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What is Academic Rigor and What Do We Do with It?

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What is Academic Rigor and What Do We Do with It?

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What is Academic Rigor and What Do We Do with It? - TeachHUB

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It's important to challenge students academically while ensuring they don't get overwhelmed. Learn more about academic rigor and what to do with it.

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While ChatGPT is soaking up all the AI glory right now, there are plenty of ChatGPT alternatives that should be on every teacher's radar. From personalizing learning experiences to automating administrative tasks, AI tools have the potential to transform teaching and learning. Although some teachers are hesitant to embrace AI, there are numerous productive ways to use AI tools like ChatGPT in the classroom. Below is a collection of some of the best AI tools for education that go beyond the typical chatbot.

Goal: I want to save time on grading

Gradescope is a handy AI-powered platform that streamlines grading for assignments and exams. It offers helpful features like automatic grading and rubric-based assessments, and provides detailed feedback to students. It's a huge time-saver!

Goal: I want to encourage creativity

Bing Image Creator is an awesome AI tool that combines existing images from the internet to generate custom composite images. It can be used in the classroom to create visuals for presentations and design custom graphics. This is a great resource to spice up your creative writing routine-have your students create unique characters for storytelling!

Goal: I want to elevate my teaching craft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dezCxrniAMs

With Education CoPilot, educators can access an unlimited amount of AI-based assistance to streamline virtually all areas of the teaching craft. With this one-stop shop, you can access curriculum-aligned content, generate activities, and track student performance. Try any or all of its handy features to boost your planning efficiency.

Goal: I want go-to video software

Yippity is an innovative AI-powered platform that enhances video creation. It automates various aspects of video production, including editing, effects, and customization. Book trailer projects would be a great use for this tool.

Goal: I want to streamline essay grading

Easy Grader is an AI tool for education that analyzes and assesses the quality of written assignments to automatically calculate scores. You can create assessments, provide feedback, generate reports, and more.

Goal: I want to provide quick and detailed feedback

This popular AI tool for education is widely used for plagiarism detection, but it also incorporates technology for grading and assessment. It offers tools like GradeMark, which allows instructors to annotate and evaluate student submissions digitally, providing feedback and assigning grades.

Goal: I want to incorporate independent studying

QuizBot is an AI chatbot designed to help students with quiz preparation. It can generate practice questions, provide instant feedback on answers, and offer explanations for correct and incorrect responses. Use this tool to boost study practices in your classroom-try implementing independent or group study halls.

Goal: I want to encourage foreign language use

Best for foreign language teachers, Duolingo utilizes AI chatbots to facilitate language practice. The chatbots engage students in conversation, assess their language skills, and provide interactive language exercises and feedback to improve proficiency. This tool could be great to incorporate into a Daily Language Journal, where students can interact with the chatbot and document their growth.

Goal: I want to promote group studying

Brainly is an AI tool for education that includes an awesome chatbot component. It allows students to ask academic questions and receive answers from a community of students and subject matter experts. The chatbot can provide real-time assistance and help with homework, explanations, and problem-solving. This ChatGPT alternative can be used to encourage virtual study groups for nearly any subject, which will boost collaboration among your students.

Goal: I want a one-stop shop for student questions

Socratic is an AI resource designed to assist students with their academic questions. It provides helpful step-by-step explanations, relevant resources, and content to help students enhance their understanding. Try using Socratic to elevate your classroom research or debate projects.

Goal: I want to boost my students' writing skills

Grammarly is a household name to many. Grammarly Premium also gets great reviews in the classroom. This awesome AI platform provides real-time grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style suggestions for any written content. You can leverage Grammarly to streamline essay grading or to facilitate independent or peer-review practices for written assignments.

Goal: I want to spice up student projects

Dall-E is an AI model that generates images from specific prompts or descriptions. As long as your students can describe it, Dall-E can create it. This ChatGPT alternative can be a fun component to incorporate into scientific illustration projects and more.

Goal: I want to streamline my written assessment feedback

Cognii is an AI tool that provides automated feedback on written assignments. It evaluates students' responses, offering personalized feedback on content, style, and structure. In the classroom, Cognii can be leveraged to assess virtual debate projects-it can analyze written arguments and "judge" accordingly.

Goal: I want to expedite classroom presentation prep

This ChatGPT alternative has several AI-powered tools within Canva, including Magic Write and Magic Design, that can basically craft templates, content, and images in seconds. It's a fabulous time-saver for teachers and a fun way to spice up classroom presentation prep. Challenge your students to create presentations about the solar system, and watch them go!

Goal: I want a resource that helps students with math

Wolfram Alpha is an AI tool for education that provides answers and step-by-step solutions to complex concepts. Primarily used for math, this tool can essentially coach your students through any math problem using familiar, replicable methods; it acts almost as a tutor or academic coach. This can be used for assessment prep, homework help, and everything in between.

Goal: I want my students to be resourceful

IBM Watson Assistant is an AI-powered virtual assistant that can answer students' questions, provide explanations, and offer support on virtually any topic. In the classroom, it can be used to answer questions in real time. This handy tool could be helpful with student research projects-encourage your class to interact with the virtual assistant to clarify their research objectives, refine their search, and receive real-time feedback.

Goal: I want to make note-taking more efficient

Dragon Dictation is a voice-to-text AI tool that converts spoken words into written text. Students can use Dragon Dictation to transcribe their thoughts, ideas, or even classroom discussions, making it useful for note-taking or creating written assignments. This is an awesome resource to leverage for lecture-based note-taking-have your students queue up the software and present your lesson as usual. No more sloppy notebooks!

Goal: I want to help my struggling readers

On the flip side, Speechify is an AI-based text-to-speech tool that converts written text into audio. Here, students can follow along with the text as it is read aloud, helping them to better understand the content and improve their comprehension skills. This is a great go-to resource for book clubs or group reading projects-everyone gets the same content at once.

Goal: I want to quickly grade multiple-choice assessments

Akindi is an AI-based multiple-choice-exam grading tool. It can scan and grade multiple-choice answer sheets automatically, so you don't have to. This AI tool for education also includes a reports feature to help you gain insights into student performance.

Goal: I want to streamline my video note sheets

Looking for ChatGPT alternatives for videos? Try YouTube Summary with ChatGPT, which uses AI to generate concise summaries of YouTube videos, which helps students grasp key ideas without watching the entire video. In the classroom, it can be used to provide students with condensed versions of educational videos for easy video note-taking.

Goal: I want to simplify written response feedback

LightSIDE is another open-source AI tool specifically designed for grading and providing feedback on student-written responses. It specializes in analyzing and evaluating essays, short answers, and other written assignments based on predefined criteria. Simply describe what you want to grade, and the software will do the rest!

Goal: I want to highlight key concepts in video content

VideoAnt is an AI tool for education that allows teachers to annotate and add comments to videos. With it, teachers can highlight important concepts, promote discussion, and more. This tool is awesome for guided note-taking-just annotate some key ideas throughout a video to prompt students toward noting the important stuff.

Goal: I want to incorporate more independent and self-paced learning

Quizlet is a classic go-to AI tool for education. This awesome learning platform allows teachers to create and share study materials online. Students can access flash cards, quizzes, and more for self-paced learning. Challenge your class to create a collective, comprehensive flash card deck to help boost study efforts.

Goal: I want to save time on making lesson slides

Did you know there are ChatGPT alternatives that can help you quickly create slide decks? Slides AI automatically generates slide templates, recommends appropriate fonts and color schemes, and provides guidance on optimizing the overall visual impact of presentations. Simply enter the text that you want to create your presentation from, customize the look, and voilà!

Goal: I want to streamline assessment creation

Conker helps teachers create multiple-choice, read-and-respond, and fill-in-the-blank quizzes. This tool is another awesome time-saving resource and is guaranteed to streamline your assessment creation.

Goal: I want to encourage proofreading

This is one of the ChatGPT alternatives that is a game-changer in terms of essay writing. It will offer you and your students suggestions for sentence rephrasing, vocabulary enhancement, and grammar correction. This is a great tool to use for independent proofreading or peer review.

Goal: I want my students to get to the point

This awesome tool can analyze and condense lengthy pieces of text into concise summaries, capturing the key ideas and important details. Your students can get exactly what they need from videos, lectures, and large documents from this ChatGPT alternative.

Goal: I want to spark class conversation

Parlay Genie is a discussion-prompt generator. It crafts higher-order thinking questions for your class based on a topic, a YouTube video, or an article. Use it to spark conversation following a lesson, elevate partner study routines, or generate journal-writing questions.

Goal: I want to spice up my history projects

Hello History is a one-of-a-kind AI app that facilitates lifelike conversations with historical figures. Students can get a detailed personal perspective on life, history, and the world from some of the most influential figures of all time.

Goal: I want my students well prepared for presentations

Speaker Coach is an interactive AI technology that gives you feedback on oral presentations. It can detect and evaluate your vocabulary, pacing, tone, and more. Encourage presentation practice in your classroom with this ChatGPT alternative.

Goal: I want my lessons to be interactive

Curipod is an awesome interactive slide-presentation tool. Here, teachers can incorporate polls, drawings, Q&A slides, and more right into their lesson slide deck. And better yet, Curipod will generate the whole slide deck for you based on the lesson topic.

For more articles like this, be sure to subscribe to our free newsletters for all the latest teaching tips and ideas!

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ChatGPT Alternatives: 31 AI Tools Teachers Should Know About

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Use these 31 unique and innovative ChatGPT alternatives to spice up or just simplify your educational craft!

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Artificial intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds. It's no longer science fiction anymore!

Lots of AI tools can serve as our own personal assistants -- answering questions, helping us write text, create images, speak more effectively, and more.

Time has always been a barrier in the classroom. Most teachers would agree that they would be able to do more -- including the things that are most important -- if they had more time.

Teachers can find AI tools that are ready to help them out right now. Lots of them are free or have "freemium" plans with limited free options.

Below is a description of AI and how you can start using it to support your work in class.

What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the ability of a computer or machine to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving, decision-making, and more. There are several different approaches to building AI systems, including machine learning, where a system is trained on a dataset and can improve its performance over time, and rule-based systems, where the system follows a set of predetermined rules to make decisions.

AI can be applied to a wide range of areas, including natural language processing, image and video recognition, robotics, and more. The goal of AI research is to create systems that can perform tasks at least as well as, or ideally better than, humans. AI has the potential to revolutionize many industries and transform the way we live and work, but it also raises important ethical and social questions.

30 AI tools for the classroom

We have gathered 30 of our favorite AI tools for the classroom below. You can scroll down and check them all out or jump to any category of tools by clicking on the icon below.
Note: Pricing is accurate as of our most recent update in November 2023.

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Artificial intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds. It's no longer science fiction anymore! Lots of AI tools can serve as our own personal

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If you haven't seen the all new Adobe Express then you're in for a big surprise. With thousands (yes, thousands) of templates, Adobe Stock and Fonts integration, along with Generative AI and easy to use video creation tools, Adobe Express is a must-have tool for teachers and students.

What is Adobe Express?

Adobe Express is an all-in-one content creation tool designed to make it easy for anyone to create eye-catching graphics, videos, and more. It offers a wide range of features and templates, making it an ideal tool for educators to unleash creative learning experiences for your students.

With Adobe Express, teachers and students can create lots of different types of content, such as photo essays, field trip reflections, book reports, graphics and more, using professionally designed templates and assets. The platform is available on both web and mobile devices which makes it accessible and convenient for everyone.

Getting started with Adobe Express

Adobe Express has an incredibly user-friendly interface but it can be helpful to have a walkthrough for yourself or your students. Check out this beginner-friendly tutorial video from the Adobe YouTube channel:

How to Use Adobe Express | Tutorial for Beginners in Under 5 Minutes. This video provides an overview of the features and shows you how to create content using Adobe Express.

Looking for more tutorials? Check out these getting started videos.

Five reasons why Adobe Express is a must-have tool for your classroom:

1. Generative AI

Adobe Express incorporates Adobe's Firefly generative AI model, which gives users new ways to bring their ideas to life. With generative AI, you can create custom images and text effects using text prompts. As an educator you can use this feature to generate unique and engaging visuals for your lessons and activities.

💡Idea for using Generative AI in your classroom: Ask your students to create a prompt to describe a story setting. Use the magic of Generative AI to create it then ask them to write the story that goes along with it.

Learn more about Adobe Express Generative AI: Adobe Express, the fast, easy and fun, all-in-one app, with Adobe Firefly generative AI built in now offers even more

2. All-in-one editor

Adobe Express offers a user-friendly all-in-one editor that makes is easy for users to create and edit graphics, photos, and videos. With beautifully designed templates and assets you and your students can easily create visually appealing content. Check out the graphic below to learn a little bit about the all-in-one editor. Or better yet try Adobe Express out for yourself!

3. Animate from Audio

The Animate from Audio feature in Adobe Express allows users to create simple character animations using audio. This feature can be used to create engaging and interactive content for students or it can be used by students themselves. Use animations as a lesson hook to capture students' attention at the beginning of an activity or have students use it to explain their understanding of a concept.

