# data[].attributes.body
Google Suite app that allows collaboration and presentation

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Everyone

Jamboard is G Suite's digital whiteboard that offers a rich collaborative experience for teams and classrooms. Watch your creativity unfold: you can create a Jam, edit it from your device, and share it with others. Everybody can collaborate on the Jam anytime, anywhere. For businesses and schools that use Jamboard hardware, you can use your phone or tablet to join or open a Jam on a nearby board.

* Draw with various pens and colors to bring your ideas to life.
* Share Jams and work together with others in the same Jam in real time.
* Add sticky notes to brainstorm ideas together.
* Bring your Jams to life by inserting photos and stickers.
* Import drive files from G Suite to annotate documents together.
* Highlight objects with the laser pointer tool.

Permissions Notice

Camera: Takes photos to insert into jams.
Contacts: Share jams with people in your contact list.
Location: Find nearby Jamboards.
Storage: Access jam files and photos on your device.

What's New

Bug fixes and stability improvements.

Additional Information

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View 94043

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Jamboard is G Suite's digital whiteboard that offers a rich collaborative experience for teams and classrooms. Watch your creativity unfold: you can create a Jam, edit it from your device, and share it with others. Everybody can collaborate on the Jam anytime, anywhere.

# data[].attributes.body
Google suite app that allows collaboration and presentation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Everyone

Jamboard is G Suite's digital whiteboard that offers a rich collaborative experience for teams and classrooms. Watch your creativity unfold: you can create a Jam, edit it from your device, and share it with others. Everybody can collaborate on the Jam anytime, anywhere. For businesses and schools that use Jamboard hardware, you can use your phone or tablet to join or open a Jam on a nearby board.

* Draw with various pens and colors to bring your ideas to life.
* Share Jams and work together with others in the same Jam in real time.
* Add sticky notes to brainstorm ideas together.
* Bring your Jams to life by inserting photos and stickers.
* Import drive files from G Suite to annotate documents together.
* Highlight objects with the laser pointer tool.

Permissions Notice

Camera: Takes photos to insert into jams.
Contacts: Share jams with people in your contact list.
Location: Find nearby Jamboards.
Storage: Access jam files and photos on your device.

What's New

Bug fixes and stability improvements.

Additional Information

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View 94043

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jamboard is G Suite's digital whiteboard that offers a rich collaborative experience for teams and classrooms. Watch your creativity unfold: you can create a Jam, edit it from your device, and share it with others. Everybody can collaborate on the Jam anytime, anywhere.

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Make math learning fun and effective with Prodigy Math Game. Free for students, parents and educators. Sign up today!

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Started Up Innovation

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It Matters

Now more than ever, education needs reform. With the exponential growth of technology and wild changes in our global economy, students need to be prepared for a world different than we've ever experienced.

An "innovative" student isn't just technology driven, they are simply producers not consumers.

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Now more than ever, education needs reform. With the exponential growth of technology and wild changes in our global economy, students need to be prepared for a world different than we've ever experienced. An "innovative" student isn't just technology driven, they are simply producers not consumers.

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Listen to my interview with Don Wettrick (transcript):
Sponsored by mysimpleshow and Peergrade

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small portion of the sale at no extra cost to you.

I hear it all the time: The world is changing, and schools need to change. Lots of us recognize that we should no longer be relying on the old model, where we just dump information into our students' brains and they regurgitate it back. The world we live in today requires more of people: problem-solving skills, creativity, collaboration, the ability to innovate, iterate, and design solutions for problems that don't even exist yet. The way we do school now just doesn't prepare kids the way it should.

It's a good message, a true message, but too often, that message leaves us hanging. We nod along, we agree that things need to be different, but then we go back to doing more or less what we've always done, because we aren't exactly sure HOW to change school.

Luckily, more people are starting to figure it out, and part of my mission here is to share their ideas with you. In the past, I have interviewed the teachers at the Apollo School, an innovative program blending history, English, and art that's run inside a public high school in Pennsylvania. I've talked to Steven Ritz, whose incredible urban gardening projects transformed his Bronx classroom and the lives of his students. And I also told the story of an underused middle school library in Ohio that completely reconfigured its space into a collaborative, flexible, technology-rich learning hub that now stays busy all the time.

