of students, and you can still begin a content module by asking students to engage in some task before they are ready. But in the online environment, you face larger challenges in terms of building community and outlining expectations for the course, especially if you are teaching students who aren't accustomed to taking online courses.

Quick videos and discussion boards offer you great opportunities to build community. Some options:

Introduce yourself through a brief opening video and describe yourself more formally in a "Meet the Instructor" page included in your course pages. Present your formal credentials and intellectual journey on the page, and speak more informally in the video.

Follow the lead of the historian Cate Denial and invite each student to ask you a question about yourself.

Have students introduce themselves to one another in a discussion post, through either writing or a video. Post a comment or question in response to each student, just to let them know that you are present for them and interested in their learning.

How to navigate an online course will not always be evident to your students, especially if they are adults returning to education after an absence or are students taking an online class as a supplement to their face-to-face courses. So it is especially important to provide another video or document that outlines how they can find the assistance they need, how to proceed through the course, and how to make sure their questions get answered. You can use an online annotation tool like hypothes.is, or an equivalent tool in the course-management system your college uses, to have students annotate the syllabus with questions and comments.

Online courses can easily become bloodless transactions of brains behind screens. In the opening of the course, establish your presence as a teacher who cares about their learning, and invite students to help you create a vibrant community of learners.

A Lasting Impact

Whatever you do on the first day of class, get beyond the goal of just getting through it. A little time invested in first-day planning can have a lasting impact. Start the semester off by fostering students' curiosity, supporting their learning, and giving them a preview of how they will be engaging with you and one another, and with the course content, throughout the semester.

Resources

Books

On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching, by yours truly. See especially the chapter on "Week One."

McKeachie's Teaching Tips ( 14th edition). See Part One, Chapters 1-3.

Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, by Linda B. Nilson. See especially Chapter 7.

Articles

"The First Day of Class: A Once-a-Semester Opportunity," published in Faculty Focus by Maryellen Weimer on August 21, 2018.

"Ten Tips for Dealing With Nervousness on the First Day of Class Faculty," published in Faculty Focus, by Delaney J. Kirk, on August 14, 2018.

Online Guides From Teaching Centers

"Make the Most of the First Day of Class," posted by Carnegie Mellon University's Eberly Center Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation.

"First Day of Class," posted by the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching.

Videos

"First Day of the Semester: Good Activities," posted by Discovering the Art of Mathematics, a group that offers ideas for teaching math to liberal-arts majors.

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eberly center teaching excellence & educational innovation

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I was 21 years old when I first stepped into a college classroom as an instructor. My master's program had assigned me to teach a composition course and gave me a brief orientation to teaching the week before the semester began.

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Spring 2020 Classroom Tips and Reminders

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Canvas Reminders A Google Sheet will be sent with all classes offered, instructors will check off when first two weeks are complete Announcements (see email for blanket announcements) Two assessments per week aligned with the class objective Weighted groups (Attendance, Homework,

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While I understand that this article is centered around a 10th grade class, but take a closer look. This article really isn't about just high school students; it's about ALL students--even our adult students. Terada (Terada 2021) adds, "Writing about a topic also encourages students to process information at a deeper level. Answering multiple-choice or short-answer questions may help with factual recall, but putting thoughts on paper encourages students to evaluate different ideas, weighing the importance of each one and considering the order they should be presented in, Graham and his colleagues write. By doing so, students may make new connections between ideas, ones they may not have made when initially learning the information" (Terada 2021).

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For Kyle Pahigian, a 10th-grade math teacher at University Park Campus School in Massachusetts, a lesson on congruent triangles doesn't start with calculators and protractors. Instead, she hands her students a treasure map and asks them to write detailed directions-using landmarks as a guide-to the buried treasure.

"I won't tell the kids right away, 'Today we're going to learn about triangle congruence theorems,'" said Pahigian. "I want them to instead view it as them experimenting with something and doing something that they feel like they're really good at." Students often feel intimidated by math, and transforming the activity into a writing exercise eases some of the anxiety of introducing difficult concepts, she said.

In Pahigian's math class, writing is regularly used as a learning strategy, one that gives her a window into her students' thinking. "I like to do low-stakes writing when we're coming up with definitions," said Pahigian. Instead of telling her students what a polygon is, for example, she'll show them a set of polygons and a set of non-polygons, and ask them, "What do you notice? What differences do you see?" Students spend a few minutes writing down their answers, and then join groups to compare responses.

"It's really interesting and fun for me to read what they've written, because I can see all the questions. I can see the process," said Pahigian.

A recent study sheds light on why writing is such a beneficial activity-not just in subjects typically associated with writing, like history and English, but across all subjects. Professor Steve Graham and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Teachers College analyzed 56 studies looking at the benefits of writing in science, social studies, and math and found that writing "reliably enhanced learning" across all grade levels. While teachers commonly ask students to write about a topic in order to assess how well they understand the material, the process of writing also improves a student's ability to recall information, make connections between different concepts, and synthesize information in new ways. In effect, writing isn't just a tool to assess learning, it also promotes it.

Strengthening Memories

Why is writing effective? "Writing about content material facilitates learning by consolidating information in long-term memory," explain Graham and his colleagues, describing a process known as the retrieval effect. As previous research has shown, information is quickly forgotten if it's not reinforced, and writing helps to strengthen a student's memories of the material they're learning.

