The Precious First Few Minutes Of Class by Suzy Pepper Rollins Students file into class. "Your warm-up is on the board," we announce.  Two students fish for pencils in backpacks, one begs to get water, another needs to see the nurse, and attendance needs to be entered into the computer.  "Ok, so let’s go over the warm-up now," we call, "and then we’ll look at last night’s homework." More minutes pass, as students dump out backpacks and empty pockets in a panicked search for a scrap of paper they swear was secured last night. Others, who quickly knocked out the homework on the bus ride home, wait patiently for classmates to catch up. It is perhaps time to rethink our expectations for the opening minutes of class. Warm-ups or bell-ringers largely serve a classroom management purpose during hectic opening minutes. By getting students quickly occupied and in their seats, administrative tasks can be handled. But the opening minutes are also the time when students’ brains are their freshest and they tend to remember more of what’s been taught during this period than any other time of the learning episode. In addition, student motivation can increase if they realize that the concept being taught today connects to their lives and has value. These precious minutes can quickly establish a prior knowledge connection, vital to maximizing learning. Even the "best" lesson is worthless if students aren’t engaged, or don’t believe they will be able to complete the work. At the beginning of each lesson, students need some kind of foothold. Rather than begin class with a passive warm-up, success starters have the power to get every student motivated about the lesson and successful right from the bell.  Starting off on the right academic foot in the opening minutes can pay dividends throughout the lesson by sparking intellectual curiosity about today’s concept. Students get the message early that, "Hey, I think I can do this!" We’ve shared 12 Interesting Ways To Start Class Tomorrow before. Here are a few more strategies that get students involved in new learning right away. 4 Easy Teaching Warm-Ups To Start Class Tomorrow 1. Facts and Fibs Create facts and fibs about the upcoming topic on strips of paper.  In groups, students discuss each of these and separate into piles. For example, if students will be learning about the desert, one strip might say, "Deserts are always hot." Another: "Desert animals often have long periods of dormancy to survive." As students learn about deserts, they rethink their facts and fibs, repositioning the strips. Were the group’s answers correct? In math, fact and fib strips might say, ".61 is greater than 0.064" or "There is not a number between 5.4 and 5.5."  Facts and fibs facilitate talking about math. 2. Survey It’s hard to beat surveys to answer the question, "What’s this got to do with me?" About to embark on a government unit? A short survey in which students respond to questions about driver’s licenses, voting, marriage requirements, etc. can get every student involved. Tackling a piece of text about a character in a tough predicament? Survey questions inquire about ways in which students might handle these situations. Students are more likely to be motivated to read when there is a personal connection to the text. They are now wondering, "Hmmm, I wonder how the character will get out of this mess?"  (Before the survey, students were likely thinking about lunch.) 3. Question Cards Pass out index cards to groups with "What? Who? When? How? and Where?" written on the cards. Students "play" their cards by creating questions about the topic.For example, if the upcoming lesson is on snails, a student might inquire, "Why are snails so slimy?" The next student’s query might be, "Where do snails live?" During the lesson or reading, students answer the questions they have created during the opener. Question cards facilitate questioning by every student, not just the few in the front.  Plus, it’s much for engaging to seek answers to questions students have developed themselves rather than those from a publisher. 4. Alpha Brainstorming On a chart from A-Z, groups brainstorm everything they know about a topic. For example, "Write everything you know about electricity." This process taps into prior knowledge and gets everyone on topic in just a few minutes.  After the lesson, students can revisit their list, "Now, what can be added to what you know about electricity?"  (A math example might be, "List everything with a perimeter from A-Z.") A Quick Checklist for Successful Warmup Activities Success starters have the power to get students intellectually engaged and successful right at the bell. By tweaking our instruction in those critical minutes, teachers can set-up today’s learning goals beautifully in just a few minutes.  With these strategies, students become authentically engaged right away, and teachers can still quickly handle critical administrative tasks. A checklist for success starters: Is intellectual curiosity about today’s learning goals piqued? Does the activity tap into real-world or personal connections? Does the task foster success in ALL students for today’s learning goal? The opening minutes can be so valuable in getting student excited about today’s lesson.  Success starters have the power to get every student open to new learning right at the bell, not many minutes later. For more information on success starters and other next-day implementation strategies, see Suzy’s book, Learning in the Fast Lane: 8 Ways to Put ALL Students on the Road to Academic Success (ASCD, 2014). You can also find more ASCD resources for Creating Inclusive Learning Experiences. Suzy Pepper is a passionate life-long educator whose mission is to create academic success in all learners by instilling instructional practices that provide widespread accessibility to academic rigor.  She consults and trains in districts across the country. She can be reached via her website www.mathinfastlane.com or suzypepp@yahoo.com; image attribution flickr users woodleywonderworks and skokinorthshoresculpturepark; The Precious First Few Minutes: 4 Easy Teaching Warm-Ups To Start Class Tomorrow; The post The Precious First Few Minutes Of Class appeared first on TeachThought.

A Guide to Questioning in the Classroom by TeachThought Staff This post was promoted by Noet Scholarly Tools who are offering TeachThought readers 20% off their entire order at Noet.com with coupon code TEACHTHOUGHT (enter the coupon code after you’ve signed in)! Get started with their Harvard Fiction Classics or introductory packages on Greek and Latin classics. Noet asked us to write about inquiry because they believe it’s important, and relates to their free research app for the classics. This is part 1 of a 2-part series on questioning in the classroom. Part 1 focuses on questions in general-their function, purpose, forms, their relationship with cognitive dissonance, as well as a quick overview of essential questions. Part 2 of the Guide To Questioning In The Classroom (publishing 4/14/2015) will focus on question strategies, especially those that help students learn to ask their own questions in an inquiry-process. Something we’ve become known for is our focus on thought, inquiry, and understanding, and questions are a big part of that. We’ve done questions that students should ask, parents should ask, students should and shouldn’t answer, questions that promote and stifle inquiry, question that reveal self-knowledge and wisdom, and more. If the ultimate goal of education is for students to be able to effectively answer questions, then focusing on content and response strategies makes sense. If the ultimate goal of education is to teach students to think, then focusing on how we can help students ask better questions themselves might make sense, no? Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers The ability to ask the right question at the right time is a powerful indicator of authentic understanding. Asking a question that pierces the veil in any given situation is itself an artifact of the critical thinking teachers so desperately seek in students, if for no other reason than it shows what the student know, and then implies the desire to know more. Asking a question is a sign of understanding, not ignorance; it requires both knowledge and then-critically-the ability to see what else you’re missing. Questions are more important than answers because they reflect both understanding and curiosity in equal portions. To ask a question is to see both backward and forward-to make sense of a thing and what you know about it, and then extend outward in space and time to imagine what else can be known, or what others might know. To ask a great question is to see the conceptual ecology of the thing. In a classroom, a student can see a drop of water, a literary device, a historical figure, or a math theorem, but these are just fragments that are worthless in and of themselves. A student in biology studying a drop of water must see the water as infinitely plural-as something that holds life and something that gives life. As a marker of life, and an icon of health. It is a tool, a miracle, a symbol, and a matter of science. They must know what’s potentially inside of a drop of water, and then how to find out what’s actually inside that drop of water. They must know what others have found studying water, as well as what that drop of water means within the field of science, and beyond it. They must know that water is never really just water. Teacher Questions vs Student Questions When teachers try to untangle this cognitive mess, they sacrifice personalization for efficiency. There are simply too many students, and too much content to cover, so they cut to the chase. Which means then tend towards the universal over the individual-broad, sweeping questions intermingling with sharper, more concise questions that hopefully shed some light and cause some curiosity. In a class of 30 with an aggressively-paced curriculum map and the expectation that every student master the content regardless of background knowledge, literacy level, or interest in the material, this is the best most teachers can do. This only a bottleneck, though, when the teacher asks the questions. When the student asks the question, the pattern is reversed. The individual student has little regard for the welfare of the class, especially when they’re forming questions. They’re on the clock to say something, anything. Which is great, because questions-when they’re authentic-are automatically personal because they came up with them. They’re not tricks, or guess-what-the-teacher’s-thinking. A student couldn’t possibly capture the scale of confusion or curiosity of 30 other people; instead, they survey their own thinking, spot both gaps and fascinations, and form a question. This is the spring-loading of a Venus flytrap. The topic crawls around in the mind of the student innocently enough, and when the time is right-and the student is confident-the flower snaps shut. Once a student starts asking questions, that magic of learning can begin. And the best part for a teacher? Questions reveal far more than answers ever might. The Purpose of Questions Thought of roughly as a kind of spectrum, four purposes of questions might stand out, from more "traditional" to more "progressive." (More Traditional) Academic View In a traditional academic setting, the purpose of a question is to elicit a response that can be assessed (i.e., answer this question so I can see what you know). (Less Traditional) Curriculum-Centered View Here, a "good question" matters more than a good answer, as it demonstrates the complexity of student understanding of a given curriculum. (More Progressive) Inquiry View As confusion or curiosity markers that suggest a path forward for inquiry, and then are iterated and improved based on learning. (Also known as question-based learning.) (More Progressive Still) Self-Directed View In a student-centered circumstance, a question illuminates possible learning pathways forward irrespective of curriculum demands. The student’s own knowledge demands-and their uncovering-center and catalyze the learning experience. The Relative Strengths of Questions Good questions can reveal subtle shades of understanding-what this student knows about this topic in this context Questions promote inquiry and learning how to learn over proving what you know Questions fit in well with the modern "Google" mindset Used well, questions can promote personalized learning as teachers can change question on fly to meet student needs The Relative Weaknesses of Questions Questions depend on language, which means literacy, jargon, confusing syntax, academic diction, and more can all obscure the learning process Questions can imply answers, which imply stopping points and "finishing" over inquiry and wisdom (See questions that promote inquiry-based learning.) Accuracy of answers can be overvalued, which makes the confidence of the answerer impact the quality of the response significantly "Bad questions" are easy to write and deeply confusing, which can accumulate to harm a student’s sense of self-efficacy, as well as their own tendency to ask them on their own 7 Common Written Assessment Question Forms Questions as written assessment (as opposed to questions as inquiry, questions to guide self-directed learning, or questions to demonstrate understanding) most commonly take the following forms in writing: Matching True/False Multiple Choice Short Answer Diagramming Essay Open-Ended Questioning & Self-Directed Learning For years in classrooms, questions have guided teachers in the design of units and lessons, often through the development of essential questions that all students should be able to reasonably respond to, and that can guide their learning of existing and pre-mapped content. In the TeachThought Self-Directed Learning Model, learners are required to create their own curriculum through a series of questions that emphasize self-knowledge, citizenship, and communal and human interdependence. In this model, existing questions act as a template to uncover potential learning pathways. Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance is the cognitively-uncomfortable act of holding two seemingly competing beliefs at the same time. If you believe that Freedom of Speech is the foundation of democracy, but then are presented with a perspective (through Socratic-style questioning from the teacher, for example), you arrive (or the student does) at a crossroads where they have to adjust something-either their belief, or their judgment about the validity of the question itself. In this way, questions can promote Cognitive Dissonance-which means a good question can change a student’s mind, beliefs, or tendency to examine their own beliefs. Questions, cognitive, and self-reflection go hand-in-hand. Role of "Lower-Level" Questions Lower-level questions are questions that inquire at "lower levels" of various learning taxonomies. These are often "recall," questions that are based in fact—definitions, dates, names, biographical details, etc.  Education is thought to have focused (without having been there, who knows for sure?) on these lower levels, and "low" is bad in academics, right? "Lower-level" thinking implies a lack of "higher level" thinking, so instead of analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and creating, students are defining, recalling, and memorizing, the former of which make for artists and designers and innovators, and the latter of which make for factory workers. And that part, at least, is (mostly) true. Recall and memorization aren’t the stuff of understanding, much less creativity and wisdom, except that they are. Bloom’s Taxonomy was not created to segregate "good thinking" from "bad thinking." In their words, "Our attempt to arrange educational behaviors from simple to complex was based on the idea that a particular simple behavior may become integrated with other equally simple behaviors to form a more complex behavior." In this way, the taxonomy is simply one way of separating the strands of thinking like different colored yarn-a kind of visual scheme to see the pattern, contrasts, and even sequence of cognitive actions. Nowhere does it say that definitions and names and labels and categories are bad-and if it did, we’d have to wonder about the taxonomy rather than assuming that they were. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that if a student doesn’t know there was a war, and that it was fought in the United States in the 1800s, and that it was purportedly over states’ rights, and that both culture, industry, and agriculture all impacted the hows, whens, and whys of the war, that "higher-level thinking strategies" aren’t going to be very useful. In short, lower-level questions can both illuminate and establish foundational knowledge on which to build more complex and nuanced understanding of content. They provide a foothold for thinking. To further the point, in 5 Common Misconceptions About Bloom’s Taxonomy, Grant Wiggins explains that the phrases "higher-order" and "lower-order" don’t appear anywhere in the taxonomy. Essential Questions On his website, Grant Wiggins defines an essential questions as those that are "broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable." Examples of Essential Questions What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author’s view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? A question is essential when it: causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content; provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions; requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers; stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons; sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences; naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects. You can see more examples of essential questions here. On Tuesday, we’ll help you take this background information and channel into specific question strategies that you can use to help students learn to create their own questions. A Guide To Questioning In The Classroom; image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad The post A Guide To Questioning In The Classroom appeared first on TeachThought.

