Brainstorm 2020

Brainstorm 2020: Top 12 Google Extensions

May 1, 2020

Presented by Denise Henry-Orndorff, ITRC, Strasburg HS, Signal Knob MS, Sandy Hook ES

Do you use Google Extensions? Want a few more tools for your Google Toolbox? During this session I will share 12 extensions to use with students.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

Hello everyone my name is Denise Henry Orndorff I'm an Instructional Technology
Resource Coach in Shenandoah County Public Schools today I'm going to share with
you the information that I have on Google extensions. We're going to look
through 12 plus Google extensions today that hopefully you can use or your
students can use it in the classroom so here we go with Google extensions.

So let's start off by talking about where to find extensions how to download
and after you download them where they are going to show up. So to begin
with you want to go to the Chrome Web Store and like all iTunes stores, chrome store, Apple Play you have a search box. Let's pretend that I am searching for a highlighter that I want to use with my students so I click in the search box and type highlighter and then I click here because I just want extensions so I'm going to click extensions. You can choose a category like education but I usually leave it open because what I find is something in productivity could really be used for education or something in another
category can be used for education and it's not always ranked that way so I
usually leave all categories. So when I type that in you can see it gave
me a couple options here of different highlighters that I could use. So the first one here that popped right up I'm going to click on this extension. It's
Weava Highlighter PDF and Web so there's a couple things I want you to
look for before you download an extension. The first thing is I always
look at the star rating so this one has four and a half out of five stars and
968 people have rated this one so I'm gonna say this one is probably a really
good extension to download. But before you download it I also want you to check
over here to see how many users this one has a hundred thousand plus users if it
only has three or four users there it may be that the web developers are the
ones that gave it a high rating so you really want to check to see how many
people are actually using it. Then if you look down below there's also reviews. So I look at the reviews when I click the reviews you can see by helpful but I always change it to recent because I want to know how it's working now not how it worked when it was first developed. So if I scroll down here you can see five days ago this person gave it five stars five stars five stars so I would say that this one is one that I would want to download it's four and a half stars it's got good reviews and it's got a good number of
users so when you're ready to download you're gonna click over here where it
says add to Chrome. Now as a teacher I can download an add an extension to most of
my accounts with no problem. For student accounts it maybe something that you
need to speak to someone in your tech department to get it on a specific list
so that students can have the ability to download that extension. So just be aware
of that. After the extension has been downloaded it will show up over here
beside your omnibox. So here's the little W and you have to sign in to some of
these accounts or they may give you directions on the next tab so I'm just gonna sign in with Google. I'm gonna allow it to have access because like I said it had four and a half stars and I feel pretty confident with this one. Click allow and now the extension is complete. So that when I go to use it I can now click on that extension and it will work in the web browser.

There are two ways that you can manage your extensions. The first way is to go over here to the three dots beside your omnibox, go down to more tools and then go to extensions once you are in here you will see all of the extensions that you have put onto your account. So for example let's say I decide to use add to classroom you'll notice here that the toggle is gray which means I do not have it enabled at the time. If I click it over it will turn blue and now I can see that the icon to use the Google add to classroom icon is up here beside my omnibox. If I click my toggle button again you will see that
the extension is now gone and not able to be used at the time. This is also the
spot where if you've downloaded an extension and you don't like it you can
remove it. Simply by clicking remove and it will remove it from your account. So that's the first way you can manage your extensions. The second way to manage your extensions is through an extension called Extensity. If you look up here beside my omnibox you will see a little yin and yang sign. This is Extensity. If I click it and give it a second to load these are all the extensions that I have on my account. Notice how some are grayed and some are darker or black. The ones that are black are the ones that I'm currently using. So let's say I decide I want to use Crafty Text. If I click on Crafty Text the icon is now up here and it's ready for me to use. If I decide I don't need it at this time I can click it again and you can see that it's gone. Know that the more extensions that you are running up here the slower your device will be and the faster that it
can drain your battery.

So let's take a look at the extension called Kami. Kami is gonna allow you to take a PDF or a Google Doc and a student can actually do their notations on top of that document. So once you download the Kami extension up here you're gonna see a little tiny blue circle with the K in it for Kami. So if I click on that extension it's gonna give me the option of where I want to open up documents from. For to start using Kami with. So give it a second here to load you will see here I have a choice of open from Google Drive which is basically what I always use. Open from the computer, create a classroom assignment, or a new blank page. So to save some time I've already opened up a PDF to demonstrate for you and a Google Doc. So I'm going to open up the PDF. So once I open up the PDF in Kami. This is what your screen will look like. You'll notice that there are some locks on some of the functions that are for the paid version. The free version has always worked for whatever I needed to do with my students. So you'll see over here where you can mark it up. You can click it, maybe I want to come over here and I want to highlight it. I can X through things. I can add a text box to put my answer. You will also notice here you can change your font size and they can change the color of their text that they're putting in the box. You have the option to
draw so they can work and draw things out. They can add shapes and of course here's the eraser. Now the cool thing with Kami is once the student has worked
on this worksheet and made their annotations on top of it they're ready to save it. All they have to do is go up here and click on this little Save button which is the disc and for our younger students we have to explain what that disc means because some of them have never seen it before. But when I click on the disc I get the option to save now so when I click Save now it's actually going to save with everything that the child had completed on here and when they share it back with you in Google classroom or in their
Google Drive you're going to be able to see all of the marks that they put there.
The same is true with the Google Doc. This is a Google Doc that I pulled up. You can see I have the same options here. So here's my text box so I can click over here and I can add texts to it. I can click here and add shapes to it and have the same options that I had when it was a PDF and I also have the option up here to save it once again. This is Kami. It allows you to write on PDFs and Google Docs and save them. It is a free resource I have never paid for this one.

The next extension that we want to look at is Read Aloud. This is a
text-to-speech voice reader. It can read PDFs, it can read Google Docs, and it can
read most things on websites. Occasionally you'll get a website that it will not allow Read Aloud to work on. So if I go back to the PDF that we looked at before we were using Kami and I just highlight a section I go up and I click my megaphone. It reads aloud Bobby ate 20 pieces of candy. Then he ate the same amount again. How many pieces of candy did Bobby eat? It will read the text to them. If you click on this little setting wheel right here you can change the type of voice, you can change the speed at
which they're talking ,the pitch at which they're talking, and the volume. So you
can see how the voice changed. The same is true if I go to a Google Doc and I
highlight a section click my megaphone. It reads tired of sitting tired of reading. It
reads the text to it. So lastly if I go to an article that's on this website and I click part of it. I'm actually gonna click and go into options a second because I'm going to up the speed just a little bit. Now let's click the megaphone. It reads that butterfly fish are found in warm coastal waters. So once again this extension was Read Aloud which is a text-to-speech reader it works in PDFs, it works in Google Docs, and it works on most websites.

The next extension is a fun extension called Move It and it helps us to remember to take a brain break and do a little bit of movement. So for this extension I've already enabled it. It's up here and it's this little pink circle. If I click on it. The screen is going to pop up and I can change what the interval is. Maybe I want an exercise every 10 minutes or every 5 minutes or every half an hour. You can enable the extension. Once it is enabled the timer is now set. So in five minutes I'm gonna get a pink box similar to what you see right here on the screen and it says Move It and it says climb a ladder on
the spot for a count of ten or it might say do 10 jumping jacks but whenever it pops
up on the screen it just helps you and your students to remember to take a quick little movement break. This extension once again is called Move It.

So the next extension that I want to share with you is one that I always show teachers to use when you're unsure of what things a student may need to help them on the Chrome browser. What I mean by that is this AT Bar is going to give us some screen overlays, enlarged, there's a text-to-speech option, so let me go ahead and enable this item so you can see up here. I have this little AT that's showing. So I'm going to go back to the fish article and you can see up here to the top it says AT Bar and this is where all of the different tools are going to be for the student to try. So the first one here you see the magnifier. So with a simple click it's slowly increasing it so you can see how the magnifier works it can decrease it. Sometimes we find that students prefer a certain type of font. So if I click this text I can go in here and maybe they want this one and I click apply and you can see the font changed a little bit. If we do cursive you should really see a difference with cursive. So you can see how that changes so they can apply a font that they prefer here. You have a spell checker. There's also a dictionary. You can also highlight and it has a simple text-to-speech so you can see how that can work for them. For styles you can change the different colors for the toolbar and the text links. I left Move It on so here it pops up for us and it says jump as high as you can seven times so your kids will take a break jump seven times click done and now it's reset for the 5-minute. Now back to the AT Bar so this allows you to change the color settings for different items on your page. The other cool feature with this one is these color overlays. So if you have a child that prefers the background to be a specific color to help them you can use these overlays. You can see how it makes a difference for their backgrounds so if the AT Bar you have a magnifier, you can change the font, there's a spell checker, a dictionary, a text to read, you can change colors here, you can change the overlay all of those things are built right in here to the AT Bar. This is one of those tools that I always use as a starting point and if they really like a certain tool I'm a find go and look and see if there is an extension that is better that will meet their needs that we found in the AT Bar. So once again this is the AT Bar Chrome extension.

The next extension that I want to show you is called Open Dyslexic and this is going to change the font when you're on webpages. I intentionally do not have this one enabled yet. You can see up here it's telling me that it's not been enabled so I'm gonna go to Extensity. I'm going to scroll down to Open Dyslexic which is right here. You'll see the icon is now up here beside my omnibox. I'm gonna go back to that butterfly fish article that I pulled up earlier to notice that my font hasn't changed. You will need to sometimes when you enable an extension refresh your screen before that extension will work. Okay so if you ever are using one and it's like it's not working refresh your screen. So you can see with Open Dyslexic the font has changed the letters are now bottom-heavy. Research has shown that this type of font is easier for children with dyslexia to be able to read. The cool thing about this is once you have it on I can then go and let's do a
search for panda bears. Even when my Google search pops up it's going to open in this type of font so the more kids see it the more they're gonna get used to it and the easier it's gonna be for them to read. So once again this is called Open Dyslexic and you can find that one in the chrome store.

The next extension I want to show to you is called Zoom for Google. As many of you
know there's accessibility features that are already built into a Chromebook and a magnifier is one of them. However I found it difficult to use that magnifier because once a student enables that they have to scroll scroll going over going right trying to get back down here to this bottom to turn the magnifier off. So Zoom for Google came out and what it does and what it looks like is like this. I'm going to go back to our fish article and you'll notice up here you'll see up here I have a Z for zoom. I'm gonna click on that and right now it's at 100%. If I want to enlarge it all I have to do is click the plus if I want it smaller I can click the minus but what I like best about it is if I click reset it goes right back to the same position and size that it started. So this is a lot easier and quicker to magnify something for a student and to get it back to its original format rather than scrolling and trying to turn off the accessibility feature of a magnifier that's built into the
Chromebook. So this extension is called Zoom for Google.

The next one is called Mercury Reader. Mercury Reader is going to take any website that you want to print and make it a clean print by taking away ads and advertisements. So I'm gonna go to this article on how to create your first Google classroom and as you can see there's things here on the side there's things on the top. I'm going to click on this little rocket right over here which is for Mercury Reader. You can see how it cleaned it completely up. The images are down here and then the article stops. If you click on this little settings wheel you can also change the size of the font. You have to type two options here of the type of text you can choose and you can choose a light background or a dark background depending on your preference. So this one is called Mercury Reader and Mercury Reader is going to clean up your website so that you can print them in a friendly form.

