I am not a teacher... yet! So, coming to this assignment as someone from the outside, I have seen so many teachers step up to the challenge and it is incredible!
My cousin is a teacher and, while she's on maternity leave currently, she got in her car and formed a parade with the other teachers from her school and they drove through the neighborhoods where their students live so those kids knew they were still important, even if the schools are closed. I follow some teachers on Instagram and one, Ms. Bensko at maniacsinthemiddle, is still dressing up in crazy outfits that she wears to begin units and recording video messages to students to try to keep life normal for students. In the podcast I listened to for last week, teachers from that district (including the interviewee) were going in district vehicles driven by bus drivers along their school routes and hand delivering school work and food to students. My 1st graders' teacher, Mr. Seiders, has sent out messages on Class Dojo to encourage the kids to keep learning and to make sure they know he is still there I might have cried reading it) and restructured his green point system to be what students get done at home based on pictures that parents send him each day (do you know how many pictures he has to go through each day?!). Basically, I have seen so many examples of teachers handling the change in stride and doing their absolute best to keep their students connected and learning.
via GIPHY
I think, if I had a class right now, I would be trying to record daily messages for students to listen to. Depending on the district policy for social media, if I was able to have a professional Instagram that students and parents could follow, I would try to post a story daily that included learning goals and a picture or video from my own day. I think social media has been villainized so much, but in this situation, it is such a good way of keeping connected to the outside world. I would also send out daily reminders through email (trying to keep them fun and light-hearted). I know that in our district, they are not yet doing video chat lessons or meetups, but if that was a possibility, I would try to do zoom or Google hangout sessions with students. If not daily, then 2-3 times a week. I would also create a calendar with "office hours" split into 20 minute increments for students to reserve times to video chat if they had questions or concerns.
Onto the assignment this week...
I tried out so many tools. I am building Google classrooms with lessons in two other courses as well and the thing that I am struggling with the most is trying to make the learning authentic when real hands on activities can only be a suggestion and not something that I can mediate.
First, I went through two activities on Discovery Education's website that linked to TGR EDU Explore.
Following nature's lead focuses on how humans take what they observe in nature and use it to create new products and inventions. The module focuses on squid and three areas of research: a material scientist, an engineer, and a bio-engineer. The module starts with identifying the external and internal structures and what they do for the squid. It then moves into the scientists explaining their research and what they hope to accomplish and you have to match their research interest with the squid body part that they could base their inventions off of. That one was pretty interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for.
The next one was Tracing Life's Roots. With that one, you were given 4 animals and you went through the evidence for common ancestry and compared the four animals in each category (embryological, anatomical, and genetic) to determine which were the most closely related. I liked that one, but again, not exactly what I was looking for.
So, I went back to the list on the shared Google Doc for ideas. I decided to look into Kahoot more for this assignment because I had heard lot about it and know a few other people who had used.
I went on to Kahoot and made an account. Getting started was a little confusing. I was not really sure what to do. So, I started by taking a few Kahoots that were already made. I think the best thing about the program is that the time limits and point comparisons really can bring out a competitive side to students. The game play is very similar to the trivia competitions that we used to play as a family at Buffalo Wild Wings in Texas which were super fun and we all really got into it. You would sign in and play in real time against people from other Buffalo Wild Wings in other places. We never won, but we had a blast.
Anyways, my original plan was to create my own Kahoot, but when I started to look at how to do that I quickly realized that it was going to take a lot more time than I had expected. Had I upgraded to Kahoot premium it would have streamlined the process because I would have had access to their image library rather than having to go out to and find and save each image that I planned to use in the quiz questions. Truthfully, I could have built a quiz without using visuals, but I really think the visuals add a lot to the game.
Luckily, there were quite a few pre-made Kahoots, so I found one that best aligned with a video that I had found on the subject and planned to provide as material to help everyone review the topic before trying the game (if they wanted) and I made a copy of it and clicked the "play" button and assigned it straight to my Google classroom. Once I was in there, I scheduled the Kahoot! game assignment to be released the next day so I would have time to make my vocabulary list and add the video both as supplemental material.
Overall, the process was really easy once I decided to use a pre-made Kahoot! Had I been actually teaching and had specific information that I wanted students to review for an exam, I would have devoted the time to actually make a Kahoot and from what I saw from the process, it seemed like an easy process, even if the image mining was going to be a little time consuming.
I would definitely recommend this resource for an online class. I think the games are fun to play and the scoring can keep students motivated to do well. This would probably be best for a review activity to review vocabulary and simple concepts, but it could also be used to gauge student knowledge before and after teaching a unit to show students how much they learned and to introduce a new topic in a more fun way.