On April 20 For Earth Week, Classrooms Can Connect with Dr. Jane Goodall During Interactive Webinar by TeachThought Staff In celebration of Earth Week, teachers and students are invited to participate in a free webinar with renowned chimpanzee researcher and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall. New York City, NY (April 7, 2015) - On April 20, TIME for Kids (TFK) is hosting a unique opportunity for teachers and students from around the world to hear from famous primatologist and United Nations Messenger of Peace, Dr. Jane Goodall, through a live, interactive webinar presentation. To kickoff Earth Week (April 20-24), the free webinar will focus on introducing K-6 students to important subjects such as conservation, environmentalism and humanitarianism. During the presentation, Dr. Goodall will answer questions from students about her work and why it’s critical to protect the planet we share. Teachers are encouraged to submit a question from their class on the registration form. Questions can also be sent to: tfkasks4you@timeforkids.com. "As education technology becomes more widely accessible in classrooms, it’s never been easier and more fun to connect students with the world they live in," said Nellie Gonzalez Cutler, managing editor of TFK. "These once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunities allow children to engage with experts and their peers from around the world, fostering global knowledge and connectivity, while encouraging the next generation to help make the planet a better place for its inhabitants." As an additional learning component, TFK will provide classrooms with background materials on Dr. Goodall’s work, and the African country of Tanzania, where she spent 25 years studying chimpanzees in their natural habitat. The content-rich TFK supplement, Around the World: Tanzania is available for free, on the TFK website http://bit.ly/1IbwUoW. During the webinar, TFK will also share printable worksheets and graphic organizers to help teachers extend the lesson after the event. The webinar will take place from 1:00 - 2:00pm ET, on Monday, April 20, 2015. For more information and to register, please visit: http://bit.ly/1y5wZaD. ABOUT TIME FOR KIDS With nearly 20 years of classroom experience, TIME For Kids is a trusted leader in education resources for teachers, students and parents. TIME For Kids delivers authentic content that covers a wide range of real-world topics through nonfiction text and multimedia tools that align with the Common Core State Standards. A powerful teaching tool, TIME For Kids builds reading and writing skills and is easily integrated across many curriculums, including social studies, science and math, creating lifelong readers and informed citizens. TIME For Kids is a division of Time Inc. For more information, visit http://www.timeforkids.com. About Jane Goodall When Jane Goodall was a child growing up in England, she dreamed of one day living among wild animals. At the age of 26, she got her chance. The respected scientist Louis S.B. Leakey asked her to study a group of chimpanzees in Tanzania. Goodall moved to the African country and spent the next 25 years studying the primates in their natural habitat. What she learned about chimpanzees fascinated people all over the world. In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute, which is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. The institute is widely recognized for innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa. In 1991, Goodall founded Roots & Shoots, a program that encourages young people to volunteer in their communities and work to protect the Earth. Goodall is also an author. Her book for children, The Chimpanzees I Love: Saving Their World and Ours, shares her experiences studying and living with chimps for more than 41 years. Her observations have given the world insight into similarities between humans and chimpanzees, ranging from how chimps raise their children to the way they use tools and solve problems. She also wrote Hope for Animals and Their World, a collection of conservation success stories. Goodall continues to be a passionate fighter for primates, spending about 300 days a year traveling the world to speak about her work and encourage people to protect our planet. The post On April 20 Classrooms Can Connect With Dr. Jane Goodall appeared first on TeachThought.

‘The Want Of Peace’ By Wendell Berry by Terry Heick There can’t be higher recreation than contentment. This is at odds with our natural pattern to constantly seek new and more. Thus is born our daily struggle. Poet, farmer, essayist, and teacher Wendell Berry laments his own "lack of simple things" in ‘The Want of Peace,’ asking about our collective trade-"selling the world to buy fire." The structure of  the poem is straightforward, which furthers the theme-2 stanzas, 8 lines per stanza, unrhymed. The imagery is elemental and simple without being simpleminded, while the diction (excess, silence, musing, fire, burning, bent, darkness, dumb) hint at the implicit lessons available with closer reading. Berry’s poetry style is reminiscent of Robert Frost’s, even if he lacks Frost’s square neatness and affection for scheme, meter, and structure. The Want of Peace by Wendell Berry All goes back to the earth, and so I do not desire pride of excess or power, but the contentments made by men who have had little: the fisherman’s silence receiving the river’s grace, the gardener’s musing on rows. I lack the peace of simple things. I am never wholly in place. I find no peace or grace. We sell the world to buy fire, our way lighted by burning men, and that has bent my mind and made me think of darkness and wish for the dumb life of roots. "The Want of Peace" by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012. (buy now) ‘The Want Of Peace’ By Wendell Berry; adapted image attribution flickr user stevegarry; ‘The Want Of Peace’ By Wendell Berry The post ‘The Want Of Peace’ By Wendell Berry appeared first on TeachThought.

The Assessment Range: Using Data In The Classroom To Meaningfully Affect Learning by Terry Heick If you don’t already have a plan for the data before giving the assessment, you’re already behind. Among the challenges of assessment, this concept-as it applies to formal academic classrooms designed to promote mastery of Common Core or similar standards-is near the top. Without a direct input into your instructional design embedded within a dynamic curriculum map, an assessment is just a hurdle for the student-one they might clear, or one that might trip them up. And let’s talk about how much we, as teachers, like to jump hurdles for others. This is the third time in as many weeks that I’ve written about assessment, which usually means there’s something that’s bothering me and I can’t figure out what. In Evolving How We Plan, I pointed contentiously at the "unit" and "lesson" as impediments to personalized learning. Simply put, most planning templates in most schools used by most teachers on most days don’t allow for data to be easily absorbed. They’re not designed for students, they’re designed for curriculum. Their audience isn’t students or communities, but rather administrators and colleagues. These are industrial documents. Depending on what grade level and content area you teach, and how your curriculum is packaged, what you should and are reasonably able to do with data might be different. But pit roughly, teachers administer quizzes and exams, and do their best to "re-teach." Even in high-functioning professional learning communities, teachers are behind before they give their first test. Their teaching just isn’t ready for the data. What Should Assessments "Do"? In The Most Important Question Every Assessment Should Answer, I outlined one of the biggest of the many big ideas that revolve around tests, quizzes, and other snapshots of understanding-information. In short (depending on the assessment form, purpose, context, type, etc.), the primary function of assessment in a dynamic learning environment is to provide data to revise planned instruction. It tells you where to go next, like a bat’s echo location. Unfortunately, they’re not always used this way, even when they are. Instead, they’re high drama that students "pass" or "fail." They’re matters of professional learning communities and artifacts for "data teams." They’re designed to function, but instead they just parade about and make a spectacle of themselves. Within PLCs and data teams, the goal is to establish a standardized process to incrementally improve teaching and learning, but the minutiae and processes within these teaching improvement tools can center themselves over the job they’re supposed to be doing. We learn to "get good" at PLCs and data teams the same way students "get good" at taking tests. Which is crazy and backwards and no wonder education hates innovation. To teach a student, you have to know what they do and don’t know. What they can or can’t do. "They" doesn’t refer to the class either, but the student. That student-what do they seem to know? How did you measure, and how much do you trust that measurement? This is fundamental, and in an academic institution, more or less "true." Yet, "the ‘constructivist’ paradigm…is not compatible with the ‘conventional’ paradigm of external examinations" (Galbraith’s 1993). Constructivism, depending as it does on the learners own knowledge creation over time through reflection and iteration-seems to resist modern assessment forms that seek to pop in, take a snapshot, and pop back out. These snapshots are taken with no "frames" waiting for them within the lesson or unit. They’re just grades and measurements, with little hope of substantively changing how and when students learn what. Teachers As Learning Designers There is the matter of teaching practice working behind the scenes here. What teachers believe, and how those beliefs inform their practice, including assessment design and data management. In 2003 in Classroom Assessment Practices and Teachers’ Self-Perceived Assessment Skills, Zhicheng Zhang and Judith A. Burry-Stock separate "assessment practices and assessment skills," explaining that they "are related but have different constructs. Whereas the former pertains to assessment activities, the latter reflects an individual’s perception of his or her skill level in conducting those activities. This may explain why teachers rated their assessment skills as good even though they were found inadequately prepared to conduct classroom assessment in several areas." Assessment design can’t exist independently from instructional design or curriculum design. A "fantastic test" is as useful as a "brilliant telescope." Applied how? In The Inconvenient Truths of Assessment, I said that "It’s an extraordinary amount of work to design precise and personalized assessments that illuminate pathways forward for individual students-likely too much for one teacher to do so consistently for every student." This is such a challenge not because personalizing learning is hard, but personalizing learning is hard when you use traditional units (e.g., genre-based units in English-Language Arts) and basic learning models (e.g., direct instruction, basic grouping, maybe some tiering, etc.) Change the tools, and you can change the machine; change the machine, and you can change the tools. The question then can be asked: How can we design learning along chronological (time) and conceptual (content) boundaries so that that learning requires that data to create itself? Adaptive learning algorithms within certain #edtech products are coded along these lines. So how do we do this face-to-face, nose-to-book, pen-to-hand? If we insist on using a data-based and researched-grounded ed reform model, this is crucial, no? Backwards Planning Of A Different Kind Assessments are data creation tools. Why collect the data if it’s not going to be used? This is all very simple: Don’t give an assessment unless the data is actually going to change future learning for *that* student. Think about what an assessment can do. Give the student a chance to show what they know. Act as a microscope for you to examine what they seem to understand. Make the student feel good or bad. Motivate or demotivate the student. De-authenticate an otherwise authentic learning experience. Think about what you can do with assessment data as a teacher. Report it to others. Assign an arbitrary alphanumeric symbol in hopes that it symbolizes-student-achievement-but-can-we-really-agree-what-that-means-anyway? Spin it to colleagues or parents or students. Overreact to it. Misunderstand it. Ignore it. Use it to make you feel good or bad about your own teaching-like you’re "holding students accountable" with the "bar high," or like no matter what you do, it’s still not enough. Grant Wiggins (whose work I often gush over) and colleague Jay McTighe are known for their Understanding by Design template, a model that depends on the idea of backwards design. That is, when we design learning, we begin with the end in mind. These "ends" are usually matters of understanding-I want students to know this, be able to write or solve this, etc. What if, however, we designed backwards from data points? Here, the data wouldn’t necessarily be the "end" (gross), but somewhere closer to the middle, serving more noble causes. And around this middle, we’d build in mechanisms to accept and react to that information. We’d have a system that expected a certain amount of "proficiency" and "non-proficiency." Two weeks into the "unit" (if we insist on using units), we’re waiting on the very crucial data from a small series of diverse assessments (maybe non-threatening assessments?) so that we know what to do and where to go next. We already have a plan for it before we even start. We’re ready to use data to substantively, elegantly, and humanly revise what we had planned. We can’t move on without this data, or else we’re just being ridiculous.  We keep the conveyors running while the bottles crash off the belts all around us. The Assessment Range: Using Data In The Classroom Meaningfully ;The Assessment Range: Using Data To Meaningfully Affect Learning; adapted image attribution flickr user vancouverfilmschool The post The Assessment Range: Using Data To Meaningfully Affect Learning appeared first on TeachThought.

