You have created a COOL Cosmic Space!  The way that you used your initials in the stars is out of this world!!! I can see that you used overlapping, shading and placement to create space in your artwork! I see that you worked really hard on this assignment. Did you and Julia have fun with this project?  I admire your persistence and I appreciate your hard work. It has paid off! You go girl!!!  :-) Mrs. Tucciarelli

I review best practices for our live Class Time sessions together at the beginning of every class. I use a Class Rules slide for our discussion. This helps new students learn the classroom procedures and expectations and also serves as a review for other students. It’s so important to set clear expectations at the beginning of class just like we did when we taught children in person. I try to use positive reminders throughout our time together to reinforce classroom procedures. With young children, repetition is key. I also try to give time at the beginning of class for students to remove any distractions such as noise in the background, a toy they might be tempted to play with, etc. Taking care of these issues and answering technical questions at the beginning of class helps to ensure that the rest of our time together can be as meaningful as possible. While taking into consideration the different personalities and learning styles within my class, I try to encourage students who might be shy to come on the mic to participate using hand gestures on camera or by using the tools within Zoom to show their thinking. I also call on students to answer if I notice that certain students are dominating the conversation. I sprinkle relationship building activities throughout lessons whenever possible. My kindergarten students and I truly enjoy getting to know each other! A tip I read a few years ago was to tell my students to treat their video camera like a person. I love this! I remind my students that we are all in the same position (sitting in front of the computer to come together as a class). I model for them what eye contact looks like in Zoom using the camera. It feels silly but modeling really does help! I continue to encourage them to talk politely, respect their classmates’ ideas, and SMILE throughout the lesson. I also remind my students that even though their classmates and I aren’t all in the same room physically together, behind each little square camera on the screen is a real person with real feelings. 

Live classes are so important for the students and us teachers.  It’s during this time we get to engage with them and help them grow.  During class time I always start by introducing myself, greeting each one by name (this allows me to see if their mic is working because I ask them to let me know if I said name correctly) and asking if they had a nice weekend and briefly share if I did anything fun (they love to hear about us too)!   I also live to play 5 finger chat box.  If an answer is required, where they are typing in a response, I give them wait/think time and then see who can type in their answer the quickest…they like to be FIRST and this engages them to pay attention….they love a good competition. 😁  I remind them to make sure to use the chat box appropriately, so they don’t lose their privileges. I also make sure to have a student read the growth mindset and then another one explains what it means to them (this is a huge chance for us to remind them that mistakes are allowed, and this is how we learn).

DBAs – their time to shine and show what you know!  As they log on, I make sure to ask how they are, what they have been doing for fun, what has been their favorite subject/module and then ask if that is the subject that they want to start with first?  This allows them to feel they are choosing and hopefully more comfortable during the DBA and not so much like it’s a TEST. Comfort is so important since they don’t interact with us daily, so I like to help with this to ensure it increases their confidence (and hopefully to score well).

My main go to is student-student learning. I work hard to be a facilitator in the learning when teaching lessons. I normally start out with calling on students that may not be eager to answer as a way of checking their understanding but also walking them through how to learn in this type of environment and owning their learning.  If they do not know the answer I ask them to tell me “ Mrs. Lanza, I do not know that yet”. I then ask them if they would like to ask a friend to help them in the class. They respond so well to peer interactions, and I try to make them feel comfortable with not knowing the answer at first but then learning as we go.  I will then do another check for understanding with whatever we are working on to see if that same student if jumping in to participate and also allowing to feel like this is a safe place to know a little or a lot. 

As a lead, we try to help teachers with resources that may help the students. As new teachers begin their virtual teacher journey, we help them to take what they did amazingly in the classroom and try to make it work virtually. 

I do love Nearpod!  I feel as those it has been a great way to include all students and make it a small group feel with highlighting things students do well and showing me what students may need to work on or need extra practice with.  Nearpod is a great activity to send to family weekly as a self-paced lesson to check for understanding. Maybe the student had some difficulties in a DBA. Sending a Nearpod lesson showing the home educator sample items for them to work on will really help the home educator to be able to best meet the needs of their child. 

Today marks my 3^rd year at FLVS (my 24^th year as an educator) and I am still learning new things each day…right along with our students.  In the beginning, I wondered how I would monitor student success and keep them engaged during CT.  