It's the same cognitive mechanism that explains why practice tests are effective: In a 2014 study, students who took low-stakes practice tests in science and history classes scored 16 percentage points higher on their final exams than students who simply studied the material. "Practicing retrieval of recently studied information enhances the likelihood of the learner retrieving that information in the future," the researchers of the 2014 study said.

Writing about a topic also encourages students to process information at a deeper level. Answering multiple-choice or short-answer questions may help with factual recall, but putting thoughts on paper encourages students to evaluate different ideas, weighing the importance of each one and considering the order they should be presented in, Graham and his colleagues write. By doing so, students may make new connections between ideas, ones they may not have made when initially learning the information.

A Metacognitive Tool

Students often believe that they understand a topic, but if they're asked to write it down-and explain it-gaps in their understanding may be revealed. One of the most effective writing strategies that Graham and his colleagues found was metacognitive prompting, in which students are asked not only to recall information but also to apply what they've learned to different contexts by thinking about multiple sides of a position or making predictions based on what they currently know. For example, instead of simply reading about ecosystems in a textbook, students can write about their own impact by examining how much trash their household produces or the environmental impact of producing the food they eat.

5 Writing Strategies to Use in Any Subject

Here are a variety of ideas teachers have shared with Edutopia in recent years on incorporating writing into a variety of subjects.

"I wonder" journals: At Crellin Elementary School in Oakland, Maryland, teachers encouraged students to ask "I wonder" questions to push their learning beyond the classroom. After visiting a local barn and garden, for example, Dave Miller realized his fifth-grade students had more questions about animals and plants than he had time to answer, so he had them write down anything they were confused or curious about, which helped him plan future lessons and experiments.

"If they don't wonder, 'How would we ever survive on the moon?' then that's never going to be explored," said Dana McCauley, Crellin's principal. "But that doesn't mean they should stop wondering, because wonderings lead to thinking outside the box, which makes them critical thinkers. As they try to figure it out, and reflect on what they're doing, that's where it all ties together for them. That's where all that learning occurs-where all the connections start being made."

Travel journals: Every student at Normal Park Museum Magnet, a K-8 school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, created a travel journal to chart their learning. These journals included not only charts, drawings, and graphic organizers, but also writing and reflection pieces that capture students' learning about a topic.

When fifth-grade teacher Denver Huffstutler began a unit on earth science, he asked his students to imagine they were explorers looking for a new world that could sustain life. In their travel journal, they kept track of everything they were learning, from the impact of man-made disasters to their designs and calculations for a manned rocket that could reach distant planets.

Low-stakes writing: Writing can be daunting, so teachers at University Park Campus School used daily low-stakes writing activities to foster student voice, self-confidence, and critical thinking skills-a school-wide strategy used in every subject.

"The most important thing about it for me is that it's not censored, and it's not too highly structured," said seventh-grade science teacher James Kobialka. "It's about them getting their own ideas down, and then being able to interact with those ideas, change them, and revise them if they're not correct."

For example, when Kobialka's students were learning about the conservation of mass, he didn't start by defining it-he showed them a picture and asked, "What do you notice about the atoms on both sides? How can you explain that?" Students wrote down their observations, and the entire class came up with a definition. "From there," he said, "once that consensus is formed, I'll ask somebody to write it on the board, and we'll talk about the key concepts."

Student-created magazines: In Alessandra King's algebra class, students created a magazine with dozens of articles about real world applications of math. For each article, they selected a primary source-an article from Scientific American, for example-read it closely, and then wrote a summary. Students wrote about a range of topics, from gerrymandering to fractals in Jackson Pollock's paintings to invisibility cloaks.

"Effective writing clarifies and organizes a student's thoughts, and the slow pace of writing is conducive to student learning because it allows them to reason carefully to make sure they're correct before they state their thoughts," King wrote. "Studies have shown that writing is valuable specifically for the math classroom-for example, it seems that a student's ability to explain concepts in writing is related to the ability to comprehend and apply them."

Creative writing: Former teachers Ed Kang and Amy Schwartzbach-Kang incorporated storytelling and creative writing into their after-school program's science lessons. For example, they asked students to imagine a creature that could survive in a local habitat -the Chicago River, in their case. What color would it be? What features would help it to survive and defend itself? How would it hunt its prey? Students then wrote a story about their creature that combined science concepts with creative storytelling.

"There's brain science to support using stories to help kids engage with content and create personal meaning," explained Kang, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. "Listening to facts mainly stimulates the two language-processing areas of the brain. However, when we listen to a story, additional parts of the brain are also activated-regions involved with our senses and motor movements help listeners actually 'feel' the descriptions."

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Why Students Should Write in All Subjects

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For Kyle Pahigian, a 10th-grade math teacher at University Park Campus School in Massachusetts, a lesson on congruent triangles doesn't start with calculators and protractors. Instead, she hands her students a treasure map and asks them to write detailed directions-using landmarks as a guide-to the buried treasure.

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I use this template in my law and ethics class, but I've also used it as a bonus assignment. It requires the students to find an article, do a little research, and write a short paragraph about it.

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A short video on what the UDL is and how it is structured.