This next extension is similar to mMercury Reader. It's called Print Friendly and PDF. I'm going to go back to that same article that we were looking at but this time instead of clicking the little rocket ship I'm gonna click here on this little green printer. It's gonna do the same thing as Mercury Reader and clean it up so you'll know that the ads and things have disappeared but this one goes one or two steps farther than the Mercury Reader did. Let's say I don't need the image. I can quickly simply click the image and it will disappear. I can scroll down sometimes when we have articles there's reviews or statements at the bottom you could X out of those with a simple click to trash them. Then when you're finished with the article you have a choice you can print it to make a nice clean print, you can save it as a PDF, or you could email this out to your students or to whoever you wanted to see this clean print of an article. So this one once again is called Print Friendly and PDF and it's going to clean up an article and allow you to delete images or delete any text that you don't want in the article. You will be able to print it, turn it into a PDF or email it out.

You'll find that many web applications also have extensions that just help you to get there a little quicker rather than having to go to the site and log in to get to what you're trying to get to. Screencastify is one of those, of course this is how you can make a screen recording, which I'm sure many of you have been doing over the past month and a half or so while we've been home. If you look over here to the right this little orange arrow is Screencastify. All I have to do is click. Sometimes you will have it pop-up that you have to log in with your account. I can set up how I want this video to go click record and it starts working immediately. So once again this extension is Screencastify. I hope you find the one click to Screencastify easy for you to use.

So the next two extensions that I want to share with you are ones that you can use with Google Classroom. So the first one here is called Add to Google Classroom. So I'm just going to go back to this article that I had earlier. You'll notice up here beside the omnibox there's this green circle with a plus that's Add to Classroom. All I have to do is click Add to Classroom, click on the Google Classroom icon that's here. It's going to go to all of my Google Classrooms that I have. So I'm going to choose which one do I want to share it with and what type of action do I want to take -is that announcement, is it a question, is it an assignment? I'm gonna create it as an assignment, click go, and then I can go down where I can name it, I can give my instructions, here's the article to read, I can decide which students are going to get it, the due date, what topic it falls under and after I have it all filled out I can assign it, I can schedule it, I can save it as a draft, or I can totally get rid of it if I decide I don't want to send this. This is just a really quick way to add something to your Google Classroom just by clicking this plus for the extension. The other one is called Share to Classroom and for this one to work it's important that you and the students both have this particular extension on your account. So for Share to Classroom I'm going to go back to this article. You'll see the little Google Classroom icon here. I'm going to click on it once again and it's going to ask me which class do you want this to go to. I'm going to choose my practice class. I'm going to go in here and I can choose to push it to students. Maybe I'm going to create it as an assignment, ask a question, or announce it, but what I really like is that I can click push to students. Click push and it automatically goes and pops up down here in the corner for your students. Now students can do the same thing they can find an article and they can push it back to you to look at. So this one is called Shared a Classroom and the other one was called Add to Classroom and they're just quick shortcuts to help you when you're using Google Classroom.

Well that's a wrap for what I wanted to share with you on Google Extensions but before we go I have two more resources that I want to share with you. The first is this book The Top 50 Chrome Extensions in the Classroom by Chris Craft. I really like this book because Chris talks about the extension but then he also gives a story about how he's used it in the classroom and the impact that it had. Plus there's like another 20 extensions in the back so it's really like 70 plus extensions that he talks about in this book. The second resource is a link at the bottom of your screen. It is a Periodic Table of Google Extensions. This is something I've put together over the last couple years as you go through you can click on any of those icons and it will open to a Google Doc explaining the extension, in any YouTube videos that might be attached to it. And as always if you find an extension that I should check out be sure to send it to me so I can work it and add it to my second periodic table that I'm working on. So everybody take care and stay safe and stay healthy.

Brainstorm 2020: Get exSITE-Ed!: Google Sites for Student Portfolios

May 1, 2020

<-- Back to conference page

Presented by Joe Marquez, Education Strategist, Sons of Technology

Learn how to leverage the new Google Sites to create an immersive tool for student organization with the creation of an eBinder. The idea behind any binder is organization, primarily collection of work, a place to reflect on their learning process, and finally recollect of what they learned for purposes of sharing or studying. This organizational structure is "Collection,Reflection and Recollection” and will be our guiding principle in our eBinder creation.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

