Curating resources & sharing stories to empower teacher & student ownership, wonder, and daring.
We don’t know about you, but we’re pretty visual folks over here. So here are some of the most important aspects we’ve learned about 21st century teaching over the past year of blogging, condensed into infographic form! Enjoy!
For more like this, check out our article on becoming a 21st Century teacher!
Have you ever played with Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button? Well, you should–and so should your students who are looking for inspiration or a challenge (especially if they feel they are always “done”).
Continue reading “The Last Digital Fast Finisher You’ll Ever Need”
After boring both my students and myself with largely direct instruction math for a couple of years, I decided to try guided math. The results? Increases in interest, one-on-one time, student initiative, and just plain joy in math learning.
Most math programs are still set up in very traditional, teacher-centered constructs. In the name of “offering support,” some even provide scripts! This is typically followed by a barrage of worksheets. Then quiz tomorrow. Spiral review. Repeat.
Perhaps the monotony would be worthwhile if we all become mathematically literate adults, but this does not seem to be the case. As the National Center for Education Statistics keeps confirming in surveys conducted since the 1980’s, most Americans’ math skills remain lacking:
It’s time to look outside the box of traditional math education in order to foster life-long mathematical illiteracy!
One day, while complaining to another teacher about how I’d started hating the sound of my own voice, she introduced me to guided math. What I found most intriguing:
I started literally the next day.
And while it took longer than that to refine my approach, the beauty of guided math is you can easily adapt your school’s math program to its structure.
Any other questions, tips, or experiences? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below!
Photo Credit:
“You’ll use this all the time when you grow up.” “You’re developing skills you’ll need all the way through college.” “Someday, you’ll be so glad you learned another language.”
[insert eye-rolling here].
Even if true, relying primarily on these kinds of future-tense phrases to justify learning may have harmful effects. Nothing is worth draining our children’s inborn sense of discovery and enthusiasm.
The counterintuitive reality: instilling learning passion for the future only happens when we show students how to love learning today!
Think back to your classes that most sparked your passion. Chances are, those instructors made relevance a daily priority–a skill that takes purpose and deliberate planning. In our experience, that purpose and planning must consist of the following:
Students must be enabled to tailor their learning in order to find relevance. Technological options for making this happen are almost endless–but possibilities outside the high-tech box abound, too, including project based learning, genius hour, and other innovative new strategies.
Start the video below at 16 minutes for a wonderful anecdote by Sir Ken Robinson:
Anwar Masood highlights the importance & depth of the teacher-student relationship #teaching http://t.co/A2rjcd1G99 pic.twitter.com/A91opWEPQl
— Annet Kil (@AnnetKil) December 7, 2014
My first year teaching overflowed with the kinds of typical pursuits designed to prepare students for the future demands: book reports, math homework worksheets, and daily “independent study,” during which students would work for an hour on grammar, comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling. And guess where the most frequent strain on behavior occurred?
Over the years, we gradually replaced such activities with approaches that foster now learning–and I witnessed transformations in my students’ motivation, vibrance, and willingness to take risks.
How much of your student’s day involves learning for the present? Look below at tips for each part of my fifth grader’s schedule:
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B+, 4, O, 73%–these marks and the like are terrible storytellers. After all, how can one impassive mark describe a student’s chronicle of small triumphs, daily perseverance, and long-term growth? On the other hand, is it even possible to record and convey complex learning journeys in a way that isn’t cumbersome?
If any of this sounds familiar, explore Google Drive as a possible solution to strike the balance! Increase your accuracy, efficiency, and transparency by checking out some examples and tips below.
Your clipboard and pen still have a place in certain formative assessment note-taking. But for more in-depth situations, a Google Form with prefilled lists to choose from can help you generate much more comprehensive–and accessible–notes. In a recent #5thchat, @Mr_Ullman shared his forms for writing and reading conferences. We especially love his use of drop-down menus to easily select student names, writing cycle stages, and comprehension strategies, and more.
Most schools require benchmarks assessments, typically at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. Ready-made benchmark programs often come with assessment sheets, but why not create your own multifunctional and tailored document? For example, I decided to consolidate reading, writing, math, and behavior benchmarks all into one Google Document. I also made student-friendly alterations so we could use the same sheets during our student-led parent teacher conferences (see extra resources & how-to here); I also added grade-level-specific rubrics, tables, and data.
Sharing assessment data with students can be accompanied with uncertainty–how much should we share? How do we keep them from becoming preoccupied with numbers? Will they feel defined by scores? However, I’ve come to realize that as long as we discuss data in the context of process over product, it can become yet another way to empower students with ownership over their learning. In addition, the share features in Google Drive are ideal for fostering communication among students, parents, and teachers. We are advocates for harnessing technology for more in-depth and authentic collaboration among all involved in student learning!
How else have you used Google Documents and Forms for more accurate, efficient, and transparent assessments? We’d love to hear about them in the comments!
Google Earth Starter Kit for Teachers is our new 11-page guide to take you and your class on virtual field trips, starting today! We designed this guide for teachers wanting to find some quality examples of Google Earth trips, to create their own, or to give students new and engaging ways to share learning. If this sounds like you, sign up on the left-hand side of our page (we promise to never ever spam or share your info–you’ll just receive occasional email updates from us)! We also list the best of HGU printables and how-to’s on the confirmation page as an extra thank-you for joining our learning community!
Our new kit is packed with practical how-to tips, links to rich virtual field trips, and ways for students to harness Google Earth’s potential for discovery and sharing.
Leave the Classroom Behind with Google EarthFeatured Image Credit: PhotoExplorer via Flickr
Have you ever felt parent teacher conferences become a blur of shallow compliments and trite suggestions? Have you ever worried about the quality of students’ involvement? Do you want parents to gain more meaningful insight on how their children spend 7 hours a day, 5 days a week? Then consider shifting to student led conferences!
After a couple years of traditional parent teacher conferences, I began to doubt their value. Attendance was patchy, and the bulk of meetings that did take place often felt inconsequential. Given the vast expenditure of time and energy in preparations, conferences generally seemed to yield trivial returns–goals quickly forgotten, behavior largely unchanged, and work samples simply discarded. All that changed when my school introduced student-led conferences.
Note that this is geared toward upper-elementary. However, it can easily be adapted for younger and older students–our entire school adopted student-led conferences.
Give a labeled folder to each student to keep conference materials organized.
After each conference, I surveyed parents and students. Below is some of the feedback I frequently received.
Students loved:
Parents loved:
Featured Image: Claire Burge