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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Flipgrid is now available through Google and can be integrated into your Google Classroom. Take a look!

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As we approach a new year with new learning communities, we are making Flipgrid simpler and more powerful. Starting Dec. 21, you can sync Google Classroom rosters to Flipgrid discussions, making student access easier than ever!

Simply choose a Google Classroom roster when setting Topic or Group permissions. When your community accesses your Flipgrid discussion, they will have the option to log in via Google, and only those on your class roster will gain access.

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You Asked, We Listened: Google Classroom Rosters, Mic Only Mode, and More! - Flipgrid

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As we approach a new year with new learning communities, we are making Flipgrid simpler and more powerful. Starting Dec. 21, you can sync Google Classroom rosters to Flipgrid discussions, making student access easier than ever! Simply choose a Google Classroom roster when setting Topic or Group permissions.

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This is a great article about teaching in a flipped classroom and the tools you need to do it effectively.

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Whether students do the advance work at home or in class, these tools help teachers track their work and assess their understanding.

©Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

Flipped classroom, flipped learning-you've probably heard these phrases in recent years, and you may be wondering how this strategy works.

Flipped lessons replace teacher lectures with instructional material-often a video-that students watch and interact with at home. They apply what they learned in class the next day through a variety of activities or assignments that could once have been homework, with the teacher working as a coach or guide.

The benefits include allowing students to work at their own pace, to determine for themselves the material they need to review, and to apply concepts in different contexts in class to ensure that they thoroughly understand of the content.

But this model can be unsuccessful if students don't do the advance work-if they don't have access to reliable internet outside of school, for example. Students who are unable to complete the advance work the evening before find themselves either unable or ill-prepared to participate in class activities the following day.

One solution is to keep the advance work in the classroom-students can reap the benefits of flipped instruction while doing everything in class. In this model, teachers give their students time to watch the video or read a text in class; students then do the follow-up work, with the teacher providing help and guidance as needed. This is extremely helpful for students who need help with the content they're learning in the video.

The teacher still moves from being the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side" by providing individualized help for each student. While some teachers may prefer to avoid whole-class direct instruction, others may find it helpful for their students when reviewing content or demonstrating or revisiting a concept. Part of the beauty of the in-class flipped model is that it provides a great deal of flexibility for teachers based on their students' needs.

Structure of a Flipped Lesson

Flipped lessons can take a variety of forms. Some flipped lessons stand alone, meaning that students learn the content presented in an instructional video or text and demonstrate their understanding through an assessment, project, etc., before moving on to the next concept. Other lessons may take the form of a unit HyperDoc that requires students to progress through a series of lesson components designed to encourage them to engage with and explore content, apply what they've learned, and extend their knowledge.

Google Classroom: Teachers use Google Classroom in a variety of ways-to deliver assignments to students and to provide effective and efficient feedback, for example-and it can be a great landing page for students as they navigate assignments. At the beginning of a lesson, teachers can direct students to assignment goals, objectives, and instructions in Classroom. Classroom can also be used to distribute a lesson's digital texts and other resources.

In flipped environments where students take notes on instructional videos digitally, Classroom can be used to assign a unit Google Doc to students for that purpose. Teachers can establish this procedure as a norm at the beginning of the school year so students know that they should begin each class period by going to Google Classroom.

Edpuzzle: Instructional videos are an important component of the flipped classroom. While there are many schools of thought concerning teacher presence and action in these videos and how long they should be, most teachers would agree that students should be held accountable for the video content and that teachers should have a way to monitor student progress and provide timely feedback.

Edpuzzle allows teachers to do just that, and it provides teachers with the ability to embed a variety of formative assessments into videos they create or use from other sources. Students can access Edpuzzle videos from any browser or through iOS or Android apps, so it's very convenient.

Padlet: After students have viewed an instructional video, it's a good idea to provide them with an opportunity to reflect on the content. Padlet provides teachers with a way to have students not only review and reflect on content, but also collaborate with their peers.

Teachers can create a new Padlet wall for each video or unit and encourage students to ask questions and answer their peers' questions about content as a review for unit assessments. Using an extension such as Screencastify, teachers can create screencasts of the Padlet wall for their students to use as a study aid.

Quizizz: Formative assessment is extremely important in any classroom, and flipped classrooms are no exception. The flipped strategy puts more responsibility for viewing and interacting with content on the students, and formative assessment is therefore needed after every video.

Teachers can create gamified formative assessment activities for their students using Quizizz and assign these activities as homework, which allows the students to play the games individually. Quizizz activities can also be used as a whole-class formative assessment-students enjoy Quizizz because of the gamified component of the activity and the memes that greet them when they respond to each question.

With the help of these tools, teachers can implement a flipped classroom approach-with students working on their own either at home or in the classroom-and provide a more individualized learning experience for all of their students.

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Whether students do the advance work at home or in class, these tools help teachers track their work and assess their understanding.

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Hey. You can get a 30 day free trial for Teacherview.live. It lets you see the student's faces and their screen at the same time. This makes it really easy to proctor exams!! You might want to wait to sign up so you make sure your finals are given within your 30 day window!!

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Cloud-based virtual classroom

A cloud-based distance learning platform, combining classroom management and video conferencing capabilities with easy one-click access that is built to scale.
Allow teachers to teach and students to learn remotely and have the same seamless experience of a traditional physical classroom environment virtually.