8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions by Terry Heick Questions can be extraordinary learning tools. A good question can open minds, shift paradigms, and force the uncomfortable but transformational cognitive dissonance that can help create thinkers. In education, we tend to value a student’s ability to answer our questions. But what might be more important is their ability to ask their own great questions-and more critically, their willingness to do so. The latter is a topic for another day, but the former is why we’re here. This is part 2 of a short series (can two articles be considered a series?) built around the idea of questions as learning tools. Part 1  "A Guide For Questioning In The Classroom." 8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions 1. TeachThought Learning Taxonomy The TeachThought Learning Taxonomy is a template for critical thinking that frames cognition across six categories. It imagines any learning product, goal, or objective as a "thing," then suggests different ways to think about said "thing"-mitosis, a math formula, an historical figure, a poem, a poet, a computer coding language, a political concept, a literary device, etc. It’s designed to promote "whole" thinking about otherwise discrete or disconnected ideas. 1. Function-thinking critically about how a "thing" works 2. Self-Making sense of how the thinker relates to the "thing" 3. Abstraction-Thinking about the "thing" creatively, or in non-traditional ways 4. Parts-Seeing the individual parts of the "thing" 5. Interdependence-Examining how the "thing" relates to other (similar and non-similar) "things" 6. Whole-See the "thing" fully and within context A literary device-a metaphor example, is usually studied in isolation. This writer uses this metaphor in this way to this effect. Using the TeachThought Learning Taxonomy, a learner would be forced to confront that metaphor in much more diverse cognitive terrain-to think about something in multiple ways for a more complete picture and advanced understanding. Function-Communicate the metaphor’s most ideal utility (how it can and should be used, and why). Self--Identity what you do and don’t understand about the metaphor Abstraction-Design a "sequel" of the metaphor (not a simile-an extended metaphor would be a good start) This framework can be used not only as a planning or assessment tool, but to promote students in self-directed learning and self-created questioning and examination. In short, they can use this framework (or a simplified version of it) to create their own questions. Some examples? Prompt: Parts-Give examples and non-examples Questions: What are 3 examples and non-examples of mammals? What are 5 examples of push-pull factors? What are 3 non-examples of mixed fractions? Prompt: Interdependence-Direct others in using it Questions: How do-or might-others use alternative fuel sources to help create fresh water sources? Prompt: Explain it differently to a novice or an expert Questions: How would explain the Pythagorean Theorem differently to a 2nd grader and a college freshman? What would the main difference be? The downside to using the TeachThought Learning Taxonomy to help students ask their own questions is the relative complexity of the framework, and the extra step of converting prompts to questions. Therefore, it’s better suited to late middle school-university settings. The upside? It can be used in any content area to think deeply about almost anything. 2. Socratic Discussion A Socratic Discussion, which is also referred to as a Socratic Seminar, is a group learning strategy designed to support students in open-ended examination and extended critical thinking through dialogic terms. In short, students learn together by talking together in an open and student-centered format. These discussions are not teacher-led, but student-led-students talk to one another. It is a dialectal method of learning inspired by Socrates’ iconic teaching methods that depend on a pattern of theory formation, revision, and elimination to arrive at loosely-held "truths." Used strategically, this approach should promote inquiry as learning, and the close examination of one’s own beliefs as primary catalysts for learning. The Teaching Channel video above models the Socratic Discussion/Socratic Seminar process. 3. Paideia Seminar A Paideia Seminar is similar to the Socratic Seminar-in fact, it uses Socratic Discussions on the part of the students, combined with a minor but clear role for teachers, to facilitate verbal and critical examination of ideas. From the (a?) Paideia Seminar website, "The Paideia Seminar is an integrated literacy event built around formal whole class dialogue. The purpose for doing Paideia Seminar is to support students’ ability to think conceptually and communicate collaboratively." One of the key differences between a Paideia Seminar and a Socratic Seminar is that within the Paideia format, teachers are "allowed" a role, provided that that role doesn’t exceed 10% of the total discussion. 4. The Question Game 5. The Question Game The Question Game focuses on "teaching children a kind of thinking which is particularly useful in creative problem-solving-a focused approach to get from a problem to the most effective solution. It is most effective when combined with regular repetition, which solidifies the thought pattern, and with groups, which encourages contributory exploration of alternative responses and creativity." Its dice-form not only offers a whiz-bang manipulative, but also introduces a level of gamification and playful uncertainty into the process, and its open-ended and universal stems make it practical for a wide variety of classroom applications. 6. Bloom’s Taxonomy  Similar to the TeachThought Taxonomy, Bloom’s Taxonomy can act as a framework or pattern to funnel content, inquiry, or other learning processes. These use of the taxonomy to create universal stems is one approach as modeled in the following graphic from flickr user enokson. 7. Question Formation Technique We’ll have more on this soon but in short, the Question Formation Technique (QFT) is a kind of question brainstorming process based around a topic as a kind of kernel. In their words of the Right Question Institute, QFT is "straightforward, rigorous process that helps all students learn how to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize on how to use their questions. In the process, they develop divergent, convergent and metacognitive thinking abilities." For now, you can read more about the QFT here. 8. Universal Question Stems  As seen in the Bloom’s graphic, sentence stems and question stems are wonderful tools that can empower students to ask questions by giving them a head-start in doing so. By using a "stem," a teacher has set the ball on the proverbial tee for the student to smash. Yes, ideally the student asks their own great questions, but what if they can’t-or don’t think they can? What if they don’t? What if they’re still learning how? What if they lack the background knowledge in some narrow sect of science or math or whatever, and need a push in the back? Stems can help. (See also 26 Sentence Stems For Higher-Level Conversation In The Classroom.) Question stems are a more elementary questioning strategy than the Question Formation Technique (see above), but not necessarily less effective. They can be used for younger students, students struggling with a concept, or even "advanced learners" (not a huge fan of this term) as they narrow an open-ended learning experience, or to be used as "bread crumbs" in the case that the teacher is trying to help them arrive at a pre-determined destination. Some examples? 8 Basic Question Stem Examples Which differences between ____ and ____ stand out to you? Why does____never seem to____? How does_____impact____? How does _____ work? What’s most important about? What’s most simple/complex about ______? How could you classify____? (And ‘Why would you classify____?’) When____, why does____? 8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions; image attribution flickr user enokson The post 8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions appeared first on TeachThought.

The Benefits Of Learning Through Field Trips by Steve Berer, musexplore.net If you are going on a field trip, it is important to prepare your students by developing their visual literacy, and by integrating the trip actively into your curriculum. However, important as that is, it is not enough. The museum (and field trip) experience takes place in a very different environment from your classroom. That may seem obvious, but let’s take a look at the differences, so that you can help your students maintain their focus to insure they have an engaging educational experience. The Benefits of a Museum/Field Trip Students are energized by the excitement and anticipation of leaving the school environment. The transportation to and from the museum/site is often a pleasant open-social time. Students have the opportunity to see new things and learn about them in a more unstructured way. Students have the opportunity to determine what they learn and how they learn it. Said differently, student learning can be interest-driven, not teacher and curriculum driven. Students will experience a more holistic, integrated picture of the information that, in the classroom, may have only been presented in a textual and abstract way. Museums, and many other kinds of field trips are multi-media experiences; therefore, learning is enriched and reinforced with superimposing sensory and intellectual inputs. Most museums are designed to stimulate curiosity and actively engage the visitor, so you have a very professional partner working with you to help your students learn. In some museums you can arrange for your class to meet with a museum educator, often in a private classroom, to facilitate directed learning and/or provide a question-answer session. Impediments to Learning on a Museum/Field Trip Your  classroom provides structure, limits, and authority to focus student attention and behavior. All of these are seriously diminished or entirely dispensed with on a field trip. Therefore, in spite of your high expectations, the museum trip may end up having little or no educational impact on your students. Too often, for too many students, the trip becomes a texting opportunity, or a socializing event. In open spaces and without close supervision, many students may simply not have the discipline or interest to pay attention to what they’re seeing. Moving through rooms and/or open spaces, students can get lost from the group. Suddenly everyone’s attention is turned to finding the missing student(s) instead of being absorbed in the learning opportunity at hand. Field trips take students into public spaces. Therefore, even if your students are disciplined and interested, the multi-media environment and the public bustle and noise will most likely be distracting. Also, if you’re in an enclosed public space (like a museum, as opposed to a park or battlefield), you can’t talk to your students as a whole group. Indeed, even in small groups, you will be limited in your ability to lecture or open a discussion. The multi-media environment and the public noise will definitely distract your students, and your discussions can disturb other visitors. These factor will deteriorate the quality of any kind of small group discussion you might try to have. Besides the problem of public spaces, your field trip can take you to many different kinds of places. Each place has it’s own narrative and pacing. Consider these four different kinds of museums: American history museum, Holocaust museum, aviation museum, and art museum. Each of these museums has a very different story to tell, and they will probably tell it in very different ways. An art museum may arrange its collection thematically (impressionism, modernism, Renaissance, etc), but there’s virtually no narrative connecting one object to another, or one room to another. How, then, will your students understand what they’re seeing, or remember the art once they leave the museum? An aviation museum may arrange its collection chronologically, at least to some extent, and that will help your students contextualize the information, but such museums are usually exceedingly popular. Your students may experience large, noisy crowds that will be highly distracting. You may find yourself spending most of your time making sure they don’t get separated from the group, and looking for those who inevitably do get separated. A Holocaust museum may arrange it’s collection chronologically (that’s good), and even if there are large crowds, you can expect them to be hushed and thoughtful (that’s good too). However, the material is usually so emotionally charged and troubling that your students’ emotions may well shut down their intellect. (Indeed, that’s a common response, in my experience.) Very likely they will emerge with intense emotions and a few strong visual memories, but no new understanding or insight into how and why it all happened. You can expect an American history museum to be thematic and/or chronological in its presentation (that’s good). The material, at least in part, will probably be familiar to your students (that’s good too). Very likely it will not be emotionally overwhelming (third good thing). But here, students will incline to fall back on what they already know. A fact here or an image there may catch their eye, but how can you keep them from becoming bored and turning their experience into a clandestine texting game? These are some of the problems you may face if you want your museum/field trip to be educationally meaningful. If you would like me to address solutions to these problems in future issues, please write to me, expressing your interest. If you have questions, I’d be glad to field them. You can also let me know about a positive or negative experience you’ve had on a field trip. What did you learn from it, or how can we help you make it better the next time? Closing Note Ken Robinson, in his engaging TED talk, ‘How to Escape Education’s Death Valley‘ says there are three principles that make human life thrive: "diversity, curiosity and creativity." Also from Robinson’s TED talk: "If you sit kids down, hour after hour, doing low grade clerical work, don’t be surprised if they start to fidget." The Benefits Of Learning Through Field Trips The post The Benefits Of Learning Through Field Trips appeared first on TeachThought.

Introducing The TeachThought ‘Diverse Teacher Voices‘ Program by TeachThought Staff The ‘Diverse Teacher Voices’ Program is something we think has a chance to be pretty awesome, if we can just convince teachers to take ownership of it and go. The goal of this (experimental, let’s-see-how-it-goes) program is to help diverse teacher voices share their ideas, experience, affection, and innovative practices for the benefit of everyone. For now, this will be primarily about sharing ideas through writing. The future? We’ve got some ideas for a more robust process, but we want to see how the writing part goes first. So, some information. We’re actively seeking diverse voices and perspectives. The second big idea here, above and beyond innovation-through-sharing, is diversity. In pursuit, we’re officially encouraging every color, gender, ethnicity, faith, culture, sexual preference, cognitive bias, and pedagogically-principled kind of educator to not simply participate, but to write about education through those unique lenses if you feel it adds value to the global conversation around pedagogy, mobile learning, and the "new normal" of 21st century education. Without this critical piece, the program is just teachers blogging. The majority of voices in the education space are the same as they’ve ever been-and we’ll all continue to benefit from their expertise. What we’re looking for is a new generation of teachers, thinkers, and innovators to not only be heard, but to create change. The TeachThought Ethos still applies. While we’re interested in diverse thinking, anything published must be compelling or useful for modern educators interested in a progressive classroom and curriculum, or replacing the idea of schools and classrooms and curriculum altogether. Within that range is the niche TeachThought tries to occupy. Our focus on students over institutions, thought over content, inquiry over delivery, models and frameworks over "tips," (though we do those sometimes, too) and paradigm-shifting integration of education technology over "edtech" is important, but we’re more than willing to publish anything that pushes the global conversation around learning forward. You can write about how to more efficiently use calculators to better prepare students for timed testing and ultimate "career success," but that thinking is likely to find little traction here. Think less about what classrooms do look like, and more about what they could look like. You don’t have to be a "writer." This is education-and blogging at that-not Grapes of Wrath. If you’re a teacher, your "blogging literacy" is likely more than sufficient to get you through here. If you can string together complete sentences, you can write. (We let Terry Heick write, don’t we?) The real question is whether or not you’ve got something worth saying. What you say-fresh voice, new thinking, exciting ideas, etc.-is more important than your diction, syntax, and idea organization. So, for the first "assignment" (or "growth opportunity")? April 15-April 30 prompt: If you’ve taught more than 3 years (which seem to be most of you), use the following prompt: Dear First-Year Me…(as in, "Here’s What You’re Going To Need To Know") If you’ve taught fewer than 3 years, use the following prompt: Dear 10th-Year Me…(as in, "Here’s what I hope to have seen/done/learned/accomplished by year 10) The Other Details 1. As stated above, the big idea of this program is to help a diverse set of voices and perspectives share their ideas, experience, affection, and innovative practices for the benefit of everyone. 2. For now, there will be two prompts per month. (We may do weekly prompts, or we may do monthly or even quarterly.) 3. While we encourage you to push yourself and write "outside of your comfort zone," don’t write outside of your expertise area. If you don’t have any thinking, ideas, experience, or strategies for a prompt, skip it. 4. Not all blog posts can be published-well, it depends on how many we get, but it’s likely that we won’t be able to publish everything. But who knows? Point is, no guarantees what you write will become a featured post and will win you eternal glory across the interwebs. 5. To apply, email all entries to us directly, or share as a Google Doc. To be considered, please include: Your full name (required) Years of experience (voluntary) Grade level and content area (voluntary) School name (voluntary) Your twitter username or your personal blog url so we can share with the post (voluntary) 6. These posts are considered guest blogs by teachers. They are not paid opportunities or contracted assignments. 7. Don’t use any "real names" of other teachers, students, etc. 8. Images, diagrams, photos of student work, or any other supporting visual are encouraged by not necessary. Any images with students in it must have signed releases from those students (which makes them a pain, but legal is legal). Also, you must own the rights to any images you contribute. Don’t send any images of student work with student names or other crucial information visible. Anonymity is the rule. Introducing The TeachThought ‘Diverse Teacher Voices’ Program; The post Introducing The TeachThought ‘Diverse Teacher Voices’ Program appeared first on TeachThought.

