Let's start with some research. Common Sense Media is an awesome organization for parents and educators to find resources on managing life in a digital world. They surveyed teens on screen time and its effect on their lives. What have they found? Teens' relationship with social media is very complicated. For example, according to their 2018 report, "Social media helps alleviate teens’ depression by connecting them to support and inspiration, and also contributes to depression for those who get stuck in a loop of isolation and self-abnegation" (p. 24). Watch the video below to see teens' explanations of this complex relationship. So what do we do? As educators, we have to help students navigate the confusing and sometimes treacherous waters of the digital world. Instead of being unaccepting of teens' obsession with being plugged in all the time, we must accept it and help them. As a mom of two toddlers, I've read time and time again, kids need limits. We adults must provide these limits. I teach my son that, no, it's not ok to touch the hot stove because he'll burn himself. Just like we teach kids limits in these other areas of life, we also have to teach limits on screen time. In addition, we have to address their social-emotional needs and make sure they have the skillset to handle what comes their way. We have to keep lines of communication open so they can discuss what they see and hear. Sometimes, I think adults are just as bad (or worse) than kids. Sometimes, I get sidetracked looking at Snapchat Stories and my daughter so nicely tells me, "Mommy, get off your phone." It happens. Luckily, the tech world understands this, and companies are coming up with solutions to help us and our kids. Apple's newest iOS release unveiled the Screen Time feature, which allows you to monitor your phone usage and the usage of family members. I have mine set so I only get 30 minutes of social media usage per day, and then those apps essentially shut themselves off. All of my apps except messaging and phone calls turn off at 10pm, to help me quit scrolling through Instagram and go to sleep instead. If you have an iPhone, I highly encourage you to check it out.
Overall, screen time is a complicated subject, and one on which we don't have a lot of longitudinal research. Having an open dialogue and setting limits seem like a good start in getting a handle on things! Learn more about Apple's Screen Time here. For non-iPhone users, Android has the ability to manage screen time as well, and there are many apps out there that you can install to monitor screen time.
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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 |
AuthorChristin Barkemeyer Archives
April 2020
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