I have a confession to make. As a former ELA teacher, self-proclaimed "reader" and lover of a good novel, I struggle to get into most nonfiction books. I've been this way my whole life. Give me a piece of fiction, and I can read it in a few days. Give me a piece of nonfiction, and I have to annotate, read, and re-read in order to make sense out of it. This makes it difficult for me to read books on the philosophy of education, which is kind of important in my job as an instructional coach. Enter Dave and Shelley Burgess, co-founders of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. Dave is the best-selling author of Teach Like a Pirate, and Shelley is co-author of Lead like a Pirate. Together, they are a powerhouse of professional development and book publishing. They have published TONS of books on various topics in education. The great thing about their books is that they don't read like a college textbook on education - they are fun, engaging, and relevant (no offense, college textbooks).
If you head over to daveburgessconsulting.com/dbcibooks, you can see all of the books under their publishing company. There truly is something for everyone. Keep any eye out for former USD437 Elementary Curriculum Coordinator Tara Martin's book Be REAL! Now, admittedly, I've only read a couple of the books, but I'm working on that! I have, however, seen several of these people speak at conferences, and they are amazing educators with so much to offer. I hope you can find something that sparks your interest, and you can sit by the pool this summer (if it ever stops raining) and do a little reading!!
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I have to start by apologizing for my two month hiatus. *Oops*. February flew by and the next thing I knew, it was halfway through March. Luckily, I have been very busy, which I prefer, but unfortunately I put blogging on the backburner. During this time away, I got accepted into the Google for Education Certified Trainer program, which is a dream come true, so look forward to seeing more about that soon! In the meantime, I have a cool opportunity that I saw in blogger Matt Miller's newsletter. At WRMS, we do Mindful Minute at the start of each day to help students focus and get ready to start school in a positive way. Each teacher can do it how they want, and some utilize the Calm app. I've seen it in action, and it's very cool. The company has launched The Calm Schools Initiative, which offers teachers free access to the paid version of their app. You can download the app on a device, or you can just use their website. To get access to the paid version, go to https://www.calm.com/schools and fill out the form. Teachers should receive access within a couple of days. Calm will also provide onboarding resources and tips. Happy almost Spring, everyone! Happy almost Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you truly can take a break and enjoy some relaxation with family and friends. This can be a stressful time of year as a teacher and a human in general. Make sure you are taking care of yourself! For today's Digital Tool Tidbit, I've got two Google updates for you. My good friend and amazing science teacher, Kathryn, gave me this first one (thanks, Kathryn!). Google has released shortcuts for creating new files. Just type in any of the following URLs, and you will open up a new, blank file:
The other update is on the Android version of the Google Classroom app. They have updated the app to include a random student selector. Last year, I wrote this post on Cold Calling and how, when used effectively, it can increase student engagement. I included a digital random student selector that teachers can use. While the tool is good, it's not the best for secondary teachers because you have to manually enter each student's name. That's not an issue with Google's student selector! Since it is housed in Google Classroom, it already pulls in your roster. Then, according to Google, you can "randomly [pick] students from your class roster. You can call on a student, skip a student to call on later, or mark a student as absent." Go to Google's Support page here to see step-by-step directions. Also, I'm sure they are already working on this for iOS, but it never hurts to click on that handy question mark at the bottom left of Google Classroom and submit feedback requesting it. Remember, they listen!!! Thanksgiving Photo from Pexels.com
Google Shortcut information from Leswing You may notice a couple of things about the blog. One: it's been a month since I've posted - sorry about that! I have been fortunate to have been very busy this past month. Two: I've given the blog a bit of a makeover! My husband, who works in advertising, and I came up with a new name. Welcome to IgnitEDlearning! I hope you like the change as much as I do. For today's Digital Tool Tidbit, we are talking SlidesCarnival. One of my fellow Instructional Facilitators, Teresa, introduced me to SlidesCarnival when we were working on presentations for our district mini-conference. I immediately fell in lllooovvve. In a nutshell, SlidesCarnival provides FREE Google Slides and PowerPoint templates. They are all customizable and help you to create a presentation that is visually appealing and engaging. Here are a couple of title pages for presentations I have used: Each template also has a page with little icons that you can copy and paste anywhere in the presentation. You can change the colors of the icons as well. Plus, downloading the templates is super easy! With all this said, I'll offer a little food for thought on the idea of slide presentations. Slide presentations can be very ineffective and not allow students to learn. Slides can easily turn into a "sit and get" presentation, where students jot down notes but aren't truly engaged. I had a professor in college who literally stood at the front and read directly from her slides, adding no additional information. I tried my best to write everything down, but she went too fast for me to get everything; then one day she made the files available to us; at that point I quit writing and completely checked out.