Now let's look at another model for 21st century learning, a year-long elective offered in an Indiana high school where students design and execute their own passion-driven projects. The course is called Innovation and Open Source Learning, and the teacher's name is Don Wettrick. In our podcast interview, Don tells me about how the course works, how he structures it to build in both accountability and freedom for his students, and how he's changed and improved the program over the past six years. The key points from our conversation are summarized below.

My hope is that when you learn about this innovation class, you'll start to think about how you might implement something similar in your own school; if not a fully fledged class, then maybe an after-school club or a pull-out program, a way to differentiate for some students. To learn even more about Don's course and how it works, head over to Don's website, startedupinnovation.com, where you'll find links to his podcast, his Facebook page, and his YouTube channel, where he shares daily video logs that document his students' work in class.

What is this class?

The official name for the course is "Innovation and Open Source Learning." Wettrick started teaching it six years ago as an extension of the Genius Hour idea, where students work on projects of their own design, focusing on topics that interest them.

Although Wettrick found that Genius Hour worked fine in an elementary setting, it wasn't as easy to implement in high school, where time is chunked into different content areas and teachers have fewer hours to spare. So six years ago, he introduced the course as a year-long elective.

How does it actually work?

Part 1: Innovation

The first seven or eight weeks of the course make up the "Innovation" phase: This looks more like a traditional class, where Wettrick does a lot of direct instruction to prepare students for the rest of the year.

During this phase, students are introduced to the concept of innovation and taught to think differently about what school could be like. Wettrick opens their minds to new ways of thinking by exposing them to a collection of ideas and activities.

"We have a couple of TED talks that we watch," he explains. "We'll play a couple of games- Disruptus is such an easy, fun game that gets a lot of things going. I'll give them short excerpts from books like Seth Godin's Linchpin. I have them listen to podcasts. I'll show them clips from Tony Wagner's film Most Likely to Succeed. And I'll show them all the urgency, all this media on 'Schools should change, schools should change, schools should change.'" This helps students understand the point of the course and how it will require them to approach learning in a different way.

While reframing students' thinking, Wettrick also equips them with the tools and skills they'll need for the second phase, where they will actually design and implement their own projects:

Students learn how to set SMART goals.

They study the protocols they will use for planning, implementing, and reflecting on their projects.

They set up public-facing social media profiles "where people want to follow you, that they're shocked and amazed that somebody at 16 years old is going to be tackling great problems," Wettrick says.

Each student starts a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel, which they'll use to submit the required course reflections.

Part 2: Open Source Learning

For the rest of the year, students get to work on their self-directed projects. Some work on a different project every two weeks, while others work on incremental stages of a long-term project.

Wettrick uses the acronym ROTH-IRA to describe their innovation cycle. In this case, it has nothing to do with finances, but the process of thinking of an idea and taking it all the way through and beyond its implementation.

R = Realization
In this step, students are noticing things and thinking about problems that need addressing. "Just go observe things," Wettrick tells them. "And so they'll get this realization. Like, 'Oh my gosh,' and then when they do, I'm asking them to jot it down."

O = Open Discussion
During this phase, students talk through their ideas with the rest of the group, which Wettrick says can lead to challenges. "What you thought may have been a good idea, you say out loud, and then the rest of the group, it's their turn to fight." This leads to the next step.

T = The Tussle
This is part of the open discussion, where students refine their ideas by talking through them-which can often be kind of a "tussle"-with others.

H = Homogeneous Grouping
As students shape their goals, they begin to come together with other students who might want to work toward the same goals but have different skill sets that can complement one another.

Once the idea is in place, the implementation begins.

I = Ideation
This is where students make a plan of action: "What's keystroke one?" Wettrick says. "What is prototype No. 1? What is phone call one? What is connection one?"