💡Idea for using Animate from Audio in your classroom: Use the "Introduce yourself with Animate from Audio" Back to School Creative Challenge to teach students how to use this feature. Then have students use the same idea to create an "About Me" animation from the point of view of a book character or historical figure.

Learn more about Animate from Audio: Animate from audio | Adobe Express

4. Real-time collaboration

Adobe Express supports real-time collaboration, allowing students to work together on projects and share their ideas. This feature is great for teachers collaborating with colleagues or students working together in a group in person or virtually.

Learn more about real-time collaboration: Collaborate and comment in Adobe Express

5. Interoperability with Photoshop and Illustrator

Adobe Express is compatible with Photoshop and Illustrator which allows even more creativity within the editor. You can utilize the advanced features of Photoshop and Illustrator while still inside the easy to use Adobe Express editor.

Learn more about Interoperability with Photoshop and Illustrator: Work with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator creative assets

Adobe Express is a fun and versatile tool that can be useful in and out of the classroom. With its awesome generative AI, all-in-one editor, Animate from Audio feature, real-time collaboration, and compatibility with Photoshop and Illustrator, Adobe Express is a must-have tool for teachers and students. So go ahead, give it a try and see what creativity you and your students can unleash!

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5 reasons why Adobe Express is a must-have tool for your classroom

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This post is sponsored by Adobe If you haven't seen the all new Adobe Express then you're in for a big surprise. With thousands (yes, thousands) of

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Now, we're wondering ...

Calculators.
Search engines.
Google Translate.
Wikipedia.
PhotoMath.#ChatGPT.

They disrupt traditional teaching.

We adapt. Education evolves forward.

Blocking them isn't the answer.

Making education more relevant is.
- Matt Miller (@jmattmiller) December 14, 2022

Jump straight to a section (click a button below):

⭐️ Add thoughts, ideas, resources in the comments at the bottom! ⭐️

Define: ChatGPT, GPT3, chatbots, and artificial intelligence.

These are some of the important things to understand as we wrap our brains around what this is and how to navigate it in the classroom.

I'll do plenty of my own human thinking and reasoning, but for the purposes of information, I'm going to let ChatGPT give us working definitions to use:

1. ChatGPT, what are you?

I am an artificial intelligence assistant trained by OpenAI to help answer questions and provide information on a wide variety of topics. I am not a physical being, but rather a program that is designed to process and generate text based on the input I receive. My primary function is to assist users like you by providing information and answering questions to the best of my ability. I have been designed to have a conversational style and can understand and respond to natural language input. I do not have personal experiences or feelings, and my responses are based solely on the information and knowledge that has been programmed into me. Is there anything else you would like to know?

2. What is GPT3?

GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) is a language generation model developed by OpenAI. It is a neural network-based machine learning model that is trained on a large dataset of text data to generate human-like text. GPT-3 has the ability to perform a wide range of language tasks, including translation, summarization, question answering, and text generation. It can be fine-tuned on specific tasks or used to generate text in a more general sense. GPT-3 has received a lot of attention due to its impressive performance on various language tasks and its ability to generate human-like text.

3. What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet. Chatbots are often used in customer service, marketing, and other areas where being able to communicate with customers or users in a natural, human-like way is important. Chatbots can be programmed to understand and respond to specific commands or questions, or they can be more general and able to hold a conversation with users on a wide range of topics. They can be integrated into websites, messaging apps, and other digital platforms, and they can be programmed to use natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand and respond to user input. Chatbots can be very useful for automating tasks and providing quick responses to frequently asked questions, but they are not as advanced as some other artificial intelligence (AI) systems and may not be able to hold more complex or nuanced conversations.

4. What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the ability of a computer or machine to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving, decision-making, and more. There are several different approaches to building AI systems, including machine learning, where a system is trained on a dataset and can improve its performance over time, and rule-based systems, where the system follows a set of predetermined rules to make decisions. AI can be applied to a wide range of areas, including natural language processing, image and video recognition, robotics, and more. The goal of AI research is to create systems that can perform tasks at least as well as, or ideally better than, humans. AI has the potential to revolutionize many industries and transform the way we live and work, but it also raises important ethical and social questions.

What are the implications for the classroom?

As soon as the genie was out of the lamp, so to speak, there were effects of ChatGPT and AI on teaching and learning. Whether we felt those impacts right away or not, as soon as it was released, things have the potential to change. Below, we'll talk about ChatGPT in particular, but know that this is just the first one ... and we're thinking long-term about new products to come later.

1. Students can use ChatGPT to do their assignments.

There. I'll just say it clearly and plainly since we're all thinking it. For lots of assignment types (not all of them!), students can ask ChatGPT to do the work for them. They can copy/paste the work into a document or your learning management system and submit it.

2. TurnItIn and other plagiarism checkers can't catch it.

What ChatGPT creates is an original work each time you ask it. It creates something new every time you ask, and its responses are not in the databases of plagiarism checkers. ChatGPT doesn't keep a log of responses it creates, and even if it did, I'm thinking OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT) has no incentive to make all of that available to plagiarism checkers. (Even if it did, the processing power necessary to query that database would be enormous.)

Some people will, undoubtedly, try to find ChatGPT detectors to track down students using it (in a similar way to plagiarism checkers). You may find them. I found one on social media called GPT-2 Output Detector Demo. It's a demo, so it's not a finished product. It's based on GPT2 technology (which is a predecessor to the GPT3 technology that ChatGPT is using as of the writing of this post).

Also, it can be wildly inaccurate. I copied a blog post I wrote into it and it identified it as 92.54% chance of being real. I copied something out of ChatGPT and it identified it as 99.98% chance of being fake. ("Fake," being the term for "written by a bot.") A poem ChatGPT created for a friend, however, was flagged as real.

Beware of using detectors as your way of dealing with this.

They're not reliable. And this approach isn't the long-term solution to helping your students become modern learners.

3. Schools and districts will try to block it, but that won't stop much.

Immediately, IT admins are going to have to decide if they want to block ChatGPT with their internet firewalls. And lots of them will indeed block it. If they do, I hope they don't think that they've solved the "problem" they think they have on their hands.

First of all, blocking ChatGPT on the school's network won't do much. Sure, students won't be able to access it with their school devices on the school network. But did you know that students have cell phones? Phones that operate on a cellular network that the school can't control? They can run to the bathroom, sit in a stall, ask ChatGPT for answers, copy them to a document, come back to class, and transfer the text on that document into their assignment and turn it in. (They can do that at home, too. Or on the bus. Or quietly under the desk in the classroom.)

Whether to block ChatGPT school-wide is still a decision schools and districts have to make.
The bigger decision is: what will teaching and learning look like going forward now that this technology is available?
(Check out the section below called, "Should we block it or try to ban it?")

4. ChatGPT and forthcoming chatbots like it have their limitations.

When you load ChatGPT for the first time, it even tells you what some of its limitations are. Here are a few that it states -- and some others to be aware of for schools/classrooms:

It may occasionally generate incorrect information. As of publication of this post, it's still in "free research preview." That means it's an imperfect product that they're trying to improve.

It may occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content. Any artificial intelligence is as good as the dataset it's drawing from -- and how it uses it. It has to make judgment calls just like humans do. Bias exists in judgments. It's still learning how to work with and eliminate its bias.

It has limited knowledge of world and events after 2021. Think of its dataset in a sealed box. It isn't drawing from current events. It can't pull anything from social media. It can't even search the active internet.

It won't make ethical decisions for you. I've asked it a few things where it has to make decisions based on morals, ethics and personal values. It has declined, explaining that that's beyond the scope of what it's trained to do.

I've heard that it struggles to do math sometimes. I admit this is a really, really subjective thing to include with very little to back it up. I keep seeing posts on social media about this. Take this for what it's worth to you.

5. School/class uses of ChatGPT, chatbots, and AI aren't all bad.

Lots of teachers are making judgment calls about the use of this new technology, and many are concerned about its immediate impacts. Here's the truth: it'll make lots of teachers reconsider some types of assignments they'll assign going forward. Hey, they don't want to know how a bot will respond to their prompts, questions, and assignments. They want to use it to gauge learning in a human being. It makes sense.

But let's put it this way. There are some really, really mindless, terrible writing prompts out there ... and math worksheets ... and project assignments. If we're looking long-term, this technology will eventually start to push some of those terrible assignments out and force us to come up with something new. It'll probably be painful, and many of us will probably hate parts of the process. But in the end, we will evolve to something better.j

Also -- just like we did with the calculator, Wikipedia and Google searches -- students and teachers will find productive, meaningful ways to use this new technology for teaching and learning. (More on that below.)

6. Students will have to learn how to navigate life with AI.

Big picture, this is a shift students will deal with for the rest of their lives. Artificial intelligence will continue to get better and better. This version of ChatGPT is the weakest, most rudimentary artificial intelligence of its kind our students will ever use. My friend Holly Clark called it the "Commodore 64 of AI" -- a technology that was revolutionary at the time but is now seen as antiquated and obsolete.

Students will have to wrestle with questions of humanity -- what sets us apart as humans? When should AI be used, and when shouldn't it be?

They'll wrestle with questions of obsolescence -- what can I do that AI can't do? How can I do my best to be sure my work, my passions, my place in this world isn't replaced by artificial intelligence?

They'll wrestle with ethical questions -- how can AI use be fair, equitable, unbiased, good? What happens if it gets in the hands of bad actors? How can I make sure I'm using it in an ethical way?

How do I teach class tomorrow knowing this exists?

Now we know there's an AI product that students can use to do their assignments. And we can't block it. And maybe we feel powerless.

What do we do tomorrow? How do we write lesson plans knowing that this exists -- so that students continue learning right now and don't just turn in answers from a bot?

Consider this your "break glass in case of emergency" section.

1. There's no shame in using paper and pencil -- for now.

I don't think this is the right answer long-term. But in this section of this article with the green background, we're talking about how to weather the storm TODAY until we understand what to do next.

If we close up the computers and ask students to write something on paper, we know it's being generated by their own brains. If you have a crucial essay that needs to be written -- and you're not ready to re-imagine the education system and innovate teaching today -- this can help you survive tomorrow.

But please ... please, please, please ... please do not plan for the long-term like this. This AI technology isn't going away, and its effects will be sprawling and widespread.

2. Make use of collaborative learning and discussions.

When Google Translate started growing, it made people ask questions like we are with ChatGPT. Do I need to learn a language? Then, we learned, if we want to have a true conversation with another human and build relationships, we can't do that effectively by typing everything into Translate. (Even though 90 Day Fiance tried to prove otherwise.)

When students discuss, they do so from their own working and long-term memory. Sure, they can look up quick answers, but to carry on a conversation, most of the work comes from their own thinking. After a discussion, students can recap the discussion and share their reflections about it ... and that's much harder to do with a bot.

Collaborative learning can have these kinds of benefits, too. When students work together, even if they're pulling information from Google or Wikipedia or ChatGPT, they're still talking about what they got, if it fits, how to organize it, how to communicate it effectively, etc.

3. Have students make creative demonstrations of learning.

There's so much benefit from classroom creativity that goes beyond trying to beat an AI chatbot. Creativity in learning can help students with motivation. It can help them make use of their own unique talents and skills. It can help them feel seen and heard and noticed.

When students take what they've learned -- or information they've found from other sources -- they're engaging in elaboration. And that's a good thing.

"Elaboration in learning involves meaning-enhancing additions, constructions, or generations that improve one's memory for what is being learned." ( via ScienceDirect)

Take what you've learned (or gathered). Organize it. Make something with it. And while you do that, you're better understanding what you have.

4. Use retrieval practice, brain dumps, and other memory strategies.

Retrieval practice is the idea of strengthening your long-term memory by recalling everything you can about a specific topic. It seems too easy and too good to be true, but it's been backed by cognitive science for decades. This is a study strategy that helps students strengthen what they've already learned and reflect on what they are learning.

Students can do a "brain dump," where they recall (on paper, verbally, in a document, etc.) everything they know about topics like:

What do you remember from class yesterday?

What do you remember about (this topic) we studied a week ago?

What do you remember about (this topic) we studied last semester?

What do you know about (this topic) we haven't studied yet?

What do you know about (this person)?

What do you know about (this very broad topic)?

What do you know about (this narrow subtopic)?

Brain science (much of which can be found at RetrievalPractice.org) tells us at that these brain dumps build long-term memory the best when they are ungraded. They're a study skill, not a formative assessment.

These memory strategies focus on what students have already learned, and they're pulled from student memory -- not from an AI bot.