♢ Share your screen, video camera and whiteboard in lecturer mode or group collaboration ♢ Virtually "walk" between all students and see their screens and faces in real-time ♢ Discretely assist students that need your help ♢ Respond to hand raise ♢ Engage in a 1:1 video session with a student

Built for collaboration and instruction

♢ Share screen between teacher and students ♢ Establish visual and vocal communication using video conferencing capabilities ♢ Bring one student's screen to the front ♢ Set and coordinate all devices on one platform ♢ Simultaneously launch apps and play, stop or skip videos for a synchronized experience ♢ Permit, block or lock certain apps ♢ Apply kiosk modes, policy and settings ♢ Share interactive virtual whiteboards, websites, surveys and quizzes ♢ Transfer and collect files simultaneously

Take collaborative distance learning to the next level With VISO TeacherView, teachers can easily manage their class's learning on school or BYOD devices, when in school or at home. Teachers can monitor student activities and evaluate performance in real-time, share any screen, provide individual or group assistance and implement collaborative learning methodologies.

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VISO Cloud based Classroom Management platform for Distance learning

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A cloud-based distance learning platform, combining classroom management and video conferencing capabilities with easy one-click access that is built to scale. Allow teachers to teach and students to learn remotely and have the same seamless experience of a traditional physical classroom environment virtually.

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Remember to ask Liz Teague how to make Bitmojis work for you and jazz up your Canvas courses! Here's a whole study about it.

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Since remote learning started this past spring, Bitmojis have taken the education community by storm.

Available through the Bitmoji app, these customizable, mini-me avatars have become stand-in teachers running virtual classrooms, enforcing rules and expectations, collecting assignments-and making students smile, we've heard. Simply put, they're fun.

Amber Weaver, a second-grade teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, says she likes that her Bitmoji classroom-a virtual replica of her real one-makes resources like the school calendar easily accessible to her young students and provides them with a sense of virtual familiarity and stability during a tough time.

But not everyone is a fan of the Bitmoji craze. Some educators believe that they're a distracting fad and that teachers should be focusing more on creating effective lessons and supporting students' well-being instead of creating cutesy virtual classrooms, according to an article in Education Week. They also claim that Bitmoji resources raise issues of digital equity, as not all students have easy access to the internet or to digital devices to use them. Proponents counter that effective instruction and Bitmojis aren't mutually exclusive, and say they're broadly helpful in engaging students in virtual learning.

As teachers prepare for the fall, many are considering ways to bridge virtual and hands-on learning to keep kids engaged-and Bitmoji may provide the leg up to do so. We talked to more than 50 K-12 educators about how they're using Bitmoji and gathered links to their resources that you can download and customize for your own use.

Getting Started

To get started creating your Bitmoji universe, you need to download the app (available for iPhone and Android) and create your Bitmoji by selecting physical features like hair and eye color and an outfit. After creating your character, you can cast it in a huge array of activities, such as reading, dancing gleefully, or even eating a sandwich.

Next, download the Google Chrome extension, which allows you to choose a favorite image of your Bitmoji-perhaps your doppelganger washing its hands or saying "hello"-to copy and paste it into whatever format you'd like, such as Google Slides where you host your virtual classroom.

For inspiration, Facebook groups like Bitmoji Craze for Educators offer a range of templates and tutorials that show newbies the ropes, like this step-by-step video tutorial on setting up a Bitmoji classroom, and hacks that inspire veterans with new ideas. And of course, the examples below are a great starting point.
Note: Most of the examples mentioned in this article are linked to templates that can be downloaded. One type of link goes directly to a copy that can be customized to your heart's desire. The other goes to an open Google Slide. If taken there, click "File," pause your cursor over "Make a copy," and select "Entire presentation." From there, it's yours.
Bitmoji Classrooms

The most popular use of Bitmojis in education is for creating virtual classrooms, or virtual learning hubs (typically hosted on Google Slides, which can be integrated into a learning management system (LMS) like Seesaw, Google Classroom, or Schoology) where teachers post classroom materials and resources for students. Every teacher's Bitmoji classroom is unique. Some teachers have made them resemble their real-life classrooms or homes, while others have leaned toward fantasy.

Kindergarten teacher Sara Hannah's Bitmoji classroom looks a lot like her real classroom, she says, but with some elements of fun. In the virtual room, clickable icons link to assignments, games, read-alouds, and short video lessons-even the virtual cats are clickable. Incorporating Bitmojis has created more excitement around classes, which she says helps motivate students in virtual learning.

Brittney Harvey, an elementary school-certified occupational therapist assistant, created an occupational therapy room for her students in Oklahoma. The virtual room links to resources like Zoom for one-on-one sessions, pre-writing video lessons, and GoNoodle-a video library filled with exercises that help Harvey's students develop gross motor skills.

The Bitmoji classroom isn't limited to core subjects. Educators have created Bitmoji classrooms for at-home recess (grades pre-K-3), art classes (first grade), and maker spaces (grades K-6).

Setting Expectations and Norms

Teachers say they've found that Bitmojis can be a helpful (and fun) way to get students to remember the rules and expectations in their virtual classrooms.

