Teaching with Technology

Using educational technology to enhance the learning environment and increase student engagement!

Asking for Student Feedback

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Happy Sunday, friends! Missouri is finally beginning to thaw from our experience with the polar vortex earlier this week. We experienced actual temperatures of 0 degrees with -15-degree wind chills – it was INSANE! Today, we’re expecting temperatures of 60 degrees + and will be taking full advantage of the awesome weather by having as much outside time as possible! In addition to enjoying the fantastic weather this weekend, I’m also preparing for a week of technology in the Social Studies classroom trainings with the Institute for Educational Development. As I typically do when I’m prepping presentations, I ask my students for their feedback on what I should include in the presentations, and what I should tell other Social Studies teachers about using technology in the classroom.

Quick backstory – there is a lot happening in my classroom on a daily basis. Asynchronous learning is everywhere. We use unit HyperDocs in my American Government classes which always follow this pattern:

Pre-Assessment and Learning Targets –> Before beginning a unit, students complete a pre-assessment that is tied to the learning targets for the unit. Then, they chart their pre-assessment data and their goal for each learning target on a Spreadsheet I share with them through Classroom. At the end of the unit, they go back to their chart and enter their post-assessment data, and are able to actually SEE how much they’ve grown.

Explore –> Students familiarize themselves with the content of the unit, specifically focusing on new vocabulary and fun information about the new topic. For example, in our Constitution unit, the students found out which founding father they were most like in this Buzzfeed-like quiz. In our Legislative Branch unit, they were introduced to their elected legislators with a “choose your own” adventure type of Google Form in which they learned about congressional committee assignments, the background of elected officials, sponsored and co-sponsored bills, etc.

Explain –> In this step, students actively interact with content through instructional videos. I create my instructional videos using Screencastify and include formative assessment, monitor student progress, and provide feedback using Edpuzzle. Students take notes as they proceed through the videos, either on a Google Doc or using paper/pencil.

Apply –> Students choose how they will demonstrate what they’ve learned through the unit using a Show What You Know Bingo board on the Apply page of our HyperDoc. Students can choose from a variety of products to create and

Collaborate –> Students work with their peers in this step to accomplish a learning target, most often related to a landmark Supreme Court case, content related concept – like Gerrymandering, etc.

Review –> I include links to Kahoot!, Quizizz, or Quizlet review games so my students can access this information at any time.

Extend –> Students who finish assignments early can choose to complete extension activities to earn bonus XP in our class. More on XP and gamification in Chapter 8 of Illuminate!

Formative Assessment –> We formatively assess daily whether it’s through a Kahoot!, Quizizz, or Quizlet Live game, a Google Form, a Padlet, or a thumbs up/fist to five hand signal. It’s so important for me to know where my students are so I can help them get to where they need to be!

Spiraling Content –> We have days, at least twice a month, where we “go back in time” to a different unit, spiraling learning. This allows students to frequently review previously learned concepts, and hopefully connect those concepts with content they’re learning currently.

Like I said, a lot happens in my classroom! It’s messy … but learning isn’t a neat and orderly happening.

Like so many teachers, I’m always hesitant to ask for student feedback. It’s vitally important to my teaching, but I’m scared to do it. Yes, test scores steadily improve from year to year, but test scores are the most important thing in my classroom – I want my students to learn and grow as people and have fun doing so. The reason I’m so hesitant to ask for feedback is because I’M SCARED! You can always count on students to give you an honest answer about your teaching and how they’re feeling in their classroom. I pour my heart and soul into teaching and it’s terrifying to ask someone to give you what you will know will be brutally honest feedback about this work!

What was their feedback, you ask?

“Tell them about those HyperDoc things.”

“And the part where we don’t have to do worksheets, we make games and slideshows and stuff.”

“Tell them to do the pre and post-test things where we can chart our progress.”

“Make sure they know how to use Kahoot! and Quizizz and Quizlet Live.”

“Don’t forget about Heads Up!”

“Show them Edpuzzle and how we can learn at our own pace.”

Hearing their feedback — things they want me to tell other Social Studies teachers how to use in their classroom — was so fantastic and reaffirmed for me that they appreciate the learning environment I’ve created. My teacher-heart is swelling with pride.

How often do you ask for student feedback?

Thanks for reading 🙂

December Mystery Post – Teaching with Technology

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Happy December! Holy moly, this semester has FLOWN by! I feel like I just shared my November Mystery Post and BAM! December is knocking on the door! So … what, oh what, will the topic of this month’s mystery post be? What technology tool or integration strategy will I share?? Hmmmmmm…

DRUMROLL, PLEASE…

The topic of the December Mystery Post is …FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT!

That’s right! I absolutely love formative assessment tools! Whether it’s Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, Flipgrid, Head’s Up, QR Code review activities, or a quick “fist to five” to determine “where students are” in regard to their understanding of course content. Formative assessment is VITALLY important in my classroom, as I’m sure it is in your classroom as well. Teachers need to know how their students are progressing, what needs to be reviewed/reinforced, all of which can be addressed by good formative assessment.