If teachers aren't ready to embrace AI, how can they teach without students using AI to cheat? It is important for teachers to be aware of the potential for students to use AI to cheat and to take steps to prevent it. One way to do this is to use methods of assessment that cannot be easily cheated, such as open-ended questions or projects that require original thought and creativity. Teachers can also use tools such as plagiarism detection software to check for copied content in student work. In addition to preventing cheating, it is also important for teachers to educate their students about the appropriate and ethical use of AI. This can include discussing the potential risks and consequences of using AI to cheat, as well as the importance of honesty and integrity in academic work. Ultimately, it is important for teachers to stay up to date with the latest technologies, including AI, and to be proactive in addressing any potential issues that may arise in the classroom. This may require teachers to seek professional development opportunities or to collaborate with others who are more familiar with AI.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

Can I use this as a tool for teaching and learning?

The answer here, I believe is: ABSOLUTELY. The longer that AI and tools like ChatGPT are around, the more that teachers will try new teaching and learning strategies with it.

The more that teachers try new things and share them widely, the more that the educator community will move forward with new ideas. In short: we will figure this out together, even though it will take some time.

But ... what will it look like?

Here are some ideas, brainstormed by me (a human), by others (with citations provided) and by the bot (because, why not ask it too?).

ChatGPT doesn't just write your students' essays for you.

20 ways ChatGPT can help you teach/learn

🧵 /startthread

1. Ask ChatGPT to write your lesson plans. (Or at least to get some new ideas.)
- Matt Miller (@jmattmiller) December 19, 2022

1. Use it as a more complex, nuanced source of information than Google.

During conversations with students and in-class discussions, we can ask ChatGPT (and other tools like it) to provide us the information we need to drive a conversation forward. The bot's response isn't the first and last word in the conversation. Rather, it just provides details that we can use to discuss a topic.

2. Use it to provide students access to lots of good examples.

Think about how musicians and artists develop their style. They copy their mentors. They take their favorite influences and emulate them. Artists take a canvas to an art gallery or the park, and they paint what they see.

I keep remembering this quote from fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, which I learned about through Austin Kleon's book, Steal Like an Artist:

"Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find yourself." -- Yohji Yamamoto

This is also the benefit of being well-read. When students see enough good examples, they start to know what to expect of good writing. Good reasoning. Good logic. They see the hallmarks of it and they can emulate it ... much like a writer or painter emulates the greats.

Artificial intelligence can give students unlimited good examples. (Note that I didn't say "great" examples, but "good.") Ask it for an essay about a certain topic. Then ask it again and it'll give you something different. Then ask it again. Then ask for a slightly different version, specifying something you'd like to see.

When it's time for the student to create something of their own, much like an artist or musician studying the greats, the student will draw from the examples they've seen.

3. Use it to remix student work.

Students create something for class: a story, an essay, a poem, a recap of something they've learned. Then, they can ask ChatGPT (or a similar tool) to remix it for them.

My favorite example to date of this comes from Donnie Piercey, a fifth grade teacher and the 2021 Kentucky Teacher of the Year. He took a student story and asked ChatGPT to remix it as a nursery rhyme, a soap opera, a sea shanty, and a children's book -- with suggested illustrations! Listen as he tells the story in the video below.

When students see how their work has been remixed, it can open them up to new opportunities.

4. Ask it for definitions (on a variety of levels).

If you need a concept explained or defined, ChatGPT (or a similar tool) can provide that explanation -- and do it in as detailed or simple a manner as you'd like.

On episode 99 of the Partial Credit Podcast, Jesse Lubinsky shared that he asked for a definition of "faith" in terms a child would understand. That helped me realize that it can give definitions, descriptions, and explanations -- we expected that -- or it can level them up or down in complexity however we ask.

5. Ask it for feedback for student work.

We know that one key aspect to effective feedback is that it's timely. With traditional paper-based work, students turn it in and must wait for teachers to grade it -- and return it! -- before they can see feedback. Lots of edtech tools are letting us get feedback to students more quickly -- whether automated or through direct communication with a teacher or classmate.

ChatGPT (or a similar tool) can be another source of feedback. When students finish a written work, they can copy/paste their work into ChatGPT and ask how they can improve their writing. For example, I copied one of my blog posts into ChatGPT and simply asked how I could improve it. It gave me a list of five suggestions, including transitional phrases, adding more examples, and breaking it up into shorter paragraphs. (Better start a new paragraph now ...)

Of course, it's up to the student -- and based on what the student has learned about writing -- to decide whether to implement the advice and how.

6. Ask it to do some teacher tasks for you.

Ask ChatGPT (or a similar tool) to write some lesson plans for you. Or some questions for a quiz. Ask it for some jokes about your content so you can slip those into class. Of course, you don't have to use everything that it provides you verbatim. But it might give you a starting point you can modify -- or if you already have something, it can give you ideas to improve.

7. Add it to the "think pair share" thinking routine.

Augmenting the think-pair-share with ChatGPT could be one of the biggest tech-enabled leaps in pedagogy:
* Think
* Pair
* ChatGPT
* Pair
* Share
- Sarah Dillard (@dillardsarah) December 5, 2022

I love this line of thinking from Sarah Dillard (Twitter: @dillardsarah), and if you click on it and look at the whole thread, she explains it more. Students think about a prompt, then discuss it with a classmate. Then they do any searches they want on ChatGPT. They pair back up to discuss what they've found. Then they share with the class.

Using ChatGPT and AI doesn't have to be THE way we teach certain things, but it can add important steps to existing frameworks.

8. Grade the bot.

Jen Giffen (Twitter: @virtualgiff) talked with her high school-aged students about the use of AI and tools like ChatGPT. (We talked on the phone. You'll see that the phone call sparked lots of ideas!) After that conversation, she suggested this idea:

Give a writing prompt to ChatGPT (or a similar tool). It could be a different writing prompt than you'll give your students. Read the essay that the bot creates for you.

Then, give the students the rubric you'll use to grade them and ask them to grade the response from the artificial intelligence.

This helps students to be reflective about the grading process -- and about their own writing process. When students get grades on their own work, it's easy to take it personally -- or to dismiss it because it makes them feel like they've messed up a lot. But when they critique the work of a bot that doesn't have feelings, it eliminates a lot of those emotions.

9. Debate the bot.

This came from that conversation with Jen, too, and she said she's seen this one shared on social media a lot.

Let students (as individuals, in pairs or small groups, or even as a whole-group activity) debate ChatGPT (or a similar tool).

Students take one side of a debate. The AI takes the other. Students plug their points in and ask the bot to rebut.

It gives them low-stakes practice -- and as much practice as they want -- to hone their debate skills. Plus, they may see talking points for their own stance (or that their opponent may use) so they can strengthen their argument.

10. Ask the bot for advice.

One more takeaway from this conversation with Jen! (Although several of the ideas below were sparked during that conversation ... so, you know, credit where credit is due.)

Jen asked ChatGPT very generally, "Give me some advice." It gave her some general (yet very good) ideas on managing stress and relationships and mental wellbeing.

A bot can't be a replacement for counseling or medical help. But we do take advice from friends, family ... even strangers sometimes. If students are struggling with just about anything, they can get advice from this artificial intelligence -- an AI that's working with much of the entirety of the internet as its dataset.

11. Use it to summarize texts.

If a text that your students are reading is in the dataset of ChatGPT (or a similar tool), they could always try to ask it for a summary of the whole thing -- or of certain chapters, sections, acts, scenes, etc. This is what we used SparkNotes and Cliff's Notes for years ago. Of course, SparkNotes and Cliff's Notes were controversial in the past -- "if they read those, they'll never read the text!" -- but eventually we found ways that they could support learning, too.

Seeing a summary of a text that you've just read can help you process what you've read. It's similar in nature to a book club. You hear what other people think and observe about the text and it helps inform your view of it.

This could also be a helpful strategy for reviewing before a quiz or a test.

12. Use it for insight into big, difficult-to-solve problems.

Before you read this one, just remember ... I taught high school Spanish for 10+ years. I'm not a math or science teacher, and I kind of struggled with those during school. That said ...

If you -- or your students -- come up with a math or science problem bigger than you know how to solve (or don't want to take the time to solve), ask ChatGPT (or a similar tool).

If it can solve it, it'll show you an answer. But, more importantly, you'll gain some insight into the process of solving it. And even if it can't solve it, it'll tell you why.

You could also ask it bigger societal questions to see what it would say. I asked it how to solve world hunger, and here's what I got:

Eliminating world hunger is a complex and multifaceted challenge that requires the efforts of governments, international organizations, and individuals around the world. Some strategies that have been proposed to address this issue include:

1. Increasing agricultural productivity: This can be done through the use of advanced technologies such as precision farming and genetically modified crops, as well as by improving infrastructure and access to education and training for farmers.

2. Reducing food waste: Up to one-third of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted, which represents a significant opportunity to increase food availability. Reducing food waste can be achieved through better storage and transportation systems, as well as by increasing awareness about the issue.

3. Improving distribution systems: In many cases, food is available, but it is not distributed effectively to those who need it most. Improving distribution systems, including supply chains and transportation networks, can help get food to the people who need it.

4. Promoting economic development: Economic growth can lead to increased food production and greater access to food, as well as the resources and infrastructure needed to address food insecurity.

5. Providing emergency food aid: In times of crisis, such as during natural disasters or armed conflict, providing emergency food aid can help prevent starvation and malnutrition.

Ultimately, addressing world hunger will require a combination of these and other approaches, as well as strong political will and sustained commitment from governments and other organizations.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

14. Anticipate the response you'd expect from AI.

If your students have been studying a topic, this could be a great retrieval / brain dump activity -- and a way of ranking the importance of all the things they've learned about the topic.

Tell them that you're going to ask ChatGPT (or a similar tool) to summarize what they've been studying. Ask them what they think the bot will say. It'll prompt them to recall knowledge from their memory (which strengthens long-term memory). Plus, when they rank them in importance (because the bot won't list everything it knows), they'll have to give a justification.

All of this leads to deeper understanding of the material -- and strengthened long-term memory.

15. Take several responses and make a better product.

ChatGPT often has a button at the bottom of a response that says "regenerate response." That's because each time you ask it a question, it generates something original, doing the work from scratch every time.

If you were asked to pick a movie as your favorite, describe it, and tell why you like it in 60 seconds, your response each time would be a little different. (For me, the movie would probably be different every time!) It's an original, unique work each time. ChatGPT works kind of like that every time.

Ask it to answer a question or write something for you. Then ask it again ... and again ... and again. Get five (or more!) versions of the same prompt.

Have students (individually, in pairs/small groups, or even ask a class) take the best parts from those versions and turn it into a better final product.

This can be a scaffolding strategy for students who struggle to write essays or papers. It introduces them to some of the strategy of crafting a written work without all of the taxing effort of doing the whole thing.

16. Create personalized learning experiences.
Response from ChatGPT to "How can AI be used to help teach in the classroom?" AI can be used to create personalized learning experiences for students by adapting the content and pace of instruction to each student's needs and abilities. This can be achieved through the use of adaptive learning software, which adjusts the material based on the student's performance.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

17. Provide tutoring or coaching.
Response from ChatGPT to "How can AI be used to help teach in the classroom?" AI can be used to provide one-on-one tutoring or coaching to students, either in person or remotely. This can be particularly useful for students who may not have access to human tutors, or for subjects that are difficult to teach in a traditional classroom setting.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

18. Generate prompts and questions to facilitate discussions.
Response from ChatGPT to "How can you (ChatGPT) be used to help teach in the classroom?" I can be used to facilitate discussions among students by posing questions and prompts that encourage critical thinking and encourage students to engage with the material in a deeper way.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

19. Provide information and answer questions.
Response from ChatGPT to "How can you (ChatGPT) be used to help teach in the classroom?" I can be used to provide students with information on a wide range of topics, and to answer their questions on those topics. This can be particularly useful for subjects that may be difficult to understand or that require a lot of background knowledge.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

20. Supplement in-person instruction.
Response from ChatGPT to "How can you (ChatGPT) be used to help teach in the classroom?" I can be used to supplement in-person instruction by providing additional resources and materials for students to explore on their own, or by offering additional support and assistance outside of the classroom.
Source: ChatGPT via chat.openai.com (2022)

Should we block it or try to ban it?

If we block ChatGPT (or tools like it) and think we're solving a problem, we're deluding ourselves.

There are two decisions that need to be addressed since ChatGPT was released.

A big, systemic decision that needs to be made is: What will teaching and learning look like with ChatGPT and AI in existence?

We've started unpacking that above (and in conversations all over the globe).

But there's a more pressing question, and it's one that requires a bit of nuance ...

Do we block it at school?

Immediately, schools and districts must decide whether to block access to it on school networks and devices.

That decision, however, won't solve "the problem." (I use quotes because I'm not convinced that the proliferation of AI is a problem. It really does disrupt how we have done -- and are doing -- school, though.)

Students still will have access to it. It's like social media. It can be blocked at school. But students can access it (as I mentioned above) on their phones under a desk, in the restroom, on a bus, at home ... anywhere. They'll get access.

But someone has to decide. Should it be blocked at school?

What educators in my social media circles are saying ...
The resounding answer has been, "No, don't block it."
Their rationale: This is the future. It's not going anywhere. Students must have access to it. It'll prepare them for the future. Why would we want to keep students from accessing something so powerful?