Jillian Graham, a high school math teacher from Fort Mill, South Carolina, created norms around how to act during Google Meet classes and used her Bitmoji character to remind students about them, for example. While her students waited to join a Google Meet session, they saw her Bitmoji explaining how they should act on video calls with instructions like "dress appropriately" and "be an active participant."

Aimee Wilson, a 10th-grade U.S. government and English teacher, on the other hand, created a Bitmoji cell phone policy poster that outlined when it is and isn't OK to use a cell phone, while Brandi Dudley, a first- and second-grade teacher in California, created Bitmoji Covid-19 posters to remind her students of protective measures like handwashing.

Bitmoji Libraries

Many educators say they are using Bitmoji to create "libraries," or virtual bookshelves, linked to video read-alouds, PDFs, and digital books.

Cammie Duval, an elementary school teacher in Milwaukie, Oregon, created a K-2 growth mindset library for her district, for example, and has 29 libraries in total on different themes like " Mad Scientist," which have been downloaded as templates more than 90,000 times by teachers. To stimulate excitement, Duval hides a digital worm ("a bookworm") in every library that kids can search for as they peruse the books.

"Most of my students cannot read and don't have family members who have a lot of time to read with them," says Duval of the benefits of the digital read-alouds. "Bitmoji libraries give those kids the ability to fall in love with reading at home by themselves."

In light of recent events, some educators have been inspired to create libraries with a host of diverse books. Overcome with emotion after the murder of George Floyd, Tracey Burton, a pre-K-5 technology teacher in Ishpeming, Michigan, created a Bitmoji library that houses VideoLink links-YouTube links without the ads-that connect to read-alouds of books about different races and cultures like Mixed Me and Too Many Tamales.

"I didn't think I could change the world, but I do feel like I [can] make a change," says Burton. "Reading about other cultures makes the world smaller and more connected."

Relationship-Building Activities

Other educators have found that Bitmojis can play a role in building relationships and making deeper connections with their students from afar.

Last spring, Angie Baton Ritenour, a fourth-grade teacher in Farmington, Michigan, collaborated with two grade-level colleagues to create an iSpy Bitmoji room, which they used during a video call to get students more engaged in remote learning. They filled the virtual room to the brim with objects, like photos of students and items from their classrooms. During the video call, students took turns saying "I spy with my little eye...," and their peers had to guess what object they had picked-helping students build connections with one another.

And Amanda Wells says she plans on having her eighth-grade students complete an All About Me Bitmoji assignment so she can get to know them better this fall. On a templated Google Slide, students will share their interests coupled with a drawing or photo, such as a drawing of them playing with their dog, and write two complete sentences explaining why they enjoy each activity.

While some educators argue that teachers should be spending their time on developing engaging lessons rather than creating superfluous Bitmoji resources, educators have proved that they can do both.

Laura Hoomes, a kindergarten teacher in Huntsville, Alabama, says she's spent more time planning this summer than in previous ones, having already created over 40 Bitmoji libraries to use next year. She's also created home learning kits, weekly at-home crafts, and 22 center games for each of her students-none of which are Bitmoji-to give students a range of activities to choose from.

"I have two young kids, so it's mostly what I can accomplish at night after they go to bed!" says Holmes. "I'm just trying to be ready for virtual kindergarten."

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Educators Turn to Bitmoji to Build Community and Engagement

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Both fun and practical, Bitmoji classrooms are adding some levity to fall planning this year.

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Want to make your instructional videos/lectures more engaging...Watch THIS!

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Want to make your instructional videos/lectures more engaging...Watch THIS!

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This maybe just what your online lectures need! Your students will benefit and thank you later!

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How Simple Visual Cues Can Improve Your Teaching Materials

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Top 10 Most Significant Studies in Education during 2020

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Top 10 Most Significant Studies in Education during 2020

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In the month of March of 2020, the year suddenly became a whirlwind. With a pandemic disrupting life across the entire globe, teachers scrambled to transform their physical classrooms into virtual-or even hybrid-ones, and researchers slowly began to collect insights into what works, and what doesn't, in online learning environments around the world.

Meanwhile, neuroscientists made a convincing case for keeping handwriting in schools, and after the closure of several coal-fired power plants in Chicago, researchers reported a drop in pediatric emergency room visits and fewer absences in schools, reminding us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door.

1. To Teach Vocabulary, Let Kids Be Thespians

When students are learning a new language, ask them to act out vocabulary words. It's fun to unleash a child's inner thespian, of course, but a 2020 study concluded that it also nearly doubles their ability to remember the words months later.

Researchers asked 8-year-old students to listen to words in another language and then use their hands and bodies to mimic the words-spreading their arms and pretending to fly, for example, when learning the German word flugzeug, which means "airplane." After two months, these young actors were a remarkable 73 percent more likely to remember the new words than students who had listened without accompanying gestures. Researchers discovered similar, if slightly less dramatic, results when students looked at pictures while listening to the corresponding vocabulary.

It's a simple reminder that if you want students to remember something, encourage them to learn it in a variety of ways-by drawing it, acting it out, or pairing it with relevant images, for example.