R = Reflection
After meeting the first two-week goal, students reflect on their progress, take an honest look at what went wrong, and celebrate successes.

A = Adjustment
Finally, students set new goals based on the progress they've made so far and the lessons they have learned.

This video explores the ROTH-IRA framework in more detail.

How do Students Figure Out What to Do?

All of this sounds really good if students already know what they want to do for their projects. But students who have spent years in a system that tells them exactly what to do need some time to adjust to all this freedom.

Wettrick teaches students how to listen to the conversations they hear in their daily lives. "When you hear people say, 'You know what sucks?' Their ears are going, 'What?' There's money to be made. There (are) problems to be solved. And so they become active searchers of problem solving."

Once students become more attuned to listening for problems, their next step is to choose the problems that fit their interests. "Pick your lane," Wettrick tells them. "If you're really into social justice, look around. What can you do to fix it? Don't go to a protest and that's it. What are you going to do? If your thing is animal cruelty, what are you going to do? If your thing is making money, what are you going to do?"

Before they can start setting goals for a project, students have to get the project approved. Projects have to satisfy what Wettrick calls the rule of thirds: "Rule number 1: Are you passionate about it? That one's easy," he says. "Number 2, what's your skills acquisition on this? And number 3, who is it benefiting other than you? Because I don't care if you're successful. I want you to be empowering others."

Here's an example: One student wanted to focus on day trading. He had a definite passion for it. "He's like, 'Bro, I'm making money. I want to make money,'" Wettrick says. Although his skills weren't great, he was committed to learning. When it came to rule 3, however, the plan wasn't up to par, so Wettrick didn't approve it. So the student decided to start a stock club, where he would teach other students what he was learning and do day trading with simulated money. Then his project was approved.

Some students get rule 3 on the first try, like these two who are building a school in Africa:

Check out these other student projects:

How do you hold students accountable?

As part of their project proposals, students set goals for themselves. Every two weeks students submit reflections on their goals in the form of a blog post, podcast, or video. They also conference with Wettrick about the progress they're making on their goals. Ultimately, their grades are based on the quality of their reflections and on how well they met the goals they set for themselves. This video explains the process:

Learn More

All of this is just a small sample of what Wettrick and his students share online about their process. If you're interested in starting an innovation class in your school, visit Wettrick's website, StartEDUp. Also, check out his courses on Innovation in the classroom.

Even if you're not quite ready to go as far as pushing for a full course like this one, my hope is that this model will provide one more template we can all use to rethink the way we're doing things now, one more approach to making school a place that gives our students a chance to practice solving problems for the rest of their lives. ♦

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

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What is an Innovation Class...and Why Do You Need One?

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Listen to my interview with Don Wettrick (transcript): Sponsored by mysimpleshow and Peergrade This post contains Amazon affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small portion of the sale at no extra cost to you.

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Videos, Pictures, Etc. to engage learners in critical thinking.

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Get five free links to fascinating Puzzlements every Friday.

Send me the links!

If you aren't getting the emails, here's my best advice.

Creating A Culture of Curiosity

Many students don't feel comfortable being curious at school. They've learned that asking a question might make them look foolish, slow down the class, or even upset the teacher.

So if you want curious students, you have to retrain them to be curious again. You have to spend some time creating a culture of curiosity. This mailing list will give you the resources.

Each week, you'll get a list of five free links to fascinating images and intriguing videos to share with your class. Want to see some samples?

What Do I Do With This?

Take a few minutes on Friday, show your favorite puzzlement or two, and simply let your students be curious. Use these two prompts:

What do you notice?

Psst. Most people rush (or skip) this step. Give kids lots of time to notice things. It's the pre-req to our next step...

What do you wonder?

No pressure. No expectations. This is a chance for you to establish:

1. Routine: students come to expect a time to be curious.

2. Safety: they know they can ask a question without being hushed or sidelined.

3. Novelty: the puzzlements are fresh, interesting, and unexpected.

4. A chance for you to praise and (most importantly) model curiosity -- you should be wondering along with the class.

DO NOT: assign homework or create classwork out of these questions or you'll quench the fire.