There's something to know about these social media circles, though. Lots of people in them aren't in the classroom and don't have a good perspective on what full-time teachers go through.
(Full disclosure: I don't teach full time anymore either. I'm in my wife's and kids' schools a lot, but I don't teach full time.)
The ones in these social media circles that are in the classroom? They're dreamers (like me). They've seen the ways the system is broken. They're ready for change.

In the end -- if we're playing the long game (and I think we are), I side with them.

Generally.

What regular teachers in regular classrooms are saying ...
If you walk into any given classroom in schools across the United States (and some parts of the world)? The resounding answer has been, "Please block it. Right now!"
These are the teachers who write lesson plans. Every single day.

They grade student work. Every single day.

They teach and supervise and facilitate class. Every single day.

They never have enough time to do what they need. Their checklist is never complete.

There's a level of survival in these classrooms.

Reinventing their teaching methods and assignments at the drop of a hat because a new AI bot came out?

They just don't have time for that. (And they don't have the capacity in their already fractured personal wellness to do that.)

I understand.

I think, deep down inside, these teachers know the potential of AI and tools like ChatGPT. They know that it's going to change how teaching and learning looks.

They just need to survive the day. The week.

They need to survive until break.

They're on the front lines, dealing with all sorts of difficult situations and a lack of resources and a lack of respect for the classroom and the teaching profession.

They also just did this. Do you remember? (If you don't, you probably haven't taught in a classroom for a few years.)

Teachers are just starting to feel a sense of normality after pandemic-induced remote teaching. They had to reinvent the way they teach -- immediately! -- to a remote format, one that most weren't prepared for, technologically or pedagogically or logistically.

As teacher wellness expert Mandy Froehlich (Twitter: @froehlichm) said, they're trying to get out of emergency mode. And when you finally get out of emergency mode, there's a let-down ... an emotional, sometimes physical, response to the trauma you've dealt with.

So to those that look down their noses at teachers who are begging for this to be blocked, let's just remember the recent past. And let's also remember that they likely understand the impact of this.

They just want to survive the week. Survive until break.

Survive until we get a spare moment to think about this. Learn about it. Brainstorm some ways to change our assignments so that they can't

A proposal for schools/districts that's a middle ground

(Hear my justification for this proposal in the video) Let's block it until the end of the school year.
Let's not make a long-term decision to block ChatGPT (and tools like it) forever.

Let's also not make a long-term decision to leave it open forever.

(I'm not totally confident that this is the right answer. But I haven't heard anyone argue for the middle ground yet, so I want to add this voice.)

Let's agree to block it on student devices and networks (and allow it on teachers devices/networks if possible) just until the end of the school year.

To look at their assignments and consider how they'd like to change them in light of this new technology.

To look at how they teach and how this might be incorporated in it.

To look at how technology like this might augment classroom discussions

Here's why ...

Teachers need some time to regroup ...

... and on and on.

We need some space. Some time. A little room to ponder, to sit with all of this. To talk to other educators about what they think. To talk to students and to parents.

Let's just give teachers a little space.

However, let's also make a few things clear.

1. This isn't the long-term answer. This is a stopgap to help struggling teachers to survive this sudden change.

2. Students still will have access to this. Just because we block this on student networks and devices doesn't mean they won't plug your writing prompts and questions into this technology. This just buys you a little time to finish the year with your traditional assignment types to come up with something new.

A faculty-wide discussion and brainstorming session about best ways to teach and learn is in order at the end of the year. Everyone shares their best ideas and prepares for their implementation. (And let's pay the teachers for this extra meeting, OK?)
1. Will this technology be blocked on school networks and devices? 2. How will we evolve our teaching practice now that these technologies exist?
Then, at the beginning of next school year, let's open the ChatGPT floodgates.

Even if this isn't the solution you (or your school/district) comes to, there are two decisions that need to be made:

Blocking ChatGPT district-wide is one decision.

Deciding how teaching/learning happen while it exists is another. (to me)

If a district thinks blocking it will solve the problem, they're deluding themselves.

Blocking it can be one part of a solution, I believe. https://t.co/CvHCT2RqSQ
- Matt Miller (@jmattmiller) December 14, 2022

What other resources can help me learn about this?

Below is a list (albeit incomplete!) of resources I've found in the weeks after ChatGPT came into existence. I'll share links along with why I like them as resources. Please add other resources -- even your own! -- in the comments below!

ChatGPT in Classrooms: What to Know (U.S. News and World Report) -- Students, teachers and others in education weigh in on this new AI tool and the implications it has in the classroom.

What can English teachers do about ChatGPT (Learning in Room 213) -- This post explores what ChatGPT is, the problems with blocking it, and suggestions: entice personal engagement, avoid formulaic assignments, build critical thinking, etc.

No, Artificial Intelligence Won't Destroy High School English (or Any Other Subject) (John Spencer, Spencer Author) -- I've waited to read this because I wanted to create my own piece of content without copying anyone, but I've been excited to see John's thoughts on it. Hang on a second, let me read it ... Yep, it's as fantastic as I expected. Some of John's points include: "Almost any task can be automated, but what's the joy in that?"; "If we outsources every task, we might short-circuit the learning"; and "AI can't replace your voice." This is really, really good.

Human Skills in a World of Artificial Intelligence (John Spencer, Spencer Author) -- In this post (which dovetails wonderfully with the one above), John outlines the problems with a couple approaches to AI and advocates for another one: "the human approach."

The conversation about how much we care (Twitter thread by Evan Weinberg @emwdx) -- This thread doesn't seem to have gotten much attention, but I really like where Evan's going with it. He introduces it with: "As we see start to see how easy it is for a tool like #ChatGPT to generate text that sounds convincingly like us, it is starting the conversation about how much we care. We care a lot more than we might initially admit."

Ideas for using ChatGPT in the Classroom (IB English Guys) -- They opened up this collaborative Google Doc to share ideas. There are 10+ ideas with rationale and comments from educators.

AI Homework (Stratechery) -- This is an interesting, thoughtful, nuanced look at the intersection of homework and artificial intelligence. He talks about the struggles that ChatGPT has with math, and he even runs a virtual machine (like a Linux terminal) inside ChatGPT.

Yes, Teachers, You Should Be Panicking About AI (The Broken Copier) -- This post provides six reasons why we should be concerned about ChatGPT and AI (in light of the condition of education in many classrooms right now), helping us make sense of how we move forward.

The College Essay is Dead (The Atlantic) -- This was one of the first posts I saw (that was circulated widely) about the impact of ChatGPT in education. It's a paid article on The Atlantic. I subscribed so I could read it so that I could tell you ... it's talking points and not much else. If you'd like to read commentary about it and you're a subscribers to The Atlantic, go for it. I wouldn't pay for it ... especially since I'm focused on what we can actually do with this technology.

No, ChatGPT is Not the End of High School English. But Here's the Useful Tool It Offers Teachers (Forbes) -- Here's the best point in this whole article (so you don't have to read it): ChatGPT is an excellent prompt tester. Think you've come up with a good writing prompt? Feed it to the chatbot. If it can come up with an essay that you would consider a good piece of work, then that prompt should be refined, reworked, or simply scrapped.

Learning More about Chat GPT in Education (Jennifer Casa-Todd) -- Jen has written books about social media, digital literacy, and technology's impact on children's lives. She shares some of the best things she's found about the topic.

Education is about to radically change: AI for the masses (Nate McClennen and Rachelle Dené Poth for Getting Smart) -- AI already does and will continue to impact education - along with every other sector. Innovative education leaders have an opportunity to build the foundation for the most personalized learning system we have ever seen.

Let's Chat: OpenAI and ChatGPT (THRIVEinEDU podcast by Rachelle Dené Poth) -- Have you tried OpenAI yet? What has your experience been? Rachelle shares some background info, insights, questions and more in this episode. She also shares at her blog: www.Rdene915.com.

Chatbots in Education: Middle School and High School (Heather Olvey and Terri Files) -- These teachers pulled together slide decks with ideas for implementing chatbots in the classroom.
Have a resource to add -- yours or from someone else? Share it in the comments below!

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ChatGPT, Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence in Education

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Now, we're wondering ... Calculators.Search engines.Google Translate.Wikipedia.PhotoMath.#ChatGPT. They disrupt traditional teaching. We adapt. Education evolves forward. Blocking them isn't the answer. Making education more relevant is.- Matt Miller (@jmattmiller) December 14, 2022 Jump straight to a section (click a button below): ⭐️ Add thoughts, ideas, resources in the comments at the bottom!

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Using Nearpod to support differentiated instruction

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Using Nearpod to support differentiated instruction

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Introduction

Regardless of grade level, every classroom is full of students with different needs and different ability levels. Teaching to the "average" works for some students, some of the time, but it is rarely enough to support every learner. That's why differentiation can be such a powerful instructional approach.

Despite the fact that differentiation has become an educational buzzword in the past few years, the idea behind the term is incredibly important in today's classrooms.

The 2010 National Education Technology Plan (NETP) describes differentiation as:

"Instruction that is tailored to the learning preferences of different learners. Learning goals are the same for all students, but the method or approach of instruction varies according to the preferences of each student or what research has found works best for students like them."

In other words, instruction is based on the needs and preferences of each individual student within the classroom. While that can certainly be difficult to achieve, it is important to note that differentiated instruction can help increase both student engagement and achievement.

And fortunately, Nearpod that can help teachers differentiate instruction to meet the diverse needs of all learners within their classroom.

Using Formative Assessment to Understand Student Needs

Nearpod's formative assessment activities are effective for differentiating instruction. Teachers can send out polls and quizzes, ask open-ended questions, have students submit drawn responses, and even have students write short notes on collaborative boards.

All of these features allow teachers to get instant insight into how their students are doing and address any questions or misconceptions.

For example, Ann Feldmann at Edutopia describes how first-grade teacher Megan Cinfel uses the draw feature in Nearpod to collect formative feedback which she later uses to differentiate her instruction:

"[she] gathers her students on the rug in a circle, sits with them, and presents new math concepts to all of their iPads simultaneously. She uses the draw feature daily to collect formative data. Students use the pen tool to draw responses and send them back. Teachers immediately see the data and can share student work back to their screens in just a click. This is a powerful way for students to see peer responses and explain their reasoning."

This type of instant formative feedback can be beneficial for quickly understanding the specific and varied needs of each student in the class. Then, once teachers know where their students are at, they can make adjustments to instruction moving forward.
[tweetshare tweet="Teaching to the "average" works for some students, some of the time, but it is rarely enough to support every learner. That's why differentiation can be such a powerful instructional approach. #Nearpod " username="nearpod"]
Differentiating Instruction Based on Feedback

Once teachers are aware of students' individual needs based on the formative feedback they received through Nearpod, they can begin differentiating instruction based on those needs.

Differentiating to individual needs can look incredibly different depending on the grade level, subject area, and student needs. But as Ben Johnson of Edutopia describes, "The ideal is to provide equivalent learning activities that cater to the students' strengths but bring all of the students to the same learning objective."

In other words, teachers should support students on their journey towards the main learning objective of the lesson, but that support might look very different for each student or each group of students.

Preparing this type of support on the fly can obviously be a difficult task. That's why it can be beneficial for teachers to prepare different lesson possibilities for students beforehand. These lessons can be based on the different learning paths teachers expect their students to need, based on previous experience and their own expertise.

Creating Multiple Lessons to Address Different Needs

By preparing a variety of learning paths and differentiation possibilities teachers can ensure that whatever needs arise during the course of a lesson, they'll be ready to meet them.

If there are students who need extra practice or remediation, teachers can have a Nearpod ready. If there are other students who are ready to move on with additional real-world examples, teachers can have a Nearpod ready for that possibility as well.

Plus, with Nearpod's student-paced feature, students can work through these lessons on their own, or in small groups, while the teacher provides individual support and guidance where needed.

In addition to allowing for differentiation, preparing multiple lesson possibilities also means that students can have a choice in the direction their learning takes. As Heather Austin describes on the Nearpod blog:

"If one student needs to work on adjectives and adverbs and another student needs to work on writing complete sentences, their assignments reflect this differentiation. I simply launch the Nearpod lesson and place the pin code on my choice board for students to complete based on their learning needs. Nearpod has many lessons available on their platform to help me with my personalized learning plans."

This combination of choice and differentiation opens up powerful learning possibilities for classrooms at all grade levels.

Moving Forward

For teachers who want to easily and quickly collect formative feedback from their students, and use that feedback to inform future instruction, Nearpod is an excellent resource.

Nearpod offers a wide range of formative assessment possibilities, plus teachers can create a variety of lessons that can be available depending on student needs or choices.

In short, Nearpod makes it easy to find out what students' needs are, and shift instruction to meet those needs. If you're ready to give Nearpod a try in your own classroom, you can get started here!

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Using Nearpod to Support Differentiated Instruction

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Regardless of grade level, every classroom is full of students with different needs and different ability levels. Teaching to the "average" works for some students, some of the time, but it is rarely enough to support every learner. That's why differentiation can be such a powerful instructional approach.