I challenge you to make slides engaging for students, using them for discussion starters, or make them interactive, using Pear Deck or Nearpod. Use Slides for student collaboration or interactive activities, like these from Ditch That Textbook. There are so many possibilities beyond the sit and get! Imagine this scenario: You, the teacher, have spent hours developing a lesson that includes great, thought provoking questions. You are excited to get students involved in a class discussion. You go to execute said questions with your first class. You ask the first question. One student volunteers an answer. You ask the second question. The same student raises her hand. You say, "Come on, I know Daniella isn't the only one who has an answer to this question..." Crickets ensue. You call on another student, who responds with, "I don't know." You let Daniella answer again. Sound any kind of familiar? I know I've had situations like this as an English teacher. So how do you get to that level of engagement where you can have a deep, meaningful conversation where all of your students participate? There are two instructional strategies that work very well together to achieve this: Think Pair Share and the Cold Call. In Think Pair Share, students have individual time to think about a problem, then work with a partner (or group) to solve it. Then students share out with the class. Letting them think gives that wait time students need to formulate an answer, and letting them work with a partner gives them the opportunity to make sure they have the best, most well thought out answer. When you are ready to have students share out their answers, the Cold Call comes in. You may be familiar with Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion (I know many teachers in our building use the STAR or SLANT technique). Lemov's Cold Call is when teachers "call on students regardless of whether they've raised their hands" (249). Lemov argues that this technique can truly transform a classroom. The idea is to avoid students checking out. In the scenario above, the moment Daniella raised her hand, or even when the teacher asked for someone to raise their hand and answer, most of the class checked out. There is no reason for them to think about the answer, because they do not have to participate. Cold Calling helps prevent this. If students know that there is always a possibility of the teacher calling on them, they have to be bring their A-game. Lemov gives four strategies to make Cold Calling effective: 1. Make sure it's predictable. If you use it once in a blue moon, it won't work. In fact, students may feel ambushed and become less likely to participate than before. If you have a positive classroom culture where students feel secure and you implement Cold Calling regularly, students will know it is a part of the routine. 2. Make it systematic. The best Cold Call is random. I used good old fashioned popsicle sticks in my classroom, but a great digital tool to keep Cold Calls random is the Random Name Generator on Super Teacher Tools. Just put in your rosters and the program randomly selects students with the click of a button! 3. Make sure it's positive. Cold Calling is inherently positive. You want students to be right, not wrong. It's not a good idea use Cold Calling to target students who may not be paying attention. This can call negative attention to the student, who most likely doesn't know the answer. You want students to feel comfortable with Cold Calling. There are a multitude of ways to make this happen, but I think using the Think Pair Share technique is a great way to give students a leg up with their answers. And again, classroom culture is SO important. If a student thinks everyone will think they are "dumb" if they don't know the answer, they won't want to participate. If they know it's ok to make mistakes and learn from them (Growth Mindset!) then they won't be as timid about participating. 4. Unbundle it. It's better to unbundle a larger question into several smaller questions, or to scaffold the level of questioning, so that you can Cold Call multiple students and increase engagement overall. I tried to find a good YouTube video that showed Cold Calling in action, but all the ones I found were lacking wait time for the whole class. For example, the teacher would ask, "What is the square root of 4, Jennifer?" Yes, you've randomly called on Jennifer, but now the other students don't have a reason to work through the problem for themselves. Instead, asking, "What is the square root of 4?" providing wait time, and then calling on Jennifer would provide more engagement for all students. I encourage you to try Think Pair Share with the Cold Call in your classroom if you aren't already doing it. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised at the level of engagement you achieve! Works Cited
Lemov, Doug. Teach Like a Champion 2.0. Jossey-Bass, 2015. Photo from Pixabay Any veteran teacher will tell you that education is always changing. New standards, new curriculum, new students, new staff - from one year to the next, something is going to be different. One thing that hasn't really changed, however, is the structure of the classroom. Traditionally, students sit in desks that are in rows, facing the chalkboard, with the teacher standing in the front, transferring his or her knowledge to the malleable minds of students. There are exceptions to the rules (did you know standing desks were around in 1899?), and there are many teachers who put their desks in groups or use tables, but overall, this structure has perpetuated.
I spoke with resident innovator and seventh grade ELA teacher, Deneen Schoenfeldt, who is boldly going where few teachers have gone before and trying flexible seating. Deneen was drawn to flexible seating after researching Genius Hour, something her team is implementing with students this semester. She came across a teacher Instagram community that documented their flexible seating journeys, and she was encouraged to dive in. Flexible seating is not something that can happen overnight. Deneen, like most teachers implementing flexible seating, has been curating furniture for her room slowly, and therefore still has some desks in her room. She is paying for the seating out of her own pocket, but slowly she is building a classroom that defies tradition. Now, this type of classroom is not for the faint of heart. Teachers need strong classroom management skills and high expectations of students in order for it to work. Deneen started with having her students read and discuss an article on "Starbucks Classrooms". They discussed pros and cons and then went over her expectations. She emphasized that the point was to optimize student learning and engagement, not to let them get comfy and fall asleep (aww man!). Since she does not have flexible seats for everyone yet, she is implementing a VIP system to start out. When I asked Deneen what advice she would give to those teachers looking to start implementing flexible seating, she said make sure you do your research. Over-plan everything and every scenario. Know what the pros and cons are, and make sure you know your students well. Be prepared that as the teacher, you are giving up some control. This can be really tough, but necessary! To facilitate cooperative learning and maximize student engagement, we have to give up some of that control. Flexible seating is a good way to move in that direction!
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