If you’ve read Illuminate (thank you!) you know I ask this question, “did you get excited about formative assessment when you were a student?” I never thought as a teacher that my students would BEG for formative assessment – but they don’t think of games that encourage them to review content through competition, teamwork, use of cell phones, or memes as an “assessment.” It’s AWESOME!

What are your favorite formative assessment tools or strategies?

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

 

Back to School Planning: Kahoot Update

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Happy Sunday, all! I’m continuing today with my back to school planning series, and focusing on one of my favorite tools – I know I say that a lot! – Kahoot! The great people at Kahoot introduced a new game option on Twitter last week, and teachers around the world will love it!

 

When launching a Kahoot activity, teachers have the option to use “classic” or “team mode” as well as the following:

You’ll notice that “enable 2-step join” is listed as a game option. Turning this feature on will require students to jump through an extra hoop when they join a Kahoot game which will prevent (or at least drastically reduce the chances) random people from popping in your class activity!

I’m not saying that my students have suddenly appeared in another Kahoot game by typing random numbers as a game pin, and I’m not saying that they haven’t 🙂

As for the other game options – here’s a quick rundown of the features we use in my classroom:

–> Answer Streak Bonus — use it and love it!
–> Name Generator — we tried it once and my students much prefer to enter their own gamer tags (Check out Chapter 8 of Illuminate for more info on gamer tags!)
–> Podium — yup!
–> Randomize order of questions — we definitely use this option because we review content frequently in my classroom, and I don’t recreate a Kahoot every time we review that content!
–> Randomize order of answers — same as above 🙂 The point of reviewing the content we learn frequently is not to determine whether or not students can memorize which color goes with each answer option!
–> Enable 2-step join — super pumped about this one!
–> Display game pin throughout — most definitely! This is especially helpful for students who have wifi difficulty or come to class late
–> Show minimized intro instructions — nah. My students are QUITE familiar with the ins and outs of Kahoot
–> Automatically move through questions — nope. I do not use this feature because, depending on the responses from my students, I may spend more time discussing the content of specific questions to ensure understanding before we proceed.
–> Require players to rejoin after each Kahoot — nope. I’d rather not focus on “hey what was the pin again?” as we proceed through the class period!

What Kahoot game options do you use in your classroom?

Thanks for reading 🙂

Fabulous Updates to Google Forms

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Google has unveiled yet ANOTHER fantastic addition to the already wonderful Google Forms. Now, with the flip of a (digital) switch, teachers can view data by individual student or question, provide students with feedback on each question, grade subjective questions, AND award partial points per question! Woohoo!

To get started, create a Google Form and turn on the “quiz” feature through settings. Here are the options I chose for my quiz settings in Google Forms… notice that I uncheck the correct answers option and select the “release after review” option.

While in settings, be sure to choose “collect email address” in your options. This will allow your students to view their score and your individual comments on their responses.

To view the data from your quiz, select “responses,” where you will see a more useful selection of data-viewing options! You can choose to view the summary of the data, which provides a bar graph with question responses – this is not a new feature – or, you can view data by individual student or question. If you choose to view data by individual student, you will be able to provide specific feedback on each question and can share this information with your kiddos via email. If you choose to view information by question, you will be able to see how your students have performed on each question – this is PERFECT for formative (and summative) assessments!

By choosing to view data by question teachers can also award partial points for responses! I can’t tell you how many times teachers have asked me how to award partial points … Google came through!

This update for Google Forms is FABULOUS! I can’t wait to see what comes next!

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

New Formative Assessment Tool – Triventy

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I honestly have no idea how I stumbled upon Triventy … does that ever happen to you? It wasn’t Pinterest or Twitter, I don’t think it was in any newsletter I subscribe to. When I share tools I find with you,  I like to also show you how I found it. Hmm. Oh well! Be sure to add Triventy to your formative assessment arsenal! Here’s how it works in my classroom.

Triventy is a gamified formative assessment tool, similar to Kahoot or Quizizz. Teachers can create games and can easily share them with their students via link or through Google Classroom. Games can be public or private and teachers can search (and modify) existing public games to fit the needs of their students.

To create a FREE account with Triventy, make sure the slider is on “education” and not “events” on the home page.

Next, choose “sign up” and choose “sign in with Google.” Be sure to sign in with the Google account you use to access Classroom — if you want to be able to post Triventy games on Classroom, that is 🙂 I know I’ve said this before, but how awesome is it to be able to sign in/ sign up with Google and not forget another username and password?!

To create a quiz, simply select “create quiz” on the main screen. Triventy gives quiz creators the option to invite others to collaborate by adding quiz questions. This could make for an interesting class assignment!

When creating a quiz, teachers can determine how long students will be given to answer quiz questions, and can also add an image for the quiz. Teachers can add images for individual questions as well … if you choose to add an image to the quiz, that same image will be added to each question. If you’d like to change the image on individual questions, you’ll have to make that change while editing the questions. 

I think it’s fun to add my bitmoji to the test and question images 🙂

Triventy provides a quiz question option and a survey option. Teachers can also include hints for each question or a “did you know” fun tidbit of information to display at the end of the question.

 

Be sure to add Triventy to your formative assessment toolbox!

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

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