hello everybody Joe markets here and I just want to say thank you so much for allowing me into your home and be able to collaborate with you on the subject known as the key binders now first off in E. binder is different than a portfolio in that E. binder is a collection of student work through the entirety of the year where is the portfolio is a collection of best works to be able to showcase at the end of the year
that students interact with on a daily basis they can go in there and reflect them and remember what they have done and be able to study what they've learned so that they can prepare themselves for an exam later on so E. binder something the students really need to really dig their hands into that's why he binder when you're pushing it out to your entire class should have a cadence and a routine it so that students understand that it needs to be interacted with on a daily basis now everything that a showcase for you today is going to be available on this website Bitly forward slash U. binders and it's going to have everything that I'm gonna showcase to you and more but I just want to be able to kind of give you an overlay of everything in P. the binder can have and I also want you to understand that he binders are specific towards a teacher and a school in the district so the things that I'm a showcase for you are just recommendations you can definitely change them up you can remix of the make them work best for you so I just want showcase for you some things that I have found that work really great and he binders and get acceptance by the students and and and an easy way to kind of check for understanding throughout the year first off when I was looking at him E. binder the one thing I wanted to say is you know I don't want to think of it as this just digital binder I wanted to think of it as a binder in general so I wanted to break it down to the bare bones and think about what is the purpose of having the student keep a binder whether it's digital or physical and when I thought about this long and hard I came to the king that it's basically three things that a binder is meant to do one it's a collection of students work throughout the course of an assignment a project or unit that will help them better understand the material so they're collecting all of this work not everything they're only collecting data points and assignments and activities that are gonna help them understand the essential question were the primary question of the unit or the assignment next the needs to be a place of reflection they need to be able to complete a binder page and be able to go back and reflect what did I learn what questions do I still have how can I find answers to those questions so it needs to be able to be a place they can reflect on their work daily and finally it's a place for recollection this recollection is when they're going through their binder pages at a later date and because they created it and they've added items of importance they can recollect the information the correct elect the day they can recollect the activity so these are all the things that we are looking for in an evening
yeah everything that I just said to you sounds great but it is actually based in science as well it really relates to the cognitive learning theory and this theory implies that enhanced cognitive process takes place when students are actually involved in and creating the activities and products themselves and this is composed of of many different processes and three of the most important to many binder are observational learning which means they're learning from each other and they're learning from their activities and and easy should not be something students create and then hi hide away it's something that should be available to the class for other students to be able to peruse and see the other mindsets of each other students so it needs to be made open to the entirety of the class the other one is reproduction meaning after they've learned something they should be able to reproduce or create something that is related to that subject and that's our main component of the E. binder in the section that we're to talk about in learning artifacts with the students are creating materials based on what they've learned it during the course of the lesson and then finally self sufficiency this is when the students improve their knowledge by actually putting that behavior into practice so they're actually doing something with the material so these three things really support that cognitive learning there we're learning actually is enhanced by the students having this tactile experience and when we're talking about even if we're not talking that everything has to be digital I'm a huge proponent of blended learning which means you're still going to be doing hands on activities are still gonna be doing hands on projects but you're going to have the students document those in a digital means and a really good way to explain this to students is through social media tell the students that they were allowed to use their laptops to take pictures and record videos throughout the entirety of the lesson and my mindset is always in the mindset of a science teacher because that's my background and I really find that when students were given the opportunity to take pictures during labs then to add those pictures into their labs as long as they wrote down a reason why they took a picture of what was happening in that picture they really gravitated towards understanding the material more and that is also leading us to another theory called the multimedia learning theory which was described by mayor and basically what's that saying is it says students learn better that with multiple media components than a single component alone meeting text alone will not help students but text and images well audio and text well video and text or video and images so if you're creating multimedia components through through through the through an E. binder you're really allowing that cognitive theory to take hold that multimedia thirty eight really gravitates right there so you really need to explain this to students in that form of social media but instead of taking pictures of things outside the classroom and posting it on their Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat or I guess you know you're looking at tictoc now up there put there taking pictures during the course of the lesson and being proud of what they're learning being proud of with them in their partners are creating and they're posting those images to the E. binder that creates a memory right there because they are they're they're involved in the entire to the process so that's what we're really looking at the P. C. want them to really take hold of them so don't think it's just digital things that need to be placed in here it's also physical things as well and I'm gonna showcase for you some examples that students have created where they are actually putting in physical items into their binders so I just wanted to make that clear and P. binder is not one hundred percent digital it's a one hundred percent digital location that physical and digital items can be placed and so I just want to make that clear for us and on this website that you can definitely go to Bitly forward slash he binders I'm gonna showcase some examples of student work but you can definitely come here and see those examples as well also I'm on this webpage there step by step tutorials for everything that on the showcase for you it's a multiple part series on eBay unders still give you a deeper dive into every aspect of how to create what I'm gonna be showcasing for you today the first thing I want to talk to you about is P. binder templates and even template is incredibly important and it's also incredibly personal to you the teacher you want to be able to create a template that will help you check for understanding at a quicker and easier pace for the students but also it's it's it allows for the students to be took to help them understand the binder by creating a cadence or a daily activity that they they see consistently throughout thirty binders with template is incredibly important and I do want to point something out to you right now that if you go to sites like Google dot com they just recently added a option for a template gallery and I think that is a really great thing because now students can have portfolios the only downside is this when you the teacher are creating a portfolio so here's an example of a portfolio a single subject portfolio you're gonna find that during the course of the year there are things that you want to change there are things that you're you're like you know what this didn't work I'm gonna remove this this this activity really worked I want to add that or this a student came up with this cadence and I really like that idea so you include that and so you're constantly changing and the the look and the feel and the template of your Ebert gets better every single year and I find that if you just create a template and throw it in here you're going to be more likely to just be using the same template over and over and over and the the the and the yearly getting better of that template is not going to happen so I just want you to be aware of that I know this template gallery is going to exist it's gonna get even better but for me once I put it in this gallery it becomes static you can't change that template anymore and so it kind of removes the idea of of of the idea that it's organically growing into something better every year so I'm gonna show you a way that works now and you know maybe even in the future when you do see that this is getting bigger and better you might still find of this idea a little bit better and so this is what I do and this is the hack that'll work for you I create a folder called eve binder template gallery and I put all of my E. binders are all of my templates or maybe it's just one template that you're going to be working with I put it in here and this is my master template that I'm gonna constantly changing throughout the year and what I do in this template gallery is I make sure that I change the share settings to the folder as anyone with the link can view let me tell you why and I have a whole video on how to do this and why to do this but I a quickly and superficially let me show you why here is a binder that I made myself it's just a website and I want to show you that if you want your students and and the only way they can make a copy is if they have access to the draft not the published copy of the draft and if you do this and you show anyone with the link can edit you don't want your students to be editing your template and because you know students are going to be students and the gonna make changes in their gonna think it's funny there is no way to make it say anymore to link can view because when it anyone with the link can view setting is set a copy can be made but that's not given it two years so yes if you set it as in what we can and they will be able to make copies but they'll also be able to make changes to your master copy you do not want that but what I'm gonna show you this once you've placed this copy in this folder that the share settings have been placed as anyone with the link can view I want to show you some that magically happens the shares sitting now for this evening is anyone with the link can view so it automatically creates that option for you so now the students can actually make their copy so let me show you what you're gonna do with this you're gonna take the link to this folder right here you gonna come in here and you're gonna grab this link and you're to paste this in Google classroom so here's an example of a Google classroom and I'm going to create a topic called easy binder materials
and what I'm gonna do is I'm afraid incitement and I it make copy
your E. find right there and under the ad I'm gonna paste that link right there so it's a link to my folder
now they need instructions on how to make a copy the great thing about that is on this website that I showcase for you right here you can just copy this right here and paste that in as your instructions
in your Google classroom so let me show you a copy and paste and so now the kids students have instructions right here this is please read the instructions below open even template which is attached which of the template you're gonna right click on the E. binder you're gonna make a copy and then you're going to close the template filled and then once you open the E. binder you're gonna name it with your last name and your your binder and then if you're going to update the header and the site to be that page and so you can change it up but the most important part is one and two so let me show you what this looks like so I'm going to definitely make sure I keep that in my E. binder materials I'm not gonna put a due date and I'm not gonna put any points I'm gonna go ahead and select a site
and real quick before had to sign up make sure that is it is automatically sent to students can view files you do not want the students to edit the file or make a copy of it file you want to just leave it as students can make the file and then you have to sign
once it's assigned you'll now have the assignment make a copy of your P. binder and now in the student's website right here you can see that they have that exact same option right there as well
and so the students would come in here did select make a copy of your P. binder
they would read the instructions and they would click on the link
in the link they would come right over here and they were right click on the file and select make a copy notice they cannot select delete they can not select and it only make a copy and that is he here now depending on how big your template is it may take between thirty seconds and one minute for that copy to be made and if you have all of your forty students taking this at once it may take just a little bit longer
now was the student center copy made they're gonna come in here and they're going to change the title to their first name or last name I'm so I'm gonna go ahead do fake student
yeah even
this is so it'll help you find it yourself next they would change the title to to whatever they want and I want to notice everything that we put in here for the students is already there so from our template it pushed over here for example usually for each unit you may have the first or second activity already please put pre planned so you can definitely put those tasks already in and in the task you would have your work essential question you would have as a section for your artifacts and labs and then you have a section for your learning so all of those things will be prepared for the students but here's the thing things come up new activities happen things go you know thought you come up with a great idea while you're running in the morning if you want to add that in and so all these things happen so you have to create a little bit of flexibility and leeway in these binders because here's the thing once again your template had been copied by the students even if you make changes to your master template it will not be reflected in the students template because they've already made a copy that is why in the pages section I always create these blank pages for our students so that means so in this task page there's always a section of let me show you in the task page we always have these three things we always have a place for the essential question this is like the guiding topic for the day and just students want to interact with this like what they already know or what do they hope to learn about this essential question another section that's not here that you could always place in is a section for notes how are you gonna put your notes in there that could be done on a Google doc be done on regular paper that can be done as
you know visual notes sketch notes so but you can always have a place for your notes are huge section here is the learning artifacts section a place with the students complete activities make project record videos take images these are things that students are creating to help them understand how to ensure that essential question and finally a section for their learning blog what did they learn was there aha moment what they know now that you didn't know before these are some things that they could be answering on a daily basis you don't want the students to have to manually create a brand new task page every single time so let's say you're on unit two and you already have task one in there but now you're on task to you don't want them to have to recreate those texts task pages to all the students do is right click they hit make a copy or duplicate this page and are gonna title it unit to yeah
task number two now for you you can totally change the cadence of the up you can go unit two and then the name of the activity completely up to you but once they're done they had done it's gonna place this page right down here and once it is done it being created they're going to select it and move it up to the top of so once it's been made I'm gonna now moving it under unit to so now I have you know one task one at that I created as the teacher but now we have unit to task to for the students and noticed all they have to do is change the header but you have your essential question section right there you have a section for focus notes right there you have a section for labs and act the artifacts right there and then you section for the learning log and so it's all pre prepared it's all created for the students and that is extremely important because when it comes to Eddie binder you want to be a place that students can quickly get onto and quickly start adding in you don't want to have to take time to recreate this page every single time so hiding in these hidden pages will really help you during the course of the year so that's how we hand them out to the students and then that is also what that task page is supposed to look like right there now during the course of the day right there's the in the sections in the E. binders that the students are completely interacting with one hundred percent for the majority of the time like eighty eighty five percent of the time it's gonna be the learning artifacts page this is where they create artifacts or create some ideas and and create a materials that will help the students understand the material now a quick background on a learning learning artifact is considered something created by the student during the course of instruction in class during the course of instruction and to be considered an artifact the object needs to be lasting durable public and always present always present that's the key not placed in in their backpack and never to be seen again durable not thrown away not my dog it right public health public I don't mean public to the world right at the moment we still have to obey student privacy but public meeting at least to the class we learn best together right we don't learn in silos so a student may be struggling and they don't want to be raising their hand and asking the teacher but if they can see other students what they've created and how they were I understand the material they our mind begins to work like that's something that that's what I can do students learn best together humans learn best together so it's extremely important that we make these public and we have to get out of our minds all students should be sharing work they're just going to copy and copy copy sometimes that may happen but in reality each students are going to learn and grow as a community not as an individual so we have to make sure that we are not allowing the students to have that community in class and so that's what a learning artifact is that if your students want to are having a difficult time learning how to make a learning artifact you can always scaffold them by giving them a template so one of my favorite templates to create is a it's called a slight snap so let me show you a slight snap and and what would be on it so a slight snap is a snapshot of something they've completed or something they've learned I'm a could be a physical item it could be a digital item but they bring that image and then they bring in emoji over that image that helps them tell you the teacher and other students how they felt while they were completing that part of the assignment a happy yeah I did a really good job I think I did did well a sad reasons I just I I don't know what what I'm doing I I confused please up so the emoji is actually help you as you're looking through these slides naps it helps you understand it which students need help and which students are are relatively good with that subject another part of that learning artifact is taxed right we already talked about the multimedia principal work images alone won't work images and text help so we wanna text box and and explain what they did what they did on the project
how it made them feel what are they still questioning so that's what that text boxes for me to really knock it out of the park adding a video and a video can be added through multiple means but my favorite is adding it through screen testified and when you click on screen cast the fight of the students can actually do a quick recording of anything that they've been working on and all they would do is click on record and it creates a recording of that object and in that recording it saves it here and it houses it right here and what they can do is once they are once they're done recording their object right here what they would do is just click on copy shareable link to make sure that it is shareable and then once they are in they're going to in bed that item right in there so now we have an image we have text and now we also had a video here's an example of something we actually didn't class I have students go over and review an article that we read online and they physically and located that article online and if you watch my previous session on visual learning I showed exactly how to annotate articles online and when I had my students do is they brought that article into a slight snap so I can see what they're working on they would type right up here what they learned I'm about that article and how they felt about taking notes online and then finally they gave me a visual of vocal and a video of everything they did to complete that assignment it really really really does a great job at connecting the students cognitive learning to what they what they are saying they've learned and it creates that moment in time of recognition so that when they're going back to recollect all this information they remember making it they remember saying it so helps them understand a little bit more so this is a way that you can create a learning artifacts if your students are having a difficult time understanding that not once just it is really understand what a learning artifact is I recommend just having them go nuts so let me show you this is an actual students binder from an actual class it's not something that I created just time to you know show you how it could work this is actually how it did work so the student in the task page came up here and answer the essential question they included of notes section so not only did they bring in notes that they made in Google docs but they also brought in a visual notes that they created in Google drawing and then during the lab once again I'm not talking about doing everything digitally especially in science it needs to be hands on in most subjects it needs to be hands on and so we still do physical work we still have to use paper and pencil we still use the good old strategies of drawing but I want my students to take pictures of those items and bring them in because if it helps them learn I want them to make that is an artifact and they made during the course of instruction during the course of learning they're making it present or making a visible these are learning artifacts and then during the lab have them encourage them take pictures and take videos but just like in social media you don't just post a picture you post a picture and then you leave a comment something that helps people understand that picture maybe something that helps them recognize that picture and that's what they have to do right here in these learning artifacts they have to take a picture and they have to bring it in so as the students start understanding these things they start cricket creating these great learning artifacts and once again this student the beginning let me show you here's here's the very first time that we did a a task in this class and asked them to do learning artifacts and basically all they brought in was Google docs and and Google slide you know there just like oh this is what my teacher wants just off and I'm like no I want you to use this like social media take pictures of the activity take pictures of the learning take pictures of everything that you're doing that's going to help you understand these things and so after about a month of of just reminding them social media social media this is what we start dating so it's pretty amazing the way the students can really gravitate towards this and then a section right down here for those learning logs so it's incredibly important that we we allow the students to really showcase their talents here in those learning artifacts sections and we have to remind them this is the section that's going to help you understand the material this is the section right here that's gonna help you recollect that material at a later date so make it meaningful make a plentiful and make it lasting right here and that learning artifacts page so that's what I'm talking about when we're looking at learning artifacts and if you want a copy of the slide snap learning artifact once again on this web page you can definitely come in here and it'll it'll go through everything that you can to learn about how to use these learning artifacts and once you get in fact if you come up here to be step by step he binders you can come and see how to use those learning artifacts right there in your classroom
now after you start using it these these he binders and and doing all these cool things with them you're you're actually gonna start recognizing that Hey I need it I need to be able to check to see if my students are actually doing this there's a few different ways that you can do this number one is when your students create their binder here when the students make their binder have them come up here and share it with you right so you're gonna have them come up here and under inviting people they're going to type in your name
I some I'm Mr Marquez so they're gonna put me and they're gonna add me as an editor and what this will do is I'll actually put this file in my Google drive and and now I can go in at any time and come in and check the other thing you can do is have the students
a well actually here here's a here's the big thing you have to remember this and I'm sorry I did mention earlier after any change always make sure your students to publish if they don't hit publish and then all the edits they made it will not be viewed in what we call the published view that's the view that the rest of the class can see and actually that's the view that I highly recommend you as the instructor only check only come into this edited you if you if you see that the student is not as not completing work in the public view because most likely they're not they're actually doing the work and just forgetting to hit publish so I tell my students every day okay everybody get ready we're gonna start picking up hit publish log out and then pick up your church right hit published log out then pick up your checks to always hit publish I always tell them that so once they've hit publish right there they're gonna publish that site it is now going to be available to be viewed by the rest of the class now this is how I recommend you check for understanding okay here's the easiest way in Google classroom right down here underneath your what your week's assignments I recommend you create a section called binder checks so I'm gonna click assignment and I call binder check
okay
number one this is our first one and then under instructions I'm say I'm gonna say I want your U. R. L. for the
burning artifacts
portion
of and
your
number two so we're looking at the learning artist extortion attached to of unit number one okay just wanna be very specific and this is what you're gonna post once again you can leave ports for I'm and I'm gonna make sure I put it under that week right there and this is what the students are going to do and I'm also
I well please comments yeah
mark
done
once you have
please and your card so just like that
and you're gonna hit sign
and once you've signed it you're going go back to here back to your students right over here and this is what your students are gonna do when they come in here and they see and they see the option here under that unit under that that day that there's a binder check they're going to do with assignment
and this is what they're gonna do they're gonna add
a link and let me show you how easy this is and it has to be under published view so that's what I that's what I I am I'm saying it's very important so under unit one task too so here's unit one task to listen the students finished it every header has its very own U. R. L. this is incredibly important all they do is click that's there unit one you are up and then they're going to add that link right there and they're going to hit paste and then and the like that's all they do now if the students if you want the students to tell you what they've done or how how they worked on if you want them to understand all the stuff that are the prime minster gonna say I love love love love love love my so that's where they can leave you a comment about things they've done or maybe things that they were having a difficult time with or why they didn't finish it when you check it but they're gonna send that and they're going to turn in
this work right here
so now as the teacher I'm gonna come in here here's my binder check I'm gonna do the assignment I'm gonna student fake student one has turned this in I'm gonna click on the assignment and look it takes you right there two unit to unit one task to artifacts but you don't even have to scroll you come in here looking to go oh look they added one image and the thing I would really like them to add more to this item and so as the teacher you would come back to your binder check into that student you would come in here and you would leave a private comment to the student right down here
please
add more to this section in the future
make it more
social media just
and I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna hit publish or post so now I'm leaving all this information here I don't have to go searching all over for the evening was all over the place it just does it just like that another way you can do quickie binder checks is actually through flip so if you wanted to you could have the students come right in here
and this is what you would do so I'm gonna come over here real quick and I'm going to actually say
underneath my even under
yeah and I can say this instead of turning in the link here this is what I can do I can come over here to the instructions and instead of saying the link to your U. R. L. I can say I want your U. R. L. link for your video
look for it
just like that and then in flip grid you can actually create
a section
even under check
and your even under check in you're gonna come over here and click share
you're gonna copy the link
and I'm going to paste it
as the U. R. L.
right here in our assigned some adding the link
and I'm gonna hit save
and there we go so when our students come in here
and they all go to their Google classroom
and they see that you minor check instead of pasting the link directly they're gonna come in here
log in with their school Google account
and they're going to get a screen cast to you on their even once they start to flicker the gonna click on the three dots are at the bottom and select screen recording and they're going to start recording their screen
it's going to give you a count down
students will come in you ask for unit to task unit one test to and the art experience to the students would say hi Mister market so I completed my artifacts page on we we we did our our molecule I'm drawing so I took a picture of that and I put a little bit of information here that that's all I added it is is that okay do I do I need more I would love a little bit more information on how to make my artifacts pays a little bit better thank you so much Mister mark as I hope I can make this better for you and they would stop according
and so so you see the whole thing right there they're gonna hit next
I recommend that they select the frame up from there video instead of
there we go next
so we know that it's their artifacts page
they're going to submit the video and you notice how it gives you the U. R. L. you're gonna copy the link address to the U. R. L. and the student would then come right into the Google classroom under view assignment they would paste
it would yeah Hey stand that link
right there for you and turn it in
and then you would see under your class right over here student work you would see that
your student right here went ahead and turned in at this assignment it has the link directly to the flip grid response
and you can hit play to watch the students responses so there's a lot of variety of different ways that you can really check for understanding one of them I recommend is you know don't don't you know don't be pulling your hair out trying to check every single week this this is supposed to be an experience for you and your students not extra work for you a hundred percent so I recommend maybe also having what we call binder buddies having other students check each other to make sure everything's there and and give recommendations to each other and binder bodies don't have to be friends I highly recommend they're not friends it's people who are actually going to give constructive feedback to make the binders better and can keep them
keep them on task so that they don't fall behind weeks and weeks and weeks in their binders and so I just want you to understand that and and you know there's so much that you can do when he binders that you know I have our women are like this is is not going to cover so if you absolutely have any more information or any more questions please contact me on Twitter at Joe Marquez seven zero please come to this website Bitly dot a bit dot Lee of slash year binders it has step by step tutorials on everything with more coming it's just a great way for students to really take hold of their learning really take hold of really understanding what organization in a digital environment should look like and it becomes a really great community a tool for everybody to start seeing each other's mind sets on a daily basis so I hope that you start looking at your binders in a different light I hope you start utilizing these and and I am showing you how to use this in Google sites but this can be done in Microsoft OneNote this can be done on sea salt for younger kids I just highly recommend that you keep your cadence you allow the students to really add anything and everything that they can to help them understand the material and they can make it their own it so that they can actually connect with the material so they can recollect and remember everything that they've done during the course of your class so thank you so much for listening thank you so much for being an amazing educator and thank you so much for changing the lives of our students on a daily basis