Now it's time to sign up!

Puzzlements are brought to you by Byrdseed.TV.

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Get five free links to fascinating Puzzlements every Friday. Send me the links! If you aren't getting the emails, here's my best advice. Many students don't feel comfortable being curious at school. They've learned that asking a question might make them look foolish, slow down the class, or even upset the teacher.

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

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# data[].attributes.body
Create your own virtual tours.

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On June 30, 2021, we deactivated the Expeditions and Tour Creator apps.They'll no longer work on your devices, and tours can't be downloaded again after they're gone. You can find many of the tours from Expeditions at g.co/gacexpeditions.

Find Expeditions tours on Google Arts & Culture

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Expeditions & Tour Creator are no longer available

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On June 30, 2021, we deactivated the Expeditions and Tour Creator apps. They'll no longer work on your devices, and tours can't be downloaded again after they're gone. You can find many of the tours f

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Welcome to Prezi, the presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter.

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Create content and apps in one platorm

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Weje - Next Generation Tool for Next Generation Users.

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Equity Maps® - Improve collaboration, reflection & engagement- iPad App for Socratic Seminars, Spider Web Discussions, Literacy Circles, or with any group discussions!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Equity Maps (iPad app) provides immediate feedback to boost collaboration in your group or classroom! Equity Maps charts & plays back the interaction of students or colleagues to graphically illustrate levels of participation. Provide a mirror image of any classroom or meeting to promote deeper reflection among participants.

# data[].attributes.body
Create your own virtual tours

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On June 30, 2021, we deactivated the Expeditions and Tour Creator apps.They'll no longer work on your devices, and tours can't be downloaded again after they're gone. You can find many of the tours from Expeditions at g.co/gacexpeditions.

Find Expeditions tours on Google Arts & Culture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Expeditions & Tour Creator are no longer available

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On June 30, 2021, we deactivated the Expeditions and Tour Creator apps. They'll no longer work on your devices, and tours can't be downloaded again after they're gone. You can find many of the tours f

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Short lessons on a wide-variety of subjects/topics.

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lead4ward makes a difference in the lives of students by helping educators focus their work, creating structures that give teachers and students a sense of hope and confidence, and supporting leaders with systems they can trust.

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Book Creator - Love Learning - Book Creator app

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Teachers love it. Students love it. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.

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Pear Deck is on a mission to help teachers create powerful learning moments for every student, every day - using the tools you already know and love.

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Store, share, and collaborate on files and folders from your mobile device, tablet, or computer

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Help your students classify ideas and communicate more effectively with these free graphic organizer templates, available for download. They can be used to structure writing projects and help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research, and brainstorming.

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

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

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

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RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch.

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One of my favorite reflection lessons is the Reflect 'n' Sketch activity. When I began teaching, I only saw my students as readers and writers. I could see their struggles and successes within my subject alone. Then, after teaching tone and mood to a group of eighth graders, I asked students to draw a picture of the mood of a poem. Through this activity, I saw my struggling readers excel with beautiful artwork. I realized that my subject, English, is not the only skill to be had. Many of my students excelled in other areas, especially those who struggled in my class. This experience inspired my Reflect 'n' Sketch activity. This gives students the option to draw their reflections on a project or activity. Guiding questions guide their artwork, and students can still deliver deep reflections with a medium that inspires them.

5. Reflection Vlog

I tried this for the first time this past fall, and my students absolutely rave about the Reflection Vlog. I gave students the guiding questions found within the Reflect 'n' Sketch activity, and asked them to create a personal Vlog. After each major project or assessment, I asked students to add to their Vlog. Some students chose to upload their videos to YouTube, and others preferred the privacy of simply creating an iMovie or Windows Moviemaker video. With this medium of reflection, students were free to speak about their work, display their work, or add videos and pictures of the process of creating their work. Not only did students find this engaging, but they found that they were able speak freely about their learning. They have commented that they did not feel bound by words, grammar, structure, and organization within the reflection, so they felt that they were better able to express their truest feelings. I can attest to this as I watched their Vlog videos. They opened up more through this 'on camera' experience, than in any other reflection technique!