Company Creates Video Pen Pal Technology, Seeks Teacher Support by Saksham Khosla, LumenEd Across the world, there is a widespread demand for young people to address major issues of global significance through cross-cultural cooperation. While American schools are attempting to keep up with this demand, true global competency cannot be achieved through international exchange programs that less than 1% of young people participate in. In the developing world, access to engaging educational materials is largely limited to urban metropolises where infrastructure like the Internet and electricity is taken for granted. There is vast potential for improving learning outcomes in these countries by providing digital educational resources independent of external infrastructure. At the same time, if previously inaccessible communities are given the chance to participate in virtual exchange programs, students anywhere can engage constructively with peers from diverse contexts and become globally competent in the process. The Bright Orange Box The Bright Orange Box is a smart projector designed to bridge a gap for classrooms without internet or reliable electricity. It’s an excellent tool for teachers, especially those that have never had access to multimedia content. It also allows us to connect classrooms around the world through our Video Pen Pal Program. Bright and loud enough for the whole classroom The device can play digital content for a whole classroom. We combined a 500 lumen DLP projector with 8W stereo speakers. Battery-powered The internal battery provides 2+ hours of uninterrupted playback at maximum brightness. The Box can be charged from a traditional wall outlet or using a portable solar-charging unit. 3G and Wi-Fi connected A dedicated 3G connection in the box allows any classroom to access the internet. This provides a unique opportunity for the 90% of classrooms without internet in developing countries. Any multimedia content The Box plays a variety of multimedia formats including videos, pictures, music and PDFs. A custom Android interface on a 5″ touch display makes navigating content easy. Video recording and sharing With a video camera on the back, the box allows teachers to record and share videos. This means any classroom can participate in our Video Pen Pal Program. The Video Pen Pal Program We wanted to be able to connect classrooms anywhere in a world in a meaningful way. We developed a weekly video exchange called the Video Pen Pal Program. Through short and simple videos, classrooms gain insight into each other’s lives and explore cultural similarities and differences. Students are challenged to collaborate and find their own unique voices. How it works We developed a mobile app that allows teachers to record and edit short videos and send them to their partner’s classroom. We create the connection between the two classrooms and process and share the videos. This allows teachers to focus on the program and less on management. Who we connect We are pairing classrooms in the US with low income classrooms in India. Classrooms in the US communicate with their Pen Pals via our web platform and mobile app. Indian classrooms receive a Bright Orange Box which handles both video recording and playback. LumenEd connects classrooms around the world through a Video Pen Pal Program, using a solar-powered smart projector called the Bright Orange Box. This device works everywhere, even in environments without electricity or Internet, helps teachers access online content, and makes the Pen Pal interaction possible. We want to empower students, teachers and schools across the world by providing them access to digital educational resources and a platform to share their stories creatively. We’re already working with schools in Detroit, Illinois, New York, Washington DC and educational NGOs like Teach for India and Hope for Ghana. Our Kickstarter campaign is now live to help us develop an Android platform for our Box, and reach more than 100 schools in the US, India, Ghana and Senegal! You can check it out here: www.bit.ly/lumenedkickstarter. We’re also looking for teachers who’d like to participate in a meaningful cultural exchange with classrooms across the world, so drop us a line at contact@lumened.org if you’re interested! Like our work: www.facebook.com/lumenedinc; Follow our progress: www.twitter.com/lumened; Back our Kickstarter: www.bit.ly/lumenedkickstarter Learn about our vision: blog.lumened.org LumenEd Seeks Teachers For Cultural Exchange; Company Creates Video Pen Pal Technology, Seeks Teacher Support The post Company Creates Video Pen Pal Technology, Seeks Teacher Support appeared first on TeachThought.

#twitterchat: ‘Teaching Like Your Hair’s On Fire’ by TeachThought Staff On April 15th, 2015, Beth Leidolf led the weekly #reflectiveteacher twitter chat, where they discussed, among other things, Rafe Esquith;s ‘Teaching Like Your Hair’s On Fire.’ One of our favorite exchanges? @paullawleyjones: A4/1: Korean edu tells Ss that they must always have the ‘right’ answer. Wrong answers are unacceptable. #reflectiveteacher @bleidolf67 how do you cope with that mindset as a teacher? #reflectiveteacher @paullawleyjones: A4/2: I break down this mindset by sometimes deliberately screwing up and then laughing about it with Ss. #reflectiveteacher You can catch this (still relatively new and growing) chat each Wednesday at 7 PM Eastern US time. This week’s chat has been embedded below if you missed it and want to give it a read, a skim, or let it conjure deep regret for having missed it to begin with. [View the story "#reflectiveteacher at TeachThought Twitter chat " on Storify] #twitterchat: ‘Teaching Like Your Hair’s On Fire'; #twitterchat: ‘Teaching Like Your Hair’s On Fire’ The post #twitterchat: ‘Teaching Like Your Hair’s On Fire’ appeared first on TeachThought.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Starts With Students by Dr. Matthew Lynch, Dean of the School of Education, Psychology, & Interdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Union University A multicultural society is best served by a culturally responsive curriculum. Schools that acknowledge the diversity of their student population understand the importance of promoting cultural awareness. Teachers who are interested in fostering a cultural awareness in their classroom should actively demonstrate to their students that they genuinely care about their cultural, emotional, and intellectual needs. To this end, there are several strategies that you can use to build trusting relationships with diverse students. For teaching cultural awareness, consider the following ideas. 6 Ways Teachers Can Foster Cultural Awareness In The Classroom Express interest in the ethnic background of your students. Encourage your students to research and share information about their ethnic background as a means of fostering a trusting relationship with fellow classmates. Analyze and celebrate differences in traditions, beliefs, and social behaviors. It is of note that this task helps European-American students realize that their beliefs and traditions constitute a culture as well, which is a necessary breakthrough in the development of a truly culturally responsive classroom. Also, take the time to learn the proper pronunciation of student names and express interest in the etymology of interesting and diverse names. Redirect your role in the classroom from instructor to facilitator. Another important requirement for creating a nurturing environment for students is reducing the power differential between the instructor and students. Students in an authoritarian classroom may sometimes display negative behaviors as a result of a perceived sense of social injustice; in the culturally diverse classroom, the teacher thus acts more like a facilitator than an instructor. Providing students with questionnaires about what they find to be interesting or important provides them with a measure of power over what they get to learn and provides them with greater intrinsic motivation and connectedness to the material. Allowing students to bring in their own reading material and present it to the class provides them with an opportunity to both interact with and share stories, thoughts, and ideas that are important to their cultural and social perspective. Maintain a strict level of sensitivity to language concerns. In traditional classrooms, students who are not native English speakers often feel marginalized, lost, and pressured into discarding their original language in favor of English. In a culturally responsive classroom, diversity of language is celebrated and the level of instructional materials provided to non-native speakers are tailored to their level of English fluency. Accompanying materials should be provided in the student’s primary language, and the student should be encouraged to master English as well. Maintain high expectations for student performance. Given that culturally responsive instruction is a student-centered philosophy, it should come as no surprise that expectations for achievement are determined and assigned individually for each student. Students don’t receive lavish praise for simple tasks but do receive praise in proportion to their accomplishments. If a student is not completing her work, then one should engage the student positively and help guide the student toward explaining how to complete the initial steps that need to be done to complete a given assignment or task. Incorporate methods for self-testing. Another potent method for helping students become active participants in learning is to reframe the concept of testing. While testing is usually associated with grades (and therefore stress) in traditional classrooms, in a culturally responsive classroom frequent non-graded tests can be used to provide progress checks and ensure that students don’t fall behind on required material. Teaching students to self-test while learning new information will help them better remember and use what they’ve learned in class and will help them realize on their own when they need to study a topic in greater depth. Maintain an "inclusive" curriculum that remains respectful of differences. Among the most important tenets of cultural awareness is the content itself being delivered. A culturally responsive curriculum is both inclusive in that it ensures that all students are included within all aspects of the school and it acknowledges the unique differences students may possess. A culturally responsive curriculum also encourages teachers’ understanding and recognition of each student’s non-school cultural life and background, and provides a means for them to incorporate this information into the curriculum, thus promoting inclusion. Schools have the responsibility to teach all students how to synthesize cultural differences into their knowledge base, in order to facilitate students’ personal and professional success in a diverse world. A culturally responsive curriculum helps students from a minority ethnic/racial background develop a sense of identity as individuals, as well as proudly identify with their particular culture group. Teachers can play an important role in helping students succeed through the establishment of culturally responsive classrooms. Dr. Lynch is an award winning writer, activist and the Dean of the School of Education, Psychology, & Interdisciplinary Studies and an Associate Professor of Education at Virginia Union University. Please visit his website at www.drmattlynch.com for more information. Follow him on twitter @lynch39083; 6 Ways Teachers Can Foster Cultural Awareness In The Classroom; Culturally Responsive Teaching Starts With Students; image attribution flickr user usdepartmentofeducation;  The post Culturally Responsive Teaching Starts With Students appeared first on TeachThought.