My cousin is a teacher and, while she's on maternity leave currently, she got in her car and formed a parade with the other teachers from her school and they drove through the neighborhoods where their students live so those kids knew they were still important, even if the schools are closed. I follow some teachers on Instagram and one, Ms. Bensko at maniacsinthemiddle, is still dressing up in crazy outfits that she wears to begin units and recording video messages to students to try to keep life normal for students. In the podcast I listened to for last week, teachers from that district (including the interviewee) were going in district vehicles driven by bus drivers along their school routes and hand delivering school work and food to students. My 1st graders' teacher, Mr. Seiders, has sent out messages on Class Dojo to encourage the kids to keep learning and to make sure they know he is still there I might have cried reading it) and restructured his green point system to be what students get done at home based on pictures that parents send him each day (do you know how many pictures he has to go through each day?!). Basically, I have seen so many examples of teachers handling the change in stride and doing their absolute best to keep their students connected and learning.
via GIPHY
I think, if I had a class right now, I would be trying to record daily messages for students to listen to. Depending on the district policy for social media, if I was able to have a professional Instagram that students and parents could follow, I would try to post a story daily that included learning goals and a picture or video from my own day. I think social media has been villainized so much, but in this situation, it is such a good way of keeping connected to the outside world. I would also send out daily reminders through email (trying to keep them fun and light-hearted). I know that in our district, they are not yet doing video chat lessons or meetups, but if that was a possibility, I would try to do zoom or Google hangout sessions with students. If not daily, then 2-3 times a week. I would also create a calendar with "office hours" split into 20 minute increments for students to reserve times to video chat if they had questions or concerns.
Onto the assignment this week...
I tried out so many tools. I am building Google classrooms with lessons in two other courses as well and the thing that I am struggling with the most is trying to make the learning authentic when real hands on activities can only be a suggestion and not something that I can mediate.
First, I went through two activities on Discovery Education's website that linked to TGR EDU Explore.
Following nature's lead focuses on how humans take what they observe in nature and use it to create new products and inventions. The module focuses on squid and three areas of research: a material scientist, an engineer, and a bio-engineer. The module starts with identifying the external and internal structures and what they do for the squid. It then moves into the scientists explaining their research and what they hope to accomplish and you have to match their research interest with the squid body part that they could base their inventions off of. That one was pretty interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for.
The next one was Tracing Life's Roots. With that one, you were given 4 animals and you went through the evidence for common ancestry and compared the four animals in each category (embryological, anatomical, and genetic) to determine which were the most closely related. I liked that one, but again, not exactly what I was looking for.
So, I went back to the list on the shared Google Doc for ideas. I decided to look into Kahoot more for this assignment because I had heard lot about it and know a few other people who had used.
I went on to Kahoot and made an account. Getting started was a little confusing. I was not really sure what to do. So, I started by taking a few Kahoots that were already made. I think the best thing about the program is that the time limits and point comparisons really can bring out a competitive side to students. The game play is very similar to the trivia competitions that we used to play as a family at Buffalo Wild Wings in Texas which were super fun and we all really got into it. You would sign in and play in real time against people from other Buffalo Wild Wings in other places. We never won, but we had a blast.
Anyways, my original plan was to create my own Kahoot, but when I started to look at how to do that I quickly realized that it was going to take a lot more time than I had expected. Had I upgraded to Kahoot premium it would have streamlined the process because I would have had access to their image library rather than having to go out to and find and save each image that I planned to use in the quiz questions. Truthfully, I could have built a quiz without using visuals, but I really think the visuals add a lot to the game.
Luckily, there were quite a few pre-made Kahoots, so I found one that best aligned with a video that I had found on the subject and planned to provide as material to help everyone review the topic before trying the game (if they wanted) and I made a copy of it and clicked the "play" button and assigned it straight to my Google classroom. Once I was in there, I scheduled the Kahoot! game assignment to be released the next day so I would have time to make my vocabulary list and add the video both as supplemental material.
Overall, the process was really easy once I decided to use a pre-made Kahoot! Had I been actually teaching and had specific information that I wanted students to review for an exam, I would have devoted the time to actually make a Kahoot and from what I saw from the process, it seemed like an easy process, even if the image mining was going to be a little time consuming.
I would definitely recommend this resource for an online class. I think the games are fun to play and the scoring can keep students motivated to do well. This would probably be best for a review activity to review vocabulary and simple concepts, but it could also be used to gauge student knowledge before and after teaching a unit to show students how much they learned and to introduce a new topic in a more fun way.
I loved the Kahoot! game it was entertaining and educational at the same time. You mention some really great ideas for keeping in contact with students during these challenging days. I like the ideas of using Kahoot! to review materials and to gauge student knowledge before beginning a unit.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a teacher, I would being doing exactly what you mentioned: posting a daily video with a message or story. There is a preschool teacher in Loudoun that is posting on Facebook daily and the people watch are her students and random strangers. News 4 had a segment on her and how she is saving them and the children are engaged.
ReplyDeleteKahoot is an awesome way to review. I'm glad they they have a library of already done material. That saves teachers a lot of time. My son is in high school and he said he has to do one every time the class meets on Zoom. It is their refresher before the lecture.
Video as a means to communicate is something that we touched on early in the course. We did not get into the recording of messages for purposes mentioned above. The response is a reflection of people's need to stay connected and the use of these tools has become more prominent to help fulfill that need.
ReplyDeleteThe use of video to convey content and and introduce or review content is more in line with what we discussed earlier in the course combining the digital resource with a review/assessment tool is a good pairing. It keeps student in tune with the content and the teacher in tune with the students.