6. Analyze your work from the teacher's perspective.

When introducing a writing assignment, I would often provide exemplars, or mentor texts, and ask students to assess these using the rubric that would assess their own work. Not only did students better understand the rubric, they better understood the expectations for the writing. This inspired me to have students assess their own work in a similar manner. I ask students to assess their own work from my perspective. This can be via rubric or by simply providing feedback that they believe I would give. Once students get to know me, this feedback can be eerily correct! This helps students to see their work from a new perspective, and often will encourage students to make revisions before they submit their final work!

7. Scrapbook

I have asked my students to create a scrapbook reflection on larger projects; this is especially effective for group work. Students take pictures of the process of their work, students working in their group roles, and of their final project. Each group member can showcase their own pictures or drawings of the groups work. Then students can reflect on their roles within the group, the process of collaboration, their impact on the groups success/failures, and on the learning that was derived from the project's completion. Some students get very creative with this process, and truly enjoy this as much (or more) than the project itself!

8. The Cube of Reflection

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10 Unique and Creative Reflection Techniques & Lessons for the Secondary Student - TeachWriting.org

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As educators, we know how critical reflection is to the learning process. Getting students to reflect- deeply and meaningfully- is often one of the most challenging lessons we teach. I have found that both my middle school and high school students will often scoff at these reflection activities, pro

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Social-emotional learning helps students succeed in the classroom and throughout their lives.

Children need social-emotional skills to thrive both in the classroom and in life. Social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula teach children techniques to:

Gain confidence

Set goals

Make better decisions

Collaborate with others in work and play

Navigate the world more effectively

Committee for Children's research-based Second Step SEL gives teachers an easy-to-implement, engaging way to teach social-emotional skills and concepts. Second Step SEL is designed to help children thrive and be more successful in school-ultimately setting them up to be thoughtful and productive adults.

Social-emotional learning isn't just a feel-good activity. It's not psychotherapy or an attempt to parent kids. Nor is it a substitute for core academic subjects such as math, science, or literacy.

Instead, SEL concepts provide an extra dimension to education, focusing on improving cooperation, communication, and decision making. In a world where emotional intelligence is critical for lifelong happiness, successful careers, and healthier relationships, SEL gives students a framework for developing these skills.

Decades of research have demonstrated the benefits of SEL. A short list of research findings includes the items below.

In a meta-analysis of 213 school-based SEL programs, participants demonstrated significantly improved social and emotional skills, attitudes, and behavior, as well as an 11-percentile-point gain in academic performance.

Children learn social-emotional skills in a variety of ways, including the behavior they see modeled by the adults in their lives. But social-emotional skills and concepts can also be taught explicitly in the classroom, in much the same way math or reading is taught.

How SEL Is Taught in the Classroom

The teacher explains a concept with words, pictures, video, and/or audio

Students practice the concept through skill practice, group discussion, individual writing, or partner work

The teacher continues reinforcing the concept throughout the week

The teacher sends information home for students to work on with parents

The teacher checks for understanding

The teacher re-teaches where necessary

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How Social-Emotional Learning Helps Children Succeed in School, the Workplace, and Life

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How Second Step SEL Can Help

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1. Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1): 405-432.

2. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2007). Background on social and emotional learning (SEL). Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago.

3. Kaukiainen, A., Bjorkqvist, K., Lagerspetz, K., Osterman, K., Salmivalli, C., Rothberg, S., et al. (1999). The relationships between social intelligence, empathy, and three types of aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 25, 81-89.

4. Guay, F., Boivin, M., & Hodges, E. V. E. (1999). Predicting change in academic achievement: A model of peer experiences and self-system processes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 105-115.