How Your Teacher Observation Can Help You Grow by Paul Moss  For many, teacher observations are their biggest source of dread. They stir feelings of nausea, spark vigorous and often angry debate about their efficacy, and are to be avoided at all costs. But with the trend of performance pay sliding into the education environment like a rattlesnake, the fear of observations has some very real and legitimate origins. No one wants to lose his or her job, or his or her pay rise. In such a context, mastering the process of observation has become increasingly important for a teacher, and one of the keys to success, alongside planning excellent lessons, is approaching observation with a positive mindset. Here is some thinking (that can hopefully help) to turn observations into desirable opportunities for personal growth. Why Shouldn’t Fear Your Teacher Observation 1. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to show your strengths. Observations are in plentiful supply. Before the dreaded ‘real thing’, you can have SO many chances to practice being observed. Being observed by faculty leaders, colleagues, and yourself (if you utilize technology) will go a long way to helping you to shape a picture of what your teaching is like, and where it needs to go in the future, and place you in good stead before the observation that counts. If you wait until the ‘real’ observation to receive feedback, you forego opportunities to iterate in your teaching, and significantly increase the chances of failure. 2. If you want to improve, you need feedback. I’ve never met a teacher who didn’t want to get better. To do so, you can either teach in isolation, and refine your craft after personal reflection, and eventually get better, or you can get to that same position in about a tenth of the time by having someone else in on the process. Sometimes it’s the little things that another set of eyes will see that can rapidly improve your teaching. 3. It will humble you-and humility is fuel for a growth mindset Observations can be a humbling and grounding process. Few teachers would claim they have mastered the art of teaching, yet all progressive teachers would agree that learning from the feedback of others is essential. It is a strange paradox, but teaching is perhaps more about learning than anything else. As a modern teacher, you can’t teach unless you are learning from the environment around you, adapting to the students’ needs. Seeking advice from others and knowing that others have lots to offer is humbling, and keeps your feet firmly on the ground. So, my friends, swallow your pride, and become the learner more often! The advent of worldwide personal learning networks truly reinforces this sentiment. 4. It means what you do is important. If people are watching you, what you’re doing matters. Observations can be an amazing professional development opportunity-you’re lucky you’ve got the support to improve, and are actively encouraged to receive the help of mentors and leaders in the field! The potential to improve quickly from such support is massive. Once an investment has been made in you, a school will work hard to ensure that you are getting better; a rare opportunity in the workplace. 5. It’s a part of our professional growth. Observations are common to every one in your faculty, so use your immediate support network. Every teacher in your faculty is going through the same thing, so work together, and discuss what you are going to do before the observation takes place - get advice, feedback etc. No one is going to judge you, because they are going through it too. 6.They’re only going to get easier. Observations (should) become easier the more of them you do. The more times you get observed, the more used to it you get, and the more a part of your routine it will become. Don’t wait for formal observations. Pester your supervisor to watch you more; and your colleagues. And now you don’t even need to be limited by their time: utilize technology to look back on your lessons, and share them with anyone around your school, or the world, who similarly wants to improve their practice. Iris Connect looks like a great starting point for that. 7. They’re an opportunity. Observations are a chance to demonstrate your skills, ideas, affection, and growth. Showing others what you can do is about taking ownership of your ability, and being proud of your growth and insights into what you do. Of course, there will be hitches on the path to success, but in the end, we all like to show others that we have a connection with what we do. You wouldn’t have been hired without it, and you wouldn’t have made numerous connections with students without it either. Isolation Doesn’t Lead To Growth Teaching in isolation may seem like an easier option compared to being observed, but it is not an effective way to get better. The key to embracing observations is all in the approach. Seeing observations as allies rather than enemies is the first step in such a process. In part 2, we’ll talk about what schools and leadership teams can be doing to maximize the potential of observations. How Your Teacher Observation Can Help You Grow; adapted image attribution flickr user leaflanguages The post How Your Teacher Observation Can Help You Grow appeared first on TeachThought.

What I Think I Think About Teacher Effectiveness Ratings by Grant Wiggins, Authentic Education While exploring teacher effectiveness ratings, I went looking for a New York City high school that had the same demographic profile as the struggling high school referenced previously (see here), but had nonetheless earned good ratings for making adequate improvement on their graduation rates and test scores. (Recall that school accountability in NY is based on improvement, not absolute scores and graduation rates, so schools with modest absolute scores can still be top-rated in New York. Put differently, the struggling school above failed to make adequate progress in the benchmark data of graduation rates and exam scores for 10 years.) This "effective" school has the same demographics as the struggling school I cited above (more than 90% Black and Hispanic) and is located in Harlem. So what have I found thus far? What does the data suggest? My Tentative Conclusions About Teacher Effectiveness Ratings 1. Local and state teacher effectiveness ratings are flawed if, as my sample suggests, teachers in less effective high schools generally get high ratings, and often get much higher ratings than those in more successful high schools (especially if they have been struggling to improve for up to 10 years). 2. The combination of survey data and Quality Review site visits presents a fairly consistent and credible picture of the relative strengths and weaknesses of schools - but these rarely align with teacher effectiveness ratings in either successful or unsuccessful schools. 3. This disconnect of Ratings vs. Review and Achievement data can only be reduced when there are exemplars of teaching to anchor the ratings, supported by calibration meetings across schools in a district. Without such exemplars, the teacher rating system will be based only on building-level norms (and politics) - and thus as flawed and non-standards-based as letter grades given to students. Like grades, in other words, it appears that teacher effectiveness in schools is being scored on a curve (at best), rather than against any credible standard. (There is credible data to show that the typical % of employees in all walks of life whose work is judged to be ineffective is around 8%; in all NY schools the average is 1%, as the data show). NYSED (and/or each district) needs to rectify the lack of official models and calibration protocols. 4. At the very least, the state should say that teacher ratings of 100% effective in ANY school are of questionable validity on their face, and that extra justification for such ratings should be provided). Beyond that audit indicator, NYSED might require schools to provide 2-3 samples of video excerpts for effective teachers to be sure that there is calibration across the state (as is typically done in the AP and IB programs with scored student work, and on writing assessments in the state). The Teaching Channel videos could easily jumpstart such a process as could videos that exist in other states such as California. 5. For "rating inflation" to be lessened, there must be far better incentives for all administrators to be more accurate and honest in rating teachers (and teachers, in proposing credible value-added SLO measures). I have heard from Principal and Supervisor friends of mine that the politics of school climate and the possible counter-weight of exam scores entices everyone to rate teachers higher than they truly believe is warranted. Perhaps, for example, schools should only be required to give aggregate "standards-based" ratings separate from the more delicate teacher-by-teacher "local norm" ratings. At least there might be an independent check on local rating standards by NYSED or via regional peer meetings chaired by BOCES staff, in the same way that IB teachers have their student grades "moderated" by the external reviewers of exams. 6. It is high time we made a critical examination of the wisdom of ranking each of the four dimensions in the Danielson Framework equally. 7. As it stands now, it is quite possible for a teacher in any school to do well on the three non-teaching dimensions of the four, do poorly on the teaching dimension, but still get a good "teacher effectiveness" score. That seems like a highly misleading way to rate "teacher effectiveness" (even as we should, of course, value planning, professionalism, and community relations). 8. Good schools improve and improvement is possible in all kinds of schools serving all kinds of students. Despite what many anti-reformers endlessly argue, from this data it is incorrect (and very fatalistic) to say that poverty plus ethnicity means ongoing adequate school and teacher improvement is impossible, as I have long argued that the data show. Furthermore, there are outlier schools in this and every other state that cause successful absolute levels of student achievement in spite of the SES-related obstacles. (See, for example). Alas, the most successful such Charter schools in New York are not represented in the NYSED accountability data resources cited in this post. A Final Thought Do I think that Governor Cuomo is up to some crass politics in his report? I do. Do I think that this is a hard time to be an educator? I do - so much harder than when I was a full-time teacher (where we pretty much left alone, for good and for ill). Yet, I also believe that until we get an honest and credible accounting of teacher effectiveness in all schools (and especially in struggling ones) we will perform a great disservice to kids in need - and, yes, to their teachers who deserve more accurate feedback than many now receive. POSTSCRIPT: Numerous people tweeted back after the previous post that many NYS struggling schools are under-funded and that far too much was thus being asked of them. While I agree that many schools are under-funded and that teachers in these schools face very difficult barriers, it seems odd that everyone who responded with this argument failed to engage with the teacher effectiveness data I provided. Many also said that without better funding and other kinds of state support, improvement in such schools is "impossible." The data simply do not support this fatalistic conclusion, nor does my work in New York City and Toledo where we, too, have seen solid gains through UbD training and implementation in previously struggling schools. Let’s get on with improving the schools our students currently attend, doing what is in our control to improve them. This article was excerpted from a post that first appeared on Grant’s personal blog; Grant can be found on twitter here; What I Think I Think About Teacher Effectiveness Ratings; image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad The post What I Think I Think About Teacher Effectiveness Ratings appeared first on TeachThought.

#Iwishmyteacherknew Examples Revealing All Around by TeachThought Staff Kyle Schwartz teaches third grade at Doull Elementary in Colorado. By now, you’ve likely heard of her-or at least one of her ideas, #Iwishmyteacherknew. Every now and then, there’s an "Education" story that the masses take notice of-standardized testing, Michelle Rhee, Waiting for Superman, the flipped classroom, the iPad failure in LA, the testing scandal in LA, among others. The most recent to crossover is the hashtag #Iwishmyteacherknew, which is what it sounds like it might be-an asynchronous conversation (or rather, series of statements) illuminating the realities that many students face every day. On one hand, there’s an inherent kind of other disconnect at work here that makes the whole thing a huge act of spectacle, while inviting frank discussions about privacy. We’ll talk more about that in a follow-up later this week. To provide context to that kind of analysis, first the tweets themselves. Schwartz told ABC News, "As a new teacher, I struggled to understand the reality of my students’ lives and how to best support them. I just felt like there was something I didn’t know about my students." The emotional pull is, of course, heartbreak, and it’s here in spades-quick, visual vignettes that act as windows into often emotionally vulnerable minds and broken homes, the big idea is that students aren’t curriculum receptacles. School overwhelms some, while providing a sanctuary for others. And sometimes both. Schwartz continued, "Ninety-two percent of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch. As a new teacher, I struggled to understand the reality of my students’ lives and how to best support them." Good on her, but let’s reflect for a moment in our response. Reducing the whole "thing" to a socioeconomic wake-up call is missing the point. If nothing else-in lieu of some sensationalism born from the current viral tone of it all-there’s this real sense in these tweets that students are merely along for the ride in their education. They’re passively receiving instead of dead-center in the middle of it all, co-creating, curious, and constructing their pathways forward on-the-fly. Students, teachers (and some trolls) have jumped in with both feet to provide an assortment of sharing that’s-well, check out 40 or so examples we’ve curated below. On Wednesday or Thursday, we’ll take a look at the bigger picture of #Iwishmyteacherknew. [View the story "I Wish My Teacher Knew…" on Storify] #Iwishmyteacherknew’ 40 Moving Examples Of #Iwishmyteacherknew; 40 Moving Examples Of #Iwishmyteacherknew  The post #Iwishmyteacherknew Examples Revealing All Around appeared first on TeachThought.

A School Designed To Let Kids Be Kids by TeachThought Staff As an architect, Takaharu Tezuka is a bit of an education outsider. His ideas would get him thrown him out most classrooms, ridiculed for their danger, lack of rigor and complexity, inability to reflect a set curriculum, and a lack of "practical application." Thankfully, some people are still willing to be "ridiculous." In true good work form, Tezuka has married his art (architecture) with a tremendous social need (innovation in learning and learning spaces) to create something simple and stunning and moving. A school designed on the idea of movement-one designed to let kids be kids. The net result is what is, at least as a matter of animation and survey, the best kindgarten you’ve ever seen. In his TED Talk Tezuka explains, "This kindergarten is completely open, most of the year. And there is no boundary between inside and outside. So it means basically this architecture is a roof. And also there is no boundary between classrooms. So there is no acoustic barrier at all. When you put many children in a quiet box, some of them get really nervous. But in this kindergarten, there is no reason they get nervous. Because there is no boundary." "And the principal says if the boy in the corner doesn’t want to stay in the room, we let him go. He will come back eventually, because it’s a circle, it comes back. "The traffic jam is awful in Tokyo, as you know. The driver in front, she needs to learn how to drive. Now these days, kids need a small dosage of danger. And in this kind of occasion, they learn to help each other. This is society. This is the kind of opportunity we are losing these days. "They keep running. My point is, don’t control them. Don’t protect them too much. They need to tumble sometimes. That makes them learn how to live in this world." You can hear more about how Tezuka married architecture, design, and education in his talk below. "At this school in Tokyo, five-year-olds cause traffic jams and windows are for Santa to climb into. Meet: the world’s cutest kindergarten, designed by architect Takaharu Tezuka. In this charming talk, he walks us through a design process that really lets kids be kids." A School Designed To Let Kids Be Kids: The Best Kindergarten You’ve Ever Seen The post A School Designed To Let Kids Be Kids appeared first on TeachThought.

 Google Education On Air May 8 & 9 & Here’s Your FAQ by TeachThought Staff What is it? Google Education on Air, an online conference for teacher, administrator, and IT professional development. When is it? May 8 & 9, 2015 Is there any cost to education on air? No, this is a free event. What sessions will be available? Day 1: Panels and keynotes 10:00AM - 3:00PM EDT What are the skills of the future? Inspiring learners with the power of storytelling Making change happen Making work rule Three ways to drive system-wide change Keynote Question & Answer How to run a government Creating innovation in schools Student curiosity can help save lives Transforming learning with technology Empowering students Day 2: There are dozens and dozens of sessions on Day 2, segmented by audience. Too many to list here. Try this link, then click "Day 2." Do you have a schedule? Check here for the most recent info. Where can I register? Try here. Who should tune in for these sessions? The sessions in the conference will focus on education. This will be of interest to educators in all roles, but also to many parents, students, and citizens. If you register for the event on this form, we’ll send you information about the exact speakers and sessions as that becomes available. Although many sessions will focus on primary/secondary (K-12) many will be of interest to the Higher Education audience too. Do I need to logged in to watch Education on Air? No, you do not need to be logged in to view this event, however it’s recommended that you sign in to have the ability to participate in a live Q&A. How can I ask a question for the live Q&A For all sessions except the short keynotes, you’ll be able to pose a question. To do this, scroll down below the live stream video. You’ll see the option to ask questions. Once you’ve logged into your account, you can pose your question and also up-vote others’ should you be interested in them as well. Who is answering my question? Your questions will be answered by the Google for Education team and the speakers. Speakers will answer some questions live, and the rest just after the event. Is this event only for certain countries? Anyone can tune in to watch live or recorded sessions on this website. All of the sessions for this event will be in English and will take place during European and North American time zones. We hope to expand to more time zones and languages in future. How can I contribute to the social conversation? You can add comments to the social graph, by clicking on the ‘add your voice’ icon. Or you can go on Google+ or Twitter and use the hashtag #GoogleEduOnAir The post Google Education On Air FAQ appeared first on TeachThought.