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Want to Increase Tutoring Attendance? Do These 10 Things

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Want to Increase Tutoring Attendance? Do These 10 Things

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A strategy teachers can use to turn parents into partners when discussing difficult situations involving their kids.

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20 Ways To Provide Effective Feedback For Learning

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20 Ways To Provide Effective Feedback For Learning

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contributed by Laura Reynolds

While assessment gets all the press, we often misunderstand effective feedback for learning.

When feedback is predominately negative, studies have shown that it can discourage student effort and achievement (Hattie & Timperley, 2007, Dinham). In my experience, the only thing I knew is that I hated public speaking and I would do anything possible to get out of it. As a teacher, most of the time it is easy to give encouraging, positive feedback.

However, it is in the other times that we have to dig deep to find an appropriate feedback response that will not discourage a student's learning. This is where the good teachers, the ones students remember forever in a positive light, separate themselves from the others.

A teacher has the distinct responsibility to nurture a student's learning and to provide feedback in such a manner that the student does not leave the classroom feeling defeated. Here you will find 20 ideas and techniques on how to give effective learning feedback that will leave your students with the feeling they can conquer the world.

20 Ways to Provide Effective Feedback

1. Feedback should be educative in nature.

Providing feedback means giving students an explanation of what they are doing correctly and incorrectly. However, the focus of the feedback should be based essentially on what the students is doing right. It is most productive to a student's learning when they are provided with an explanation and example as to what is accurate and inaccurate about their work.

Consider using the concept of a 'feedback sandwich' to guide your feedback: Compliment, Correct, Compliment.

2. Feedback should be given in a timely manner.

When feedback is given immediately after showing proof of learning, the student responds positively and remembers the experience about what is being learned in a confident manner. If we wait too long to give feedback, the moment is lost and the student might not connect the feedback with the action.

3. Be sensitive to the individual needs of the student.

It is vital that we take into consideration each student individually when giving feedback. Our classrooms are full of diverse learners. Some students need to be nudged to achieve at a higher level and others need to be handled very gently so as not to discourage learning and damage self-esteem. A balance between not wanting to hurt a student's feelings and providing proper encouragement is essential.

4. Ask the 4 questions.

Studies of effective teaching and learning (Dinham, 2002, 2007a; 2007b) have shown that learners want to know where they stand in regards to their work. Providing answers to the following four questions on a regular basis will help provide quality feedback. These four questions are also helpful when providing feedback to parents:

What can the student do?

What can't the student do?

How does the student's work compare with that of others?

How can the student do better?

5. Feedback should reference a skill or specific knowledge.

This is when rubrics become a useful tool (single-point rubrics, for example). A rubric is an instrument to communicate expectations for an assignment and a useful way to provide effective feedback for learning. Effective rubrics provide students with very specific information about their performance, compared to an established range of standards. For younger students, try highlighting rubric items that the student is meeting or try using a sticker chart.

6. Give feedback to keep students 'on target' for achievement.

Regular 'check-ins' with students let them know where they stand in the classroom and with you. Utilize the '4 questions' to guide your feedback.

7. Host a one-on-one conference.

Providing a one-on-one meeting with a student is one of the most effective means of providing feedback. The student will look forward to having the attention and allows the opportunity to ask necessary questions. A one-on-one conference should be generally optimistic, as this will encourage the student to look forward to the next meeting.

As with all aspects of teaching, this strategy requires good time management. Try meeting with a student while the other students are working independently. Time the meetings so that they last no longer than 10 minutes.

8. Feedback can be given verbally, non-verbally, or in written form.

Be sure to keep your frowns in check. It is imperative that we examine our non-verbal cues. Facial expressions and gestures are also means of delivering feedback. This means that when you hand back that English paper, it is best not to scowl.

9. Concentrate on one ability or skill.

It makes a far greater impact on the student when only one skill is critiqued versus the entire paper being the focus of everything that is wrong.

For example, when I taught Writer's Workshop at the elementary level, I would let students know that for that day I was going to be checking on the indentation of paragraphs within their writing. When I conferenced with a student, that was my focus instead of all the other aspects of their writing. The next day would feature a new focus.

Utilize this strategy when grading papers or tests to provide effective feedback for learning. This strategy allows you the necessary time to provide quality, written feedback. This can also include using a rotation chart for students to conference with at a deeper more meaningful level. Students will also know when it is their turn to meet with you and are more likely to bring questions of their own to the conference.

11. Educate students on how to give feedback to each other.

Model for students what appropriate feedback looks like and sounds like. As an elementary teacher, we call this 'peer conferencing.' Train students to give each other constructive feedback in a way that is positive and helpful. Encourage students to use post-it notes to record the given feedback.

12. Ask another adult to give feedback.

The principal at the school I taught at would often volunteer to grade history tests or read student's writing pieces. You can imagine how the student's quality of work increased tenfold! If the principal is too busy (and most are), invite a 'guest' teacher or student teacher to critique work.

13. Have the student take notes.

During a conference over a test, paper, or a general 'check-in,' have the student do the writing while you do the talking. The student can use a notebook to jot down notes as you provide verbal feedback.

14. Use a notebook to keep track of student progress.

Keep a section of a notebook for each student. Write daily or weekly, dated comments about each student as necessary. Keep track of good questions the student asks, behavior issues, areas for improvement, test scores, etc. Of course, this requires a lot of essential time management but when it is time to conference with a student or parent, you are ready to go.

Returning papers and tests at the beginning of class, rather than at the end, allows students to ask necessary questions and to hold a relevant discussion.

16. Use Post-It notes.

Sometimes seeing a comment written out is more effective than just hearing it aloud. During independent work time, try writing feedback comments on a post-it note. Place the note on the student's desk the feedback is meant for. One of my former students had a difficult time staying on task but he would get frustrated and embarrassed when I called him out on his inattentive behaviors in front of the class.

He would then shut down and refused to do any work because he was mad that I humiliated him. I resorted to using post-it notes to point out when he was on task or not. Although it was not the most effective use of my time, it really worked for him as a way to provide effective feedback for learning.

17. Give genuine praise.

Students are quick to figure out which teachers use meaningless praise to win approval. If you are constantly telling your students 'Good Job' or 'Nice Work' then, over time, these words become meaningless. Make a big deal out of a student's A+ on that vocabulary test. If you are thrilled with a student's recent on-task behaviors, go above and beyond with the encouragement and praise.

Make a phone call home to let mom or dad know how thrilled you are with the student's behavior. Comments and suggestions within genuine feedback should also be 'focused, practical, and based on an assessment of what the student can do and is capable of achieving' (Dinham).

18. "I noticed...."

Make an effort to notice a student's behavior or effort at a task. For example; "I noticed when you regrouped correctly in the hundreds column, you got the problem right." "I noticed you arrived on time to class this entire week." Acknowledging a student and the efforts they are making goes a long way to positively influence academic performance.

19. Provide a model or example.

Communicate with your students the purpose of an assessment and/or feedback. Demonstrate to students what you are looking for by giving them an example of what an A+ paper looks like. Provide a contrast of what a C- paper looks like. This is especially important at the upper learning levels.

20. Invite students to give you feedback.

Remember when you finished a class in college and you were given the chance to 'grade' the professor? How nice was it to finally tell the professor that the reading material was so incredibly boring without worrying about it affecting your grade? Why not let students give you feedback on how you are doing as a teacher?

Make it so that they can do it anonymously. What did they like about your class? What didn't they like? If they were teaching the class, what would they do differently? What did they learn the most from you as a teacher? If we are open to it, we will quickly learn a few things about ourselves as educators.

Remember that feedback goes both ways and as teachers, it is wise to never stop improving and honing our skills as teachers.
20 Ways To Provide Effective Feedback For Learning; A version of this post first appeared on opencolleges.edu.au;

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20 Ways To Provide Effective Feedback For Learning

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One way to provide effective feedback for learning is a 'feedback sandwich' to structure your feedback: Compliment, Correct, Compliment.

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5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback

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5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback

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6 Ways to Promote Data-Driven Instruction in K-12 Schools

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6 Ways to Promote Data-Driven Instruction in K-12 Schools

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By: Jason Lange
When you think about it, education is really all about data.
Think about what makes a great teacher. Fundamentally, it's the ability to quickly analyze available knowledge - a student's blank stare, for example - to decide if a student is "getting it" and respond accordingly.
When educators use data to drive their plans and decisions, they can grasp how to respond to problems, construct new ways to teach, and advance skill sets at an even faster rate.
The push for data-driven instruction has been widespread since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law in 2002. Yet the number of individual classrooms regularly practicing DDI remains startlingly low.
It would be easy to blame teachers for the slow adoption rates, citing a supposed "fear of data," but the true reasons are actually more complex. Only when we address the real issues holding education back and discuss ways to solve them will we be able to provide DDI to students countrywide.
What's Holding Data Back?
First of all, I'd like to debunk the myth of teachers' "fear of data." The truth is that educators have been using data collection and analysis techniques in their classrooms to track students' skills, comprehension, and progress for years. Many of these are simple methods, such as tallying missed assessment questions or charting students' reading skills, but they still provide teachers with useful information to improve the educational experience.
Recent studies have shown that teachers in schools with data-focused programs find that data use improves instruction, revitalizes their eagerness to teach, and increases professional fulfillment. So what's stopping its proliferation?
Here are a few factors that have slowed the implementation of DDI:

Collecting good, reliable data takes discipline. Properly collecting data requires a level of discipline that most people aren't inherently comfortable with. Consider how many people actuallywrite down their personal goals - like a New Year's resolution or an exercise plan - and track their progress over time. The answer: not many. Simply put, we're not wired to gather data without a great deal of intentional focus, and teachers have plenty on their plates as it is.

Making sense of data can be a full-time job. Even if you manage to collect great data, interpreting it in an actionable manner is not only time consuming, but it also requires some pretty advanced analytical skills. It can be an enormous task for a single teacher. Many schools simply lack the tools, resources, time, and training to aptly utilize data that's been collected for each classroom.

Sometimes there's too much data. Schools generally gather more data than they can use. An overabundance of data and conflicting results can make it difficult to prioritize information and create worthwhile curriculum changes.

How to Make It Work
Luckily, there are ways that school districts, administrators, and educators can work together to implement data-driven instruction programs in more classrooms while still making the experience engaging and beneficial to teachers and students.
Here are six methods schools can put into practice:

Keep it simple. Use simple tools and techniques to collect data, such as clickers, response sticks, or exit tickets. They'll provide a straightforward process for understanding learning outcomes.

Think small. Start with one class, and scale your efforts with the progress. For example, if you want to improve your questioning strategies, track the times you require students in one class to justify their responses. Once you find instructional techniques that work, slowly apply them to all your classes.

Analyze your efforts. Based on the data,reflect on whether the steps you've taken have had an impact. When you begin to see a difference in the students and their work, the extra effort will seem valuable.

Engage students. Involve students in setting goals and tracking progress to invest them in the process. This might be as simple as improving an opening routine or as complex as meeting large assessment goals. Likewise, encourage students to reflect upon their progress to help them determine what worked, what didn't, and what should be done differently next time.

Make progress visible. Track progress daily using a graph or chart. This will help students see their progress and, ultimately, be empowered. The size of the goal doesn't matter; students need to see what they're working toward and what they've accomplished.

Be transparent with class-wide results. Follow pre-assessments tests, and communicate the results to students. You don't have to single them out. Simply relay the outcomes, and explain how instruction will be adjusted based on the new information. For example, you could say, "Based on the data from this quiz, we need to revisit phases of the cell cycle, so you'll see questions on this topic in your warm-ups for the rest of the week."

The delay in DDI isn't due to educator anxiety. Rather, it's a direct result of the complexities of data analysis and an inability to make results useful. But as more school districts, administrators, and educators recognize how integral data collection and analysis is to improving education, more teachers will find ways to implement this type of instruction in their classrooms.

Jason Lange is the CEO and co-founder of BloomBoard, a company dedicated to bettering the K-12 education space by providing a marketplace for personalizing educator development. BloomBoard uses the data collected from free observational and evaluation tools to create individualized learning plans and recommendations for teacher growth.

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6 Ways to Promote Data-Driven Instruction in K-12 Schools

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By: Jason Lange. The push for data-driven instruction has been widespread since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law in 2002. Yet the number of individual classrooms regularly practicing DDI remains startlingly low.

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11 strategies for data driven instruction

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11 strategies for data driven instruction

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All Posts

Written by Maria Kampen

Category

School Leadership

Teaching Strategies

It's all about the data.

In your school, there is a lot of data to be managed. There's information about staff, curriculum, students and their families, tests, exams, regulations, budget, payments, teacher evaluations, events...

Getting a headache just thinking about it?

With all that data floating around your school, the idea of data driven instruction may seem overwhelming.

After all, capturing, understanding, and putting to work information about your students takes time.

The idea of data driven instruction isn't new. But, how exactly does it work? What actionable steps can you take to make sure teachers are working well with data driven instruction?

