The Power of Video for Fluency Practice!

 

Trying to work with students 6 feet apart on fluency skills while in mask is a challenge. I have been modeling fluency skills but was trying to wrap my head around how to best support students with their growth in oral reading. I had an idea and decided to test it out on a Wednesday since the entire class is remote.

There is a lot of power in video as a tool, so I decided to see if I could create a learning experience for students to build their fluency skills. I created an assignment in Google Classroom using Flipgrid for those students with parent permission and Screencastify Submit for those students who did not have permission to use Flipgrid. This was a great way to push the assignment out, as every child had the same assignment even if the tool was different.

 

I spent some time watching the first two minutes of each video. Laughter escaped my lips as students greeted me and shared which book they were reading. Some students found picture books and made time to share the pictures and others did the same with graphic novels. I was not expecting any of that, so it warmed my teacher heart that students felt the video was an extension of a conversation between us. Using Flipgrid I was able to give students direct feedback in the app. This is a great feature of Flipgrid! Students who used Screencastify Submit I was able to email directly.

I commented on student successes and then gave some constructive feedback about what to work on for the next time. Students read in longer phrases but needed to pause at punctuation. Others read with intonation while some read at the same speed and voice. This was an opportunity to discuss voice when we read aloud! I modeled different ways to read out loud. The first time I read I was told I sounded like a boring robot. The second time students identified how I changed my voice and how engaging I was as a reader.

Tomorrow students are tasked with responding to my feedback. I have asked them to share a goal they have to improve their fluency. Discussions with students can happen over video and email. After all, it is about building relationships with our students!

Bernie, his mittens, and some memes: Making learning relevant

Bernie Sanders and his mittens have taken over our live feeds on various social media platforms, and the global audience following this meme movement is left wondering where he will turn up next. I posed this question to students, and I immediately had a class full of engaged learners ready to tackle this challenge. After a quick Google search we had a variety of Bernie memes to discuss, thinking of design choices made by the creators.

I shared a picture of Bernie Sanders, sitting in the chair and wearing his mittens made by a fellow educator, sorority sister, and UVM classmate of mine. Students were also given a Google Drawing canvas to work on. They were tasked with creating their own Bernie Sanders meme to share with the class. The students were going to share stories of Bernie Sanders with each other, based on the image they created. Their classmates could ask questions about their stories too!

Students then set to work. Soon questions began popping up. They wanted to know how to remove Bernie’s background in the image I had shared and how to reorder images in a Google Drawing. Their inquiries drove the digital skills being taught. Students were introduced to remove.bg and ordering images. I heard laughter as students cleverly chose backgrounds. We spent some time as a class sharing our image creations, asking questions, and growing as community of learners. Each student wanted to share his/her/their meme with a global audience and be part of this Bernie Sanders movement.

Engaging students in storytelling and listening to their ideas reminded me we need to be designing lessons that are relevant to students. Some of the best teaching can happen in the moment! We also need to allow our students’ questions to drive the learning. Designing learning experiences that students will remember for a lifetime should be our end goal. My students might never remember the arduous hours we have put in to learn how divide, but I am sure they will remember creating these memes and the stories behind some of them.

 Bernie came to visit us in our class Google Meet. This meme created also showed student's understanding of data privacy as we blocked out the Meet code, link, and names. 

Bernie in some NFL trouble. 

Bernie attended a birthday party! 

Bernie was a tourist at the Great Wall of China! 

Bernie is the new basketball! 

Among Us is Coming to our 5th Grade Class!

 Among Us has stormed through our students’ lives, and it seems to be all the rage! When designing lessons it is important to try to connect and engage students with content, providing learning experiences they will remember. So what better way to do this than to design an Among Us themed unit?

Inspired by Carrie Baughcum and Adam Bold, over break I created an Among Us activity for students that covers various Massachusetts learning standards. It can be adapted for other standards of teaching and learning. However I focused not only on content but also on speaking and listening and digital skills. 

I dropped hints to students that Among Us would be coming soon. I got the slow clap like an 1980s movie from several students.

Over the course of two weeks I randomly commented that Among Us was coming to our class. Students had lots of questions, but I chose to let them talk and try to figure out what I could mean. Several students said right away they would not be using the app on a device due to data privacy issues and age restrictions. They were correct in their thinking. 

This morning I unveiled the first slide, so students would know I was serious that I created an activity for them that will take place on Wednesday mornings! I showed them the title slide, and I asked them to think about what I could have made. Here is what students thought: 

• Whoever has most imposters wins

• Someone is going to put a clue out every week and we need to figure out who imposter is

• When we do the activity you will give us a card and it will give us who we are and we have to try to vote who the imposter is

• During the lessons we do on Wednesdays you will fit a clue in one of them and we have to figure out what it is and who did it

• I do not think it will be with the real game and we are not allowed to play it because we are not of age

• Trivia/treasure hunt and crewmates trying to figure it out and imposter slowing them down

• Trivia of different maps of what imposter is and what crewmates can and cannot do

• Have to make something and it involves Among Us and whoever makes the best one wins

• It will be like the mafia game where you have to sit and close your eyes and we will have to vote someone out 

One student guessed closely to what we will be doing, but I would not tell them who. I left them wondering what we would be doing, until next week when I share more about our plans to play Among Us as a fifth grade class. Leaving them in suspense only caused them to want to know more! 