Teacher Advice? A Teacher Reflects Back On 32 Years And Offers 6 Simple Nuggets Of Advice by Sharon Davison, Kindergartenlife Blog Our first entry from our Diverse Teacher Voices program comes from Sharon Davison, a Kindergarten teacher from Vermont who responded to the "Dear First Year Me" prompt. For Sharon, there is some increased significance-or rather, there’s significance for each one of us as readers. Sharon has taught for 32 years-and here she is, from 1983 to today, still tweeting, still blogging, still connecting, still serving. Beautiful! Her class twitter account can be found here. Give her a visit. Dear First Year Me, So you have decided to share your energy, strength, perseverance and courage to become a teacher! Congratulations!  You can do it because you care about making a difference.  Just remember to….. 6 Simple Takeaways From 32 Years Of Teaching 1. Care, care a lot. You will be able to make a difference for many if you have empathy and perseverance.  Take the extra time to be patient and listen.  Notice how your students react and interact with each other and the culture you create and design.  Be responsive and flexible to making changes that support your students needs.  Collaborate to make a difference for others in the communities you teach. Through your modeling of caring, your students and their families will become engaged. 2. Be passionate. Celebrate the learning that is happening inside and outside of your classrooms. Express your excitement through your face to face, online and other opportunities that you create.  Through your passion, your students will get inspired and become passionate about their learning explorations. Remember to dance, laugh and sing. 3. Surround yourself with people who inspire you and challenge your thinking. Remember as a teacher you have lots of opportunities to learn and interact. Think about how you and your students might learn alongside each other. Look for others who are doing creative and innovative things. Through others ideas, you develop your own inspiration and find your voice. You have the ability to be brilliant and make a difference. 4. Connect, connect, connect.   Develop your PLN!  This is vital and very important. This is where your thinking is challenged and you will connect in many ways that will turn into future collaborations.  Through your connections you will develop a group of people, who like you, care, want to make a difference and are willing to make changes that improve their teaching practice.  Your PLN is always there.  Count on them and lean on them when you need support, want to celebrate, collaborate and need inspiration. Join online communities that promote and engage what is important to you. 5. Be transparent. It is okay to share what you are thinking and why. Through your transparency you will invite others in and share your perspective. Think about asynchronous and synchronous tools that can share the learning you and your students are exploring together.  Information is important for all of us.  Make it meaningful and interactive. Through your explicit modeling of sharing globally, your audience will be broad and you will connect and others will benefit from your ideas as you will be inspired by theirs. 6. Be well. Remember that what you do for your own personal wellness is important. Your wellness of mind and body gives you stability, strength, endurance and patience. Exercise and healthy eating keeps your mind and body healthy and active. Be sure to pursue your passions that recharge you and make you feel energized.  Positive energy is contagious and helps everyone be successful. You will have many opportunities to growth, be inspired and have your thinking challenged. Be open to this idea. Through your ability to transform and be transparent, you will have endless opportunities to learn alongside others, who like you, care, care a lot. Teacher Advice? A Teacher Reflects Back On 32 Years And Offers 6 Simple Nuggets Of Advice; 6 Simple Takeaways From 32 Years Of Teaching  The post 6 Simple Takeaways From 32 Years Of Teaching appeared first on TeachThought.

The Best Twitter Chat For Teachers In 2015 by TeachThought Staff If there was ever a doubt that education twitter chats were kind of a big deal, this television guide-style document should set things straight. Twitter chats aren’t just "things," but have evolved into fully-functioning professional development for teachers. At their worst, they’re laid-back, back-and-forth resource sharing and celebration of possibility. At their best, twitter chats are dynamic, digital, and easily curated cells of professional connected learning. Twitter is like reading a living, breathing magazine written by your peers that entertains and informs you while building your capacity as an educator. When you extend these characteristics using twitter tools, the potential is amplified further still. So while we have a Twitter Guide for Teachers, it’s a couple of years old now, and really needs to be updated, which we thought we’d do one bit at a time. The first part is about identifying the best twitter chats for teachers in 2015. Some of these are established and well-known-#edtech and #edchat-while others are emerging and charged and full of promise, including #educolor and #whatisschool. The list below, then, is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather a diverse and usable starting point for teachers to see the best chats out there that are also somewhat universal. Thus, content-specific chats like #engchat and #aplitchat, #scichat and #mathchat and others aren’t included. If we miss any that you love, let us know in the comments section. Also, there is the matter of "ongoing hashtag" (which people use to append content within a certain area) versus "actual chat" (which has an actual meeting time people virtually attend and engage in dialogue). Though the former is more direct and the latter looser and asynchronous, we’ve combined them all into a single list here, as the point is to bring you the best content on twitter for educators in 2015, which means those chats that reflects the churning and shifting ecology of culture and education. Thus, there are chats that look at the purpose of school, the role of race, the idea of students as makers, the role of student voice, the function of parents in education, and exciting learning models like mobile learning, project-based learning, and game-based learning. For all of the pressure (and need for our collective improvement), this is an exciting time to be an educator! The list is shown below, in alphabetical order in the text, and what should be alphabetical order in the listly visual, but sometimes it has a mind of its own. The Best Twitter Chat For Teachers In 2015 The Best Twitter Chats For Teachers In 2015 ︾ 2.23k views 22 items The Best Twitter Chats For Teachers In 2015 Listly by Terry Heick The Best Twitter Chats For Teachers In 2015   Follow List   Embed List   1 #whatisschool 3 likes Comments Relist Share 2 #edtechchat 3 likes Comments Relist Share 3 #edtech 3 likes Comments Relist Share 4 #kinderchat 1 likes Comments Relist Share 5 #satchat 1 likes Comments Relist Share 6 #mlearning 1 likes Comments Relist Share 7 #Iwishmyteacherknew 0 likes Comments Relist Share 8 #makeschooldifferent 0 likes Comments Relist Share 9 #reflectiveteacher 0 likes Comments Relist Share 10 #pblchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 11 #21stedchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 12 #educolor 0 likes Comments Relist Share 13 #NYedchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 14 #ntedchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 15 #tlap 0 likes Comments Relist Share 16 #stuvoice 0 likes Comments Relist Share 17 #spedchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 18 #makered 0 likes Comments Relist Share 19 #stem 0 likes Comments Relist Share 20 #litchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 21 #ptchat 0 likes Comments Relist Share 22 #gbl 0 likes Comments Relist Share View more lists from Terry Heick The Best Twitter Chat For Teachers In 2015 #edchat #edtech #edtechchat #educolor #gbl #kinderchat #litchat #makered #makeschooldiffer ent #mlearning #ntchat #nyedchat #pblchat #ptchat #reflectiveteacher #satchat #spedchat #steam #stem #stuvoice #tlap #ttog &lt ;/ol> The Best Twitter Chat For Teachers In 2015   The post The Best Twitter Chat For Teachers In 2015 appeared first on TeachThought.

Changing What We Teach: Shifting From A Curriculum Of Insecurity To A Curriculum Of Wisdom by Terry Heick Increasingly, the idea of computer coding is being pushed to the forefront of "things." In movies, on the news, and other digital avatars of ourselves, coders are increasingly here. In Hollywood, computer coders are characterized as aloof and spectacle geniuses in green army jackets who solve (narrative) problems in a kind of deus ex machina fashion. Hack the mainframe, change the school grades, save prom, etc. In the news, they are painted as an eclectic mix of cutting-edge vigilante and binary terrorist, with secret documents, scary viral threats, and national security all a part of their tools and struggle. Combined with the recent positively torrid surge of priority digital technology plays in our daily lives, coding sits at an awkward intersection—misunderstood by most, but tangent to almost everything. So we should totally teach it in schools, right? Teaching Skills vs Teaching Content Too often bits and pieces are tacked onto curriculum as yet another perfectly-reasonable-sounding-thing to teach. Yet in the ecology of a school, they behave differently in the classroom where the rubber hits the road. I was taught basic computer coding in the 1980s in elementary school. It was forced out by a push for foreign languages, as I recall (or that’s what teachers told us), foreign languages recently pushed out themselves by "reading" classes or other periods of academic remediation. There is nothing wrong with changes in priority. In fact, this is a signal of awareness and reflection and vitality. But when education—as it tends to do—continues to take a content and skills-focused view of what to teach rather than how students learn, it’s always going to be a maddening game of what gets added in, and what gets taken out, with the loudest or most emotionally compelling voices usually winning. To try to address this problem, let’s consider a more macro question: What is school? From big picture down, it looks relatively simple. Education is, more or less, a system of teaching and learning. Teaching and learning are, more or less, concerned with knowledge. And that knowledge can be broken down into two separate but connected parts: skills and content. Skills are things students can "do"—procedural knowledge that yields the ability to do something. This could be revising an essay, solving a math problem, or decoding words to read. Content can be thought of as a second kind of knowledge—a declarative knowledge that often makes up the face of a content area. In math, this might be the formula to calculate the area of a circle. In composition, it could be a writing strategy to form sound and compelling paragraphs. In history, it may refer to the geographic advantages of one country in a conflict versus another. Should schools focus on content and skills, or should they focus on habits and thinking? Does that answer change as the culture its students come from does? And should it change faster or slower-ahead of the curve, or far enough behind for cautious perspective? Whether or not schools should teach coding is a question that cannot responsibly be answered by itself. Against the backdrop of rapid technological change, mass cultural adoption of technology, and the mediocre performance of our current education system, the question becomes just one of many that deserve our attention. Without this kind of critique, coding will suffer alongside chemistry, music, and other miracles of knowledge that have had the life tortured out of them by a well-intentioned but brutal infrastructure. It will be halved, then halved again, diced, packaged, and served at room temperature day after day after day until no one remembers what they’re doing or why they’re there. When Standards Aren’t Standards Literacy has been at the heart of teaching and learning since the very beginning of, well, everything. Not only is it a goal in and of itself, but it also is a prerequisite of other goals. Without the ability to read and write well, students struggle everywhere. But instead of placing reading and writing at the core of all content, as it functions, it is segmented into a class of its own, where teachers in the United States struggle with as many as five sets of Common Core Standards, each with dozens of standards. Reading: Informational Reading: Literature Reading: Foundational Writing Speaking & Listening Language So then, hundreds of standards. Hundreds! This places extraordinary pressure on educators—those who develop standards, those who create curriculum from those standards, those who create lessons from that curriculum, and on and on—to make numerous—and critical—adjustments to curriculum, assessment, and instruction on the fly. At some point, the word "standards" have come to mean something different. Imagine an over-worked kitchen struggling to make 130 versions of what people outside the kitchen recognize as the same sandwich. The influence of digital technology in our lives has forced education—already bursting at the seams with standards, assessment forms, data, mandated standards, accountability measures, instructional hours, and scores of other concerns-into the awkward position of believing it needs to fit in "more" when it already struggles with less. And in response, rather than rethink or even add to, we swap instead—foreign language and humanities for STEM, and, presumably, coding. Tomorrow, something else will get our attention that students "need to know" that sounds important. This reminds me of the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona. After hearing a long laundry list of things every baby needs from her friend Dot, Ed (Holly Hunter) turns to Hi (Nicholas Cage) in panic. The quick context is that they’re new parents that’ve just "adopted" a baby and the stress of being a good parent is washing over them. Ed (The new mom): Who’s our pediatrician anyway? We ain’t exactly fixed on one yet, have we Hi? Hi (The new dad): *stunned silence* Ed: No, I guess we don’t have one yet. Dot (The well-meaning-but-manic friend spreading her mania): What?! Well, you gotta have one this instant! Hi: *stunned silence* Ed: What if the baby gets sick, honey? Dot: Even if he don’t, he’s gotta have his dip-tet. Ed: He’s gotta have his dip-tet, honey. Hi: *stunned silence* Dot: You started his bank accounts yet? Ed: Have we done that? We gotta do that. What’s that for, Dot? His orthodonture and his university! Hi: *stunned silence, eyes like broken portals* Changing Nature of Skills Why not try a different approach-one that not only decenters curriculum, but reimagines it completely? Change causes uncertainty, and uncertainty can understandably cause insecurity and even panic. Take coding for example. Let’s say that one definition of digital literacy might be "the ability to interpret and design nuanced communication across digital forms." Students need to be able to do this, yes? Coding is just another collection of symbols. It’s the new reading and writing! And speak a foreign language too, right? And paint and dance? Yes, yes. And play an instrument and make things and manage projects through their own sustained inquiry and learn to be entrepreneurs? Yes, yes, yes. But a more apt question might be, how should schools—and the curriculum they seek to "deliver"—be reconsidered in light of prevailing local technologies and values? What are people for, and how can schools help? What is the relationship between a good school and good work and good living? What’s worth knowing, how is that different for every person, and how might schools reconceive themselves in response? How does a renewed global consciousness impact the "local"? How does a connected planet change the kinds of things a person needs to understand? (It has to, right?) Building A Curriculum Based On People In the past, we’ve sought to add-to and revise. Add these classes and drop these. This isn’t as important as this. To make knowledge an index that reflects the latest thinking that reflects our most recent insecurities and collective misunderstandings. This doesn’t seem like the smartest path to sustainable innovation in learning. As the pace of change quickens through jolting connections, fresh priorities, and newly visible (and overlapping) inequities and opportunities, it’s time to rethink curriculum and its role in the learning process. In a fixed curriculum with set boundaries that is based on content, start with "Want to add coding? What are you willing to give up? Let’s trade." The idea of new skills and ideas being relevant in a changing world has been a core currency of ed debate since the 1990s (at least), manifesting as "21st century skills" and "the 4 Cs," and so on. A few years ago, we created a graphic that helped to capture what a modern academic learning environment might look like. And an Inside-Out School. And two dozen other models we’ve developed trying to etch out-and then illuminate-how learning is changing, and what might be coming next. It’s difficult to lead from behind, and schools have stayed far behind the curve, in part, by the core mechanic of their design-curriculum. They start with something slippery and opaque and subjective and endlessly problematic-content. They take that content and package it as curriculum. They then study the "best practices" of delivering that curriculum that yield the largest gains as measured by common assessments. A common curriculum and common assessments. They-or rather we-celebrate pie charts instead of people. The curriculum and its mastery is central. The schools and teachers and students are peripheral and entirely anonymous. What if we took a different approach-something content-less and human-ful? Something fluid? In a fluid curriculum that’s based on something other than chronologically-sequenced opaque "understandings," there is new possibility-learning that’s not based on content and isn’t driven by teaching. In this case, it’s no longer restricted by either, so content and teachers can seek new roles. Give me a curriculum based on people-based on their habits and thinking patterns in their native places. One that helps them see the utility of knowledge and the patterns of familial and social action. One that helps them ask, "What’s worth knowing, and what should I do with what I know?" Then let’s work backwards from that. Shifting From A Curriculum Of Insecurity To A Curriculum Of Wisdom; image attribution flickr user susanfernandez; the handsome kid in the featured image is the author’s son The post Changing What We Teach appeared first on TeachThought.