First, let's discuss what's involved in data driven instruction. Then, we'll reveal 11 steps you can take today to build a culture of data driven instruction in your school.

Plus, we've put together a downloadable list of the 11 steps that you can keep at your desk!

What is data driven instruction?

In short, data driven instruction involves gathering together a database of information about the students in each classroom, and using that information to improve the quality of teaching in the classroom.

While much of this work is done by the teachers themselves, it's up to school leadership to build a culture of data driven instruction.

Every classroom is full of students with their own needs, abilities, and levels of understanding. Data driven instruction aims to take all of this information into account when building curriculums, or even directly when teaching in the classroom.

There are three main steps involved in data driven instruction:

Data collection: Gather information from class assessments and standardized test results, as well as observations from the teacher, and create a database on information.

Data analysis: Separate essential information from non-essential information. Watch for patterns and dive into the reasons behind these results. Draw conclusions and formulate teaching plans.

Action: Congratulate your class and move to the next topic, or prepare time to re-teach certain ideas to the class.

Going deeper than the "what"

Until now, many schools have taken data driven instruction to mean building up a database of what the students know and what they don't know.

However, to truly benefit the students in your school, you need to understand more than just the "whats".

Exam scores and standardized test results only tell you the knowledge level of the students. You'll need to dig deeper to understand the "why" and "how" of the situation.

For example, imagine that the majority of one science class doesn't have the required knowledge to pass the standardized test. The 'what' is clear: they lack equivalent understanding of the subject.
Now, it's time to figure out the "why" and "how".
So, why did these students miss key information taught in the class? Is there some sort of distraction that can be minimized? Did the way the information was presented have an effect on their understanding?

Then, how can these students be re-taught in such a way that the information sticks? If they clearly understood other topics that were taught during the same semester, how did they learn those topics? How can you apply the same principles to re-teach the information they didn't learn?
Gathering the necessary data to answer the "what", "why", and "how" is the basis for data driven instruction.
So, what strategies will help you develop your school's data culture?

11 strategies to build a culture of data driven instruction in your school

1. Involve teachers in the process

While you as the school leader are setting the groundwork for data driven instruction, it's the teachers that will have to do most of the heavy lifting.

That's why it's important for teachers to be involved in the process of creating and building your data driven culture.

Opportunities like this help teachers deliver data-driven instruction and helps minimize test day anxiety for students who are new to the Regents exam! https://t.co/CMAUaZE7N1
- Alex Servello (@AlexDServello) February 27, 2019

There's a lot of work involved in creating actionable plans that get to the heart of student assessment and data analysis. So, involve your teachers in making these plans. Get together and set up the routines and standards that will be the basis for data driven instruction in your school.

Teacher training is also extremely important. Once you set the standards for data collection, analysis, and application, teachers need to understand exactly what that means for them in their day-to-day activities in and out of the classroom.

So, train teachers to quickly analyze data and draw conclusions that spark action, thus helping them implement a data driven instruction policy.

2. Slowly scale your efforts

Diving into data collection and analysis for every class in your entire school may seem daunting.

That's because it's too much work.

Instead of the 'all-or-nothing' approach, try to start with just one class.

Gather data on student knowledge levels, and how they learn. With the goal of starting small, build a process that makes data easy to collect and translate into action.

For example, have teachers track the number of times students ask for clarification on a topic in the classroom, as well as what teaching strategies they were using at the time. This data can be easily translated into an action: remove teaching methods that don't present the information clearly.

Once you start to see results in one or two classrooms, you can start to expand the same methods of data collection and application to the rest of the school.

3. Set the right standards for assessments

Don't spread yourself too thin. There are plenty of things that students 'should' be learning. And teachers may have their own ideas of what is important information in a lesson plan.

However, to have definite, stable results in data driven instruction, you need to define the standards of assessment.

That means taking each unit and answering the following questions:

What information is vital for students to learn?

What will they need to know and understand in order to pass SATs or other important exams?

What information would absolutely need to be re-taught if students hadn't mastered it by a certain time?

Once these standards are in place, it's easier for teachers and students to work towards solid learning goals, and to collect the necessary data for better teaching.

4. Build routines for interim assessments

While summative assessments are important, never forget that learning is an ongoing process. If a number of students never mastered a topic that was covered at the beginning of the school year, it would be easier to address the problem earlier than in the weeks before the summer break.

So, work with the teachers at your school to build a system for interim (or formative) assessments.

First, take the standards that you set above. Then, divide the main topics throughout the school year.

For example, let's say an English class must master the topic of sentence structure by the end of the semester. So, take that topic and divide it into its main parts. What is the goal date for students to master an understanding of adjectives, verbs, subjects, and objects? When do they need to understand the placement of all these parts in the sentence?

Then, based on these main parts of the essential topic, set dates for interim assessments. Whether it's through tests, team projects, essays, etc., students must be able to demonstrate mastery of the topic in question.

These interim assessments will help teachers plan for the needs of each student, giving them time to re-teach essential ideas while the topic is still in their mind, rather than weeks or months later.

5. Collect only the data you need

Part of the reason that data driven instruction is so daunting is that there is just so. Much. Data.

Implementing a successful strategy involves thinning down the data only to what is necessary.

Obviously, the teachers in your school have plenty on their plate already: don't add wading through excessive data to their workload.

Instead, make sure that your data collection processes center on information that is essential. While making sure that your assessments are standardized is important, as discussed above, another way to do this would be giving teachers specific guidelines on how to collect and analyze student data.

That way, all the teachers involved are collecting only necessary data, and the time they spend on analyzing that data is more focused on what's really important.

6. Set goals that are visible for students

The teachers aren't the only ones involved in collecting and analyzing student data: the students can also get involved!

After all, the endgame of data driven instruction is to help students reach educational goals. So, show them how they're doing with those goals!

This can be done by creating visual goals and allowing students to measure their own progress. Help teachers plan time for student self-analysis. Give kids the opportunity to look back on their work, see what they've accomplished and develop a growth mindset.

To make this strategy really stand out, make the progress visual.

For example, when coming to the end of a unit, teachers can use classroom response systems (or 'clickers') to get a fast overview of how much the class understands of the topic. These fun, interactive tests allow all students (even the really shy ones in the back) to participate.

At the end of the test, most clicker systems produce a bar chart that displays how many students chose each answer choice. This gives students and teachers an easy view of the progress they've made, or where they're still lacking.

7. Use EdTech that displays learning progress for students

It's no secret that ed-tech is making strides in the classroom.

But did you know it can actually help you (and your teachers) to implement data driven instruction?

In fact, 75% of teachers identify data driven instruction as a top trend for EdTech.

That's up from just 28% in 2017.

Why the increase? Because most ed-tech programs take advantage of the answers provided by students to give teachers clear data about what's going on in their classroom.

Prodigy is a fun and adaptive, curriculum-aligned math game that helps you easily quantify student learning and achievement. Students enter the game-based learning platform, where they answer skill-building math questions to go on adventures and explore new worlds. You'll love the powerful report tools that help drive student learning.

You'll be able to find easy-to-read reports that detail exactly what skills students have mastered, as well as which ones they're weak in. This makes data analyzation even easier, since the information has already been collected and organized. Teachers can then make informed decisions that help the whole classroom learn better.

Create your free account and start reaping the benefits of your tetacher dashboard.

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8. Build a schedule for data analysis

It's time to give your teachers guidelines for analyzing data.

For example, instead of asking teachers to write out their conclusions after reading through the data, create a uniform process for data analyzation. You could do this by creating reports with short, specific questions that teachers must answer on a scale of 1-10 based on the data they've collected.

What kind of mastery does the class (or student) have in this topic?

How prepared is the class to answer questions about this topic on a standardized test?

Can the class explain with ease their understanding of this topic?

Then, teachers can list specific knowledge gaps or weaknesses that they've seen in either individual students or the class as a whole.

Next, they'll need to analyze the data collected about teaching methods. Using the same 1-10 scale, they can rate the different teaching methods they used by how well the class responded to them.

Lastly, teachers should list at least 3 actions they plan to take in order to improve their teaching for the next unit. This could include re-teaching certain topics, or changing up their in-classroom methods to make the information stick better.

Now, you need to build a schedule for your teachers to analyze that data.

Some schools set specific time in the schedule of the teachers to analyze the data they've collected. Ideally, this would be soon after assessments are made.

Having a clear process and schedule helps teachers and school leaders to keep a handle on student progress.

9. Encourage teachers to collaborate with each other

When it comes to data analyzation, teachers should know that they don't have to go it alone. When scheduling time for data analyzation, encourage teachers to work together to get through the data they've collected.

This method helps both teachers and students to reap the benefits of data driven instruction. They say two work better than one, and this is a prime example: two or more teachers working together to understand the data they've collected and brainstorm ideas of how to proceed.

Teacher collaboration is also a form of professional development. Teachers will learn valuable skills from each other, and build off of each other's ideas to create an even better learning experience in the classroom.

10. Review the effects of re-teaching

So, after assessment, a class needed re-teaching of an essential topic. Instead of just going through the information again and moving on, it's important that teachers revisit their assessments to ensure that students are really getting the sense of the information.

Using clicker tests as mentioned above is a great way to get a fast overview of the class's overall understanding of a topic. This method won't take a lot of time, and allows teachers to see immediate feedback on whether the re-teaching had the desired effect.

11. Chart the progress of your school as a whole

Once your data driven instruction plan is in place, it will be interesting to watch what a difference it makes in your classrooms.

So, make sure to record a baseline from the starting point. Store those first classroom assessments and the analysis that teachers took away from the data they collected.

This will allow you to see the incredible results that data driven instruction brings. As an example, the New Mexico School for the Arts used data driven instruction principles to increase their proficiency on PARCC math tests from 29 to 40 percent, and on PARCC English language arts from 80 to 87 percent.

Conclusion: Give your school the advantage of data driven instruction

Using data to improve learning experiences in your school is the way of the future. Teachers need to know what's going on in their students' heads in order to help them, and you need to understand what's happening in classrooms in order to better direct your school.

Remember, data driven instruction involves three essential steps:

Data collection

Data analysis

Action

By deciding on standards and providing guidelines to teachers, you'll help build a culture of data driven instruction in your school.

Educator? Try Prodigy - the fun and engaging curriculum-aligned math platform used by more than 2.5 million teachers.

Educators can use Prodigy to:

Gauge student preparation for standardized testing

Inform data driven instruction efforts and drive student achievement

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It's all about the data.

Opportunities like this help teachers deliver data-driven instruction and helps minimize test day anxiety for students who are new to the Regents exam! https://t.co/CMAUaZE7N1
- Alex Servello (@AlexDServello) February 27, 2019

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Educators can use Prodigy to:

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Data Driven Instruction: Definition and 11 Strategies

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All Posts Written by Maria Kampen Category School Leadership Teaching Strategies It's all about the data. In your school, there is a lot of data to be managed. There's information about staff, curriculum, students and their families, tests, exams, regulations, budget, payments, teacher evaluations, events... Getting a headache just thinking about it?

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How Strong Are Your Feedback Skills?

Pause for a minute to consider the two different pieces of feedback below. Apart from the length, what sets these comments apart? Which piece of feedback is more useful for a budding student writer? Why?

Example No. 1: "You didn't fully address the prompt in your thesis."

Example No. 2: "Make sure to tie everything back to your thesis. While your points on the National Bank are good, the example of the Trail of Tears does not seem relevant to your thesis about the common man."
When comparing the two, here are a few considerations:

Example 2 directly references the student work so it's personalized and specific.

Example 2 pinpoints examples to make the feedback extra clear and actionable.

By including something the student did well as well as something she needs to work on, example 2 is positively framed and balanced.

Example 1 is vague. The student probably thought she did address the prompt, so this feedback doesn't help the student understand her error or the steps she can take to grow and improve.

The 7 Hallmarks of Effective Feedback

Providing effective feedback to students is a teachable skill that can be acquired and improved through practice and coaching. It's vital to strengthen this skill because effective feedback leads to higher test scores in the short term and lower failures, better attendance, and fewer suspensions in the long term. Good feedback supports every other effort in curriculum, assessment, and teaching!

At Marco Learning, we use a standard framework to teach, provide, and evaluate effective feedback. Our framework is adapted from renowned educator Grant Wiggins' article, "The Seven Keys of Effective Feedback" and is thoughtfully designed to serve as a handy guide for all teachers looking to improve their feedback skills.

To be most effective, written feedback must display these 7 Hallmarks
#1: GOAL-ORIENTED
Feedback on student work should be tied to specific and measurable learning goals, skills, or standards. When giving feedback, it's important to link your comments to the expectations laid out in the assignment prompt and rubric. That way, you and your students have a clear and mutual understanding of the expectations and a common language to discuss their performance in relation to the expectations.

Directly reference the prompt and rubric components, using similar language when possible. Feedback should serve to help students understand where they are in relation to the stated goals, including what they're doing well and where they need to keep practicing.

