What can be learned from negative student interactions

What can be learned from negative student interactions

Some of the most difficult students have a lot more going on behind the scenes than we are aware of. Much of that is out of our control, but how we respond is in our control, and what we learn from it is in our control.

Sometimes the students will tell us why they are acting that way, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we find out later, or we may not. You may only see the behavior, and not know the reasoning behind it.

I have had students who are usually good kids, but are acting out on a particular day. Some of the reasons that I have heard include the following: I was up most of the night because there was a shooting at my house, and the police were there. Students who miss a lot of class may not be because they don’t want to attend. I have a student who misses a lot of school. I have been on her case to attend more regularly. I have tried to call home, but have never been able to speak to anyone. Then I find out that she doesn’t come to school because she is often taking of her brother’s baby, because the baby’s mother is out of the picture, and brother works to support the baby. I have worked with students whose parents are in and out of medical care, and who don’t know where they are sleeping every night.

The stress in some students’ lives is beyond our comprehension, sometimes. Particularly when we figure in the fact that they may not have the role models and support at home to figure out different options. 

Choices we have

All of these things are difficult, and largely out of our hands. However, as a teacher, we have a lot of choices regarding how we react to the situation. You can give sympathy, but be careful not to get drawn into either a soap opera, or to lowering standards and excusing behavior, or academics. It is important for students to know that you still uphold those standards, but are willing to work with them. This means being flexible. You could give an extension. Maybe you allow the student to come in after school and work on an assignment. Maybe you could give an alternative option to complete the assignment.

You could allow the student to have his or her head down for one day, as long as it doesn’t become a habit. Give them a pass to the nurse or counselor if they ask for that.

It is important to show concern, and show that you care, but not to lower your standards. Treat them the way you would want to be treated. Give the student the benefit of the doubt that they are telling the truth, and needs what they are asking you for. Then work with them to develop a plan where they can still be successful and complete their work. Maybe negotiate, if you get some work done, you can go to the counselor during the last 10 minutes. It’s scaffolding really, just not scaffolding of academics. Scaffolding of coping skills and problem solving skills that many of our students don’t have.

Your other options as the teacher are to go to either extreme. Hear their story and excuse them. (This isn’t the most common option). The other option that I have seen is to really draw a hard line. It might sound like this “No, if you are in class you need to be doing work! This is not a place to have your head down!” “Go see your counselor another time, you need to stay in class.” Or worse yet, to take the head down, or refusal to work personally. That might sound like this “Don’t disrespect me! I told you to sit up. In my classroom you have to follow directions.” This really risks alienating students if they feel that you don’t care about them as people. There are bodies of research showing that students need to feel cared about in order to learn successfully. That is discussed more thoroughly here.

What are the Costs and Benefits? 

What are the benefits of taking a more compassionate route? First of all, you can always say ‘no’ the next time, or ramp up the consequences, but it hard to repair your relationship with the students. If it becomes a pattern that you are really concerned about, you can address it differently. However, a student may actually work harder for you because they know that you care. One of my past administrators said to me that if a student is really fixated on leaving (going to the bathroom, nurse, counselor), they aren’t paying attention anyway, so you may as well write them a pass. You are building a relationship with a person, not only teaching academics. By working with them, you are showing them respect. They will (likely) show respect in return. Finally, as young adults, they are working to be more independent, and to problem solve and their own. It is our role to give them the opportunity to do so, give them a little wiggle room to learn, and then help teach them the skills to do so more successfully.

Our education system, as we probably know, is very ‘one size fits all.’ Our students, however, are not one size fits all. This is another step that you can use to instill some flexibility into your classroom, particularly when dealing with diverse students.

If you try any of these strategies, or something similar, leave me a comment below. I’d love to hear how it works out!

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What Are You Wondering? Ask Science in the City

I wanted to share a bit about myself, and give you as my readers, a chance to ask me questions if you have questions. They could be academic, educational, parenting-related, or whatever.