Why Do High School History Teachers Lecture So Much? by Grant Wiggins, Authentic Education Why do high school teachers lecture so much? Almost every high school I go to I see teachers talking and kids listening (or not) more in History than any other course. And you needn’t take my anecdotal word for it. For the past year, students taking our survey have been asked to respond to questions about use of time in class. Here are the results for HS students (the "skipped" vs "answered" number refers to prior years when the question was not asked; this reflects all HS students from this school year, with no filtering out of answers): So, half of HS teachers lecture at least 3/4 of the period regularly - some all period. We also asked students what they think the ideal amount of lecturing is. Interestingly, below is not only the aggregate data, this is almost a universal answer across each school - there is practically no range on the answer to this question: My question is basic, history teachers. Given that most history textbooks are comprehensive and reasonably well-written, why do you feel the need to talk so much? Your colleagues in science and English, for example, do not feel the same urge. And please don’t tell me there is ‘so much to cover’ - that is silly. You are paid to cause understanding, not on how many words you speak. And don’t tell me you can’t do projects and simulations. My old friend and former colleague Mark Williams has prepared kids for AP for decades by doing cool simulations and performance challenges (e.g. Silk Road trading game plus debrief, editorial team decision on how to eulogize Sam Colt, etc.). The best teacher I have ever seen at the HS level, Leon Berkowitz at Portland HS years ago, organized his entire history course using the Steve Allen Meeting of Minds format. Furthermore, most history programs have mission/goal statements that identify skills, performance abilities, and critical thinking that should be highlighted. (And the new AP framework which also does so is based on UbD.) That requires coaching kids to do things. I can only see two good reasons for lecturing at length, sometimes, in history: 1. You have done original research that isn’t written down in a book 2. You have rich and interesting knowledge based on research that can overcome confusions and missing elements in the current course. I am NOT saying "Don’t Lecture." I am wondering why you do it so much, more than I think reasonably is necessary to achieve your goals. (You might want to read the research on lectures while you’re at it, especially the forgetting and disengagement that comes after 20 minutes for college learners, never mind HS kids). What am I missing? Or: what might you do differently for 3/4 of the period, to engage and equip students? I think any reasonable job description of "teacher" demands that you rethink this habit. PS: A number of tweets and a few comments below cite the reason as: "Kids can’t/won’t read the text." But then that is a more serious problem than you lecturing all the time: they will be utterly unprepared for college at any level. Why isn’t this treated as a departmental priority? Why aren’t you looking for better books? Why aren’t you proving them with better incentives to read (e.g. necessary for simulations, debates, and Seminars)? PPS: David McCullough on the 5 important things to learn in US history. Here is a typical lecture, found on YouTube in a search on HS History Class Lecture.  Is this the best use of class time? PPPS: In response to a query: the data for just MS students: This post first appeared on Grant’s personal blog; Grant can be found on twitter here; Why Do High School Teachers Lecture So Much? image attribution flickr user mikewillis The post Why Do High School History Teachers Lecture So Much? appeared first on TeachThought.

7 Ways School Leaders Can Use Observations More Effectively by Paul Moss  Whilst observations are certainly not the whole picture of a teacher’s skill, they can provide excellent opportunities for teachers to reflect on their practice. If my last article How Your Teacher Observation Can Help You Grow convinced teachers of the benefits of observations, the onus is now placed on school leaders to provide the necessary conditions for such a culture to survive, and thrive. The key word here is culture. The atmosphere or mood of a school is imperative if teachers are to embrace observation. And while that culture is the responsibility of every employee in a school, school leaders have the most influence in shaping it. 7 Ways School Leaders Can Use Teacher Observations More Effectively Justify observations - most teachers are afraid of being observed, and feel they are unrepresentative of their skill. Convey to teachers the benefits of observation. Create an excitement about personal growth, and what it will do for the school. Presently, most teachers would feel that they are being checked up on. Creating the excitement begins with altering the language of observation. Even the word observation has an Orwellian connotation. It may as well be ‘evaluated’. Change it to ‘performance’, or something similar. Straight away the semantics change the focus and the power from the watcher to the doer, and from something stale to something creative. ‘How did your ‘performance’ go?’ Facilitate personal observation - this is perhaps the most powerful way to eliminate observation anxiety, as teachers can work on areas on their own and build their capacity in being critical of their practice. This can be done using technology and recording lessons. There is no better way to reduce observation anxiety for even the shyest of teachers amongst us than to observe yourself. The pressure is completely removed.  Most teachers will quickly see where things could improve, especially with a set of criteria provided by the school. By the time observation gets to leadership or beyond, small easy things have already been fixed, only leaving room for positive discussions about growth. The next step is then to show the videos to colleagues. Provide ample opportunities to reflect - if teachers are given time to reflect, it will become part of their routine. This is key to the culture shift - familiarity. Embedding personal reflection of lessons into the timetable is also the best way to translate to the team that you take personal development very seriously. In that timetable, schedule a build up in the observations in terms of who sees lessons. Begin with personal, then to colleagues, then to area leaders, then to senior leaders. By the time it gets to the last group, the teacher will be on autopilot. This point can’t be stated more clearly - if you are serious about your teachers getting better, you have to provide time for them to reflect on their practice. Begin with very short observations - let teachers know that you are only coming in for a short time, focusing on a specific area. Slowly building up the time in the room helps teachers get used to your presence. Observe more often - providing teachers with several opportunities to demonstrate their skill is going to provide you with a better idea of what they can do. It also takes some pressure off teachers if they know that 1 lesson isn’t the be all and end all. Interact in the observation - engage with the class as though you are also teaching. Engage with the teacher. Make it seem that you are there because you are anticipating good things to follow, and interact when things are done well. Most times, teachers get no feedback during the actual lesson, leaving them wondering and sometimes second guessing what they are doing when perceived good moments are met with indifference from the observer. Imagine doing that with the students. Sitting in the back taking notes and avoiding eye contact may not be the best approach in eliminating the observer effect. Accept nothing less - this requires patience as the culture transforms, but also assertiveness. Some staff may find the transition uncomfortable, or unnecessary, and resist, and it is in this time that strength and conviction is required from leadership. Belief in the process is paramount, and using early adopters as examples is important. Show reluctant teachers how other teachers are progressing. After all, the proof is in the pudding. Teachers want to get better. It’s in our DNA. We are also proud professionals, and we want to be able to demonstrate to others exactly how good we are. When we are observed, we want that moment to be truly representative. We want people to leave our performance feeling inspired. But practice makes perfect. Bands don’t just start playing at Wembley or Madison Square Garden. They build. They get used to crowds. They iterate after each gig. Eventually their performance becomes a true reflection of who they are, no matter who’s watching. Teaching too is an art form. But without the feedback, the iteration, and the time to improve, we can’t ever demonstrate it to others. Give us the culture in which to shine though, and we will. 7 Ways School Leaders Can Use Teacher Observations More Effectively; image attribution flickr user denisekrebs The post 7 Ways School Leaders Can Use Observations More Effectively appeared first on TeachThought.