Teacher Tip: To learn more about why and how to effectively use rubric language in your feedback, read our guide where we cover three important topics:

1. Using a rubric to remain objective and goal-oriented in your feedback

2. Using a rubric to help focus and prioritize your feedback to students

3. Using a rubric to help make your comments actionabl e and ensure students have a roadmap for success

#2: PRIORITIZED
Feedback should be concise and focused on the areas of strength and areas of growth that will have the greatest impact on a student's writing. It isn't feasible or advisable to provide feedback on every aspect of a student's work. That level of feedback would be incredibly overwhelming and demoralizing for even the stronger writers, let alone your struggling kiddos!

Concise, prioritized feedback is more digestible for students and easier to internalize and implement. Whenever you're reading a piece of writing, you will have to make judgment calls on where to focus your comments. Make your selections with the goal of the essay in mind. What are the most foundational and critical aspects of the writing process that this student needs to continue working on? Kristina Robertson, a veteran educator from Roseville, MN, wrote an article suggesting that teachers "focus on one or two concepts at a time when listening to or reading student work." You don't have to cover everything!

Teacher Tip: As a general rule, we recommend focusing on the "big picture concerns" like thesis, organization, evidence, analysis, and development before focusing on the finer points of voice, style, grammar, and conventions. This is always a judgment call, of course, but you don't want to get hung up on comma splices and typos when half of the class hasn't addressed the prompt in their thesis!
#3: ACTIONABLE
Feedback should be so specific that your students immediately know how to take action. Your comments should clearly describe their individual successes and shortfalls and directly reference their work in order to point the student to his or her next steps. To advance students' metacognition and enable them to self-assess their work, ask probing questions that will spark thoughtful reflection and a new understanding of how to develop their work.

It's imperative that you avoid broad and vague feedback, as this will only lead to student frustration, confusion, and stagnation. Some teachers fall into the trap of making their comments really broad because they think that will be most broadly helpful for the future or allow their student to make bigger, higher-impact changes...but the opposite is often true!

If the task is too big, students won't know where to start. Even if a student isn't revising this particular piece of work, specific examples will help them reflect on their work and understand exactly what they did well or exactly what could have been stronger, and how. They'll have an easier time understanding how to apply your comments to future writing.
Teacher Tip:

Use quotes and paraphrase from student work to provide illustrative examples when you can. In-line comments are great for this!

Ask specific probing questions and include narrative comments to get the student thinking in the right direction. This is a particularly effective tool for helping students develop their analysis. Why did you include this quote? What does it tell us about the author's motivation?? You lost me here... how does this tie back to your main argument? I'd love to hear more from you on this point! How could you take your analysis further to really drive your argument home?

Keep your feedback balanced. Make your positive feedback ("glows" or areas of strength) just as specific as your constructive feedback ("grows" or areas for growth). This will help students see exactly what they've done well, repeat good habits in the future, and feel motivated to keep writing!

Assume that students are doing their best! If they didn't do something, it's likely because they didn't know how to do it well. Feedback that just restates assignment expectations isn't as helpful as feedback that digs into the HOW and WHY.

When giving feedback, think of yourself as a guide or coach, not an editor. Your job isn't to correct your student's writing; your job is to help guide and support your student on their path to becoming a more confident, competent writer. When reading your feedback, students should immediately know their next step for improvement! #4 STUDENT-FRIENDLY
Feedback should be personalized and engaging to ensure it reaches the student. To aid student acceptance of feedback, respond like a reader who is seeking to understand what the student has written. An encouraging, positive tone will go far in helping students accept your feedback and apply it to future work. Be sure to use language that is clear and not too technical so that students can understand and internalize the feedback on their own.

Teacher Tip: Accommodate your feedback! Students with disabilities, diverse learners, and English Language Learners may be reading and writing at a different level than their peers. Keep this in mind when you are composing your feedback and always consider your sentence structure, word choice, vocabulary, and length of feedback. It is important that your feedback is accessible to every student so they can independently apply it on future assignments. For more on giving English Language Learners effective feedback, read our post on supporting ELLs here.

Keep in mind that students with disabilities are often the students who will benefit most from high-quality feedback when it is ongoing, consistent, and timely. Even more so than general education students, these students need to be made aware of what specific goals they should be working on and how they can master them, within their own capabilities. John O'Connor, a special education teacher and director with 30 years of experience, emphasizes that students with disabilities "need more Practice Turns and Feedback to master the same skills" but "typically get the least."

Students with IEPs and English Language Learners do not always receive the personalized attention that they need in general education classrooms, which can cause them to have a negative view of their school experience. This is where you come in! Providing these students with highlights of what they are doing well, as well as personalized and meaningful next-steps for them to take in order to increase their learning, has the potential to motivate students to continue working in an environment that may be new or different to them.

#5, 6, AND 7: ONGOING, CONSISTENT AND TIMELY
These three hallmarks go hand in hand. To be most effective, feedback must be ongoing, consistent, and timely. This means that students need ample opportunities to use feedback and that feedback must be accurate, trustworthy, and stable. When feedback isn't timely, students are disengaged and demotivated. As a teacher, your job is to build in regular feedback loops into your practice so that students get effective feedback throughout the year.

Teacher Tip: To be consistent, it is important to use consistent rubrics! While writing goals will vary from one prompt to the next and writing expectations will grow each year, you and your department can still use a consistent scoring framework, employ consistent language, and set clear and consistent expectations for your students around common writing goals.

If you aren't already using common rubrics as a department, I'd encourage you to visit our FREE teacher site, RubricCreator.com, to access our bank of standards-aligned rubrics, called PODS. PODS are built around 4 key writing components - Purpose, Organization, Development, and Style. We've created a number of different rubrics for various writing prompts based around this common PODS framework. You can use the PODS rubrics as is or edit them to meet your needs. RubricCreator.com makes it easy to share, edit, print, and create new rubrics from scratch.

Putting Pen to Paper

Effectively responding to student writing has never been more important. Writing is a foundational skill, critical for success in today's increasingly digital world. And just like any other skill, becoming a confident, competent writer requires ample amounts of practice and feedback.

The next time you give your students a writing assignment, I highly encourage you to practice your effective feedback skills. To check that a piece of feedback you are giving is effective, simply use the acronym GPAS (Goal-oriented, Prioritized, Actionable, and Student Friendly). These are four of the 7 hallmarks that apply to single pieces of feedback; ongoing, consistent, and timely feedback are bigger picture and more about your feedback process.

You can use our handy checklist to ensure that your feedback is goal-oriented, prioritized, actionable, and student-friendly. Trust us, your students will thank you for it!

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Putting the 7 Hallmarks of Effective Feedback to Work in Your Classroom - Marco Learning

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Take a closer look at what makes for truly great feedback and explore some strategies and best practices to ensure your students (and teachers!) always...

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SLG goals are detailed, measurable goals for student learning and growth developed collaboratively by educators and their evaluators. They are based on student learning needs identified by a review of students' baseline skills. SLG goals are aligned to standards and clearly describe specific learning targets students are expected to meet. Goals are rigorous, yet attainable.

This document includes the complete ODE guidance on setting Student Learning and Growth goals. Note: It is recommended that Chrome be used for viewing this document.

Sample Goals

The sample goals below include examples that were collected during the district Peer Review Process as well as those developed through ODE sponsored workgroups. These goals are provided as a sample of the diverse ways districts approach goal setting and are intended to be used as a reference.

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Educator Effectiveness Toolkit - Student Learning and Growth

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Continuum of Self Reflection_Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success.xlsx

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Using student data to inform your teaching

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Using student data to inform your teaching

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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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Planning instruction around students' readiness, interests, and learning preferences empowers them to drive their own learning.

Even the best lesson plans do not survive unchanged on first contact with students. Those who struggle will need modifications to help them learn, and advanced learners will need adjustments so that they're stretched for their personal growth and don't just regurgitate what they already know. Successful instruction plans for these differentiation needs-and highly effective instruction also involves students' readiness, interests, and learning preferences.

Learners' involvement begins with how inviting the lesson appears to them. Learners evaluate a lesson based on their readiness, their sense that it's something they can do. Does the learning experience provide sufficient supports to help them develop the skills to succeed?

Learners determine if they're interested based on real-world connections that they find meaningful. Is purposeful context shown between abstract concepts and their life experiences?

Students apply their learning preferences by looking for options where they can choose an approach to processing and demonstrating understanding. Does the learning experience provide a variety of different reflection opportunities and ways to craft products?

Let's take a deeper dive into readiness, interests, and learning preferences.

Readiness: Students' Understanding of Their Own Needs

Planning for readiness begins with making sure students understand their strengths and their opportunities for improvement. Formative assessment is an important tool for identifying the status of each skill you want students to develop. Some areas might be strong and others weak. It's important for students to know their strengths so that they can replicate practice.

Like an athlete working with a coach, a self-aware student can be a partner with teachers to make adaptations or self-identify areas of needs.

Interests: Encouraging Student Involvement in Learning

Understanding students' interests begins with having them share how they spend their free time. Including their interests gives valuable context for them to connect abstract concepts and skills to the world they navigate both in and out of school.

Designing lessons around the interests of all learners in your class may sound daunting. An easy first step is to focus on topics and products. When the required skills allow it, let students choose their topic-what to research, what type of experiment to do, what line of inquiry to follow, or what to read.

Products are best when the criteria focus on the skills to be demonstrated, not the logistics of the mode of display. Ask students to propose the display tool they want to use, and give them a thumbs up or down as to appropriateness. Choosing the topic and mode of displaying learning places them in the driver's seat for their learning experiences.

Learning Preferences: Processing Is in the Mind of the Thinker

Taking advantage of learning preferences begins with having students reflect on and express the ways they prefer to process their thinking. Learning styles and inventories are useful for establishing a common language for how each person approaches thinking and making sense.

Such preferences should not be used to define the instructional parameters for planning lessons. No one is just a visual, kinesthetic, or auditory learner. No one is solely creative or practical. Avoid the trap of isolating students into one learning preference.

Depending on your established common language, engage students in a reflective conversation about the range of ways that they prefer to make sense of different types of tasks.

Consider two starter steps to effectively address learning preferences:

3D instruction: Include three different types of learning approaches in a lesson or activity that everyone will participate in. When students experience content from different approaches, that offers a deeper perspective. Strategies like think dots, learning menus, and learning centers or stations are opportunities for students to be exposed to tasks from different approaches.

Even a lecture can incorporate three different learning approaches, such as a visual or video, reflective writing at the midpoint, and Cornell note-taking, in which students take notes on the right-hand two-thirds of their notebook page, and then on their own use the left-hand third to write questions about the notes to clarify their thinking.

Learning preferences cards: Use learning preferences cards as a reference for how students prefer to think and tackle learning tasks. The cards can be sorted to form learning teams where each participant has a strength to contribute. They can also be used to call on students to answer a question whose framing is based on the information about students' approaches to thinking.

Provide each student with an index card to rate themselves on the identified learning approaches and academic skills, based on a description of the thinking that is student friendly and developmentally appropriate. Collect the cards and annotate them with personalized information based on ongoing observations.

Student Empowerment

Telling is not teaching. Just because students have been told content does not mean that learning has taken place. Such one-sided instruction at best allows the instructor to check off the boxes for content coverage. It also releases students of any accountability.

Placing students' readiness, interests, and learning preferences at the forefront empowers students to experience lessons on their own terms.

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Planning instruction around students' readiness, interests, and learning preferences empowers them to drive their own learning.

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Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All Students

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Rotation stations allow students to learn in a range of modalities, while making differentiation manageable for one teacher.

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20 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples [+ Downloadable List]

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As students with diverse learning styles fill the classroom, many teachers don't always have the time, or spend additional hours to plan lessons that use differentiated instruction (DI) to suit students' unique aptitudes.

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There are those who believe you should never tell a student who volunteers an answer that they're wrong.

And I certainly understand why.

It can be embarrassing for them.

It can feel like a rejection.

It can discourage them from sharing again in the future.

But there are times when you're looking for a particular answer or set of answers.

And if you accept every response as equally valid, you're going to confuse your class.
Students need feedback.
They need feedback to learn and grow intellectually.

They need feedback to adjust, dig deeper, and narrow in on relevant themes, ideas, and solutions.

So when a student offers an erroneous or off-the-wall response to your query, the entire class needs to know.

At the same time, however, you never want to discourage anyone who participates.

So what's the solution?

What follows are five ways to tell a student they're off the mark without embarrassing, rejecting, or discouraging them.

In this scenario, you're leading the student to discover on their own where and how they went astray.

What's cool about this technique is that, with your prompting and further questioning, they'll often work their way to the answer you're looking for.

It takes spending some time with one particular student, but it's worth the effort-as well as the lesson for the rest of the class.

2. "You're on the right track, but not there yet."

This is direct, but also encouraging. It validates the student's thinking and motivates them to go a little deeper.

It also helps the rest of the class adjust and fine-tune their own thinking.

It does, of course, have to be true. Otherwise, you'll send your entire class in the wrong direction.

3. "Interesting . . . it's not exactly what I was looking for, but tell me more."

