A Challenge to Offer Choice

 Blog 7 - Catlin Tucker's Blog

I am amazed, each week, how Dr. Tucker always happens to share ideas that not only motivate and inspire me, but also directly relate to what I'm doing in my classroom! She is such a blessing! This week she reminds me how important it is to offer our students choice. As Dr. Tucker points out, "Choice has been shown to improve retention, transfer performance, and motivation (Schneider, Nebel, Beege & Rey, 2018)" (Tucker, 2021, para. 4). Do I want to improve all of those things? Well obviously, yes! 

Dr. Tucker is a proponent of using choice boards, which are graphic organizers composed of approximately 9 squares. The squares hold choices of activities which are designed to help students either practice a concept, or investigate and learn a new concept. However, as Dr. Tucker mentions, most teachers have very little time to plan ONE activity for students, let alone NINE! Enter her "Would you rather?" idea. She has noticed that her students love this type of activity where students are given two options and get to make a choice. Might we improve motivation and student engagement by offering them a simple choice between two activities, asking them, "Would you rather ...?

As usual, Dr. Tucker does not just offer ideas, but she has included some examples in the form of a choice between "This .... or That". These are presented in a helpful slide show that teachers are invited to copy. One example of a choice that might engage students is to conduct online research, OR to interview a family member or friend. Finally, Dr. Tucker challenges teachers to try including a "Would you rather?"-type of choice in every lesson or learning activity for 30 days. Wow! I'm not sure that I could do every single lesson, but I definitely want to try this with my classes.

To find the slides presentation, check out Dr. Tucker's blog at https://catlintucker.com/2021/02/would-you-rather/ 

Everfi Ignition Digital Literacy Curriculum

I have been spending some time getting to know the Everfi Ignition: Digital Wellness and Safety curriculum.  I think it is so cool that this curriculum is free! Some other positives I have noticed about it are that the lessons are fairly short (25-30 min.), and they can be completed in just 6 sessions. However, some might also consider that to be a disadvantage if they are looking for a curriculum that lasts longer. The sessions that are included are Connections and Community, Safety and Privacy, Screen Time vs. Offline Time, Technology and Data (protecting), Rights and Literacy, and Evaluating Content. Based on the components of digital literacy, I believe these sessions address a great deal of what students need to learn in order to be good digital citizens. I especially like that the course would teach students a bit about brain science; what is going on in the brain when they are doing online activities. 

I think it is important that this curriculum is aligned with three sets of standards; ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education), CCTC (Common Career Technical Core), and the CASEL SEL framework. Another important aspect of the Ignition curriculum is that it includes simulations and sample scenarios, as well as discussion questions and materials to send home to parents.

I do not see many cons with this curriculum, except that it does not have different strands for different grade levels. Currently our middle school uses the Interland Curriculum (but just a bit), mainly in fifth grade (the youngest kids in our building). I have not done a thorough analysis of this curriculum, but when I compare it to the Everfi Ignition curriculum, Interland seems to be much more gamified. I am concerned that it might not have as much actual instruction compared to Ignition. Ignition seems like it would be a great option for any school district to try without having to spend a lot of resources on the curriculum.

Whiteboards for the Win!

 Blog 6 - Technology    

Second Time's a Charm

In the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to give whiteboards a try with my online 6th grade Spanish students. We used the whiteboard.fi site, which was recommended by one of my classmates in this class. The first attempt did not go as planned, because for some reason I was not able to see what the students were doing on their whiteboards. Sooo, I went back to the drawing board, prepared a new virtual whiteboard, and used my husband as my guinea pig! I was able to practice several scenarios, giving him the same directions and activities I wanted my students to perform. Since he was able to act as a student, I learned what challenges they might come up against and how to help them. 

One of the activities I have always used with my Spanish students is to have them practice spelling words in Spanish on a whiteboard, holding them up for immediate feedback, and making changes as necessary. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to use this activity with my current online class, until I read about online whiteboards. One of the most important things to practice in Spanish is the vowels, so I created a whiteboard with the vowels across the top in large print, and we practiced them orally several times throughout the activity. Students were able to attempt each word by writing or typing on their whiteboards, which this time I could actually see. I gave oral feedback, and I had wanted to type some private comments as well, but I realized that this feature is only available with a paid version.

For this activity, the advantage of using an online whiteboard was that the students could not look at each other's work, so I knew they were really thinking on their own. Also, some of my students who are more shy and less confident were able to keep their work just between me and them, so they didn't feel like others were judging them. This would have been even more effective if I could have written/typed comments to them privately. The best part? Today was our last day, so one thing we did together was to talk about our favorite things we had done in class, and several students mentioned the whiteboards activity as a favorite! 

Free Reading Resources!

 Blog 6 - Catlin Tucker's Blog

As a Title I reading teacher, as well as a resource-sharer for my PLC team of fourth grade classroom teachers, I jump for joy when I come across free reading resources! This is what comprises Dr. Tucker's blog this week - Hooray! She has made available many resources that could be used in a variety of ways, but are suggested specifically for times when students need meaningful work to engage in during their asynchronous learning time. The main areas Dr. Tucker's activities encompass are a reading strategies choice board, graphic organizers, daily reading record, and creative activities on a Google Slides presentation.