5. Smith, B. H., & Low, S. (2013). The role of social-emotional learning in bullying prevention efforts. Theory Into Practice, 52(4), 280-287. doi:10.1080/00405841.2013.829731

6. Belfield, C., Bowden, B., Klapp, A., Levin, H., Shand, R., & Zander, S. (2015). The Economic Value of Social and Emotional Learning. New York: Center for Benefit-Cost Studies in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Back to list of documented benefits

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Social-emotional learning helps students succeed in the classroom and throughout their lives. Children need social-emotional skills to thrive both in the classroom and in life. Social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula teach children techniques to: Gain confidence Set goals Make better decisions Collaborate with others in work and play Navigate the world more effectively Committee for Children's research-based Second Step SEL gives teachers an easy-to-implement, engaging way to teach social-emotional skills and concepts.

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Quick activities that can be used to check for understanding or emphasize key information at the end of a lesson.

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Some strategies are particularly suited to younger students, where often the names that teachers have for these strategies provide a 'shorthand' way of communicating to students that they wish them to provide peer feedback.

For example:

In addition, teachers of all levels can also use the following strategies:

For younger students, it is easier and more effective to encourage oral rather than written feedback.

Two stars and a wish

Students identify two positive aspects of the work of a peer and then express a wish about what the peer might do next time in order to improve another aspect of the work. 'I want to give you a star for the start of your story and a star for the way you described the house. I wish that you will tell us more about Billy.'

Teachers model this strategy several times, using samples of student work, before asking the students to use the strategy in pairs on their own. They check the process and ask pairs who have implemented the strategy successfully to demonstrate it to the whole group.

Plus, minus and what's next?

Students comment on what was done well in relation to the success criteria, and also on what could be done better. This strategy may be better used after the students have become adept at using Two stars and a wish. This strategy can also be used as part of self-assessment, where students use 'What's next?' to set a personal learning target.

Warm and cool feedback

When students comment on the positive aspects of a peer's work, they are said to be giving warm feedback, and when they identify areas that need improvement, they are providing cool feedback. They provide hints on 'how to raise the temperature' when they give advice about how their peer could improve their work.

Traffic lights

Students green-light (using a green highlighter on the margin of the work) the work of their peer to indicate where the success criteria have been achieved, or amber-light where improvement is needed.

This strategy is best used on a work-in-progress, although it could also be used, with coloured sticky notes, to provide feedback on a final piece of work. The suggestions for improvement would then relate to the next occasion on which the students undertook work which required similar skills - writing or number skills, for example.

Using models or exemplars

Teachers demonstrate for students how they can match the work of a peer to an exemplar which most closely resembles its qualities. For example, for young students exemplars of handwriting which reflect a range of qualities (letters on/off line, no spaces/spaces between words, straight/crooked letters, mixture of upper- and lower-case letters etc.) can be displayed in the classroom and students asked to match the handwriting of the peer with the appropriate exemplar.

Students explain to the peer why they have selected this particular exemplar and, using other exemplars, explain what the peer needs to do in order to improve his/her handwriting.

Exemplars of various products (written and 3-D) can be displayed in the classroom for use both by individuals to self-assess and also by peers to provide feedback. If there is concern that providing a model will lead to copying or stifle imagination and creativity, the teacher might consider providing exemplars of parts of the product - for example, an effective introduction or an interesting use of media in an artwork.

When employing exemplars as a self-assessment strategy, students use the exemplars to help them articulate what changes they need to make to their own work in order to achieve the success criteria.

De Bono's Thinking hats

Because the Thinking hats encourage thinking from different perspectives, they can be used to focus students' feedback to their peers. Again, teachers model the use of the Thinking hats and train students in their use before asking them to use the hats as one of the peer feedback strategies.

The Yellow hat, for instance, encourages students to think about the 'good points' and to ask themselves questions such as 'Why will this work?' The Black hat urges caution and evaluation: 'Is this true? What are the weaknesses?' while the Green hat encourages creative thinking: 'Is there another way of doing this?' 'What would be better?' 'How else can this be done?'

Giving different students different hats can make peer feedback more focused and manageable for younger students. That way, each individual doesn't have to consider every aspect of the peer feedback but can concentrate on just one.