Brainstorm 2020: Podcasts are the New Essays

May 1, 2020

<-- Back to conference page

Presented by Katie Fielding, Daniel Nemerow, Elizabeth Summers, Billy Watts, Instructional Tech Coaches, Prince William County Schools

In this session you will learn the how-to and whys of bringing podcasting into your classroom. Perfect for all grades and contents.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

Hi, thanks for tuning into Brainstorm 2020. We're here to talk about podcasting. We're all technology coaches at Prince William County Schools. My name is William Watts. I'm at Colgan High School.

I'm Katie Fielding and I'm at Woodbridge Senior High School.

My name is Daniel Nemerow and I'm at Patriot High School.

And I'm Biz Summers. I'm at Fred Lynn Middle School.

So we want to talk about podcasting as a means to do a number of things, and we're going to try to approach it from a couple different angles and then also give people some sort of like things that we've learned along the way. And some potholes to avoid and things like that. The title of our presentation being Podcasts are the New Essays is a hashtag that I believe Billy and Katie came up with.

It is a way of getting podcasts. Which are, you know, it's not like a huge big technology tool, but it is a tool that's different into our classrooms.
so there's this idea about subconscious learning that Gen Z student spend so much of their day consuming content. How can curriculum or teachers become part of that? When you guys first started doing this and getting into the classroom, what was that like? What pushed you in this direction Katie, to get into classes?

Yeah, I think, uhm, we had a nice empty space that could be used for something, a little closet size, little office. And so we wanted to make a studio and podcasting seem like the best thing utilization of that for our students. I've always been a long time podcast listener so I saw a lot of. possibilities for using it in the classroom.

Biz you do podcasting with students both in class and out of class. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure, it was easiest for me to learn how to do things, well first with a podcast myself, but then learning how to do with students was easier when I had the chance to work with kids with a little bit more time. So I started with a group of kids after school, got them interested, figured out what worked for them and what didn't work for them. So when I went into the classroom with a little bit more time constraints, I could be more effective.

And Billy, you're you're just podcasting all over the place. You wanna talk about?

So for me it really started as an English teacher, and a former SPED teacher. I really struggled with teachers that were like I have students who write the most amazing essays and then students who struggle to put anything on paper and just had the idea of what if we could record ourselves like a voice memo and then listen to that instead of an essay and then not just evolved into book talks, into current event research, and discussions and political concepts.

Right and then I just successfully stole ideas from the three of you and that's that's what we do at Patriot. I will say that it has been an interesting path a little bit because, one because I went after you guys so I stole your good ideas, but it is neat to see how it has grown in my building because I'm still kind of new to this where we started with just a microphone and four kids sitting around a laptop and now we're a little bit fancier than that. It will talk about later, but one of the things that I have found is that there are students that I think when they come in or when a teacher has as student, I don't mean a specific kid, but kind of like a category of students that I think might struggle sometimes to sit down and write an essay or that might struggle to come up with a presentation they could do in front of their class where they have to stand up and talk all this out. But then you get them around a microphone in a soundboard or laptop, or however you're doing it, and all of a sudden these kids are able to articulate things in a way that maybe like. I just I frankly didn't expect
Biz do you have an experience where, like you had a kid or a group of kids that you're like. Wow, I didn't expect that to come out of that student.

Well, when you talk about getting in front of a computer and taking away the idea of writing with pencil, I think that really frees up kids in a lot of ways. I'm kids who are worried about the way they spell or having teachers judge their grammar still might be comfortable just speaking their thoughts and communicating that way in for so for a lot of kids you can really see them come out of their shells and kind of come alive when they have the opportunity to communicate in a way they're a little more comfortable with.

And Katie, I know you have you have a club in Woodbridge where you've seen, like I think, one or two students in particular have sort of like grabbed hold of this idea of people need to hear what I'm saying or people one day might want to hear it. I'm saying have you had a similar experience with that?

Yeah, definitely. I think, uh, we don't have a couple kids who love it and embrace it. and I running with it even now that school's out doing it on their own. And like for one of them, like technology journalism is their passion and what they want their career to be. And so they've already got a jump start on that developing their portfolio for that even before they get to college and start that. But I think podcasting is a great option, medium, you know, for some kids they're going to be able to share their voice through drawing or art some kid through video, some kids are writing and I think podcasts is just another option that's great to put on the table for students.

And Billy, are you seeing kids that have really grabbed ahold of this podcast idea and kind of run with it?

Yeah, so I mean it was kind of crazy. You know you go into a classroom when you say alright guys, I know you've been studying these ancient civilizations and you guys are going to do a 10 minute podcast talking about its impact on the world today and just the groans across the entire room when you introduce this and then you bring him into a space you put some microphones in front of them, some headphones on, and then afterwards they go. This is fun, can I do another one?
It was weird just getting kids who wanted to stay after school just because they had something they had to say they had. It a message they wanted to share with the student body or with the world and even some of our kids would get so if they wanted to be comedians and so then they would, it would do like a comedy show and they would come back to be like you know I'm like ranked 37 on the the comedy channel. I'm like OK sure you are.

Yeah, I think for me I was privileged enough last school year that I was in the school play and there was a student who was just phenomenal and he's been in the play every year and he came up this past year this year and when it's his turn his groups turn to record and when they're done, everybody in the room the students in his group and me are all like looking at him like you should do this like you're really good at this and I think that. That was a cool part about her just seeing kids who shine just certain in certain areas. You know, we have students that are versatile in what they can do I think Katie made a great point about having it be an option for students to do this.

We also just kids are super creative. I mean you know kids making sound clouds and raps and all these different things. Are there other things that you guys have seen where you can see kind of? Original like student work in a different way than you wouldn't get out of a presentation is.
Is there something Billy that you've seen where it's been a student project or something that's been wow? That's like a really original thing that wouldn't have been possible without doing it in podcast.

Yeah, so for our AP World students, we do a project where they connect the history, the things that have happened over, you know the modern era with their own family and their push and pull factors in immigration and being for them to be able to go back in and have an interview with grandma and have an interview with their uncle and their grand father and then record that is a voice memo but then bring that in as they recorded file on their board. It just made them feel like they were doing more than just a school project like they were telling the story of them.

Right and Katie, do you have any similar experiences where you've had students be able to do things that just would not have been possible otherwise?

Yeah, so for our ELL students one of our ELL teachers is really loving this. This concept of podcasting and she's created a little club or ELL students, especially those recent immigrants, are telling their stories of coming to America in their own words in their own language, and I think that's pretty powerful.

Biz what about you?

Uhm, I just I. I'm thinking of one student who, uh, has spent a lot of her life in the shadow of her sister. Her sister is in signed or gifted classes and my student had never been even evaluated for that before. But one of her teachers listened to a podcast that she had done in our club after school just for fun and said I need to get this podcast to Signet. I need them to see the creativity that you have within you and the way your brain works. You haven't communicated before via writing or communicating in other ways.

Yeah, I actually had a couple of teachers say something to me that they wish they had done this earlier because they had students who they got work from that was written work that was not bad. Just know it was it meh, mediocre, it was vanilla.

Then they get the podcast and like wow, that is something else like that. Their ability to express their thoughts or make a point or argue something was just different when it was when it was spoken.

I think that's one of the challenges with teachers as teachers feel like podcasting is almost like you're giving kids a way out. Like oh, this is an easier assignment for them to do. But when you think of, you know you talk about a 100 words a minute when you speak and then you think if I'm going to ask you to do a 10 minute podcast, I'm asking you to write a 1000 words to have prepared but not just have prepared like I'm reading a script, but to be able to have a conversation with someone else and have thoughts already preplanned and on the fly to be able to respond to people's opinions?