PIIs and Among Us: A Morning Meeting Full of Engaged Learners

 
Recently when I hop on to our class Google Meet I have a lot of this staring back at me:
                                    
When I asked students what or who that was they told me about this game they were playing, Among Us. I heard about crewmates, an imposter, and tasks. They excitedly asked if I could play with them, which I told them I did not even have the app to play. I decided it would be fun to check it out to connect with students. What I did not expect was two morning meetings devoted to an Among Us discussion.

We had been talking about community as a class. This game certainly fosters community among its players, so I asked my students for tips and tricks for playing Among Us. I had students clamoring to share ideas. Engagement was sky high. I also listened to students sharing their parents would not let them play. I asked students to be mindful as this is something not everyone is involved in, as they asked to play a game with classmates.

That night I went home and delved into the Among Us Privacy policy, as I was curious about the PIIs it collects. I came across this:
 

I began to wonder what students really know and understand about PIIs. We had discussed this in terms of our blogging, but we had not had a conversation about what happens when you approve an app on a device.

Our second morning meeting I started by asking students what they thought Among Us collected in the Google chat box in our meet. Students’ ideas ranged from why would they collect anything to names, location, address, school, etc. I started reading through the information they collect and was met with cries of how is that even fair or why would they do that. We had a conversation about what you could be agreeing to when you download an app on a device and the importance of looking for the PII collected. I even suggested students talk to their parents about this. Students were also surprised players of Among Us should be at least 16 years old. I told them sadly I could not play with them. 

At the end of our discussion I set up three polls to capture student thinking on our morning meetings over the past two days. I asked students if they agreed or disagreed with the idea that PII should be collected. 5 students agreed, 7 disagreed, and 9 were feeling neutral. I asked if they knew companies collected information on them. 13 students responded yes while 7 said no. Lastly, I asked if they would consider looking at the PIIs collected before downloading or signing up for something. 11 said yes. 2 said no, and 7 said they would think about it. I am glad 18 agents will look or think about looking moving forward.

I encourage parents and educators to talk to their children who are under age and using these applications. It is important they are aware of data collection and how data privacy impacts us all.

Building Relationships with Students Through Badges

Last spring I saw the benefit of including a badge program to motivate and engage learners. I wrapped my head around how to create a more sustainable badge program for my elementary students before school started. Thanks to Slides Mania I found a fabulous passport slide deck I could use to house student badges.

The BIG question was: How can I create a system that is sustainable and manageable and means something to students. I reflected on the badges I had already created, many of which would not work given we were returning to a full day schedule of school. Thinking about some of the things I used to have pre pandemic I began crafting a few badges. An encouragement badge from last spring was used for students who encourage others to try new things. I have a homework badge for students who complete all home assignments by Friday afternoon. A kindness badge was created next. Our school has an estimation station so any student who guesses correctly would receive an estimation badge, which was also used when we pivoted to remote learning last spring. I had created a badge with the school district logo for something during remote learning and changed that to the school spirit badge. Then I added a participation badge and BrainPOP badge.

I took a pause and thought, why am I coming up with ideas when I now have a class of kids who can drive the badge program. I kicked off our badge passport program last week, explaining what badges were and how to earn ones created. Then I told students I was looking for more ways to give out badges and would any students be interested in coming up with ideas and designing badges. I had several willing students. I divided them up by cohort and met with them at lunch. We brainstormed as a group, and then I showed them how to use Google Drawings to create the badges. When they were done, they shared their creations with me. I added a text box with their name, because I felt it important to give the student credit for creating the badge.

Our class now has a specials badge, which our classroom specialists were thrilled to take part in and honor students in our class. We added a listening badge for students who use good listening skills. A facing challenges badge was made to celebrate students who persevere. One student came up with the idea for an effort badge while another wanted to make a goal badge for classmates who reach goals both in and out of school. A guidelines badge was designed for students who followed our class guidelines, and classmate badge was added to our badge program for those students supporting classmates. I loved that our badges focus more on what it means to be a good community member than content.

When students earn badges it provides me an opportunity to email him/her/them and CC parents to celebrate why he/she/they is earning a badge. I just emailed a student to let him know I noticed his increased participation and raising his hand, which was something he wanted to work on. By giving out badges I am also building relationships with students I have yet to physically meet.

Designing a Google Classroom for Elementary Students with a Human Centered Approach

When designing a Google Classroom for elementary students I began to create one classroom with various topics.

