November Strategy Sharing

Many fabulous ideas were shared by your colleagues at the November Strategy Sessions. If you have a chance, I recommend checking out the resources posted on the Deepening & Reinforcing Learning Discussion board. I've included a few highlights below:

How is this picture like the law of diminishing returns?

• Brandon Wolf shared four different strategies that he uses and posted the templates. He talked about how his students find non-linguistic representations helpful in solidifying and personalizing concepts, giving the example of students who remembered the law of diminishing returns because they had represented it with a box of donuts or another who connected it to Spotify. I also really like the At Home Discussion Chart, where students summarize a conversation that they had at home about their recent learning and reflect on why they better understand the concept discussed as a result.  
• Dakota Cronin shared the Feynman Technique, which is based on the idea expressed in this quote from Albert Einstein: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." The basic idea is that the process of explaining (verbally or in writing) a concept without using complex vocabulary or jargon helps you to understand it better. Learn more about this mental model in this 4 minute video.
• Dominic Mooney shared one of his favorite tools for curating content: Pocket. With an easy to navigate visual interface, Pocket is a great way for you and your students to easily save articles, videos and other resources that are related to what they are learning about. All of the content goes to one place, so you can view it anytime, on any device. You don't even need an internet connection. I'm sure that Dom would be more than happy to personally share with you how he uses it - just drop by his lair and ask for a tutorial!
• And finally, here are a few ideas that teachers shared for grouping students: by VIA strengths, clock partners, popsicle sticks, the flippity.net random name picker, which also creates random groupings, playing cards, and multiple copies of pictures/visuals related to content passed out as students enter the room. Plus, did you know that Power School has a random student selector tool? I did not. This handy tidbit was shared by Robert Ogle. 

Thanks to everyone who has shared ideas so far! The next round of sessions isn't until February, so you have lots of time to try something new. :-)

Strategy Sharing

During the September and October Strategy Sessions, some great ideas were shared. I'm posting them here so everyone can benefit!

In September, Dan Inns shared how he starts out a new unit and prepares students for new learning by using a variety of interactive technology tools:

"When we start a next section of the course, I will have students brainstorm using pollEverywhere or wordle.  We then identify key words that match with the IB Sports, Exercise and Health Science syllabus and we will do a T/P/S (Think Pair Share) or a W/P/S (Write Pair Share).  Alternatively I may ask the students to do a 5 minute exploration on a given 'word' and then feedback to the rest of the class.   I have also used Plickers with a selection of 5 questions to establish what the students already know."

Plickers allows you to set up a student response system with printed hold-ups that you can scan with your iPad or phone and easily collect the data. It gets every student participating and gives you accurate information about what each student knows. You can read more about it here and print out your own cards here.

Another great idea for implementing a modified "hold ups" strategy was shared by Doug Andrew. If you don't have physical whiteboards, Doug suggested creating a Google presentation with enough blank slides for each of the students in your class. Assign them each a slide and they can type in their answers. So innovative!

Mr. Jerry Koontz introduced Newsela to the 4B cohort and posted about it on the Schoology Strategy Sessions group. Newsela is a free website that features current news articles; topics range from politics, science, environment to social trends and quirky events. According to Jerry, "The most useful aspect of the site is that articles can be leveled to the appropriate lexile reading level of each student with the click of a button. The same article, different reading levels. The students enjoy reading the articles and each one comes with a 4 question quiz and short writing prompt.  All done online so it's easy to check progress. Although the benefits to an ELA program are obvious, this website also could be used by Social Studies, Science, Health, and Spanish teachers (articles are available in Spanish)." 

One last handy tip, brought to you by James Linzel. James wanted to display a timer for pair shares, table group discussions and other activities to manage pacing in his class, but he was not happy with having to toggle between a presentation and an online timer. He discovered that there are a plethora of countdown timer videos on youtube that you can embed in your presentation. Just do a google search for the time that you want, e.g. "3 minute timer video." Seamless!

Thanks to everyone who shared their ideas in the first two sessions. See you in November for more inspiring suggestions. 

Tech Tip Tuesday: QR Codes

Where will this QR Code take you?

During one of our recent learning walks, one teacher's take away was a reminder that he needs to be more conscious of incorporating opportunities for movement into all of his classes, even if that just means getting students out of their desks for a minute or two. Using QR codes is one way to get students up and moving. Here are some resources that will help you get started or perhaps provide you with some new ideas if you're already using them.