Yes, I think that's the that's the next step for teachers, right? So, uh, this starts happening at Patriot and people hear about other classes doing it and like, Oh, you guys are podcasting. Super cool. I want a podcast on like, awesome, what do you want to do and like? I don't know what do I want to do.

so when you guys have that talk with teachers about like Alright, you have a teacher that's interested, willing. You have the equipment and they're like, right? What can we do,

Biz, what's kind of like your go to like right? Pick a class? Let's start with this kind of assignment or project.

Well, I mostly work with a language arts and history teachers, and so you know, the first thing we always try to do is try it to exactly what are you doing in the curriculum right now. In middle school a lot of times it's easier for the teachers and the students as well to start with really just fact regurgitation. It's not the most exciting, but it's less intimidating and it's just another way for kids to explain what they know and when teachers just think of it as as that as an explaining. project it's really easy. It's more fun when we get into the opinions and the persuasive podcasts, but a good starting place is just here comes with facts.

Right Katie? What about you? What's your what's your go to to get in?

My go to, is working with that teacher on the rubric so that it's like a rubric that can be used for. Like I said, any type of project, maybe this other one student wants to write once you don't want to make a video. One students make art, one wants to make a podcast, but they all have the same rubric which is based on the content that the teacher wants them to know. So as long as they're hitting like those content things then the student has like freedom to create what they want.

Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I stress. The teachers too is that I think it was daunting a little bit because there was a idea. Well, now I gotta create a whole another way to grade. I'm like no, no like you're still grading content now it's you know the students ability to master content. We're just adding that we're just changing how they're delivering it really.

Billy What about you?

Yeah, so my go to as an English teacher is always to fall back to what I taught in the classroom. So book talks is such a great way. We want our kids to read all the time. But you know, we don't want to have kids do book reports and so for a lot of my English teachers being able to see that you could have cross grade level and cross classroom book talks and see themes that are in books that apply to some of those required readings that we do at every grade level.

Yeah, I think that there's other ways that we we've been trying to get into 'cause I've basically similar to you guys at the different things and stuff like that. But now I'm finding that have students that want to create podcasts as part of like, you know, I had some students wanted to do one about. Literally about mindfulness and then about some sort of like you know, can we talk about things that pressure students and now we're kind of morphing our daily announcements. While we've been out of school, you know to do COVID19 where we're trying to take our daily announcements and make them make them a podcast. Are there things that you guys are doing, Katie's or anything that you guys do this or that you want to do that sort of community driven but based on a podcast?

Well, we don't have one at this time. We have used Flipgrid a lot of like that kind of thing so far, but I do see the possibilities of using podcasting to connect with the community like you're doing with the announcements. Yeah, so far nothing community related quite yet.

I think flipgrid is a great practice your podcast avenue, its almost like bit rehearsal, you know, as a way to do it
Biz is there something that you guys do that is community-based or that's not class specific I'm not yet but I have been thinking wow we're in the closure that podcasting might be a really great way for teachers to share content with students.

I know that a lot of people struggle with having meetings via Google or Teams or Zoom or whatever I just trying to have that synchronous learning, but if the teachers just really wanted to share some information or share story with the kids recording as a podcast would give the kids a lot more options to engage with their phone and also be able to mult-task and you know fold clothes or whatever while they listen to their teacher

Fold clothes, and listen

Billy what about you guys
so my counselors really loved the idea of bringing in students to talk about issues that they were dealing with as students and and and you know, whether you were a senior or whether you were freshmen and so some of the counters took on bringing on students that that would host the podcast and then it would invite freshmen and sophomores and juniors and seniors to share their story.

I was thinking with this COVID19 and so many of our class of 2020 students just not being able. To share their story that podcasting would be a great way for us to be able to allow every student to have a small one-minute clip like tell your story, share what high school's meant to you and then compile those as like episodes that we release on a weekly basis. Cool,

Thats a great idea I am going to steal that idea.
Everybody should steal it, we should do it state-wide

In the stealing category I in my weekly email to our kids and idea that I that I stole from Katie so I guess not an idea her idea. I had a student a week ago reach out to me about being on the announcements that were now morphing into a podcast and I was thinking that in my next email, I'm gonna ask seniors any of them that want to join the podcast announcements as a guest for that exact purpose like that's in my draft email so funny there were thinking about that

Biz you have a professional podcast also that where the audience is not students. Not produced by students or for students, although I suppose they could listen can you talk this a little bit about how you've used that as a podcasting for for adults for teachers and staff

yeah, um, well, I'm a big podcast listener. I listen to podcasts when I drive when I walk really whenever I'm doing anything that is a little bit boring, um, and I listen to a lot of educational ones and I was thinking yeah, I love to be able to present PD to teachers this way because there's you know, There's only so many hours in a day and so another ITC and I started a podcast we share just our learning ideas things that we're doing in our schools we talk to other people about what's going on in their schools and just try to to share best practices in the classroom.

I hear you guys are able to get really great guests,

yeah Katie, Billy, Dan to name a few of the all stars

Wow how about that.

Billy, do you listen to podcast professionally or create podcasts for for a staff.

Yeah so I I don't listen for ed tech purposes because it's hard for me to find really good ed tech podcasts and no shame or shade towards ed tech podcast out there, but um, I that's how that's how I consume all of my news now is pretty much all through podcasts and then I've been really trying to push, I think so many of our colleagues have wonderful things to share but the idea of standing up in front of an auditorium and giving a presentation is just so intimidating but if you could break down your ideas into less than 10 15 minute car ride to work. Then that's something great that we can let all of our colleagues and our teachers really share their expertise.

Yeah I had a teacher approach me about if there was a way that I could get them like weekly training without doing weekly training. Hey Dan, we want you to teach us stuff,we just don't want you to teach us right room with us or in any way what's ever so and I was thinking that yeah next year that was gonna be my goal of just sort of like a here, you know, if you want to go more information about whatever the tool, you know insert tool here, here's a three minute podcast on it, and then if you want more than here's where you can go

Katie, what about you

I have found success with having teachers listen to podcast like a book club so instead of you know, they read a book they all listen to a podcast and they come and discuss it and we've also done it asynchronously where the discussion takes place on Flipgrid so that's been successful so it's totally like deep at your own time PD.

I can't remember which one of you gave me this idea but I know that when I go in now to start this with students that the first thing I ask is how many of you listen to podcasts when I'm introducing this to a class and you know now it's it's got it's crazy to me how many it is actually but in most older high school classes, especially it's about half and then the first thing that I asked them to do is to listen to a podcast before they start making it because it's it's hard to describe a little bit because the kids think it's like, you know, it's like a it's like a play where you're only listening, you know, and and it's really really not that are there things or pieces of advice or things specifically that you guys have students listen to before they record

is there something Billy that you make sure your kids hear before they start recording.

I throw in some of the the parts of how letting kids feel it realize they can be creative with like intro jingles and little sound bites that they can have inside there because for some of our students the idea of recording it's still very intimidating and so for them to take on the role of their almost producing this with the the mood music in the background really helps and then I also think that I always tell my students to think of it whatever the answer to their question is in 3’s.
So like you have a topic, what's a question that comes from that topic, and then how could you answer that in three parts. Then we'll listen to podcasts to find out that I that how they did that professional answer it in three parts

right.

Biz, I would guess that middle schoolers aren't as heavy into podcast listening so is there something you have them listen to before you start recording with them

yeah that's an excellent guess Dan. Most of my students are unfamiliar with podcast unless they have been listening to them with their parents and so.

I always start by playing a shorter podcast one that I hope will capture their interests but I also try to choose one's that that I would myself listen to something that I think is authentic some thing for them to strive for

Katie what about you?

I also like to have to listen to short podcasts and also student created podcasts so like some of the NPR competition winners from years past, last year's winners, as like a oh this is you know, here's a professional level podcast that's five minutes, but hey, look these kids that are your age or even younger did this awesome thing.

Yeah I got some permission last year from from last last year from some students I was like hey listen I know this was for AP GOV, I don't need the whole thing I'm not always going to use it for government but they you know, they put in the intro music and they had like a you know, they named it they did all those sort of little things that not that you have to do but that I think makes the kids feel like they're making a a professional sounding podcast and I think the podcast that we recorded subsequent to me doing that they got better because the kids had sort of like a oh, I mean, even though we're just kids, like it can sound but grown-ups are doing it, like other has to be grown up to be professional but.

When you guys meet with kids is there a set kind of you know rubric you have they're not rubric there's obviously rubric from the teacher but sort of like a game plan that you have them create or is it different class by class

Biz where do you start when you get with kids as far as the you know, the outline and the practice and things like that.

I usually have that conversation first with a teacher rather than with the kids a lot of times the teacher doesn't want to have me in their class that many days or they want to chunk it up in different ways that I can't necessarily accommodate in my schedule but I always talk to the teacher about what best is going to suit their needs like I want the teacher to know exactly what they want from the kids and so it's I don't have a set thing it's a little different every time but it is thinking about the end product first is definitely an important part of the process

beginning with the end in mind.

Katie what about you

yeah, so I'm really fortunate that I have a studio space in addition to going to classrooms and in the studio space. I actually had got one of those crafty mom-like teachers to help me use the cricket to cut out icons that I downloaded from noun project and each icon is the different step in the the podcasting process so those are up on the wall in the podcasting studio and then kids can leave each other notes or tips about like each step of the process and I actually don't and this past year haven't done any of the podcast training.

I have a senior kid who just the studio is his he's like the manager he loves it and he does all the training now, so it's really student-owned

what about you Billy,

I just like Biz, I love to sit down and meet with the teacher first to kind of get that buy in and then I tell teachers that it's about you get to think of a three-day process at least in that you have to introduce the project, you need a day for planning, then you probably need to allocate probably one to two days just for groups to rotate through and record.

I'm a huge fan of padlet and it at the end of this we've got a waklet with resources and you can copy all of our stuff in there, but it's nice to be able to size because students can go in and add their notes and their ideas and reference things and ad recordings and practice you can link to flipgrid which is great for teachers, will then watch the flipgrid and when they give the green light, okay that was good now you can go into the studio and record.

yeah I mean it's sort of a shared Google doc thing a very basic kind of rubric and outline and then a day of use kind of thing that I just give to my teachers and I'm like listen modify it change it so that it fits your curriculum or whatever or I'll help them modify will work together, but just so that there's some kind of starting point.

When you guys are talking to student or teachers anybody about recording what are some some tips some things like to make sure like, you know, I always tell my kids it's it's not scripted it's you know it's not ad libbed and it's not scripted it's this happy medium of in between are there what kind of things do you talk about with with your students and teachers about tips for podcasting

Biz go ahead
You actually just kind of took mine.

I have the biggest mistake that I've ever made with it was one of my language arts teachers wanted kids to do a podcast instead of an essay and she was really excited about it and so then she said, but first we're gonna write the essay and then they will read that essay into the microphone and it was just a horrifically boring experience for the kid. Kids and for the teacher and when it was done they weren't even excited to share it with each other so that was the one thing that I really learned the hard way very quickly is that it it's more effort to write the essay first and then less payoff.

Katie, what about you,

yeah definitely the outlining is important having them outlined their thoughts or outlined their questions if it's gonna be like an interview style podcast. I remember back in high school, you know, like I think interviewing is one of the English standards that they have to do and it was always just like a job interview that was always what you practice right but I think podcasting allows you to try and attempt a lot of different types of interviewing so practicing like what is a good question is one of the things that I work with students on.