During CT, I LOVE to hear THE STUDENTS and have them “teach” to show understanding.  After having gone over a skill, I like to have a volunteer (or sometimes I have to choose) someone to teach us what they learned and then the others will say if they agree or disagree (thumbs up/down) as well as using their annotation tools to SHOW WHAT THEY KNOW.  I also love to do 5 finger chat box to make sure they are all listening and keeping up and utilizing that to type in their answers.  They love competition and interacting with their peers is a great way to do that. This helps me to see who has the correct answer and who I need to still work with and make sure they have a good understanding. Quizz and Nearpod is a wonderful resource for CT and then Prodigy and Dreamscape is fabulous for the students to use at home.  

I try to give feedback in a timely manner so that students always know where they are in the learning process. I want to support students as soon as a I notice that they’re struggling with a concept so that they (and their home educator) aren’t surprised by a grade on an assessment. I think it’s important for my feedback to be concise and user-friendly- both for the student and their home educator. I am happy with our new Literacy Skills Assessments in Kindergarten and the opportunity for constructive feedback they provide. I’ve already had some valuable conversations with students and parents this year regarding their performance on their first assessment. Because most of my students can’t read yet, it’s so important for me to take advantage of our time together during the LSA and DBAs to having meaningful conversations with them about where they’re at on their learning journey. I’ve found that finding a balance between providing feedback and protecting a student’s self-esteem is crucial during these conversations. I try to keep things positive and keep my facial expressions in check knowing that they are also a means of delivering feedback. Using rubrics in my written feedback on assignments allows me to provide specific information about a student’s performance. This year during live lessons, LSAs and DBAs, I am working on pointing out things I notice as the student demonstrates their strengths and weaknesses to get them thinking about how they might improve their skills for future activities. At the beginning of live lessons, I introduce students to the lesson’s purpose in hopes to provide interest and motivation to the students while convincing them that they will benefit from our time together 😉. To introduce the lesson’s purpose, I ask questions to get them thinking about the topic. I show pictures that relate to the lesson topic and sometimes tell a story to show the importance of the topic. Showing real objects whenever possible related to the lesson also helps! During live lessons, I give specific pointers on ways students can improve while they’re working on one thing at a time so that they can process my feedback and make improvements. At the end of our live lessons, I tell students skills that we will be working on the next week and show a Class Time Advertisement slide to get them excited about what’s coming next. In my written feedback on assignments, I include a video link that previews skills they will learn in the next lesson. 

We like to hear how good/bad we did on an informal/formal so we can make corrections for a more successful observation the next time. Mistakes help us learn!  

I like to grade as soon as I possibly can so that the assignment is fresh on the students’ mind and they can make corrections as needed. It’s important to find something positive he/she did and start with that before going right into what was incorrect. When providing feedback…BE SPECIFIC on not only what can be changed BUT HOW TO change it…give some examples to help them out as well as how that can help them moving forward to their next assignment. 

We all require feedback and it’s important to do so in a positive manner that will lift each other up and not feel defeated. 

With our grading snippets in kindergarten, we have recently added the amazing videos and tutorials our team made one summer to help support learning. We are using these to feed forward in our grading of assignments to give students a sneak peak of what they will be learning next. These also serve as a great review for students when they are struggling and need additional resources for learning a concept. 

In class during DBAs, I like to find ways to encourage the student to become part of their learning. We talk about their interests and hobbies at the beginning of the session, and I find ways to bring those topics into the DBA. If they talked to me about going to the park, I might include that topic when talking about math and counting leaves or acorns like they might find at a park.  I also will ask the families beforehand what their child’s interests are and put together a theme for a DBA. If they like puppies, I will change Math icons for counting to puppies and so on. 

So many great ideas were shared to engage students and really help them take ownership of their learning. 

In Kindergarten, students are learning to understand and create sounds. During live lessons, I use circles (but other shapes would work, too) as “counters” to represent phonemes as a way to make sounds tangible for students. I have started using virtual versions of a sound-spelling mat during live lessons to help students map speech to print. These mats have a row of boxes and counters that help students learn to count the sounds in words. Tools like this really help model slowly stretching and counting the sounds in words as you move a counter into a box to represent each sound. Eventually students could swap counters for letters or even use the writing tool in Zoom. I also love the idea of incorporating a virtual word wall as a tool for students on slides throughout lessons. Older students could even create their own word wall using Google Slides, PowerPoint, etc. to compile new words they notice. I hope to use the Wheel of Names in upcoming lessons (https://wheelofnames.com/) to strengthen my students’ ability to ask questions using question words (who, what, how, why, where). In addition to hearing the sounds being spoken by their teacher, students also need to see the movements made by our mouths that are associated with each letter sound. I try to make sure that my mouth is visible to students on the screen and that I am close enough to the camera so that they can clearly see the movements of my lips and tongue. I will often come super close to the camera when necessary for emphasis. This can be awkward…haha but it’s extremely beneficial. I ask students to do the same thing and encourage them to lean in close to their camera so that I can see their mouth when they are producing a letter sound. Hearing the sounds in spoken words (and playing with those sounds) can be tricky for students because it is so abstract. I provide pictures as visual cues to represent the words to avoid confusion when possible. 