So here are a few bullet points about me:

• I graduated from college with an undergrad degree in environmental science. 
• Worked in environmental consulting for about 3 years. Then pursued my masters. I ended up quitting my job, and picking up quite a bit of tutoring while finishing my masters in Geology. Also took a job as an adjunct, teaching a non-majors “Geology and You” class at a local college
• I loved it! I didn’t find a local job using my masters in Geology, and as I started to think about having children, I didn’t want that much travel. I decided to get my teacher certification.
• Long term sub at a private school with students with learning disabilities
• Worked as an aide, both as a sub, and then got a permanent job during this time in a classroom for students who are mostly classified ED, OHI.
• Completed my teacher certification in Earth Science, LE, and Students with Disabilities. 
• Worked in an urban Title I school for 11 years. Have taught Earth Science, Biology, 7th grade, 8th grade, AP Environmental, and am now working in Virtual Academy, under IT department
• A few years ago started a program to add ESL certification, for content area teachers. Ended up not finishing it, because I would lose seniority and change tenure areas, but took a few classes. 
• My real passions in teaching is seeing student succeed at something that they didn’t think they could do. In some cases this is a student earning college credit, during high school, in an advanced placement class. We are in a district where this doesn’t happen very often. It is a dream for a lot of students! In most cases, this is students who have struggled, whether they are ELL, SPED, or just students with a history of past failure, poor attendance, etc, to have some measure of success! 
• Personally, I am married with two boys, ages 8 and 11 (started middle school!).  My older son has quite a few food allergies, so that has really improved my cooking skills, and my advocacy skills! 
• Outside of teaching I love to be outside, hiking, and cooking. My older son has several food allergies so this has increased my cooking skill! I like to exercise…. I used to do a lot of other crafty hobbies, such as scrapbooking, crochet, and photography. I like to read and listen to podcasts. 

This is your chance to ask me….

What do you want to know? Questions about any of my experiences? A particular situation where you are struggling?

Feel free to ask me in the comments, or come to our Facebook group and join in the conversation and ask me direction! 

How to Use Technology to Differentiate

Using Technology to Make Differentiation Easier

We have all been there. We are supposed to teach students to meet the same standards, but we definitely do NOT have 25 of the same students sitting in front of us! How do you meet these varied needs within one class? You may have student reading at a huge range of grade levels, or students with a wide range of disabilities, and capabilities, or even students for whom English is not their native language. This is where differentiation comes in! Differentiation can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be so overwhelming. You can make some small changes that can have a large impact on your students, and technology can help make that a lot easier for you.

As we probably are already aware, there are many different ways to differentiate. Differentiation is commonly broken down by process, product or content. For any of these methods, technology can be a great tool for differentiation. Here is good basic overview of the three types of differentiation, if this is new for you, or you want a quick refresher. I am not going to rehash all of that, but instead I will seek to give you some tips on how technology can help you differentiation.

Differentiation by Content

Differentiation by content refers to different ways that students could get the content, or perhaps even slightly different content. What students are learning may be different. Some students may get the material through reading, watching a video, small group instructions, or even different videos, or different reading levels. Students could even read text off of a screen, but use a screen reading chrome extensions so that the text is read to them.

Look into Newsela or readworks for levelled reading materials, and videos already discussed such as Bozeman Science, Khan Academy, Amoeba Sisters, Crash Course, and many others for content at the appropriate level.

This is a place to play around with a flipped classroom idea, and create an instructional video, even if students watch it in class. It allows them to watch and replay, take notes, while you work with other students, and maybe a third group of students reads about it. You can, essentially, be in more than one place at the same time.

This can be done by choice, or with different content sources assigned to them. Google Classroom makes it very easy to assign different content sources to different students.

For additional information, here are some great step-by-step directions for using Google Classroom to differentiate.

• Differentiate Assignments with Google Classroom
• Digital Differentiation with Google Classroom
• 5 Ideas for Using Google Classroom’s New Differentiation and Grouping Features

Differentiation by Process

Differentiation by process is all about what the students do to process the information, or HOW they get the content.  Differentiation by process can certainly overlap with content differentiation, as students may work through the content using one of these processes (think-pair-share, reflection, diagram labeling, etc). Content differentiation is the content itself. Process differentiation is how students take in the content, or what they do with it to process it. For example, even as students are taking in content, they can use screen reader extensions to read the text, use dictionary or translation tools to help understand the text.