Using a rubric

For larger assessment activities conducted over a period of time, the rubric, which has been negotiated with students at the beginning of the task, can be used as the basis for paired discussions about progress. If students are very clear about the qualities of work implied by the various levels of performance described on a rubric, they can provide useful feedback to their peers.

If rubrics are to be (a) designed so they do capture the difference between levels of performance and (b) used effectively by students not only as a peer feedback tool but also as a self-assessment tool, then students need explicit teaching so they understand the differences between, for example, work which lists benefits as opposed to work which describes those benefits or explains them or evaluates them. An understanding of the language used by the rubric is essential.

Click here to access an example of a rubric for a letter-writing task for a Year 8 Geography class.

Helping students to decide how this rubric would be applied to a model letter would be a valuable learning activity.

The teacher:

1. shows students a model of a letter written in response to this task

2. goes through the language of the rubric with the students, unpacking any terms that they do not understand

3. involves students in the process of using the rubric to provide feedback on the model letter.

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Some strategies are particularly suited to younger students, where often the names that teachers have for these strategies provide a 'shorthand' way of communicating to students that they wish them to provide peer feedback. For example: In addition, teachers of all levels can also use the following strategies: For younger students, it is easier and more effective to encourage oral rather than written feedback.

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Analyzing Student Work: Using Peer Feedback to Improve Instruction

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Training Students on How to Give Feedback

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Training Students on How to Give Feedback

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critique and feedback - the story of austin's butterfly - Ron Berger

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Scope and Sequence of Management & Rigor; Feedback Protocol

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While everyone is working to create social distance, you may have a luxury rarely afforded before-time for online professional development. We encourage you to consider using this time to provide vital learning for yourself and your staff.

Safe & Civil Schools has been working to create a variety of web-based training options. Below are possible offerings at the individual, classroom, and schoolwide levels. We are also happy to work with you to create a customized plan that will meet your needs. We can train whole teams or individuals, in full-day inservice or hourly training sessions.

Our new Encore Model is designed to provide the results you want in the time you have. Training will be distributed over time and repeated during teacher planning periods or in small learning communities.

Training accommodates the needs of your campus or district schedules. This model is effective for training new staff or enhancing an ongoing implementation.
Please call 800.323.8819 or email our professional development specialists to create a plan to make the most of the current situation.
Building on over 30 years of experience, Randy Sprick and associates refine decades of research on effective teaching methods into practical, easy-to-use principles and procedures. Our staff development has helped school districts throughout North America build the knowledge base needed to create positive school environments that are emotionally and physically safe and that foster independence, integrity, confidence, self-control, kindness, and responsibility.

Explore our web site to learn how our workshops and inservice trainings, consultation, books, and DVDs result in outstanding professional development for K-12 educators. Then, contact us to learn how we can help! Working together we can make a positive difference in your school!

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Positive Behavior Management Strategies for K-12 Educators from Safe & Civil Schools

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While everyone is working to create social distance, you may have a luxury rarely afforded before-time for online professional development. We encourage you to consider using this time to provide vital learning for yourself and your staff. Safe & Civil Schools has been working to create a variety of web-based training options.

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Whole Brain Teaching - The fastest growing education reform movement in the world!

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You must be a member of our Super Improver group to access all trainings. These are Facebook Live events where you can comment live to ask questions and join in the fun. Recordings of past trainings will also be available to view anytime using the same link above.

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Find resources to help students manage their emotions, resolve conflicts, and make responsible decisions—creating the healthiest school culture possible.

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These challenges include preparing students for a global economy and equipping them with skills to successfully navigate a world of constant change and choice. Additionally, principles embodied in Leader in Me, such as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® and The 4 Disciplines of Execution®, transcend cultural boundaries with their universality, preparing every kind of student for what lies ahead.

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The theory of learning styles is widely popular in education. It claims that learners have preferences about how they receive and process information. In education, we usually categorize these preferences into styles such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. These theories are alluring because they are low lift for the classroom and promise better results for students, but research has shown that they lack scientific support.