This is a good response when you hear something you haven't heard of or thought of before.

The student may have an idea or interpretation that is every bit as good as the one you have in mind but just comes at the problem from a different angle.

This has happened to me more times than I can count and illustrates how important it is to keep an open mind.

4. "I see where you're going, but remember that . . ."

In this instance, the student is way off, which is a sign that others are likely in the same boat. The best way to handle it is to offer a hint.

Give them a clue, leave a bread trail, get them near the right path but not quite on it. It's better to have students wrestle a bit to get to a solution rather than guiding them to directly.

It makes your lessons more compelling and naturally draws students into the excitement and challenge of learning.
5. "Thank you!"
This is a good way to go when many hands are in the air and you want to give everyone a chance to be heard.

The way it works is that you would call on every student with their hand up and simply thank them for their answer, without ever commenting on whether any of them are correct.

After working your way through the entire group, you would then reveal the solution you were looking for.

This helps get more students involved and comfortable speaking and taking chances in front of the class. It also allows them to think through and modify their responses as they hear others share out.

They still learn when they're off base, just not while under the glare of the rest of the class.

Be A Straight (But Compassionate) Shooter

Being honest with students is important.

It's important to their social and intellectual development, their understanding of subject matter, and their academic progress.

They need feedback. It's desperately important and an often-overlooked aspect of effective teaching.

But there is a fine line.

Because we also want to encourage participation. We want them to feel safe enough to share their thoughts and ideas, no matter how wild or far out they may be.

It makes learning fun and interesting and provides another layer of that secret sauce that causes students to love coming to your classroom every day.

The five responses above are proven ways to give genuine feedback without discouraging your students or throwing a wet blanket over good discussion.

Add to them your gentle smile and encouraging tone of voice, and your students will continue to take risks no matter how wide of the target their arrows land.

If you haven't done so already, please join us. It's free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

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5 Ways To Respond To Wrong Answers Smart Classroom Management

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There are those who believe you should never tell a student who volunteers an answer that they're wrong. And I certainly understand why. It can be embarrassing for them. It can feel like a rejection. It can discourage them from sharing again in the ... Read more

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https://thinkingaboutteachingdotblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/how-to-lead-school-wide-change-that-sticks/

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How to script/score in SFS_Coach Training SY2324

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How to script/score in SFS_Coach Training SY2324

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The way we interact with others makes or breaks most coaching relationships. Even if we know a lot about content and pedagogy and have impressive qualifications, experience, or post graduate degrees, people will not embrace learning with us unless they're comfortable working with us.

Emotional intelligence and communication skills help, but another factor is crucial. After conducting close to two decades of research on instructional coaching, my colleagues and I at the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning have come to believe that how we think about coaching significantly enhances or interferes with our success as a coach. We suggest that coaches take a partnership approach to collaboration.

The partnership approach grew out of themes we found repeatedly in the literature from the fields of education, business, psychology, philosophy of science, and cultural anthropology (Knight, 2011). We have synthesized those themes into seven principles that describe a theory of interaction currently used by hundreds of coaches across North America and around the world.

Identifying our principles is important because the way we act grows naturally out of what we believe. The partnership principles of equality, choice, voice, reflection, dialogue, praxis, and reciprocity provide a conceptual language that coaches can use to describe how they strive to work with teachers.

Equality is a necessary condition of any partnership. In true partnerships, one partner does not tell the other what to do; both partners share ideas and make decisions together as equals.

Problems arise, however, when people feel they don't have the status they believe they deserve. Usually, if we feel that someone who is helping us thinks that he or she is better than we are, we resist their help. For this reason, coaches need to be sensitive to how they communicate respect for the teachers with whom they collaborate.

At the Kansas Coaching Project, where we have watched many video recordings of coaches and teachers interacting, we see talented coaches skillfully act in ways that communicate that they do not see themselves as having higher status than their collaborating teacher. Coaches who act on the principle of equality have faith that the teachers they work with bring a lot to any interaction, and they listen with great attentiveness.

Coaches who act on the principle of choice position teachers as the final decision makers, as partners who choose their coaching goals and decide which practices to adopt and how to interpret data. Partners don't choose for each other.

Violating the principle of choice often increases the likelihood that teachers will resist change initiatives. As the saying goes, "When you insist, they will resist." Ironically, telling a professional that he or she must act a certain way is often a guarantee that the person will not want to do that. Indeed, meaningful commitment to an offer of help is only possible when we have the choice to say no. "If I can't say no," as Peter Block (1993) has written, "then saying yes has no meaning" (pp. 30-31).

Ensuring that teachers have meaningful choices does not mean that teachers are free to stop learning. Everyone in school needs to be actively engaged in professional growth, with the principal being the first learner. Most people, however, want to have a say in what and how they learn.

Conversation with a coach should be as open and candid as conversation with a trusted friend. When coaches follow the principle of voice, teachers feel free to express their enthusiasms and concerns.

When coaches respect teachers' voices, they seek out and act on teachers' opinions. Teachers' professional learning is driven in great part by the goals that teachers hold for themselves and their students. Thus, coaches might start the coaching process by videotaping teachers' classes, prompting them to watch the videos, and then asking them what they would like to focus on in light of what they saw. If teachers don't see how professional learning matters to them or their students, they won't be motivated to implement what they're learning.

Much of the pleasure of professional growth comes from reflecting on what you're learning. When professionals are told what to do-and when and how to do it, with no room for their own individual thought-there's a good chance they're not learning at all.

We see a partnership coach as a thinking partner for teachers and coaching as a meeting of minds. When we watch videos of partnership coaches and teachers co-creating ideas during reflective conversations, we see two energized people who laugh, talk enthusiastically, and enjoy themselves.

When a coach and teacher engage in dialogue, they let go of the notion that they must push for a particular point of view. The goal is for the best idea to win-not for my idea to win-and the best idea wins most frequently when both partners think their way together through a discussion.

Paulo Freire's (1970) writing has laid the groundwork for much of our understanding of dialogue in education. He describes dialogue as a mutually humanizing form of communication. This means that my discussion partner and I become more thoughtful, creative, and alive when we talk in ways that are two-way rather than one-way.

Because dialogue is only possible when we value the participants' opinions, Freire suggests we enter into dialogue with humility. This often means that we temporarily withhold our opinion so we can hear others. Dialogue may also involve a kind of radical honesty. That is, rather than covering up the flaws in our argument or hiding our ignorance, in dialogue we display the gaps in our thinking for everyone to see. If we want to learn, we can't hide behind a dishonest veneer of expertise.

Praxis describes the act of applying new knowledge and skills. When we study cooperative learning, for example, and then spend time planning how we'll integrate it into our lessons, we're engaged in praxis. Similarly, when we learn about asking effective questions and then write appropriate open-ended, nonjudgmental questions for our lessons, we're engaged in praxis. And when we learn about a new teaching practice, think about it deeply, and decide not to use it in our class, we're also engaged in praxis.

Reciprocity is the belief that each learning interaction is an opportunity for everyone to learn-an embodiment of the saying, "When one teaches, two learn." When we look at everyone else as a learner and a teacher, regardless of their credentials or years of experience, we're often delightfully surprised by new ideas, concepts, strategies, and passions.

Reciprocity is the inevitable outcome of a true partnership. Seeing our partners as equals means we come into a conversation respecting and valuing them. Freeing our partners to make choices means they're free to surprise us with new ideas. Encouraging them to say what they think means we'll have an opportunity to learn what's important for them to share.

Reflection, dialogue, and praxis increase the chances that we'll learn from our colleagues because we're engaged in work focused on real-life situations and we share ideas about that work. Partnership is about shared learning as much as it is about shared power.

Saying you like the partnership principles and acting on them are two different things. Taking the partnership approach demands that we temporarily relinquish power-and that's never easy. However, when we give up top-down power and adopt a partnership approach to interaction, we replace the empty power that we get by virtue of our position with the authentic power gained through choice.

Coaches who act on the partnership principles engage in the following practices.

When teachers are forced to work with a coach, they often see coaching as a punishment. However, when teachers are offered coaching as one of many ways in which they can conduct professional learning, they often see it as valuable. Agreeing to continually improve and grow is part of joining the ranks of physicians, pilots, architects, and nurses. To do anything less is unprofessional.

Coaching should be a part of all professional learning that happens in a school. Schools should build time into workshops and professional learning communities so that teachers can plan how to collaborate with a coach to implement new practices. Principals should suggest coaching as one option for professional learning when they talk with teachers after classroom observations. Coaches should also give brief presentations on coaching and meet one-on-one with teachers to talk about how they can support professional learning.

Effective coaching makes it easier for teachers to learn and implement new ideas. Indeed, without follow-up such as coaching, most professional learning will have little effect. When professional learning is central to a school's culture and when coaching is woven into all professional learning, most staff members won't need to be told to work with a coach. Most will choose to work with someone who makes it easier for them to learn new strategies, improve their skills, and reach more students.

Coaches who take a top-down approach to coaching arrive in classrooms with a predetermined collection of strategies and see it as their job to convince the teacher to use them.

However, when coaches take the partnership approach, their efforts are guided by specific goals that teachers hold for their students. Partnership coaches start by gathering data with or for the teacher. They then collaborate with the teacher to identify a specific student goal. Student goals can be either academic (for example, 95 percent of students will demonstrate mastery of this concept on the next test); behavioral (students will be on task more than 90 percent of the time); or attitudinal (90 percent of students will ask to read a book for pleasure over the break).

Ensuring that others know we hear them and that we want to know their ideas communicates that we see them as partners. We can't be partners unless we understand how our partners see things.

During partnership coaching conversations, coaches create a setting in which collaborating teachers feel comfortable saying what they think. Coaches are curious to understand, and they make sure the conversation focuses on the teachers' concerns. In this way, they get to hear the real truth.

Coaches ask questions of their partners because they're more concerned with getting things right than with being right. Therefore, they ask good questions to which they don't know the answers-and they listen for the answers. For example, when they ask, "What evidence did you see that shows that your students are learning?" they want to know what the teacher thinks, not guide the teacher to see what they see. They stop persuading, and they start learning.

When coaches explain practices, they should be precise and provisional. As Atul Gawande pointed out in The Checklist Manifesto (2010), precision is an essential part of coaching. If we can't explain a practice clearly, we can't expect teachers to implement it effectively.

However, precision that doesn't account for an individual's thoughts and knowledge runs the risk of alienating teachers. Partnership coaches not only give precise explanations, but also ask teachers how they can adapt practices to best fit their teaching style and meet their students' needs. Thus, a coach might share a checklist describing how to model metacognitive reading strategies, with a step-by-step explanation of the process. However, while explaining it, the coach would ask the teacher whether that process would work for her students or for her teaching style.

The reality is that teachers will adapt practices to make them their own. By taking the partnership approach, coaches can collaborate with teachers on creating the best fit. To think that each practice must be done in exactly the same way in every classroom underestimates the complexity of the process. In education, as Eric Liu (2004) has explained, "It's never one size fits all; it's one size fits one."

The term feedback often brings to mind traditional top-down feedback. We envision a coach who gives an athlete feedback on how to hit the ball or jump a hurdle. This kind of feedback usually involves giving some positive comments, explaining how to improve, and ensuring that the listener knows what he or she needs to do to improve.

When coaches take the top-down approach in school, they use data to explain what they think the teacher has done well and what she or he needs to do to improve. Top-down coaches do most of the talking because they want to make sure that teachers learn how to do something correctly. However, the problem with top-down feedback is that it's based on the assumption that there's only one right way to see things-and that right way is always the coach's way.

An alternative to top-down feedback is the partnership approach-the collaborative exploration of data. Here, coach and teacher sit side by side as partners and discuss their interpretations of the data that the coach has gathered. Coaches don't withhold their opinions, but they offer them provisionally, communicating their openness to the teacher's point of view.

The partnership approach builds on an old idea-that we should treat others the way we'd like them to treat us. Chances are we'll want someone who will help us by giving us choices about what and how we learn. We'll likely want a say in our learning, and we'll likely get more out of back-and-forth conversations than one-way lectures. Chances are we'll want our conversations to help us address real-life issues, and we'll be more open to new ideas if the person helping us respects us, has faith in us, considers us educated and capable of making good decisions, and sees us as an equal. Chances are we'll want to be treated like a partner.

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When coaches and teachers interact equally as partners, good things happen.

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Instructional Coaching Group | Progress Through Partnership

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Instructional coaches partner with teachers to help them improve teaching and learning so students are more successful. To do this, coaches collaborate with teachers to get a clear picture of current reality, identify goals, pick teaching strategies to meet the goals, monitor progress, and problem s…

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Big 4_Academic Expectations Guide - Design & share beautiful engaging content with Visme

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Big 4_Targeted Instruction & Differentiation

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Big 4_Targeted Instruction & Differentiation - Design & share beautiful engaging content with Visme

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3 ways to plan for diverse learners: What teachers do

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3 ways to plan for diverse learners: What teachers do

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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.