2. Neuroscientists Defend the Value of Teaching Handwriting-Again

For most kids, typing just doesn't cut it. In 2012, brain scans of preliterate children revealed crucial reading circuitry flickering to life when kids hand-printed letters and then tried to read them. The effect largely disappeared when the letters were typed or traced.

More recently, in 2020, a team of researchers studied older children-seventh graders-while they handwrote, drew, and typed words, and concluded that handwriting and drawing produced telltale neural tracings indicative of deeper learning.

"Whenever self-generated movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated," the researchers explain, before echoing the 2012 study: "It also appears that the movements related to keyboard typing do not activate these networks the same way that drawing and handwriting do."

It would be a mistake to replace typing with handwriting, though. All kids need to develop digital skills, and there's evidence that technology helps children with dyslexia to overcome obstacles like note taking or illegible handwriting, ultimately freeing them to "use their time for all the things in which they are gifted," says the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.

3. The ACT Test Just Got a Negative Score (Face Palm)

A 2020 study found that ACT test scores, which are often a key factor in college admissions, showed a weak-or even negative -relationship when it came to predicting how successful students would be in college. "There is little evidence that students will have more college success if they work to improve their ACT score," the researchers explain, and students with very high ACT scores-but indifferent high school grades-often flamed out in college, overmatched by the rigors of a university's academic schedule.

Just last year, the SAT-cousin to the ACT-had a similarly dubious public showing. In a major 2019 study of nearly 50,000 students led by researcher Brian Galla, and including Angela Duckworth, researchers found that high school grades were stronger predictors of four-year-college graduation than SAT scores.

The reason? Four-year high school grades, the researchers asserted, are a better indicator of crucial skills like perseverance, time management, and the ability to avoid distractions. It's most likely those skills, in the end, that keep kids in college.

4. A Rubric Reduces Racial Grading Bias

A simple step might help undercut the pernicious effect of grading bias, a new study found: Articulate your standards clearly before you begin grading, and refer to the standards regularly during the assessment process.

In 2020, more than 1,500 teachers were recruited and asked to grade a writing sample from a fictional second-grade student. All of the sample stories were identical-but in one set, the student mentions a family member named Dashawn, while the other set references a sibling named Connor.

Teachers were 13 percent more likely to give the Connor papers a passing grade, revealing the invisible advantages that many students unknowingly benefit from. When grading criteria are vague, implicit stereotypes can insidiously "fill in the blanks," explains the study's author. But when teachers have an explicit set of criteria to evaluate the writing-asking whether the student "provides a well-elaborated recount of an event," for example-the difference in grades is nearly eliminated.

5. What Do Coal-Fired Power Plants Have to Do With Learning? Plenty

When three coal-fired plants closed in the Chicago area, student absences in nearby schools dropped by 7 percent, a change largely driven by fewer emergency room visits for asthma-related problems. The stunning finding, published in a 2020 study from Duke and Penn State, underscores the role that often-overlooked environmental factors-like air quality, neighborhood crime, and noise pollution-have in keeping our children healthy and ready to learn.

At scale, the opportunity cost is staggering: About 2.3 million children in the United States still attend a public elementary or middle school located within 10 kilometers of a coal-fired plant.

The study builds on a growing body of research that reminds us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door. What we call an achievement gap is often an equity gap, one that "takes root in the earliest years of children's lives," according to a 2017 study. We won't have equal opportunity in our schools, the researchers admonish, until we are diligent about confronting inequality in our cities, our neighborhoods-and ultimately our own backyards.

6. Students Who Generate Good Questions Are Better Learners

Some of the most popular study strategies-highlighting passages, rereading notes, and underlining key sentences-are also among the least effective. A 2020 study highlighted a powerful alternative: Get students to generate questions about their learning, and gradually press them to ask more probing questions.

In the study, students who studied a topic and then generated their own questions scored an average of 14 percentage points higher on a test than students who used passive strategies like studying their notes and rereading classroom material. Creating questions, the researchers found, not only encouraged students to think more deeply about the topic but also strengthened their ability to remember what they were studying.

7. Did a 2020 Study Just End the 'Reading Wars'?

One of the most widely used reading programs was dealt a severe blow when a panel of reading experts concluded that it "would be unlikely to lead to literacy success for all of America's public schoolchildren."

In the 2020 study, the experts found that the controversial program-called "Units of Study" and developed over the course of four decades by Lucy Calkins at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project-failed to explicitly and systematically teach young readers how to decode and encode written words, and was thus "in direct opposition to an enormous body of settled research."

The study sounded the death knell for practices that de-emphasize phonics in favor of having children use multiple sources of information-like story events or illustrations-to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words, an approach often associated with "balanced literacy." In an internal memo obtained by publisher APM, Calkins seemed to concede the point, writing that "aspects of balanced literacy need some 'rebalancing.'"

8. A Secret to High-Performing Virtual Classrooms

In 2020, a team at Georgia State University compiled a report on virtual learning best practices. While evidence in the field is "sparse" and "inconsistent," the report noted that logistical issues like accessing materials-and not content-specific problems like failures of comprehension-were often among the most significant obstacles to online learning. It wasn't that students didn't understand photosynthesis in a virtual setting, in other words-it was that they didn't find (or simply didn't access) the lesson on photosynthesis at all.