Process differentiation means you may give an assignment with some options. Perhaps some students can work in a group, and other can work alone. Students can choose to use technology, or to do their assignment on paper. Students need a way to process the material, but there are many ways that this can be accomplished. Students can process their learning through drawing, writing, making a video, using a technology such a flip grid, talking with a partner and more. Some students may be helped by a video that they can pause, rewind, re-watch, and use closed captioning.

These methods may need to be taught, or alternated/cycled between, and then eventually students could perhaps have a choice. Another strategy would be to give students a choice between just two methods, and then gradually introduce other methods.

The Science Penguin has a great post on “Output Ideas.” Although these are designed to be on paper, it is not a leap to see how these could be differentiated even more easily with technology. Students could make a short recording, find a diagram and label it, type their response and more.

For more ideas check out this post on 4 Technology Rich Ways for Students to Demonstrate Knowledge

Differentiation by Product

Lastly, differentiation by product is probably the type of differentiation with which we are most familiar, where student create a product to demonstrate their learning and are given some type of menu, or choice. A very simple example is this Vocabulary Menu where students have a choice over what the turn in to demonstrate their understanding of the vocabulary terms.

This is also a great place to look at the post on 4 Technology Rich Ways for Students to Demonstrate Knowledge. Technology gives more options. Are you artistic? Make a poster. Not artistic? Make an infographic or slideshow, where you don’t have to draw. Would you rather write? Or speak? Write an essay or editorial, or make a podcast or video.

Just like in the regular class, without technology, differentiation is key to helping your students be engaged and feel successful. The methods to differentiate may be similar, but it is easier in some ways to make changes to the assignments and to have the changes be less visible (such as through the use of screen reader apps, or Google Classroom to distribute differentiated assignments to different students). There is less stigma attached. Also, technology helps create a classroom culture where students are more independent learners, learning in their own way. This is a great fit for differentiated instruction.   Using technology means you can use the tools available to you to help create modifications, or create additional instruction.  You don't have to create it all!

 

Easy Bite Size Steps to Increase Classroom Technology

Easy Bite Size Steps to Increase Classroom Technology

If your school has just recently gone 1:1, or just announced that they will be going 1:1, hopefully I can help. This is part 2 in a short series to help you transition to 1:1 technology.

This post will assume that you have gotten some of the procedural details and routines out of the way that were discussed in Part 1. Now you are looking for some ways to transition into using more technology in your classroom.

Ten Small Steps to Start Using Your New 1:1 Technology

1. A video station - There are huge advantages to having students watch at their own pace, and be able to rewind, pause, or replay as needed. Here is a good discussion of using videos in the classroom. One of my favorite strategies is to have the students watch at a station, with a partner, and do a strategy that I call “watch, talk, write.” Students watch a short video with a partner. Talk about it with their partner. Then they write a short summary, often of a specified number of sentences, where they have to decide what information to include.
2. A vocabulary station with Quizlet - Quizlet is a great site for students to review vocabulary, or really anything that needs to be memorized. You can even add in diagrams with labels where students can quiz themselves. This could be an early finisher activity, a station, or a whole class activity. 
3. Review games using Kahoot - Kahoot is a great way to do review. It can only be used for multiple choice or objective questions, but students get so engaged! Its quick and easy to set up, and students love it. 
4. An alternative way to do a research project - rather than only a written essay or research paper, check out these ideas for technology-rich ideas for students to demonstrate knowledge.
5. Formative Assessment - My favorite formative assessment tool is Google Forms, but there are many others out there as well (Socrative, Plickers, and many more). I have written about Google Forms a few times before, here, and here, and a bit about Plickers here. 
6. A virtual field trip or interactive website. Here is a great start on places to look for interactive 
7. Resources for kids to use when they finish early - Having technology in your room gives more options for differentiation, in a lot of ways. However, one great tool is the ability to have more websites available for early finishers for review, enrichment, or reinforcement. Quizlet is great, various websites with science news articles, or, depending on your state, practice exam questions. 
8. Change an assignment to a Google Doc - Google Docs have a lot of advantages, they can be accessed anywhere, they save automatically, and they can be shared. It is fairly easy to upload an existing assignment and convert to a Google Doc, making a copy for each student, or distributing through Google Classroom. 
9. Video instructions of a lab or of a lab demonstration - If you are doing a demonstration, or giving instructions of how to do a lab, it can be extremely helpful to video this. Students can rewind and pause, students who are absent can watch, and somehow they even seem to pay closer attention to a video than to the teacher! This video can be uploaded privately to YouTube, or to Google Drive and shared with students as needed, or posted in Google Classroom. 
10. Background research or vocabulary research going into an activity - before beginning a unit or an activity, we all know that students need to build background knowledge. As they are all coming from different places, and starting with different amounts of background knowledge, it can work well for them to research vocabulary terms, or a specific topic for background knowledge on their own, before diving into the instructional part of the unit. 