There are many activities that are similar to things I have seen and/or used before, but my favorite new idea is having students create a character web which illustrates connections between characters. To do this, students are instructed to use colors and symbols in ways that represent how different characters interact with one another. Students are encouraged to use examples and evidence from the text to demonstrate "feelings, values, and motivations".

I have not had much experience with choice boards, so I appreciated Dr. Tucker's example of a choice board. She points out some benefits of using choice boards; they can be used repeatedly over time, they increase student voice and agency, and they offer versatility in reading assignments. 

If you are a reading teacher in upper elementary or middle school, you may want to check this out! https://catlintucker.com/2021/02/reading-resources/

The NERD Doc

 Blog 5 - Technology

Have I piqued your interest? 😊 What is "The NERD Doc", you may wonder? This is what has been taking over my life for the past two weeks or more! In my elementary school, as a Title I reading teacher, I am responsible for the upkeep of our shared building Google doc where all student reading and math scores are recorded three times a year. It is called NERD because our district reading specialist created it, and her last name is Neal. So it stands for "Neal's Essential Reading Data", but we also include math. 

Every day I have been spending my prep looking at different grade levels and checking, which teacher still needs help completing their Fountas and Pinnell reading level testing? Who has not yet entered their QPS phonics data? How many students still need to test with sight words? And then I go to each teacher and ask to help with testing, entering data, etc. I am really hoping that it will be all complete soon! 

What is this doc used for? Since it is shared with the whole school as well as our area education agency consultants, it is useful for preparing data for our child study/problem solving meetings. My fellow Title Reading teachers and I use a condensed form of this information to help us reevaluate our reading groups to be sure we are helping the students who have the most need. Sometimes a classroom teacher has a narrow view of who needs extra intervention, so this data source is helpful to show teachers how other classrooms compare to theirs.

After-school Learning for Remote Students

Blog 5 - Catlin Tucker's Blog

This week Dr. Tucker invited a guest, Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, to share his expertise in her blog. Rabbi Poupko is a middle school teacher in New York City. This blog touches on the idea of assigning remote students after-school learning assignments done in pairs or in groups, where students meet online to accomplish a learning goal. The goal is as much for socializing and simply human connection as for learning.

The rabbi has 3 suggestions for facilitating this idea; first, intentional pairing or grouping of the students by the teacher. This should be done in such a way that the students are excited to work with their partner, and it is also someone who can help to boost their social, emotional, and academic well-being. Second, communicate with parents to “get them on board”, so they can help their child find time to meet online with their partner or group. Third, assign pairings/groupings during a synchronous session so that students can plan in what way they will meet later on.

Rabbi Poupko offers several suggestions of learning assignments, but the one that most fascinated me was what he called “paired independent work”, based on the Havruta method, an ancient Jewish learning method. He uses this to provide an opportunity for students to each extra credit over a weekend by choosing a topic of interest related to his subject matter. Both students simply investigate, study, and learn together. There are no deadlines, no assessments, and not even a check for understanding. The rabbi checks with the students and parents to verify that the studying was done, and they receive credit. The outcomes, he says, are a passion for learning, a great sense of accomplishment, joy in social learning, and for the teacher, overwhelmingly positive feedback. I can’t imagine any teacher would not want to try this!

To check out Rabbi Poupko’s other ideas, you can find the blog here:  https://catlintucker.com/2021/02/after-school-pairings-and-groupings/

Teacher Fail! ☹️

 Blog 4 - Technology

Wah, wah, wah .... Well, I gave my online 6th graders a quiz (finally) on Friday, using a Google Form that I created. I have had students use this form before, but only one here and there, if they missed the day of the quiz or if they were an optional remote student. Because we had a late start for weather, our class was slightly shortened, but they should have had plenty of time. However, I had two students who weren't finished at the end of class. They tried to keep working but I told them they had to move on to their next Google classroom. I thought their form would save and they would be able to finish up another day. OH NO! I was wrong. I just feel awful! All the time they worked on that quiz, and now ... I guess they'll have to start over. Definitely a big goof on my part. This is why one should never assume! 

So I did some research, and it appears that Alice Keeler has created a work-around for this problem: http://alicekeeler.com/formeditlink.  It says you can even import your questions from another Google Form. Has anyone else ever made this goof? If so, how did you handle it?

Designing Hybrid Learning

 Blog 4 - Catlin Tucker's Blog

Dr. Tucker's post this week is intended to help folks who are returning to in-person learning soon in a hybrid learning style, or anyone who is already using this type of schedule. She first details how this might look, with some amount of asynchronous and some synchronous work for each group (presumably, 2 alternating groups). What I found most helpful about this post were the suggestions for determining how to design the different days' activities. For synchronous class days, one may want learning activities that involve collaborating with partners, activities that need to be completed in proximity to a teacher, group discussions, or activities that involve hands-on creation or in-person modeling. 

Activities best suited for asynchronous learning days might be reflecting on learning, practice or application of skills, inquiry projects, or any type of activity that would benefit from students determining their own pace for learning. For days or periods of asynchronous learning, Dr. Tucker recommends designing instruction using a "5Es inquiry cycle". The five Es are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. This type of cycle can possibly include work that lasts for 2-3 weeks, which minimizes the amount of planning for the teacher.

If you have recently returned or will soon be returning to in-person learning, I encourage you to check out this blog post: https://catlintucker.com/2021/02/hybrid-schedule/ and I wish you many blessings during your transition!