That basic insight echoed a 2019 study that highlighted the crucial need to organize virtual classrooms even more intentionally than physical ones. Remote teachers should use a single, dedicated hub for important documents like assignments; simplify communications and reminders by using one channel like email or text; and reduce visual clutter like hard-to-read fonts and unnecessary decorations throughout their virtual spaces.

Because the tools are new to everyone, regular feedback on topics like accessibility and ease of use is crucial. Teachers should post simple surveys asking questions like "Have you encountered any technical issues?" and "Can you easily locate your assignments?" to ensure that students experience a smooth-running virtual learning space.

9. Love to Learn Languages? Surprisingly, Coding May Be Right for You

Learning how to code more closely resembles learning a language such as Chinese or Spanish than learning math, a 2020 study found-upending the conventional wisdom about what makes a good programmer.

In the study, young adults with no programming experience were asked to learn Python, a popular programming language; they then took a series of tests assessing their problem-solving, math, and language skills. The researchers discovered that mathematical skill accounted for only 2 percent of a person's ability to learn how to code, while language skills were almost nine times more predictive, accounting for 17 percent of learning ability.

That's an important insight because all too often, programming classes require that students pass advanced math courses-a hurdle that needlessly excludes students with untapped promise, the researchers claim.

10. Researchers Cast Doubt on Reading Tasks Like 'Finding the Main Idea'

"Content is comprehension," declared a 2020 Fordham Institute study, sounding a note of defiance as it staked out a position in the ongoing debate over the teaching of intrinsic reading skills versus the teaching of content knowledge.

While elementary students spend an enormous amount of time working on skills like "finding the main idea" and "summarizing"-tasks born of the belief that reading is a discrete and trainable ability that transfers seamlessly across content areas-these young readers aren't experiencing "the additional reading gains that well-intentioned educators hoped for," the study concluded.

So what works? The researchers looked at data from more than 18,000 K-5 students, focusing on the time spent in subject areas like math, social studies, and ELA, and found that "social studies is the only subject with a clear, positive, and statistically significant effect on reading improvement." In effect, exposing kids to rich content in civics, history, and law appeared to teach reading more effectively than our current methods of teaching reading.

Perhaps defiance is no longer needed: Fordham's conclusions are rapidly becoming conventional wisdom-and they extend beyond the limited claim of reading social studies texts. According to Natalie Wexler, the author of the well-received 2019 book The Knowledge Gap, content knowledge and reading are intertwined. "Students with more [background] knowledge have a better chance of understanding whatever text they encounter. They're able to retrieve more information about the topic from long-term memory, leaving more space in working memory for comprehension," she recently told Edutopia.

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2020

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We reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and then highlighted 10 of the most significant-covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests.

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UDL Universal Design for Learning Guidelines

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UDL Universal Design for Learning Guidelines

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There is a shift in education that emphasizes learning outcomes and working back from those outcomes to create lesson plans and effective learning. Check out UDL Website for this design method.
UDL focuses on the WHY of learning, the WHAT of learning, and the HOW of learning. When you are designing your lesson, these are what should be a part of your process.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Coming soon! UDL Guidelines 3.0

The UDL Guidelines are a living, dynamic tool that is continuously developed based on new research and feedback from practitioners. In 2020, CAST launched our most recent effort to update the UDL Guidelines, with a specific focus on equity. There has been a strong call from the field-both practitioners and researchers alike-to more fully develop the Guidelines to address critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of oppression. The current update aims to respond to this call and to work toward fulfilling the promise of the Guidelines as a tool to guide the design of learning environments that more fully honor and value every learner.

Since our launch in 2020, we have been committed to a community-driven, inclusive, and transparent updating process. As part of this effort, we are:

Collaborating with an Advisory Board, a UDL Guidelines Collaborative, and a Young Adult Advisory Board to guide our work

Conducting focus groups with a diversity of participants to learn from their perspectives, lived experiences, and feedback

Reviewing the research on the UDL Guidelines research pages to understand the balance of different research fields, methodological approaches, epistemological approaches, and author positionalities

Conducting literature reviews of equity-oriented research that connect to and extend the Guidelines, such as disability studies and critical pedagogy studies

We are excited to share this next iteration of the UDL Guidelines in 2024. If you are interested in receiving our UDL Guidelines 3.0 newsletter to stay updated on our progress and to share your ideas and perspectives, please complete this brief form.

Review the Summary

Explore the Full Draft

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST.

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Classroom Management Classroom Management Classroom Management Brown Bag Activity Brown Bag Activity

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Literacy encompasses all curricula, even if you think you're not a reading teacher per se, in a sense we all are. This is an interesting article about how to improve these literacy skills even in our technical programs.

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CTE classes are a great place for literacy lessons as students are presented with authentic texts like technical manuals, computer programs, and blueprints.

© iStock.com/Steve Debenport

In 2015, the majority of high school seniors performed at or below basic on the reading assessment section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results of the writing assessment administered in 2011 were similar. This means that 50 to 60 percent of students had difficulty reading passages and performing tasks like interpreting information, making inferences, and drawing conclusions. While I do not want to place too much emphasis on standardized assessments, I do think they shine a light on an area that needs our attention.