And Billy

My biggest tip for kids is script your intro, script your outro, and script your questions. Everything else just let it go and you don't have to be perfect. The the teacher isn't intently listening to this podcast word for word writing everything down. They're doing something in the background, and your job is just to be, we joke in class to be 2 to 4 nerds talking about school work for fun.

I agree I think any time that we can get kids to what I tried to stress a teacher I had a teacher talking about well like you know this isn't as good as writing the essays with the essay they have to do all the research and get and I said that if you listen in this teacher had not listened to podcast before so I had her listen to podcasts and I was like if you listened to them you realized that these people sound like they know everything about the topic even though you know, that they you didn't get the sum knowledge of all that they know because to carry on a conversation about something and sound like you know, what you're talking about you have to know more than what you actually talk about so Billy what's Next

I always tell teachers start with whatever is is that a passion, whatever is the the topic that kids are really excited about and as as we're entering this end of the year and we're remote learning and you know, we're moving towards things that maybe aren't graded it's a great time for teachers to reach out to students and say what is one concept that we've talked about when we were in school that you really resonated with you that you want to then bring on guest, or co-host with this and interview and shout out to Soundtrap which is now giving away unlimited.

Licenses for schools that want to use it and that has a great collaborating platform that's COPPA, and FERPA and CCPA friendly and all that.

And Biz about you what's next when you if you had people that were on the verge of doing this, how do you shove them down the path?

I think telling them not you're not all podcasters now but if you've got a group of students who want to do it doesn't option for a project having that as okay you guys are gonna write and you guys are gonna make a video and you guys are gonna create a podcast, um, you'll get the kids most want to do it and those are gonna be the kids

yeah teacher flexibility is a is a big deal for sure. Katie?

yeah, I think a lot of teachers who are like oh that they're not gonna cite their sources and I think that's a great place to show them about show notes and that that's a place that you know students can still do a works cited page it is just going to be in the show notes and also the cover art so if they're doing a group project, one person may be the producer one person may be doing the cover art like me taking the lead on that and then lastly accessibility like podcasts are great but not everyone can hear so just making sure that there is a transcript available and showing kids how to do that because accessibility is the going to be a big job in IT and digital communications in the future and just introducing them to that concept is going to be really important.

Awesome, so if you want to continue the conversation with us you can find all four of us on Twitter. You'll find all four of us but you will only communicate with three of us, so if you want to get Billy's attention just tag one of us and we will Lik, Retweet, and then send him a message to check Twitter

You can go to www.podcastsarethenewessays.com to find the wakelet that we put together that has all the resources on there for you

This has been fun, thanks guys.

Brainstorm 2020: Student Centered Learning: A Conversation with Abby French

May 1, 2020

<-- Back to conference page

Presented by Abby French, History Teacher, Shenandoah County Public Schools; Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Few things can have the power to change a classroom for the better like student centered learning. This conversation wit Abby French will give you insight into how to get started, what it looks and sounds like when its working, and examples of the benefits that come with this focus on students leading their learning.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

