Skip to main content

Never Say Never

Quick rundown of new ideas I have implemented in my teaching and shared with my colleagues after attending PETE&C 2016: Kahoot, Classcraft, Aurasma, Google Chrome, and Chromebooks. Plus, a more refined focus on blended learning, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Slides, and not to mention building my PLN more. I'd say PETE&C was worth it.
Kahoot, the engaging formative assessment tool that students and teachers love, went over extremely well with my students as they used their Chromebooks to answer. Every day since using it, at least one student has asked me about when the next time we will be using it.

Classcraft, the classroom-based role-playing game, took off among the students, too. They were extremely excited to setup their avatars and start playing. They also showed me they knew a lot more than I did on the subject matter of XP (experience points), HP (health points), and AP (action points). I think I might have them design a Kahoot formative assessment on the Classcraft vocabulary for me.

Aurasma, the augmented reality app, turned out to be a fantastic way for my daughter to bring her 5K STEM project to life. It was great to see the end product with video of how she put it all together. It was also a good practice run for me before trying it in my classroom.

Google Chrome and Chromebooks have been the topic of two morning sessions at my school, in which my district's Director of Technology and I have teamed up to present to the faculty. We had almost all of the faculty show up for the sessions and got good feedback from them. And in the days that followed, I was being asked more about the topics. The ideas and conversations are definitely headed in the right direction, especially since Chromebooks are just being rolled out and teachers want to use them more and more to engage their students in meaningful ways.
My blended learning classroom has never been running better, especially now that I've tied it into Google Classroom. Students now have clear expectations every day of what the need to accomplish. If they miss class, they can now keep up outside of school. The station-rotation model that I am using (direct instruction, collaboration, and independent learning) are all in play every day. Each station brings something new for the students and gets them up and moving. They are learning how to work together, how to work on their own, how to solve their problems on their own which helps build their growth-mindset, and how to become actively engaged in class.   

For what started out as a very exciting and rocket speed type pace of a year, things are starting to get even more exciting but at a much more calmer rate of speed. It's a good place to be in, and I still have a few other ideas from PETE&C 2016 that I think I could easily work in and like to share with my colleagues. Never thought I'd say this, but I'm kind of anxious for summer to get here and be over so I can get back in the classroom and pick up where I left off.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turns Out Teachers Are Mind Readers (Thanks to Recap)

Imagine if you could hear every single student's thinking, thoughts, and ideas on a topic, and respond to each and every one of them without finding time to schedule individual student conferences. Imagine if your students could let you know how well they understood the topics covered during the week. Imagine how much insight you could get, and how you could adjust your teaching to meet the needs of individual students.   Well, a few weeks ago I came across Recap, a free student video response and reflection app, on my Twitter feed. It allows me to hear every single student's thinking, thoughts, and ideas, allows me to respond to each and every one of them. I checked out the site and immediately put it into action in my class calling the Recap assignments, #flashbackfridays. For 6th graders, not much is cooler than the hashtag.  My 6th grade students instantly took to it. Every one of my students are able to share their insights through a reflective process in a way that...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Force Awakens

Just when I thought I had my blended learning classroom in a good place, everything changed. Half way through the school year, my district decided to pilot a new math series. This meant change. A change I was having trouble dealing with. For about two weeks I struggled and became quite frustrated trying to figure out how this new math series fit into the way I had been running my blended learning classroom. I kept trying to force the math series in but kept getting disastrous results. My struggles and frustration spilled over into my classes. I did not like what I was seeing from the math series, I did not like what I was seeing from my teaching, and I did not like the results I was seeing from my students. Every night I left school feeling disheartened, but determined to make things better the next day. The only problem was I kept trying to force the fix every new day, instead of sitting back, reflecting, and seeing what other solutions came about. I was suffering from a little ca...
Post a Comment
Read more

Did You Send Out the Invites

Do you send out invites to your parties, or do you just hope people hear about them through word of mouth and just show up? Unless you still live at a college frat house, chances are you send out invites. The invitations are an important part to any successful party. Without them, people don't know when, where, or even if there is a party. And it could be the best party ever, but no one would know without the invitations.  Earlier this year,  few of my colleagues and I went to a Breakout EDU workshop. It was something we all had a strong interest in, and something that we were excited to try when we got back to school. But then, something terrible happened. We all went back to work the next day, closed our doors, and started teaching in our own self-induced, solitary confinement classrooms. What we were so excited and energized about doing (and something that required communication and collaboration), faded away as quickly as the next day came. A few weeks went by, and I...
Post a Comment
Read more