Efforts to improve adolescent reading and writing skills are numerous, but few focus on increasing literacy through career and technical education (CTE). It is a common misconception that literacy instruction should occur only in English class. CTE teachers can teach literacy quite effectively-it is normal in the CTE classroom for students to be presented with a range of authentic texts, such as blueprints, technical manuals, computer programs, profit-loss statements, lab reports, and floor plans. Presenting students with texts that align with their interests has been proven to inspire even the otherwise unengaged student to actively participate in reading and writing activities.

Incorporating literacy strategies in CTE classes can be difficult at first for both teacher and student. When I taught business classes, there were always a few students who would say, "Why are we doing so much writing? This isn't English class." Nevertheless, it was my duty to teach the course content and provide students with the strategies needed to read, write, listen, design, and speak in a manner that prepared them for life after high school.

Here are four literacy strategies that I found to be useful in CTE classes, though I know they can be used in any classroom. Please note that these strategies are intended to be temporary literacy scaffolds; thus, students no longer need to be provided the strategy when they naturally begin to use the related skills on their own. For instance, the first example is showing students how to summarize an article using a graphic organizer. Once they master how to find the right information and arrange it in a logical manner, the scaffold (i.e., the graphic organizer) is no longer needed. This is a great sign that students are strengthening their literacy skills.

Four Literacy Strategies for the CTE Classroom

1. Read and summarize an article. This may seem like a simple task, but I have received papers in which students either missed the key points or nearly plagiarized an entire article. A graphic organizer helps solve those problems. The organizer allows students to identify the right information, place it in the correct order, and synthesize their thoughts before writing a formal summary.

2. Think critically and ask questions. The world of work requires that students have critical thinking skills and, more specifically, critical questioning skills. Students need to learn how to properly question what they read, see, hear, and think. This skill comes naturally for some, but others may need help. I found that the Creative Questions section of this worksheet (page 8) was a quick and easy way for students to learn the language of critical questioning.

3. Reflect on and respond to what they see. Video clips were a large part of my instructional resource library, including everything from YouTube videos to documentaries to movies. I would often ask students surface-level questions about the content of the video (just to make sure they were paying attention), but I also wanted them to reflect on what they learned, connect it to prior knowledge, and create a proper written response. The art of reflection is a difficult one to teach, but it is vital to learning. Using Sentence Starters for Reader Response helped students find the appropriate words to reflect on and respond to videos, and helped the class have more genuine conversations about what they had just learned.

4. Take a stand and support it with evidence. A CTE curriculum is often problem-based; it challenges students to evaluate a problem, devise a solution, and present evidence to support the solution. Whether that means presenting safety-gear recommendations for a construction site or a new marketing campaign to revitalize an old brand, it is important for students to know how to articulate their ideas in a logical, clear manner. I found the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning framework to be a helpful strategy. Though this framework is usually associated with science, I found it applicable anytime students were asked to make an argument and support it with evidence.

Increasing adolescent literacy rates is a complex challenge that needs to be addressed from multiple perspectives. With 97 percent of students completing at least one CTE course by the time they graduate from high school, CTE programs are naturally positioned to help students build literacy skills in preparation for future success in college, careers, and life.

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Literacy Skills in Career and Technical Education Classes

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CTE classes are a great place for literacy lessons as students are presented with authentic texts like technical manuals, computer programs, and blueprints.

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Edmodo is a great tool to use in the classroom and outside the classroom. This site mimics social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but is used for educational purposes. Teachers can create a platform for students to post to just like a Facebook account. Click the link below to try it out. This is a great way to get students to share thoughts and ideas about their learning in your classroom.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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This is a humorous, but inspiring talk by Ken Robinson...enjoy!

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Bring on the learning revolution! | Ken Robinson

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A few educational videos to promote 21st century teaching and learning, and maybe a little inspiration.

Year 2060: Education Predictions

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This is a great online tool to help keep your students' notes organized, especially for any research projects. What makes this tool even better is that the notes you make for a class or the notes your students make for a project can all be shared. This also makes for an excellent collaboration tool!

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Get organized and productive with the leading note-taking app. Download Evernote for Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android and create your free account.

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This semester we implemented individual Instructor Huddles as a way to touch base and to say in contact with one another regarding our students and out teaching practices. In this Padlet (which please feel free to create to create your own account and use in your classrooms or as a way to organize resources for your classes), I wanted to share with you some tips, reminders, and a little bit of encouragement--especially in this uncertain time that we're in.

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This year has thrown us some serious curve balls and rogue waves, but what I hope we have learned from all of this is that learning can happen anywhere. We can set up our dinning rooms and garages as classrooms, we can use video conferencing so our students can see us and present their ideas to us. Yes, we have had to make some quick-thinking changes to our plans and sometimes it didn't always work the way we wanted it to, but I hope you saw it as an opportunity to grow. You have spent the better part of a year changing and adapting to meet the needs of your students--this is what makes you an educator. What makes you a great educator is that you kept trying and kept seeking out better ways to reach your students and get them to the finish line.
My point here, is that we maybe in the midst of a pandemic, but we all have persevered and I want you to know that this did not go unnoticed. I know at times this profession can be demanding--from all sides--but what should keep you going is that your students depend on you and need you to reach their goals.
In short, you've got this!

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Mini-documentary on the future of learning.

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Future Learning | Mini Documentary | GOOD