I hope this helped you consider some ways to start using technology in your 1:1 classroom! It can be overwhelming, but don’t get overwhelmed. Take it one step at a time, and don’t be afraid to try something.

Questions? Ideas? Suggestions? Please comment below or join me in the Facebook group.

My School is Going 1:1 Where Do I Start?

My School Just Announced We Will Be 1:1 Where Do I Begin?!

School Expectations

First of all, don't panic! Spend some time finding out what the school expectations and rules about 1:1 devices are, how was the devices will be assigned, where will they be stored and what training is provided. Also think about how often will you be expected to use them, or how often you want to use them? What school policies may be in place around students carrying them between classes, or bringing them home? What is the devices aren’t charged? What will the behavior policies be for students who are on other websites? Some of these questions may not have quick and easy answers but they are important to start thinking about, as you begin framing how you want to use technology in your classroom.

Technology is a Tool

Don’t get overwhelmed, but realize that the technology is a tool just like any other tool. It is there to help you and your students. Using technology could completely transform the way that you teach but there are lots of small steps for you to start with as well. Using technology in your classroom doesn't have to be an overnight dramatic shift.

Procedures and Skills

As you get started make sure you allow some time to teach procedures and teach technology skills. Even though we think students grew up with technology, and that they know a lot about technology, it often turns out that they don't know how to use technology for academic purposes. They may know how to use it for YouTube or other ways, or know how to do things on their phones, but may not know how to do some of the tasks that we ask them.

Some procedures and introductory lessons that you may want to cover in your classroom if they are not taught in school as a whole include: digital citizenship, procedures for carrying a Chromebook or laptop, where they will be stored, charging procedures, what to do if a student's technology is not working or is missing that day. What classroom rituals and routines do you want to set up around the devices. Some teachers have students put in only one earbud, close the lid of the laptop or chromebook, or put tablets face down when the teacher is speaking, etc. What will be the consequences if a student doesn't follow the technology directions? If you take the device away do you have an alternative assignment? If it WiFi is down or technology is unavailable do you have an alternate emergency assignment? These are things to think about and to try to clarify in your head as you begin to picture your classroom with technology. These are not meant to scare you off but to prevent future problems.

How Do you Want to Use Technology 

Once you have some of those procedural things out of the way, start thinking about how and when you want to start to build in technology into your classroom. Do you want to use them at the start of class everyday? At the end of class everyday? (There are a lot of great ways to do formative assessment or warm ups using Google Forms). Do you plan to use them only as needed for certain interactive activities or stations? Especially for science, there are a lot of good videos (BrainPop, CrashCourse, Bozeman Science, Amoeba Sisters) and interactive virtual labs and field trips to use for particular topics).  You could also look into Digital Interactive Notebooks, but probably not as a first step. 

Using technology in the classroom really provides a lot of opportunities to engage students, to individualize instruction, to free up your time to work with students rather than being at the front of the room and for students to connect with others outside of the classroom walls.

My advice would be to jump in and get started. Emphasize to the students that you are learning along with them, and take it one step at a time.

Inspirational Ideas and Resources

Just for inspiration, here are a few of my favorite resources for technology in education happening very differently through technology!

• Transforming Lessons through the SAMR Cycle
• Alice Keeler - Anything Google
• Ditch That Textbook
• Flipped Learning

Jump In and Give It a Try! 