 

 

As the topic list grew, I began to wonder if students would want one Google classroom for a 5^th grade class or would they prefer separate classrooms by subject with a secret agent hub (homeroom for things not content related). I reached out to two MassCUE peers, who both had differing opinions with great reasons. One friend said to create one classroom for consistency, ease of use, and less notifications to families. A second friend suggested multiple classrooms to be used as pods with a homeroom classroom. She also gave the idea of color coding each individual classroom created. After listening and thinking I decided the best way to decide was to ask former 5^th grade students.

 

I met with a small focus group of former students and showed them what I had created. They saw the classroom set up and most of them immediately said I should do one classroom. When I asked them why they felt having one place to go to with a Google Meet link would be helpful. They would have less email notifications for them and parents, and fewer classes to manage. They liked the idea of everything in once place. One student offered that I should create multiple classrooms to able to add more for the content areas than what he was seeing. When I politely explained I would add more as the year went on in one classroom and that what he was seeing was just the start of the year he quickly changed his thinking.

 

I was excited to build an online community for our future agents. The first thing I did was remove notifications from the stream.

 

 

 

This helps keep the stream less cluttered. I designed a classroom banner in Google Draw to add some personal flair to our online home.  I challenged myself to think about best practices and decided to include emojis and fonts to support visual learners. Thanks to Holly Clark's suggestion, I created an emoji guide for students too, so they would know what the images meant. I learned how to do this through a YouTube video posted below.

 

 

I thought about a human centered approach, focusing first on relationship building activities. I know the content pieces will come, but I was easily able to start adapting activities done in a physical space for an online space. I strongly recommend educators start with the good work they are already doing when contemplating where to start in building a Google Classroom for remote and hybrid learning.

 

Helpful Links:

 

EmojiCopy

Emojipedia

Fancy Text Guru

Fancy Text Pro

Lessons Learned in #Remotelearning This Summer

 Our classroom is student driven, so students often make some big decisions! I asked students in June if any of them wanted to continue with remote learning over the summer, and many said yes. Students designed the schedule, suggesting we meet twice a week for an hour each session. They asked me to prepare engaging leaning experiences that included the read aloud book I started before school closed. After reflecting back on our experiences this summer, I realized there was so much good that came out of continuing to build our classroom community remotely for our students. They were faced with having a summer like no other, so I was pleased I could support them in activities to keep their minds engaged and their hearts connected to their classroom community. Here are some lessons I learned and activities you might want to try adapting for your own learners!

 

1.     Give students a plan for the meeting so they know what to expect. Always send an agenda, so students know what to except. It is ok to be flexible and amend the agenda with students, but they appreciate knowing what the plan is ahead of time. Thanks to Laura Cahill for creating this template. It really worked well to help us all stay on track.

 

2.     Engage students in real world discussions. I created a current events activity for students. They loved being able to share their perspectives around the protests, Juneteenth, and the Black Lives Matter movement. These topics were not part of the current standards in our 5^th grade curriculum. These led to conversations about media literacy and source checking, forming an opinion from a news story, and accepting when other’s think differently then you. These are real like skills for students to explore!

 

 

3.     Provide opportunities for building relationships. Students loved connecting with each other over games, whether it was a group math game or board games that can be played in a virtual setting. Game play also allowed me to focus on student’s social and emotional wellbeing. We laughed a lot and were challenged to think critically and creatively.

4.     Create some learning experiences that offer choice. Students could work on a choice board in between our meets. The choice board consisted of activities in different subject areas. One of the activities was creating a Wonderopolis Google Site, which embedded technology literacy into the lesson. Thanks to Tracy Leighton for her shared materials that inspired this Choice Board!

 

5.     Support students where they are. Students had an optional summer reading program, and to support that initiative I asked students to make a Netflix Book Trailer for their summer reading book. Thanks to Nick LaFave for the template and Zachary Mcdermott for the inspiration!

 

 

6.     Expand their knowledge through experts. I always seek ways to bring other voices into our student’s lives. Jason Reynolds created a dynamic writing hub for students called Write. Right. Rite. His videos were short, entertaining, and draw listeners in! He provided students with a task that can be created using paper, pencil, or digital tools. Our learning was enriched through our discussions of work created.

 

7.     Connect work to previous learning activities. Our students were lucky enough to be paired with Chris Tebbetts, author of the Stranded and co-author of the Middle School Series, through #Kidsneedmentors. He had come to visit us physically and virtually during the school year to support our young authors! Over the summer students were invited to imagine they were stranded in the middle school. I was able to secure a map of the middle school for our students to familiarize themselves with. Students were challenged to write their own versions of Stranded. We had some very colorful tales written!

 

 

8.     Challenge students to explain their thinking. Students had the opportunity to explain their thinking in an activity called Which One Are You? I got the idea from Andre Daughty. I simply created a Google Slide to share with four related imaged and asked students which one they prefer. Listening to students explain why they chose the image they chose taught us a lot about them! Some students even wanted to change their minds after hearing the rational of classmate’s choices.

 

As the school year approaches I plan to take these lessons with me as I begin to envision how to build a community remotely. It is possible to take best practices into the remote world!