Challenging Learning Styles Theory

The problem is our understanding of the theory. We often see learners as fixed within one of the styles. Kozhenvnikov, Evans, and Kosslyn found that cognitive preferences are actually a matrix between all of a learner's processing strategies matched with the task at hand. For example, a single student may choose visual methods to process science and kinesthetic methods to process English. What's more, students may use more than one style at once and choose different styles even within a given subject.

This understanding dispels the thought that learning styles are static and can categorize students. Research also highlights other issues of learning styles theory. Let's unpack just a few of the questions that are difficult for learning styles to answer:

In summary, there is no evidence that supports sorting learners into learning styles improves achievement. Despite widespread acceptance, learners would be better served by teachers focusing on evidence-based strategies to improve learning.

If not learning styles, what theories describe learner processing differences in a meaningful way? One answer could be multiple intelligences.

Exploring Multiple Intelligences

Developed in 1983 by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, the theory of multiple intelligences defines intelligence as a humans' ability to solve problems in multiple contexts. Compare this definition to an IQ test, which suggests that there is a single score for intelligence and that the score is measured outside of natural activities and contexts. It may stand to reason that learners have more than one dimension of intelligence that is best measured within real-world contexts. Combine this with Kozhenvnikov et al.'s idea that learners have a range of skills to apply across contexts, and we might begin to reframe the idea of intelligence altogether.

Could multiple intelligences be like learning styles: popular but lacking support? After all, Gardner's research required each intelligence to meet eight stringent criteria to be defined as an intelligence. Through his research process, Gardner identified eight intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Like learning styles, these categories have been scrutinized because it is difficult to prove that Intelligence types are the sole cause of learning outcomes and that they are fully separated from other factors. It is hard to find compelling research supporting specific Intelligences as the cause of success, but, unlike learning styles, multiple intelligence theory offers some key ideas that have been supported by research (Armstrong, 2017):

Everyone possesses some degree of each type of intelligence.

Almost everyone can develop competency in each type of Intelligence.

The intelligence types are intertwined in complex ways.

There are multiple ways to demonstrate each type of intelligence.

Applying Theory to Classroom Learning

Educators want to understand their students in an effort to best serve them, so theories that categorize learners to improve classroom practice are enticing. However, in making a complex theory practical for the classroom, we often define a learner in fixed, static ways. Imagine a student being told that he or she is a kinesthetic learner, having that label reinforced, then having to sit in a two-hour long college lecture. Conceptualizing learners as fixed and static is neither helpful to the learner, nor does it improve results. Rather, we should remember that learners' abilities and preferences vary in different contexts and on different tasks.

Here are some practical steps that capitalize on learners' multidimensionality in the classroom:

Approach all students knowing they have multidimensionality ability and can raise any dimension to proficiency through expert instruction, effort, and practice. Verbally remind your students of this, as it will increase their self-efficacy.

Foster a growth mindset for all, and challenge fixed mindsets, even ones that appear helpful on the surface.

Provide different ways for students to learn materal and different ways to demonstrate their understanding and mastery. Include different modalities for written expression, and offer interpersonal opportunities to demonstrate proficiency.

Remember that students process information differently as the subject, context, or task changes. Avoid believing in static labels or ability levels.

Avoid catch-all strategies that promise the answer. Thinking is complex. Learners are complex. Deeply understand your learners and fine-tune strategies to meet their needs.

At Edmentum, we are committed to unpacking and applying learning theory to our high-quality, rigorous curricula and assessments and then partnering with educators to help them implement current research in practical ways. Look for more on our blog and Edmentum.com.

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Kinesthetic, Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Oh My! What Are Learning Modalities and How Can You Incorporate Them in the Classroom?

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In education, learning modalities (also known as learning styles) are defined as the ways in which students use their senses throughout the learning process to acquire new skills. Let's take a closer look at what some of the research and commentary on this topic says to determine how much value can be gained by weaving these styles into your instruction.