Literacy is crucial in all subjects and environmental print is huge!  Some kids may have seen that word on a billboard or commercial. 

I love starting CT with VOCABULARY and asking the kids what they know about that word or have they ever heard of it and hearing THEIR definitions before explaining it.  Building background knowledge is important and can be done with literacy and this builds a foundation for getting started. Having them interact and use “kid friendly” definitions leads toward a better understanding as they move forward.

In Kindergarten, writing is always an area where I feel that I am not only teaching the child but the home educator to show them how the progression of writing happens. Many times, families go right to having the student write out the word without sounding out and understanding the importance of being able to manipulate sounds to form words. One of my favorite activities when working with families is teaching writing. I give families ways to help build independence with writing as well as encouraging students to be able to manipulate sounds to form words. It is so important for them to be able to practice what they are learning and to apply it in different ways to show mastery.

1.       Having students cut pictures out of magazines that they find interesting. The student will then talk to their home educator about the picture and come up with one sentence about the picture. The student will them write the sentence and sound out unfamiliar words. Parents can give students sentence starters for the beginning level writers. 

2.       Another activity is to find a picture of an animal in color. The student will begin by writing a simple sentence about the animal. I see a dog. The parent can then engage in conversation with the child and talk about the pictures. What else do you notice about the dog? He is brown. Let’s write a sentence about that. The student would then add another sentence under the first one writing, The dog is brown. From there the student can create many more sentences and work on sounding out just by looking at one picture.

In class time, I love to use vocabulary to help students learn what I call “Big Fancy Words” so they begin using them daily. 

 

I ask them if they have any questions before we begin. 

I always ask during CT a student to repeat what I say, to check for understanding.

I do the same thing during our DBAs. 

During the DBAs I give them two options:

However, regardless of what they choose at first, I always tell them we can switch to the option they didn't choose at any time if they want to.

There are times that I also suggest bringing props during our DBAs if they have the items we are covering. 

During our time together, I give them positive and constructive feedback. I am a strong believer in the power of "Yet", whenever they say: "I don't it". I reply: "Not yet amigo, but I am going to help you learn it!". OR "Maybe, we do not remember it, but I am confident that it is somewhere in your "Cabeza" and is not ready to come out "Yet", but together will make it come out!"

I believe this allows them to feel more comfortable and have ownership of their learning. 

I can tell they leave my Zoom classroom empowered and confident with what they demonstrated they know. 

 

Also, many times before I begin the read aloud, I activate prior knowledge and review vocabulary words that will be used in the story. I also encourage students to show me "thumbs up" when they hear the word in the story.

If the read aloud has repetitive text, I will mention this to the student before reading and tell them to get ready to help me read. When we approach the page with repetitive text, I encourage the students to read along with me. This strategy allows students to get involved during the read aloud and build confidence with repeating the same phrase.

Getting some students to open up can be a challenge while others are an open book!  Engaging students to discuss during CT, DBA or even tutoring allows you to learn so much about them…their strengths and weaknesses.  

I love to approach it as though THEY are the TEACHER and give them a chance to “teach” and show what they know and then the others are the students, and they have to work out the problem based on what the teacher explained.  ROLE PLAY is huge, and this allows others to feel comfortable enough to ask questions to the “teacher” and sometimes the student teacher will do a great job of explaining on a kid friendly level that helps.

 

Lynette Pagan  4^th grade

Pacing…that can be a tough one at times especially if cameras are not on to actually see the students.  I try to do chat box and give them time and then count down with visual, or annotate on the screen, 5 finger chat box game always gets them going so I know some of them will reply and then others jump in.  I set my timer and allow them to see how much longer they have.  If no reply within time limit, I just jump back on and go over it so as not to drag it out.