Here are a few quick ideas for getting started with QR Codes (from freetech4teachers.com):

• What QR Codes Can Do for You!
• Three Ways to Make Useful QR Codes for Your Students (includes info about the QR Treasure Hunt Generator)

For a more in-depth, philosophical and pedagogical discussion of this strategy, I recommend "QR Codes: Pushing the Narrative on Scannables" from Edutopia. 

If you are using QR codes in a lesson, let me know. Your colleagues would love to see this strategy in action!

Tech Tip Tuesday: Kahoot

On a learning walk last week, Caroline, Ahmed and I visited Jean Nightingale's Geometry class and got to see Kahoot! in action. As described on the website, "Kahoot is a learning game created on the Kahoot! platform, which consists of multiple choice questions - as a quiz, discussion or survey - in any topic, language or ability. It’s projected at the front of the classroom, & played by the whole class together in real-time (answering on their own personal device)." As we saw in Jean's class, the students were engaged and enjoying the game, and Jean was able to instantly assess where students are in their learning and then address misconceptions on the spot.

I was going to use this post to plug the upcoming TTT session on Kahoot!, but sadly, it has been postponed. So instead, here are some resources to help you get started with this awesome tool on your own. As always, if you need additional support, your instructional coach is here for  you!

You might want to start with the Getting Started with Kahoot tutorial from their website. Or, if you prefer to watch a video tutorial, you could check this one out.

Once you've got the basics down, you might be interested in learning about how to use "ghost mode" in this post from Free Technology for Teachers. This feature essentially gives students the opportunity to play a Kahoot review game against themselves in order to measure their own progress and growth.

For a peek behind the scenes, this episode from the TeachThought podcast features the co-founder of Kahoot! discussing their mission driven approach to learning and how Kahoot! is more than just an assessment tool.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Random Name Picker

"Perhaps the simplest way to improve classroom questioning is simply not to ask for volunteers, but instead to choose a student at random," says Dylan Wiliam, an expert on formative assessment and effective questioning strategies. Read more about how random questioning increases student engagement in Wiliam's article "The Right Questions, The Right Way." 

Try these two tools to easily digitize the popsicle stick strategy:

Random Name Picker is a free tool from Classtools.net. It lets you input names and spin a virtual wheel to have a name randomly selected from the list. After a name is selected you can remove it from the wheel so that it is not selected again. You can save your lists by assigning passwords to them. You can also re-use your saved lists. 



Stick Pick is an app for iPhone or iPad where you can set up multiple virtual cans of sticks. It also suggests question starters for learners at different levels and allows you to keep track of student responses. 

Learning Targets: Analogies

There were some good questions put forth after last week's Learning Target session. One teacher said that they needed more examples from their specific subject area, but alas, that person did not include their name, so I don't know what subject area that might be. If you would like examples from your specific subject area, please shoot me an email and I would be happy to provide some. See the full Q&A in this post.

Creating Comparisons

HOT: Higher Order Thinking

The analogies from the exit tickets were somewhat creative, although it may have helped if I had provided a clear definition of an analogy. Here is one from literarydevices.net: An analogy is a comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to another thing that is quite different from it. It aims at explaining that idea or thing by comparing it to something that is familiar.

Using analogies or similes is one of the strategies from the book Total Participation Techniques. You can read a full description of the strategy and how it encourages higher order thinking by clicking here. As the results below demonstrate, the key to success with this strategy is to explain the concept thoroughly and model it. Including the explanation or the "because" is an important piece for students to include so you have some insight into what they are thinking.

There are many easy to implement ideas in this book that engage all students. According to the authors, “TPTs are teaching techniques that allow for all students to demonstrate, at the same time, active participation and cognitive engagement in the topic being studied.” For an overview of all of the techniques included in the book, check out this Quick Reference Guide.

Your Analogies/Similes

Learning targets...
...are like signs in the market, telling you where to go.
...are like an energy drink (except they don't give heart attacks) because they get you going and help you focus.
...allow students to navigate their own learning. It's like going on a journey and giving students the map.

Learning targets...
...are the guideposts for METACOGNITION! (because...)
...are like targets because they allow students to know what to aim for. (can you think of something quite different to compare them to?)
...are like passed hors d'ouvres and standards are the main course. (because...)
...are like a map for students to get to the desired outcome of learning. (their learning destination?)

Learning targets...
...are like a public school requirement because I used to have to do these in the public school I left.
...are like targets...for...learning... :0