Welcome all to our special session with Miss Abby French and amazing Middle School teacher from Virginia Abby if you would go ahead and take the helm here for a little bit and introduce yourself and let us know a little bit more about what you do okay well I am a sixth grade middle school teacher I teach us history at Peter Muhlenberg Middle School in Woodstock Virginia and it's a little background I feel like I've had to teaching careers really because I had for 5 years in before I had my own family then I was a stay-at-home mom to for kids for about 16 years and I've been back for about 6 now so really have feels like kind of these two different chunks of teaching and one was pre-internet right before the internet was brought to our schools and the golf course the second one it was like I got hired and here are 75 login so it's been a real a real transformation considering now we're doing everything remotely in this new reality were in so yeah that's kind of it for everybody in the education World recently and I know you just touched down at that you've kind of really merge two worlds together and I think as we've talked that it helps you kind of formulate the way you do a student-centered classroom which will be a big focus of Eliza first part of our talk and could you just tell us a little bit more how did you get started in that and then you have any tips for people trying to tiptoe their way in I do and I'm thank you for asking I kind of feel like my journey with student-centered learning has been a little bit of a perfect storm because it involves my experience as a mother with my own children as particularly one son and it involved also if my classroom is like a a learning laboratory then I guess I experimented and and really observed and watched what seems to be working the best for me and my students and where the growth that I see and kids is really connected to their owning their learning and creating a culture that is really rich and community and when those things kind of happen when you have curiosity and you have a student's passions involved and what they're learning or how they're showing evidence of their learning along with a safe nourishing kind of nurturing environment I think that the sky's the limit I seen it I couldn't agree more and I think this touches on something again we've talked about in that I have seen in some of your posts and things but maybe you can expand a little on kind of what you feel the connection is with SEL and SEL if we will student-centered learning there's a strong one so let me let me answer that and then I'm going to go back a little bit too where everything kind of started clicking for me and I'll say that my transformation happened when there was like this Synergy between my heart and my head when it comes to teaching and I think that's exactly what we are talkin about we talk about SEL and SEL because when you feel seen recognized valued I am the environment you're in when you feel that you have a contributing valuable voice as a student or as an adult really amazing things can begin to take off because I think that's something that innate late it's a it's a need and in a traditional classroom we spent a lot of time making kids fit a curriculum fit a schedule fit everything we put in in front of them they were expected to jump through the Hoops are expected to just to keep bending and bending and bending to meet but you know our side of things and I don't I don't work best like that I don't work best when I just feel like I'm continually trying to meet expectation please people make the grade you know that's not coming from a personal well that's coming from why my minute I want I'm a pleaser I'm an achiever I want to meet the mark but that isn't the kind of inspiration and commitment that I want from my kids for my students and it's not what I wanted from my own children and school I didn't want them just to be assessed on how well they lived up to everyone else's expectations and never tapped into who they are and what makes them tick and what they're interested in and so SEL comes into play when you create a community that values the members where it's safe to take risks and we're individuals actually no start really internalizing and believing that they have a valuable place there that their thoughts and ideas their impressions make a difference it lets them be comfortable not just playing the game of school if you will yes yeah you know that's that's really so crushing to always be playing a game right and for it not to really come from within and so that's that sell peace that student-centered peace starts to tap into kids driving their own morning you know I you think you hear about like with writing on Skype you know I want kids to offer their own stories but that isn't just in the writing you literally writing that means their own learning Journeys right I want them to really feel like there engineering directing it and I realized the challenge comes up I have it sounds all the time I haven't figured it all out but I have ways that seem to kind of start to you know meet in the middle a little bit but the challenges is that I have a u.s. history 1 curriculum 2 that here too you know it isn't just all what do you want to learn today folks but there are lots of ways that I can interest you in Jack and jacked Kids Choice and kids curiosity into what we're doing going back to the inspiration kind of where it like the heart and head thing I was speaking about for me with this with my own Learning Journey in this is that my oldest son from the time he was 7 years old was fascinated with telling stories and particularly wanted to write them or it was like before I could write so I was with always dictating to me all the time I had three other kids but it was constantly like sit down and I want you to type I'm going to tell you a story so we did that a lot but he has he's 20 years old in a while he's at home right now finishing out his second semester junior year from VCU but he has been telling stories through movie making filmmaking since about 8 years old he's passionate about it it's who he is and I didn't know what to do with it for a long time we are not in movie making family we have no connections so if you could imagine and a tiny little town you know Royal Virginia I am I have this 12 year old who has written an 80-page full length feature-length movie and he's hell-bent and determined that he is going to make it we don't even own cameras I think we did on a fog machine for special effects but I didn't know what to do with him I was desperate and at the same time he hated heated Middle School hated it the tested it he actually his school since the time he was in kindergarten we went in and out of public to private back to public it was it was really got retching and a lot of it was because Steven couldn't be Stephen in our system and occasionally he would hit and mix with this a fantastic teacher that would say that part of him and be able to support it and courage it at even just inquire about and a difference that would make for him I mean you know I worried all the time about him I'm worried about him emotionally how are we ever going to get out of Middle School much less high school and yet I knew I knew it was brilliant I don't want it to be that hard for kids you know and that is where that's where I want to do I want to do better for kids I want to see who they are that's the personal part of what got me stop being into this realm and I think that's really powerful is when we can bring in personal connections and I think what your your son is trying to touch on to is those stories and telling those stories has nothing really stays with someone really knew me better than a story that really hits and connects on that personal level you can get that story that as they say hit you in the feels stick with you and you're going to want to maintain that and I think unfortunately but hits a lot of our students is that downward buying that graph that we've all seen as far as creativity kind of encouraged and felt like it's encouraged by students dropping from kindergarten like a lead balloon one until they hit the high school side it shouldn't be that way I just can't be that way we have to do better than that one of the moment I realized how incredibly on how much leadership and initiative that kids can take that they that they are capable of was the experience with Stephen so on a particular morning the back back when he was saying here I was talking about when he was 12 and he's 20 now but eight years ago I remember find like getting them off to school in the morning which was just horrible and feeling so desperate like what what what can I do what can I do to help my son realize who he is realize his dream realize his desire feel like he had some agency and so did I say that I was going behind the scenes calling organizations I sat down and I did the whole search that morning on youthbuild make are you still making in Virginia and I got him signed up for like special class is over in Charlottesville they have a headache are you still making like classes courses that that would go on on the weekends so I like for 2 years I took him over to Charlotte so an hour and a half away for lessons or classes or whatever workshops one of the other things I did that morning was I called the Virginia film office and I said I don't even know what I'm I'm on the phone with Mike the director and hi I'm Abby front I have a 12 year old son that wants to be a filmmaker and I don't know what to do with them is there anything that you can help me with can you help me like putting in the right direction and I I said he's written this feature-length movie that he's determined to make and the sky starts laughing the director of the film off of Virginia film office starts laughing and he said it is are you Steven French's mom and I said excuse me and he said are you are you we talked about Stephen French and I said yes we are he's the one I'm looking at his application right now on my desk he's applied for a grant and I had no idea he never told me he never told us that he was doing anything like that he ended up getting awarded a special you know scholarship and but that to me that moment is steered in my mind forever and when I talk to my soon when I reach my own kids in school but I know what they're capable of they might not yet but but I know what they're capable of I am know what kids can do kids can lead incredible projects they can lead they need a lot of help in facilitating that they need a lot of connection with resources but there's so much passion in drive and kids if if we help help them realize that absolutely in it I think that touches on one of the places I was hoping we would get to you in this and that is a lot of times when you tap into student fashions in a classroom is truly kind of stood but it looks and feels different than a regular classroom for people kind of beginning the tiptoe into this and of course a lot of us at the time this will are are in remote learning but in the actual physical classroom in your experience what is different how does it look different how does it feel different end with that said what should people be okay with when they experiences different things well you have to check yourself on control issues I'll just say that because cuz I like I like orderly you know I like that I like the way it feels but if it's nowhere it's so surface and when you see a classroom or group of kids that are leading their learning I'll tell you there's an energy and I don't mean that in a like oh there's an energy I mean like there is an absolute genuine like just vibration and you feel it like you can't be near it and not know that it's just good and it's real and it's so authentic kids are in groups kids are working on their own some kids are concentrating and really in you know I'll focus on something they're looking up kids are making kids or talk in kids are DeYoung the interaction that I observe when kids are in that mode it's what we try to recreate but it's not real at least we try to do the pierrot look at we're going to do this year feedback right now I do a lot of that but when it happens on its own off that dick late it's just like nothing else and is more powerful so it's noisy but it's not behavior issues there's no behavior issues like like there are no behavior issues you might have to say hey is everybody working on that you know focusing but but not anything more than that not anything more than a I guess one of the biggest cells I would say to people is your behavior management issues will absolutely like decrease because kids are engaged in what they're doing very nice and I think we can kind of add to that too and just kind of keep going in that progression for a teacher in this setting how does that teacher usual change from what you would have seen in a traditional setting I guess if you kind of if you want to say that kids you're putting kids in the in the driver's seat of their a bear learning and a bear education or project or whatever they're learning then I guess the teacher becomes more of a mini like a travel agent or a tour guide you know like helping to facilitate with Reese resources or you know brainstorm a mini troubleshooting something but it's not the teacher directing it it is not teacher-directed it is student-directed it's student-led and and that's the biggest like I said that's the shift absolutely and I think that's where you touch on a to of letting go of control I think it's probably one of the biggest roadblocks to a truly Student Center room there a student-led learning from a traditional mine set a traditional teaching type of atmosphere is giving up that control in trusting that students will need it in a positive direction and nope OK Will Patrick why was just say on that that this happens every time like what I do a lot of project-based learning and I will tell you that I've seen this routine to cycle it feels like in those teachers listen to us that have done some of this time I bet you're going to relate it feels like it's so exciting in the beginning getting this thing going and and then everybody gets into it and you're moving along and you're setting goals and you know each day kind of goal-setting like what are we going to get done today I want my groups doing that and then no matter how much of that planning and I guess Scaffolding in some ways to make the project going there is always a day or a couple as you get closer and closer to your project deadlines where everyone including me is like he's not going to happen is there even going to be any I don't care if it's if I think every theater performance like if you are a better part of the Cass you know that is a director you know that there's always a day when you're just not sure it's going to all come together but literally that is part of this productive struggle and even if the outcome of the project is a fail and I fail I mean just that it may be doesn't need the marks in terms of what they wanted it to do not a fail in any other way it is still some of the most valuable lessons and learning and experience that you could ever Opera kid it's so valuable I'm on anyway the thing turns out there are it's so rich and much richer than turn to page 47 read the paragraph and answer some questions I would agree and I think that's really in my mind the reality of when a growth mindset or the concept of failing forward actually takes place where you can see it happen in the classroom is when you have students that you know you've structured your classroom it's gone the way that you wanted because they hit those roadblocks and they had that freaked-out moment or something or a project doesn't quite get done or it's not quite the way they want it and on their own they're like you know what I didn't get it yet but here pretty soon I'm going to know how to do this and I'm going to keep her want for it this isn't an endpoint I'm just going to keep going or what I learned is that I didn't I didn't use my time wisely I spent a lot of time planning a project but I didn't do a lot of carrying out or didn't allow my son in all of those things are really important right I mean why don't we want our kids to experience that now when we are there to help them walk through that experience I just think it's just so rich and I think that touches on the really good point to and I hopefully you can kind of expand on this Forest is what role does kind of helping students think about thinking more like that metacognition piece or routines or do you have some routines or kind of a a structure your kid's father really help this happen and work well because because everything is not everything but because so much becomes personalized and the direction they take can be really different that's there there's not necessarily a structure but I do would say that we go through a process of when I ask them what's a i we're studying Native Americans and I'll say okay first of all I think it's really important for kids to connect to our standards framework that's not just for me to see it's their learning so one of the things I love to do with kids and I started doing more this year is giving them exactly what the framework says and I'll say they'll can this is what the speed are Target's and these skills are the things that we need to be you don't compare and contrast analyze whatever how do you guys want to show me you're near Larned you can do it together you can do it individually and then we go through a process of them communicating with me taking time thinking reflecting and then writing like where they want to go with it setting goals I talked about that a second ago about that's a big part of it to what do you want to accomplish did you reach I found that to be so I did more of that this year than I have in the past and I think that that's something is really valuable and then a timeline I mean setting just like if I were planning a a PDL I'm going to have my calendar right the days that I'm letting certain pieces I want kids doing that they need to have a calendar they need to know now they need to be in charge of their thing and that touches on teaching them all kinds of things like time management and walk so that becomes a valuable lesson to but I have I've been really really interested in design thinking and if you are familiar with the pdsa cycle plan-do-study-act and very similar to that is a motto that I have borrowed that I have up in my classroom which is due reflect do better which is a kind of like that design thinking write the value of feedback in there for improvement is so vital and so that is a part of the structure and almost everything I do with my students I want them reflecting on their ass they're doing I want them doing history I want them reflecting on it and I want them to have time to get feedback to improve now Challenge and I don't I don't I don't have it all figured out at all it takes time like it takes a long time and you have to be pretty committed to you know kind of like or you can lose day and I and I get it like a lot of a lot of teachers teach on semester and like that's my one of the things I want to improve on is how to work that feedback cycle into my teaching are learning either self-assessment here student to teacher teacher to student but it takes a lot of time and so that's a challenge and I think and I cannot remember who said it but I have one of the clothes I've always liked is that kind of real learning doesn't really happen until reflection has happened and I think that is one of the most powerful steps of things even something like packaging a lesson in hyperdocs if you stopped short of that reflection peace and kind of bringing it back around and like you said not just it was a project of success with my creation the best thing that it could be but what happened along the way how was my process how was my time management those are all kind of those inner soft skills I think that are part of this that really help students not just in that lesson Earth activity but going forward as they start looking at higher level learning or jobs and things like that who sings keep paying it forward I think so too and I just feel like for so many uneven like last year I'm the meanest is how my thinking is changed over a year's time last year I have my kids do a big project I worked in Pier like Pier conferencing they gave some feedback to the kids to each other but I was like we've got a we got to keep moving we are getting we've got to keep moving I completely fell short I caused it I have not letting them take those improved like suggestions feedback and apply it if we don't give kids a chance to apply it then they don't they don't have the full Arc of learning and we stopped short of that I've stopped short of that so many times you know where they could have really really had their off a moment or stop the impact of being able to apply for for improvement can agree more and as we kind of get towards the ending part of this kind of this session and what I think is going to be part one of a and ongoing conversation could you share with us maybe some of those impactful either aha moments or some of those success stories that you had and I I know it's been a struggle and it's a lot of time to get it set but as people kind of work through that journey to make it happen can you kind of give them some of the lake that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow what what are some of the positives you see well I've seen students that for Behavior reasons or learning challenges that would not be successful in a traditional stance with braids or was sitting still and listening and doing the required daily you know work I've seen students just shine like truly Bill pride and who they are I've witnessed their classmates Embrace that in kids like that they don't another side of students that they haven't appreciated before a student that may not excel in note taking and organizing a notebook and interactive notebook in having what he or she needs might be an incredible We Video Editor you know or know incredible coding skills and can show us something so I've seen to me it goes back to that SEL piece where we talked about how important it is for a child for a human a human being to feel valued and to feel that they have a contributing voice place place so I think like I've had so many moments where I'm just it is it is a misty I kind of moment with my students think right now about a situation with a n e l l student last year she partnered with a good friend of hers and they very shy and reluctant to ever speak out and not share in class but they worked really well together the big day for this huge project that we were doing Kane and they had to present their pitch to our Shark Tank judges you can imagine you know for kids that already were kind of insecure about about speaking in public or public speaking that this in front of your classmates this was a big deck right on this particular day the partner didn't show up and my inner introvert just had it a small little Panic moment there for the student right exactly and the student that had was there had worked credibly hard over I don't know if it was a know what day this was but I know it was overnight or the weekend before to make some some props for their presentation so she had brought them to school she was ready in the partner doesn't show up and she said to me I like I talk to her privately I said you don't have to go today we can do it later we can wait until your partner's here and she said no I'm I'm going to do what I want to do it and she got up to do it and one of her friends who also was extremely shy and never volunteered to speak out wouldn't let her do it alone Anon partner jumped in to help a friend do the project and I just loved everything about that I love what it said I loved the risk-taking involved for both of them I just I just loved it that's the way that the class responded which was like a standing ovation and I was just really powerful so powerful really on things that we've talked about as far as that the truth a successful Student Center Learning Classroom to me does not exist without those SEL components and without that culture that those things all come together to build a typical traditional classroom that student would have jumped in to help where that standing ovation might not have occurred because that culture just isn't the same HIPAA creates a community and what kids start doing is there participation is not out of compliance it's not because of grade is involved or isn't involved it becomes really personal personalized and it's out of commitment to the whole they're just as overall I guess Community feeling that happens in that it when that when those things Mash one or not necessarily one but is there a set of things that you would like to kind of give people as far as where should they start if they haven't really done student-centered learning or tiptoed into SEL and built some of those connections are is there a couple resources you would Point them to any people where should they start out I would tell you to I would tell you to visit if you're on Twitter or or just even look up a Blog project 180 and it's my friend Monty syre and maybe we can include that in the show notes he is who who coined the term or the The Motto that I've borrowed do reflect you better he is he's like my my hero and it was reading his blog post that started to really you know Sync here and here with me and also couldn't help me frame everything I knew about is a mother and the and a teacher in the way I wanted education to work and the way I know it it needs to be for the kids sake why would say start their one of the best activities I implemented to build that culture to build that Community came directly from him it's the simple and he's a high school teacher this is a it could not be a more simple thing and basically almost on a I think he doesn't daily I do it a few times a week my classes begin with all of us sitting in a circle and doing he calls it smiles and frowns I call it wrote A Rose and thorn and kids have the opportunity it is not required we all sit in the circle we all give our attention to whoever speaking whoever's turn it is if they want to volunteer a positive or A negative going on in their life they can do that and again I take 6th graders so most of the time it's it doesn't it's it's within kind of a normal range of every now and then so you'll get someone that shares something really big a big worry and or a big celebration aren't you know something that's just that we have no idea what's going on in each other's lives kind of thing but to watch the empathy it feels sympathy you know and the watch that connect my students all of us actually not just one we're not we're people in there or not you know just a roll of teacher-student and that has been the number one biggest impact on culture and so much so and the kids loved it so much so that by the way kids can pass if they don't want to I don't have to share anything but when I have been either you're out of like if I have a substitute or something baby even asked to sub that they could do that because you know run it themselves with a substitute is there it's something that's really important they asked me we haven't done it in a couple days they asked me in fact I just was so excited one online on Wednesday last Wednesday I don't think the power of that safe place can be understated at any school level I know where mainly talking about middle school right now but the elementary side even high school kids the power of knowing how safe of a place the classroom is and should be I don't think and be understated especially with the impact that it can have fun learning and community that that classroom becomes exactly so that those two things I would say really are a good place to start and one last thing to leave it with kind of a two-fold thing of number one can you let us know where people can connect with you and then number two in our current world of remote learning is there a big opportunity or something that you see could be very powerful right now for people well I would love to connect with you you can find me on Twitter at a w French one and excuse me I would say that one of the topics that I've been really really interested in is this exploring going gradeless like how well does a grade how well does a grade an A or a percentage or Point really reflect and communicate learning is there a better way and it's brought me to this place where I really really have talked about it already value feedback I think feedback conversations with kids that's how I can tell that's their learning in talking with them and I think that assessment can really be a learning tool in and of itself but it doesn't have anything to do necessarily with a grade here we are now in this moment Patrick and distance or remote learning and most of us are many of us are are not graded we're not using grades as a way of assessing our students work reflection is a big piece right now so student self-assessment feedback between teacher and student such a big moment in time I feel like we have this opportunity right now to see the value in what feedback for improvement is really Kimberly be about I couldn't agree more at one of the biggest things I've been proud of across-the-board for a teacher's administrator students is the step-up in collaboration and communication that has happened in our current climate and the further kind of disintegration of the silos that are so typical of traditional education watching those kind of Fall Away in that feedback in that communication really start to step up and take the Forefront has been something I hope is not only powerful now but as I think you would agree we'll hopefully continue for it even as we're back face-to-face with our students and colleagues me to I don't think you could have said any better that's that's where it's at l a b thank you so much for your time and lending your experience to our brainstorming conference I think everybody will agree as they get to this point that you just made the conference that much more amazing so thank you very much and again I appreciate your time sincerely thank you

Brainstorm 2020: Building Motivation for You and your Students!