Don’t get overwhelmed by learning the tech tool. You can do that with a bit of training or some searching of online tutorials/videos. Instead, spend your time thinking about how you want your technology-infused classroom to look. What will it look like in the long-run? What smaller steps can you take now to go toward that goal? Maybe each marking period you can add on to that? Or maybe take one unit and re-vamp it, but leave your others for now.

What are your 1:1 technology questions and concerns? Leave your questions below or in our Facebook group, but don’t be afraid. Give it a try!

4 Technology-Rich Ways For Students to Demonstrate Knowledge

4 Technology-Rich Ways for Students to Demonstrate Their Knowledge

Many times we asked students to do class work in such a traditional manner, such as to write a research paper, write an essay to present their knowledge, in written form only. While it is important that students can read and write, This is not the only way for them to show their knowledge. It's important to give an element of choice as well as to give variety throughout the year so that students who excel in other areas, or who struggle with writing have a chance to show their knowledge.

Why not just write an essay? 

Perhaps that particular student is not a strong writer, but really does know the content. Or may they are really good at animation, graphic design, sound effects, or some other aspect. It's time that their knowledge show through. Some great ways for them to demonstrate their knowledge, other than written expression would be a screencast, Thinglink, a PowerPoint or Google Slide presentation, a podcast, or even an animation such as PowToon. Sometimes, even if the student is a stronger writer, having an aspect of choice is so important. Allowing the student more choice over how to demonstrate their knowledge is a way to get more buy-in and engagement from him or her, and more excitement about the assignment.

Podcast

A podcast is a very easy alternative to implement, and has many different applications in the classroom. Students could simply do a voice recording on a tablet, phone, computer with a microphone, or many other devices. If you actually want it to be posted as a podcast available online, this is possible too, and there are a lot of tutorials and guides online. However, for a single assignment, it would be appropriate for students to just make a recording, and it could even be shared as an audio file on Google Drive, if you choose. The downside of this is it of course you can't include any visual elements but for some students and some topics this will be enough.

Screencast

A screencast is a recording of the computer screen it can be done with a camera with it, showing the student's face, or without and can record only the tab or the desktop of the computer, along with recording audio. This is a very simple way to record a short presentation with narration, a technology skill, or student presenting or showing a particular topic or skill. There are lots of ways to do a screen test but my personal favorite is the Chrome extension screencastify I believe you can make a free recording up to 10 minutes and the results is saved right in Google Drive. Very simple!!

Thinglink

Thinglink is a paid product, but there are also free accounts with a few limitations. Thinglink allows the student to start with a picture such as a map, photograph, diagram, etc and then add certain buttons with information and links, videos, sound files, or even text documents and callout buttons to make a multi-media clickable image. Again, this depends on the topic, and how it is best suited. I think this would be great for presentations where you want to show a lot of information from different sources. A word of caution, be careful that the student is able to summarize their information, or paraphrase and cite the information, because it can be very easy to just cut and paste a lot of information. Thinglink is a great way to make a really different kind of presentation and include various kinds of information. Here is a great example of a human body presentation.

Powtoon

Powtoon will allow students to create an animation. They write the script, and record the audio, and then choose different backgrounds, characters, and what they will say. Here is an elementary example

Powtoon can be a lot of fun and very interactive for the students. It is quite different than what they may have done before. The warning on this one is that there will be a bit of a learning curve for students. It may take some time for them to get comfortable, so allow extra time to learn the technology if you choose this method.

Lastly, don’t rule out a PowerPoint or Google slide presentation. This is not really a brand new method, but can be an alternative to a written presentation. Both allow shorter, more broken up writing, and the insertion of videos, images, and other multimedia formats into the presentation. Google Slides is easier to insert videos and easier to share the final presentation. PowerPoint is easier to insert narration or sound files if this is something that you want students to do. Adding audio to Google Slides is difficult.

As we transition to using more technology, under the SAMR model, these may be some ways to push your teaching, and your students learning, to the next level, and to further engage your students. Have you used any of these in your classroom? What other alternatives do you utilize, besides a written essay, do you use for students to demonstrate knowledge? Please share in the comments.