33 Graphic Design Tools To Publish Visual Content by TeachThought Staff Digital literacy is, in part, about digital publishing. Digital publishing is, in part, about the writing process-choosing an audience and purpose, drafting content, revising and editing that content, and then sharing it with the world. But digital publishing is also about the right tools for the right platform and the right device. Education is no different; digital publishers in your classroom need the right tools to do amazing things. The pathway from idea to socializing has been lubricated by incredible technology. In fact, that’s a key theme of progressive technology: It makes new things possible. If you think this isn’t true, sit down to create a book cover with Microsoft Word instead of Adobe InDesign. Or a stunning video game with Scratch instead of Unity. Tools matter. In an era of digital literacy and digital publishing comes a new genre-visual content. Memes. eCards. Blogs. Gifs. Inspirational quotes. From magazine layouts to pinterest fodder, "visuals" are a new genre gifted from the ease of digital publishing and sharing. So this list of graphic resources from Kimberly Reynolds for visual content fits right in this context-for you as a teacher, or your students as creators. 33 Graphic Resource Tools To Create Stunning Visual Content 105.6k views 38 items 33 Graphic Resource Tools To Create Stunning Visual Content Listly by Kimberly Reynolds Resources to create awesome visual content for your blog, Instagram, PInterest and more! Source: http://www.socialnotz.com/create-beautiful-visual-quotes/   Follow List   Embed List   1 PlaceIt by Breezi - Generate Product Screenshots in Realistic Environments Your iPhone, iPad and other device screenshots automatically processed on the fly to be placed within a realistic environment of your choosing 5 likes Comments Relist Share 2 PosterGen Easily create your own quote posters and much more Added by Joe Smith on Dec 07, 2013 5 likes Comments Relist Share 3 Design Templates - Fonts - Logo - Icons | Customizable | GraphicRiver Browse premium design templates and stock graphics for logos, fonts, print design, web design, Photoshop, InDesign, Lightroom, icons, business cards, and more. 2 likes Comments Relist Share 4 Recite Recite - Turn a quote into a masterpiece Added by Jackie Bigford on Nov 04, 2013 2 likes Comments Relist Share 5 Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. 2 likes Comments Relist Share 6 Haiku Deck A simple, fun way to create beautiful visual text on images. Added by Adam Loving on Feb 19, 2014 2 likes Comments Relist Share 7 Canva - Amazingly simple graphic design for blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more. Canva makes design simple for everyone. Create designs for Web or print: blog graphics, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers, posters, invitations and so much more. 2 likes Comments Relist Share 8 CC Search Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. 1 likes Comments Relist Share 9 GifMaker - Free Online Animated GIF Maker Create high quality animated gifs of yourself or advertisement banners online with GIFMaker.me, easy to use, no sign up needed. 1 likes Comments Relist Share 10 Chisel Transform the way you express your thoughts and creations Added by Jackie Bigford on Nov 04, 2013 1 likes Comments Relist Share 11 Quozio - Make Beautiful Quotes Quozio turns meaningful words into beautiful images in seconds. Then share 'em on Facebook, Pinterest, email and more! Added by Jackie Bigford on Nov 04, 2013 1 likes Comments Relist Share 12 Word Swag App - Generate Cool Text, Words & Quotes on Your Photos Now you can create beautifully custom text layouts that would normally take minutes - or even hours - with just a tap. 1 likes Comments Relist Share 13 Compfight / A Flickr Search Tool Search engine for visual inspiration and free stock photos for the advertising community including images of creative commons and public domain. 0 likes Comments Relist Share 14 Photo Pin : Free Photos for Bloggers via Creative Commons Photo Pin is a free tool that helps bloggers and designers find beautiful photos for blogs and websites using Creative Commons licensing. Download the photos and get attribution links already formatted for you. 0 likes Comments Relist Share 15 High Quality Royalty-Free Stock Photography From $1 - Stock Photo | PhotoDune Buy royalty-free stock photography from PhotoDune, a huge marketplace of high quality photography from an incredibly creative community. 0 likes Comments Relist Share 16 Online Image Editor Free Online Image Editor create your own animated gifs resize crop avatars and images. Photo tool for your favorite pictures. 0 likes Comments Relist Share 17 Quotes Cover Create Beautiful Looking Quotes Picture for Facebook, Google Plus, Wallpapers, E-cards, or even for Prints. | QuotesCover.com Added by Jackie Bigford on Nov 04, 2013 0 likes Comments Relist Share 18 Pinstamatic - Get More From Pinterest A tool for helping you add lots of different things to Pinterest Added by Jackie Bigford on Nov 04, 2013 0 likes Comments Relist Share 19 Pinwords Pinwords is an app lets you instantly add beautiful captions and text to your images. Instantly share on Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook, and more! Added by Jackie Bigford on Nov 04, 2013 0 likes Comments Relist Share 20 Image Raider Image Raider is an automated reverse-image search tool - spend a few minutes adding your photo or image catalogue, and we'll let you know when we find any other websites using them. Who would use Image Raider? 0 likes Comments Relist Share 21 Clipping Magic - Remove Image Backgrounds Instantly Online Clipping Magic: Online image mask generator 0 likes Comments Relist Share 22 PixTeller - Poster Maker! Create targeted image quotes, personalized greeting cards, beautiful posters or any amazing image you wish on PixTeller.com. Added by Alexandru Roznovat on Aug 26, 2014 0 likes Comments Relist Share 23 Buncee Pro Buncee Pro lets you quickly and easily create greetings, school projects, collages, artwork and more! Use your own photos, text and drawings, along with our huge library of backgrounds and stickers to personalize your buncee creation. Then share your buncee by saving it to your photo stream, posting it to your favorite social networks, or e-mailing it to friends and family. Added by Manasi H on Nov 26, 2014 0 likes Comments Relist Share 24 PicMonkey Editing your photos is easy with PicMonkey! Add filters, frames, text, and effects with our free online photo editing tool! 0 likes Comments Relist Share 25 Phonto - Text on Photos - Android Apps on Google Play Phonto is a simple application that allows you to add text to pictures. ★ More than 200 fonts are available. ★ You can install other fonts. ★ Text size is chan... 0 likes Comments Relist Share View more lists from Kimberly Reynolds 33 Graphic Design Tools For Digital Publishing; 33 Graphic Design Tools To Publish Visual Content The post 33 Graphic Design Tools To Publish Visual Content appeared first on TeachThought.

The Benefit Of Making The Curricular More Like The Extracurricular by Mike Anderson   Few would argue with the importance of educating the whole child. Even in today’s age of standardized testing and emphasis on academic standards, perhaps even because of this recent emphasis, educators are increasingly aware of the need to nurture students’ complete development. As I work with schools and talk with educators, I see a common way of supporting the whole child that I’d like to push back against. Too often, schools seem to rely on extra-curricular activities and afterschool programs to meet students’ needs for physical health, extra academic challenge and engagement, and more meaningful connections with adults. Now, don’t get me wrong—extra-curricular activities and special afterschool programs and events can be wonderful. My own children, both in middle school, participate in clubs, sports, and musical groups that are powerful and important in their lives and which clearly help nurture their development as whole people. Perhaps it’s my bias as a classroom teacher that has me pushing back a bit, for I firmly believe that while extra-curricular activities can be one way of educating our children in more complete ways, they had better not be the main way in which we do so. This is important for two reasons. The first is that many children are unable to participate in outside activities. They may have to work or support their families. They may not have the resources or parental support needed to stay after school. If extra-curriculars are our main vehicle, the students who would most benefit from a whole child approach will be least likely to get it. Second, I worry about a subtle message that may be sent when the most engaging, supportive, and interesting work happens outside of the regular curriculum. Some students might come to believe that academic work is something to slog through—to endure. The fun learning happens in the band room, on the baseball field, on the ropes course, or in the afterschool art class. Instead, schools who are working at educating the whole child should work to accomplish their goals within the context of the regular school day, as a part of everyday teaching and learning. We should make sure that algebra, reading workshop, biology, music, and social studies are challenging, supportive, safe, and engaging. Music, drama, and other arts should be integrated into daily academic work. In every class, students should learn how to take care of their physical and emotional needs to do their best learning, should have access to healthy foods, and should get to move as they learn. In each class, students should feel safe enough to take the risks needed to engage in meaningful learning. Throughout the day, students should be in the company of caring and supportive adults who are positive role models. Throughout their academic day, students should have meaningful choices and engage in fun, interesting, and appropriately challenging work. And when this is the way schools look—when students are safe, supported, healthy, engaged, and challenged throughout the day in every class—then all students reap the benefits. A Few Ideas for Implementation There are lots of ways we can make our daily teaching better meet the needs of the whole child. Here are a few quick ideas to get you started. Consider adding a comment to this blog to share some ideas of your own! Safe: Have students co-create rules for your classroom and refer to rules frequently to help guide positive behavior. ("Our rules say that we should ‘be respectful.’ What are some ways we can do that as we work with our lab partners?") Supported: Get to know your students. Keep a simple note-sheet where you can jot down information about students’ friends, family, and interests. Talk with students about this knowledge so they know they are known. Healthy: Keep student moving. Have them rotate through the room solving problems posted on charts. Use conversation structures that have students standing and circulating as they share and learn with each other. Engaged: Think through your lessons from your students’ perspectives. Ask yourself, "If I was a student, would I care about this content/activity?" If the answer is "probably not", find ways of connecting the work to what students value. Challenged: Empower students to challenge themselves as they work. Give them some choices about what or how they learn, and encourage them to create their own "just right" challenge level. Remember, work that’s too easy is boring—appropriate challenges are fun!   Mike Anderson is a professional development specialist and educational consultant. A former Milken Award winner, he taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades in public schools in New Hampshire and Connecticut for 15 years and was previously a Responsive Classroom® consultant, presenter, and developer. His books have been released by leading publishers, such as ASCD and Heinemann, and include The Well-Balanced Teacher: How to Work Smarter and Stay Sane Inside the Classroom and Out (ASCD, 2010). Learn more about Mike’s work at www.leadinggreatlearning.com; A version of this blog was posted to Mike’s website, Leading Great Learning; image attribution flickr user skokiesculpturepark; The Benefit Of Making The Curricular More Like The Extracurricular The post The Benefit Of Making The Curricular More Like The Extracurricular appeared first on TeachThought.

60 Smarter Ways To Use Google Classroom by TeachThought Staff Google Classroom is quietly becoming the most powerful tool in education technology. It may lack the visual appeal of iPads, or the student credibility of a BYOD program. It may not be as forward-thinking as we’d like here at TeachThought, but Google Classroom excels in providing solutions for a broad swath of teachers who have a variety of expertise and comfort level with education technology. It also uses Google’s familiar template that many teachers have used for years. As such, it scratches the itch for many teachers in many classrooms right here, right now. So below are (at least) 60 thing you can do with Google Classroom. We’ll be updating this list as new ideas come in, the platform changes, and we learn more about its subtleties on our own. 60 Smarter Ways To Use Google Classroom When an assignment, lesson, or unit doesn’t work, add your own comments-or have students add their own feedback), then tag it or save it to a different folder for revision. Align curriculum with other teachers. Share data with professional learning community. Keep samples of exemplar writing for planning. Tag your curriculum. Solicit daily, weekly, by-semester, or annual feedback from students and parents using Google Forms. Share anonymous writing samples with students. See what your assignments look like from the students’ point-of-view. Flip your classroom. The tools to publish videos and share assignments are core to Google Apps for Education. Communicate assignment criteria with students. Let students ask questions privately. Let students create their own digital portfolios of their favorite work. Create a list of approved research sources. You can also differentiate this by student, group, reading level, and more. Post an announcement for students, or students and parents. Design more mobile learning experiences for your students-in higher ed, for example. Have students chart their own growth over time using Google Sheets. Share due dates with mentors outside the classroom with a public calendar. Email students individually, or as groups. Better yet, watch as they communicate with one another. Create a test that grades itself using Google Forms. Control file rights (view, edit, copy, download) on a file-by-file basis. Have students curate project-based learning artifacts. As a teacher, you can collaborate with other teachers (same grade by team, same content across grade level). Encourage digital citizenship via peer-to-peer interaction that is documented. Use Google Calendar for due dates, events outside the classroom, and other important "chronological data." Communicate digitally with students who may be hesitant to "talk" with you in person. Streamline cross-curricular projects with other teachers. Aggregate and publish commonly-accessed websites to make sure everyone has same access, same documents, same links, and same information. Vertically-align student learning by curating and sharing "landmark" student assignments that reflect mastery of specific standards. Encourage a common language by unpacking standards and share district-wide. Encourage students to use their smartphones for formal learning. By accessing documents, YouTube channels, group communication, digital portfolio pieces and more on a BYOD device, students will have a chance to see their phone as something other than a purely for-entertainment device. Create and publish "power standards" (with students, other teachers, and other schools) for transparency and collaboration. Promote peer-to-peer and/or school-to-school interactions-students with other students, students with other teachers, and teachers with other teachers. Create "by-need" groups as classes-based on reading level, for example. Check which students have accessed which assignments. Provide student with feedback. Add voice comments to student writing (this requires a third-party app to do so). Help students create content-specific YouTube channels. "Closed-circuit publish" annotated research papers according to specific styles (MLA, APA, etc.) or other otherwise "confusing" work. Share presentations. Create a "digital parking lot" for questions. Administer digital exit slips. Instead of homework, assign voluntary "lesson extensions" for students. When questions arise about mastery or grades, refer to who accessed and completed what, when. Create folders of miscellaneous lesson materials. digital versions of texts, etc. Enjoy smarter conferencing with students and parents with easy-to-access work, data, writing, feedback, access data, and so on. Save pdfs or other snapshots of digital resources in universally-accessed folders. Create a data wall but with speadsheets and color-coding. Make sub work or make-up work easy to access. Collect data. This can happen in a variety of ways, from using Google Forms, extraction to Google Sheets, or your own in-house method. Give prompt feedback for learning. See who’s completed what-and when-at-a-glance. Track when students turn-in work. Since access is tracked, look for patterns in student habits-those that access assignments immediately, those that consistently return to work, and so on-and communicate those trends (anonymously) to students as a way of communicating "best practices in learning" for students who may not otherwise think Differentiate instruction through tiering, grouping, or Bloom’s spiraling. Create groups based on readiness, interest, reading level, or other factors for teaching and learning. Use Google Forms to poll students, create reader interest surveys, and more. Model a works cited page. Create reference sheets. Design digital team-building activities. Create a paperless classroom. Share universal and frequently-accessed assignments-project guidelines, year-long due dates, math formulas, content-area facts, historical timelines, etc. 60 Smarter Ways To Use Google Classroom The post 60 Smarter Ways To Use Google Classroom appeared first on TeachThought.