May 1, 2020

<-- Back to conference page
Introduction

Presentation

Presented by Craig Shapiro, HPE Teacher/Secondary Lead Teacher, William Tennent High School/Centennial School District

In today's challenging times it's more important than ever to help students become motivated with their learning. It starts with us! The session will discuss ways to develop a higher level of motivation both in and out of the school environment. While the session isn't grade level specific, it's generally geared more towards a secondary student. All teachers can benefit though.

Link to Slides

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

I am so excited to be here speaking about a topic that I love. It's just a great topic especially now with COVID-19. It’s called motivation, let's do this. I want to thank brainstorm 20/20 for giving me the opportunity to speak and more specifically a good friend of mine who I connected with on Twitter, Pat Haussmmann. He is a great guy, and I really recommend that you connect with him and also I'd love for you to connect with me as well. I put my email address, Twitter, Facebook, linkedin, and Instagram in the opening slide. I am personally a huge fan of Twitter, so I hope you can check it out. So what I'm going to do is, I'll just run through the presentation, you'll get a copy of this and I hope you'll look at it again at some point. There's an introduction video and a piece right here that's something that I usually put on Twitter.

So the first thing is we have to realize that motivation is going to be lacking for students, families, and educators; it just is. I don't care how positive your motivation is going to be, in times like these, for many reasons students, even though they might say “oh my God I don't like going to school”, miss school. I can't tell you the number of kids that have said “ I really didn't realize how much I miss being at school.” So that's a great thing for you, if you were a teacher. For students, this has to do with many things. Even though we think that they're really good at technology, it's not this kind of technology they are used to. It’s totally thrown away their learning curve, how they learn and communicate.

For families, it's simple. I have two kids. I have a daughter, who's a freshman in college. She's home, and I have a son who is a junior in high school. He actually goes to my school, and now home as well. It's incredibly challenging for them, because they are constantly getting up at super late hours, and you know their motivation is causing our families motivation to drop. There is also, for many families, huge financial responsibilities while being at home, and lots of variables that are just making it hard for families to be motivated themselves.

Then, lastly, it's about educators. I'm a teacher. I've been a teacher for 30 years, and I love being at school. I mean that, I really do! And I am sure that you feel the same way, but right now we are being asked to teach in a completely different way. Even if you did technology before, you're not doing it like this. Everything we do now is email, learning management systems, Google Meets and Zoom. It's brand-new, and that is a surefire recipe for causing a lack of motivation, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so many other things that go on; just one thing like assessing students can cause amazing amounts of stress. Especially if you are a structured teacher.

Okay, so now we're going to look at the challenges we all face. Number one for students, and just looking at the list, I don't want to cover everything in detail. Family support is huge. Also, a lot of kids don't understand the work, the directions there can be really hard. How many times kids will say to me, “Shap, I don't understand the directions.” Even though I thought the directions were very clear, I guess they didn’t. The lack of flexibility, and I'll talk about that later. What I mean by that, is we've got to be flexible with kids. We can't be stuck on only one way or one thing. I know from personal experiences with students that language barriers are huge. If you have English language Learners, and kids that don't grasp the language it is going to be so hard because now you can't see them face-to-face. We already talked about how kids are home, and maybe they're not motivated, especially if they weren't motivated before, it's going to be hard to be motivated now. Finally, busy work can be challenging even in the best of situations. Now, kids will be like, “why am I doing this, it is a total waste!” Again, the technology knowledge they have and the home challenges that they face make being motivated hard for most kids.

For educators, just being home is a cause of lacking motivation. The lack of structure is going to be challenging. I know plenty of teachers that have certain things they do all the time, over and over. They're comfortable with it at school, but now they've probably tried so many techniques to get that structure. I know I have, and I'm still trying to do that. We have the issues of assessment. Right now our school is using complete or incomplete. Without grades, it can be extremely challenging for educators because we're so used to grades. I won't get into a grading thing. Admin support, communicating with families can be hard, and the stress of what I do now, just means that after we are hopefully done with this, and we go back to normal, what does that look like? There are huge variables in learning for all kids, and even now more than ever, just the technology implementation can be a motivation killer. If you were somebody who didn't use a lot of technology, you are really going through some tough times and lacking motivation.

Lastly, for families, the challenges they face are the same kinds of things. That's part of the issue with three groups of students, teachers and families. We are all going through the same thing. For example, many parents don't have any idea how to use the technology that their kids are being asked to use. They have job and financial responsibilities that you're hearing about all the time. I don't need to rehash the economy piece, but that's a big problem. I keep coming back to technology and computer access. I'm lucky, my kids are lucky, we each have our own device. There are so many families that don't have that luxury. I just had a conversation with a mother,who told me that she and her husband are essential workers in the medical field and her daughter, who I teach cannot get access to a computer until 4:00 in the afternoon. I mean what is she doing until 4. Think about the pressure that puts on the kid and the family. Iif you are a graduating senior, which I teach plenty of. I feel so bad for them, and we know that's a huge stressor, and it causes a lack of motivation. Sleep habits are another big one. I know my kids are getting up super late. and it's challenging for me not to get upset, but I'm trying hard. There is this feeling of being hopeless. Like when is it going to come to an end. So now that we've covered all this. Let's really get to the good stuff and that's how we fix it. How do we get motivation back with families, students and educators?

Here we go for students. The first thing is we want to be positive. Of course that should be in the classroom as well, but we really need to be positive now, especially when it's easier not to be. It’s also necessary to demonstrate a certain degree of flexibility. Sure, it's easy to have deadlines and due dates, but right now if you want to motivate your students try showing a high level of flexibility, with the understanding of the things they are going through. I’m a huge believer in the “often praised principle!” If you have four assignments, and three of them don't get done, but one does, I know it's hard to give kudos to the one assignment when there are still three that are still missing. Do it! You'll be happy you did! We need to make sure that we are praising students for the good work they do, and making sure that it's more than just a “hey good!” We should tell them what you're really proud of. Be a great listener. It’s such an important skill in normal situations. Right now, with so much uncertainty listening can make a huge difference for kids. It’s a skill that we all need, especially now with the communication and technology piece.

So this presentation is about motivation. How do you get kids motivated? I always mention to them about trying things that relate to managing your time better, taking some time for you, exercise, be with your friends (socially not in person!) Along with this, is having pride in your work. Mentioning to them about doing their best work because they want to excel and not for a grade but for themselves can be tough, but with practice can really make a difference. Many kids are also afraid to take a risk, which leads to our last one. That’s challenging them to be better every single day. Students in large part want to be challenged especially if it's coming from your heart and you really mean it. Yes it has to be positive! No matter the grade level, kids want that and if you just keep the challenges manageable for them they won't get frustrated.

On to the family peace. Like I’ve mentioned previously, families are going through hard times. Whether it’s health issues, financial problems, or just coping with the daily life of uncertainty. Having two teens myself, I'm doing all I can to try to motivate my family. Here are some things that may be helpful: number one, be appreciative of what other families are going through. I know that other situations may be far worse than mine, so it helps me to be appreciative of what they're going through, and understanding that a non-judgmental attitude or positive approach to helping them will help create a motivated family situation. Be aware that some parents don't understand where we're coming from, and they might not always agree on how things are handled. But we really do need to be positive with them, if we expect the motivation to increase. I make a point to stress the importance of us working together. It really does take a team effort. When things are tough, don’t be the teacher who complains about their child. Instead, mention what their kids are doing well. Nothing is going to get a parent motivated like you calling up and saying, hey I love what your kids doing in class!” I’ve witnessed many situations where after contacting them with a positive message, they will go right back to their son or daughter and mention that their teacher called and said, you're doing a great job!” It also helps them to see the light at the end of a tunnel. As a teacher of many seniors, I am trying so hard to do this not always successfully. It’s the constant talk about how I'm going to help you get through it and that in the end you’ll be okay. Even though it sounds like a stretch, there are new skills that families are developing at home. Learning how to manage time, being creative with family time, and actually spending much more time together is a great motivator. One final important point. Many families may not ask for help. Give it anyway. Just by inquiring about their child will be a great motivational tool to provide that little push that can make a difference.

On to the final educator piece. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. This has been one of the greatest challenges staying motivated. There are strategies which will work though. The first thing I’d say is to be positive even when it's easy to look at all the negative stuff around us, it really does work. Next, is the same flexibility piece that we show with students. We have to be flexible with ourselves. I’ve done so many takes of this presentation and I know it’s not perfect because of the situation. We can’t beat ourselves up over these types of things. Instead, let’s learn from them, grow as people and educators. Taking these challenges is one of the greatest rewards of being a teacher. When we do challenge ourselves, we must stay on task if something doesn't work the first time. With our current situation, we are all learning on the fly. Trying to accomplish everything at one time will cause fatigue and a loss in confidence. Instead, a better, more effective approach is to think small first instead of trying to cover every single thing that you’d do in a regular class. Something simple like an announcement to your student may be a small sign that you haven't tried before. If you start small it's going to pay off big-time. Keep in mind that most educators are going through the same things we are. By being patient and surrounding yourself with positive people you’ll become more motivated. Before you know it, the people who are sharing your motivation and positivity will find somebody else. Lastly, allow yourself a pat on the back. You're worth it!

Anybody who knows me, knows I am always doing acronyms. So I did an acronym for the word motivate. Let’s quickly go through it. The M is for me, and what that means is that motivation no matter what starts with us, yes I'm going to mention having others around you but first we have to get ourselves motivated. The O is for being open for mistakes happening, because we're going to make them no matter what. The T even though I just mentioned the part is the team part. It’s just as important to make sure that you are surrounding yourself with other motivated people to help you. Whether it is your friends, family or fellow educators. They are there to support you.

As a health teacher, I talk a lot about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I like to think I am intrinsically motivated, but we all need that little I, which is incentive. Even a phrase or something that’s going to inspire you to do a little more. With that, we have to be willing to Venture out of your comfort zone and into uncharted waters. Yes, it can be challenging and sometimes scary, but if you do it enough they really pay off. Once you start to Achieve small steps and goals, you get to the point of building habits. You'll understand more when I talk about exercise. The biggest thing is if you start out small and you have that little achievement, before you know it you have developed a habit of being positive, working hard, and inspiring others. So whatever you plan on doing to get motivated, Take the challenge, it'll pay off and lastly, be Excited! I mean, get excited about being motivated. Get excited about helping others. If you do that it's going to have a long-lasting change and improve your positivity.

Everybody, I'm wrapping up! A huge thank-you! I hope you enjoyed the presentation, and more importantly, I hope that you were able to pick up one tip that inspired you, and made you smile. Even pass something on to your students and their families, and even to others that you know. Remember, building a motivated mindset starts with you. I have a short closing video. Hopefully you’ll check it out. Have a wonderful day! Stay safe, stay happy, get motivated!

Brainstorm 2020

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: