A focus on Learning… in a “Remote World”

May 14, 2020May 9, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest post by: Whittney Smith, Ed.D. (@whittneysmith_) is the Principal at Mineola High School. You can follow the work done by our amazing students and teachers by following us at @mineolahs on both Twitter and Instagram.

In high schools across New York State there is always talk of the Regents Exam. This exam has been the focus of teachers since 1878 when the first high school exams were given. On April 6, 2020, that changed… at least for the time being.

Now what? I think we now have the unique opportunity to focus on learning, not the test anymore. While we rely solely on remote learning opportunities… our ability to leverage technology will certainly accelerate our ability to focus on student agency. Some cynics will say that without a Regents Exam, the students will not be motivated anymore, they’re going to “check out.” I don’t think so. Instead, I believe we need to seize this opportunity and engage our students. Remember that first and foremost we teach students, then we teach content… and remember, children are naturally curious, want to make connections, and desire learning things that are relevant to them; things that are real.

When we were thrust into this remote world as we walked out of our schools on March 13, 2020, I sent an email to the faculty. I will never forget that email. Along with a remote learning planning guide, I sent teachers my phone numbers and those of my assistant principals’, so they could reach us at any time. I wanted them to know that we cared about them as people first; we cared about their social and emotional well being just as we wanted them to care for our students and their families.

In the educational world we hear a lot about “Maslow before Blooms;” in other words, we need to take into account the hierarchy of human needs before the hierarchy of human learning.

Next, I asked our educators to reflect on remote learning and consider the following while they focused on what remote learning would look like in their ‘new’ classrooms.

Emphasize Choice – allowing students to choose how they demonstrate their learning will increase completion and help them navigate misconceptions
Emphasize Learning and Not Grades – when students are not concerned about “the grade,” they are more likely to learn the material on their own, rather than “collaborating” with others (unless that is what you intend them to do).
Direct All Student & Teacher Tech Related Issues to Bonnie and Katie (they are our Coordinators of Information Technology (CITs) and can do just about anything… and know who to reach out to when they can’t)).
Last but not least (for now) —> If you are having difficulty reaching a student (e.g. they are not responding) please reach out to our mental health team. They are counseling students and are ready to assist in any way possible.

Never did I think that I would be writing this post on April 30, 2020 (30 days into an extended school closure) telling you that the Regents exams have been canceled.

Now is the time to tap into student interests and passions.

Now is the time to focus on strengths.

Now is the time to give choice.

Now is the time to leverage creation tools. Whether it is a product to create or a problem to solve, allow students to determine how they demonstrate and share their learning.

Now is the time to shift the paradigm as we are not going to take high stakes, multiple choice tests! Let’s do what we’ve always wanted to do… make learning fun!

Bloom’s Taxonomy graphic taken from: https://mylearningnetwork.com/blooming-as-a-learner/

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Guest Post: 5 Ways to Empower Your Students with OneNote

May 11, 2020May 2, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest Post by: Jeni Long & Sallee Clark, @salleeclark @Jlo731 @Jenallee1

Instructional Technologists from Eagle Mountain Saginaw ISD, Ft Worth, TX

#Jenallee #MIEExpert #MicrosoftEDU #Onederful

https://linktr.ee/thejenalleeshow

As you probably know by now, #Jenallee LOVES OneNote! We feel it is one of the best educational technology applications for our students for many reasons. (Check out the original post here).

When we look at using technology, we do not look at the technology first and then decide what to teach… We look at what our learning objective is and then we select an application to fit our goals. Because OneNote offers a vast amount of educational benefits, we like suggesting it for teachers to utilize. Through using OneNote, teachers can help their students master their learning objectives first, while also utilizing one application versus a new app each week.
One phrase we use a lot with teachers is to “Select an educational technology application and own it”. Meaning, don’t get overwhelmed with all of the different applications available, yet select one and learn how to use it in your classroom well. Own that one app and then move on to another when you are ready.
With OneNote, students have the opportunity to learn through research based strategies including the ability to:
- Justify their work both verbally and through writing
- See worked examples in action
- Listen to direct instruction or videos of instruction
- Collaborate with their peers
- Receive timely feedback from their teachers
- And so much more

All of this is great but the real question is how? Here are 5 ways we use OneNote to empower our students.

#1 Student Portfolios

Student portfolios offer students the ability to create products, evaluate their creations, revise their products, and curate their best work throughout the year. It allows the students time to reflect upon their growth, set goals and truly see the evidence, purpose, & benefit of their learning. Read this blog post to see step by step directions on how to create and implement student portfolios in the K-3 classroom.

#2 Worked Examples

Recently we ran across a great article online written by Shaun Killian, “8 Strategies Robert Marzano & John Hattie Agree On” We really enjoyed reading this article because it showed the strategies both researchers found in their study of how students learn. One of the strategies both agreed upon was utilizing direct instruction.

Robert Marzano claims, “It is important to explicitly teach your students,” while Hattie says, “Direct Instruction involves explicitly teaching a carefully sequenced curriculum. And, it has built-in cumulative practice.” Hattie also highlighted the power of giving students worked examples.

OneNote makes it easy for teachers to implement this strategy into their daily instruction.

Here’s How:

Teachers can directly teach their students specific content from OneNote. It is an infinite white board! It goes on and on and on. The draw feature offers teachers ease in writing content (space pen is our favorite), highlighting content to be learned, and it automatically saves and updates in student notebooks or shared OneNotes! Boom! You just provided your students with class notes so that they can refer back to your content at any time.
We love the replay feature. Work out a math problem, label a diagram, fill in the blanks, and students can “replay” those steps at a later time. Once class is over and students want to review the content taught, they can simply click on View > Replay and see the steps replayed as many times as needed!! Did you catch that? As many times as needed! This is powerful and empowering for students! Check it out in action below

Replay ink strokes in OneNote for Windows 10

Don’t want to write? No problem! OneNote allows you to insert a printout of any PDF, Word, or image into OneNote. Why is this beneficial? Well, now students can follow along and make their own notes, highlight, and learn as you directly tell them the content to be learned with examples of what to do and what not to do.
According to Sebastian Waack and his Visible Learning chart of Hattie’s strategies, video review of lessons has a .88 effect size! Wow! This is also a way to provide examples for students that explicitly teach the content. OneNote makes it easy to embed YouTube videos into your pages! Simply copy the link and paste it in the page. All students can view the video in your OneNote.

#3 OneNote Breakouts

Looking for a way to help your students engage in problem solving and bring a slightly competitive gaming aspect into learning? Try using a OneNote Breakout! In the same article mentioned above by Shaun Killian, “8 Strategies Robert Marzano & John Hattie Agree On” It is also mentioned that both Marzano and Hattie both agree that problem solving and collaboration are high yield strategies. OneNote Breakouts offer students the ability to engage in solving relative problems in a collaborative way. This allows students to apply their knowledge of concepts to solve problems. “They also agree that inter-group competition can increase the effect of cooperative learning even more.” Breakouts are the way to go!

How does it work?

Students work together to “Breakout or escape” a series of challenges all housed in a OneNote. We complete this by locking pages in a OneNote and students reveal the lock combinations through completing various challenges utilizing their knowledge of concepts. Find out more about how we create and use breakouts with our students in this blog post.

#4 Feedback

We also know from Visible Learning that offering feedback has .70 effect size! Wow! OneNote offers teachers a powerful and meaningful way to give feedback to students. While students are working on content, teachers can access and see their progress. We want to offer our students feedback during the entirety of their work, not just at the end of a project. OneNote allows teachers to see student progress in real time, leave feedback throughout the process, and truly impact learning.

#5 Differentiation

OneNote offers teachers ease in differentiating content and providing accommodations for students. With the ability to distribute pages, teachers can distribute specific content to specific students, groups, or the entire class. That means you can distribute articles to groups of students according to reading level, or chunk assignments for certain students, or provide graphic organizers to specific students, etc. This allows the teacher the ability to scaffold instruction for their students strategically and with ease.

Not only can I send out individualized assignments, I can also empower my students with access to content. Students that may struggle with reading, writing, have dyslexia or ADHD, etc. are empowered by the learning tools that are built in to OneNote! According to Visible Learning, we see that when students with learning needs utilize technology, the effect size is 0.57. Utilizing OneNote with these students is a great way to empower them to be able to access content on their own, read on their own, and to write on their own. Let’s just say… they own their learning. We think Mike Tholfsen, Microsoft Product Manager, says it best!

OneNote Learning Tools are non-stigmatizing, mainstream, built in, and free.

So what are Learning Tools? These are tools built into Microsoft OneNote, Word, Forms, and many other partner companies. See the list of partner companies below

These tools include:

Immersive Reader – Reads any typed text, PDF, or word documents to the students!

Features include:

Human like recorded voices in both male and female
Reading speed settings
Customization for background color
Font options
Grammar options
Line focus
Picture dictionary
Translates a word or the entire document into over 80 different languages (yes, it still reads many of these languages!)
https://youtu.be/3n5emMEm3

Check out these click by click tutorials by MicrosoftEDU!

Want to see how we use Microsoft OneNote to offer our students audio tests? Check out this Jenallee blog post.

Recently we shared all of these ways and more on an episode of Ditch That Textbook with Matt Miller and Holly Clark. Watch the episode to learn more.

https://youtu.be/HopiR25ZlH8

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Guest post: Teachers have earned the benefit of the doubt

May 8, 2020May 2, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Be patient during the COVID-19 pandemic

As schools throughout the nation close for the remainder of the year, take a minute to consider what this will mean for thousands of teachers who are doing their best to educate our children. School leaders and local officials are scrambling to “flatten the curve” of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is our top priority, and as we retrofit our education system on the fly to meet the needs of millions of students, we ask for your patience and understanding.

Schools are not designed to adapt quickly

Be kind to teachers who are on the front lines navigating school closures in an education system that is, like so many institutions, incapable of meeting the demands placed upon it by the outbreak. At best, the expectations for most teachers right now are loosely defined by school leaders. Many teachers are trying to patch together inadequate distance learning programs without guidance. This is not the time for parents to use social media platforms to compare teachers or to publicly complain about a teacher who is slow to adapt. Our nation’s teachers have earned the benefit of the doubt, so please show some grace if you are irritated.

During normal times, school districts take several months, even years, to institute changes in curriculum and instructional methods. Expecting teachers to do this at a high level, with no time to prepare, during a national emergency is ridiculous. If you feel the need to share feedback with an educator, consider what would be helpful before you hit send. Negativity toward a teacher at this time will bruise deeply and could limit the creativity of teachers trying their best to meet student needs. A measured tone is imperative if you feel discouraged as a parent and wish to share your frustration. Trust me, teachers wish they could meet the needs of every student and family they serve.

More than the internet

Connecting and teaching students in a distance-learning environment is not akin to a teacher simply jumping online and presenting academic material to students. Conducting meaningful virtual instruction requires dedicated professional coaching for staff, and it also requires significant training and practice for students and families. Most teachers have never been expected to integrate remote learning into their curriculum. The instinctive knowledge teachers have spent their respective careers amassing has a vastly different application online, and most educators have never been trained to deliver robust instruction in that format. In addition, the inequity of student access to technology and broadband internet service is woven into the challenge of teaching students remotely.

Teachers are pros at building relationships

Teachers are well versed in building relationships with students so be grateful for the teachers who are trying to maintain their connection to students. This connection — virtual or in-person — is critical for academic and social-emotional growth. Our best educators specialize in making those human connections and they are experts at molding positive relationships, devoting their talent to create a culture of learning, and contributing to the school culture. Those indelible skills for expressing care and demonstrating a commanding presence may translate online for some teachers, but it is unfair to expect it to happen naturally.

Teachers are stuck waiting

Many of our teachers can’t share with you that they are at the whim of school leaders and state mandates that are not always communicated to them effectively. While teachers are on the front lines of most communication with parents and students, they are not always armed with the information parents seek. Your child’s teacher understands your concerns about assessments and grades, your child falling behind and your desire to have access to more resources. Teachers are trying to be flexible and they do not want to throw their school leaders under the bus by voicing their misgivings to you and fueling the anxiety parents are feeling.

Uncertainty and sadness

Educators lament the loss of the celebrations, getting that last high five, hug or final word of encouragement to students. Teachers have been working hard to get your child to the finish line, and in a career that has always included clear beginnings and ends each school year, this new reality is bewildering. Many educators are helping their own children cope with the loss of a traditional school year while they also cope with the same reality as a professional. Not being able to grieve the loss of the school year together is tough on the children and the adults who serve them. Teachers wonder if their current efforts are making much of an impact on students. In some cases, only a handful of students are still connected to school and that is disheartening. Teachers are used to receiving regular feedback from students and adjusting their teaching strategies accordingly.

Moving forward

The best thing you can do to help teachers is to unite with them and let them know you appreciate them. If you feel the need to share your concerns about school district policies and local programs, reach out to school leaders. Our educators are committed to serving all children and we know that we’re in this together. Teachers and school leaders throughout the country care deeply about the health, safety, and engagement of their students. Right now our teachers need your support.

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Dealing with Child Anxiety Stemming from Coronavirus Crisis

May 4, 2020April 26, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest post by Simon Choi, a mental health advocate and small business founder. He foundedStandout Bands which supports Beyond Blue and allows him to write for his mental health blog, Healthy Minds. Simon is particularly passionate about supporting those experiencing depression. Currently, Simon is supporting those struggling as a result of COVID-19 related mental health issues. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

*Opinions expressed are those of the guest author.

Times of Uncertainty

The Global Coronavirus Pandemic has been ongoing for months now and there is a great deal of uncertainty among government and society. Adults are dealing with loss of work, changes to daily routines and possibly even sick relatives. However, the uncertainty is not only limited to adults.

The Effects on Children

Children are not immune to the fears that this global pandemic has produced. Their lives have been greatly affected as well. Children are not only out of school, but they are not able to visit their friends and family as well. For example, fear of the health of the elderly means most grandparents are not advised to see grandkids in the present environment. Parents and educators can try to help and reduce some of this anxiety. In the following article, we will discuss seven ways that any educator or parent may be able to help those they care for and teach:

#1 Keep Their Usual Schedule

For a child, it can be difficult to experience many external changes. Since they have no control over being out of school and not seeing their friends and family, it is best to stabilize the things that can be stabilized. In order to give your children stability, do not change their sleep time, their school hours or other regular activities. Even if your child has to practice their sport in their own front yard or get violin lessons over Zoom, try to keep up with their previous schedule and activities as much as possible.

#2 Don’t Let Kids Watch Too Much News

The news can be informative, but it can also be full of unwanted scenery and troublesome for younger viewers in particular. Since that is the case, you do not want to let your kids watch too much news.

#3 Talk to Kids Openly

Kids need to feel like they can openly express themselves with adults. You want to ask your kids questions about their feelings and give them age appropriate answers. Children are inquisitive by nature, so this process could require some patience, but it will help to dispel some of their fears.

#4 Watch Their Associates

If your children are spending a lot of time talking to virtual friends, make sure that you are aware of the other kids who they are talking to. Other children can have a big influence on your children’s feelings, so you want to monitor or at least be familiar with their friends.

#5 Play with Your Kids

Make sure that your kids are getting exercise. Each day, make it a practice to add an exercise routine to your kids daily work. Just like gym class at school, exercise should be a healthy part of their at home learning journey. Try to play sports with kids as well; this is especially true if your kids are involved in any extracurricular sports. That way, they can keep up with their skills and get out some extra energy as well.

#6 Talk to A Professional

If you think that your child is having an extra hard time dealing with the stress of COVID19 and you notice that the stress is interfering with his or her daily activities, you may have to contact a professional who can give your child a consultation over the phone and provide professional advice.

Make the Best of a Difficult Situation

It can be stressful to deal with an unknown situation, but this stress can also build resilience in a child. Even in a global pandemic, you can help your child to make the best of the opportunities that staying at home can present or as an educator if over teleconference. When a child is taught to deal with difficulties in a healthy manner, he or she will be well prepared for whatever life throws at them. With the right support from you children can build resilience as a result of this time.

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

My podcast

Listen here

Riding an edu-emotional roller coaster

April 27, 2020April 26, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest Post by Shannon L. Schinkel

Opinions expressed are those of the author.

Last week those of us in BC ed had no idea what this week would have in store for us. When I was a kid, “self-isolating” was humorously coined for those who rather not deal with the public, “social distancing” was something told to us by supervisors at teen dances, and “quarantining” was something learned in history units.

But like it or not, we have been hit in the face with a crisis of epic proportions. It’s been an emotional roller coaster navigating the slings and arrows of toilet paper hoarding, Bonnie Henry updates, and beachy trip cancellations.

And now, BC teachers are faced with uncertainty as to how we will continue teaching without students in our classrooms. Over the last few years, we’ve been besieged with a renewed curriculum and just started to understand how proficiency scales can be used in our classrooms. Some of us have been making waves by leading teachers on a gradeless mission. Since yesterday’s announcement, I cannot help but wonder if all the work we’ve done will now be undone. I could scream and cry at the same time.

I know it might seem like an unrealistic conundrum to be contemplating the fate of gradeless at a time like this. Like many of you, I’m hanging on pins and needles waiting for our school board to announce how, specifically, we will meet the needs of our students after spring break. I have so many questions from communication to assessment. I’m worried about my at-risk students and how my colleagues will weather this storm. How will my student LEARN at home?

Learn. Hmmm…

Learning is the focus of gradeless teaching and assessment. You’ve heard me explain so many times over that when we remove grades and focus on the individual child and their growth, a child will develop a growth mindset. When we put the needs of each individual child instead of comparing them to each other or categorizing them by grades, we build a culture of learners, not grade grabbers.

Amid this edu-crisis, do we have to stop? Should we still consider gradeless? In fact, isn’t now, more than ever, the time to rethink what our goals are for our students? Is uncertainty and anxiousness a reason to revert to old habits, like handing over packages of content heavy worksheets, and abandoning single point rubrics? Or is this an opportunity to practice…really practice putting learning before grades? Isn’t this the time to think about the needs of the child? Shouldn’t our focus be on how the child will learn instead of how will I teach under these different circumstances? So many questions!

One thing I know is, now more than ever, students do not need grade pressures. They don’t need us to hover a “here’s what you need to pass” over their heads because we’re worried about getting through “the curriculum.” At home, students are juggling feelings of isolation, parents being laid off, themselves being laid off, lack of technology, too much technology, empty grocery store shelves and empty cupboards, never mind the questions: When will we return to school? Will there be a grad ceremony? Why can’t I see my friends?

In my opinion, if the government (or school board, or whomever makes these decisions) is smart, they’ll deemphasize grades. This will reduce the burden on educators. But like letter grades, even discussions over pass/fail, if that becomes the new norm, should not be considered or discussed with students until the end of the year. We can, instead, focus our energy on creative ways to meet students’ social emotional needs, develop a distance classroom community, and give voice and choice. Teachers will need to let go of being an eyewitness to learning in their rooms and we’ll really need to let go of content. If we hand over miles of notes, worksheets and google-able essay topics, we’re asking for trouble in the form of disinterest, cheating and plagiarism, and crushing failure. We’ll need lots of time to settle into a new routine. Students will need time to adjust.

Ultimately, before we start teaching, we need to figure out a balance between Maslow and Bloom….for all stakeholders: students, parents, and us. We need to lower our expectations and big dreams for the perfect online or distance education course. We need to take care of ourselves and our families first, connect with students and their families second, and collaborate with colleagues on implementing curriculum third.

When we implement the curriculum, we need to use the skills that are the focal point of the BC curriculum as a platform for meeting student’s social-emotional needs. If we give students some voice and choice as to what they want to learn and how they want to learn it, it will feel less like us pushing our agenda on them, and more like welcoming students into this new learning environment and building trust. For example, an English teacher (well duh…of course I’m going to use an English example) might begin by asking students to journal every day from a series of prompts but use prompts that are flexible and open to interpretation. This will give teachers some insight into students’ social-emotional levels/needs as well as meeting curriculum requirements to foster reflection and thinking. Information from those journals could springboard into a project-based learning assignment. Creative writers could write a story, critical thinkers could research a topic, and visual learners could create a collage or PowerPoint. Content pieces can be slipped into to individualized projects to try to meet curriculum requirements.

I understand the pressure that content heavy courses like science and math have on teachers. This dilemma has been systemically ingrained in school culture for years. Right now, a math teacher is reading this blog and thinking that there is no way they can do PBL when they have X number of chapters to get through in the textbook by June. My hope is that teachers incorporate a bit of hands on learning in order to make learning in seclusion enjoyable and fun. The reality is, the content students do not learn this year, can be incorporated into next year’s curriculum. Yup it can. But that’s next year.

I’ve made a point to vocally de-emphasize prepping over spring break, but I know that recommendation has fallen on deaf ears. I cast no blame, for if I were to, that would draw attention to me as a proverbial finger-wagger instead of me the genuine worrier for the well-being of my colleagues around the province. I confess, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I will handle my own new teaching situation, as, but I lost sleep thinking about how my colleagues are handling the pressure. I already see the formation of chats and groups with sole purpose of collaborating on resources and expertise. While these groups have good intentions, I hope teachers are using this time to focus on themselves and their families.

Teachers wear their hearts on their sleeves. We want to do what is best for our students. We naturally lack patience when gaps of information are left without direction. We overthink. We care so much. We worry. We’re teachers. Heck, I’m writing a blog in order to manage my own stress. It’s how I roll. It’s how I cope.

It won’t be long and spring break will be over and we’ll return to school. It will look and feel different. We’ll have to collaborate virtually with our colleagues who work just next door. Staff meetings may very well take place in the theatre so that we can sit 2 meters away from each other. It will be weird. Nothing about this pandemic is familiar. It’s important that we don’t expect to recreate what was in our classrooms and in our buildings. It’s important to accept the feelings of uneasiness and frustration that will come. Pause. Breathe. Accept. Repeat.

Focus on yourself. When you are ready to focus on how you’ll teach your students in this new reality, make learning and the social emotionally well being of them the priority. They’ll be just fine. So will you. We are, after all, in this together.

#mygrowthmindset

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

10 Steps to Create Green-Screen Videos for Remote Learning

April 25, 2020April 21, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest Post by Allie Beldin @alliebeldin

I have always wondered how teachers on Youtube create videos that look so FANCY! I did some digging and found that several of these instructional videos use green–screens. Green-screens are used to remove the background behind videos so you can replace it with another screen!

Why should you consider creating a green-screen video for your students?

If you want to show practice problems behind you, talk alongside a PowerPoint presentation, or add a picture of your classroom in the background to make students feel as if they are still learning in your school, consider trying the green-screen video method!
I recommend making your videos SHORT and ENGAGING. Try to shoot for making your video under 5 minutes long. Shorter videos will increase engagement and students will be more likely to watch all the way through.

10 Steps to Create a Green-Screen Video

Step 1: Buy a green screen. You can buy a fancy one online on Amazon OR you can do the cheap version like I did. I bought two yards of green, non-reflective fabric from JoAnn Fabrics craft store.
My grand total? A whopping $9.15.

Step 2: Tape or push pin the fabric in a well-lit room. Find some floor lamps or lights in your house to make sure there are no shadows behind you when you stand in front of the green screen. You do not want shadows because it will lower the quality of yourself on your video.

Step 3: Use your personal device, an iPad, or a video camera to take a test video to make sure your lighting is working. I did a test video just to see where the best place to stand was in the frame.
[Please excuse the dance party.]

Step 4: Figure out which lesson you want to teach. Teach your lesson in front of the green screen. Refer to examples from a PowerPoint that you have used in your classroom or create new examples. It is okay if you mess up! Don’t stop the video, just keep recording and start over.

Step 5: Decide what you want the background of your video to look like. Open up Google slides and put up notes or practice problems that you want to pop up behind you in the video. This is the important part. Use Screencastify or another screen recording app to record the presentation of your Google slides. This video will be the video that is played in the background while you are talking!

Notes created by 6th Grade SIMS Science team: John Goldberg, Kimberly Wahus, & Brook Andrews

Step 6: Open up a video editing app. I highly recommend using iMovie because it is extremely user-friendly for editing purposes. Drag both videos to the top of the screen.

Step 7: Drag down the background video first. This is important. Then, drag the green screen video and place it on top of the background clip.

Step 8: Click on the green screen clip. On the top right panel, click on the drop down menu that says “cutaway.” Select the “green/blue screen” option from the drop down menu.

Step 9: Edit the green screen clip during the parts that you may have misspoke or messed up. Add music at the beginning or end if you want to make your presentation more engaging.

Step 10: Watch the video and if you are happy with the final result, click the share button on the top right of the screen. Select “file,” “next,” and “save” to your desktop. It will take a little while to download. Once it has dowloaded, you can upload your video to Youtube and share the link with your students!

I hope this helps some of you during the remote learning process.
Please reach out to me here or on Twitter if you have any questions or ideas about creating green-screen videos for your content.

@MrsBeldin

Tweet

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Connecting Students through Buncee

April 22, 2020April 21, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Leveraging the right tools for remote learning

By Rachelle Dene Poth, Spanish and STEAM Teacher, @Rdene915

One of the things that I love the most about Buncee is that it can be used in so many different ways, not only for instruction in our classrooms but also in life. I have used Buncee to create cards for family and friends, personal business cards, graphics for Twitter chats and webinars, quote graphics for my books, invitations, and more. When I decide to use digital tools in my classroom, I want students to practice the content in a more authentic and engaging way, while developing skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity that can be transferred to their future. In using digital tools like Buncee, my hope is that they will also use them in other classes, for personal use, and will share them with family too.

Buncee is more than just a creation tool, it is a supportive educator network that is invested in fostering connections, expressing kindness and gratitude. There have been many initiatives for classrooms and families around the world to join in, most recently Hugs for Heroes. This is an amazing project worked on by Kristina Holzweiss, Barbie Monty and Amy Storer. Learn more about itand create your own!

Why Buncee?

Now with the shift to remote learning and educators looking for ways to connect with students and provide authentic and meaningful learning opportunities, I have been recommending Buncee more. As a multimedia creation tool, it offers so many possibilities for educators of any content area or grade level, and provides resources for students, families and educators to get started right away. For ideas, check out some of the Coffee Talks!

Finding time to explore new resources can be a challenge because our lives as educators become quite busy and we may find ourselves lacking in time to really explore a variety of options for use in our classroom. With the sudden transition to remote instruction, this is another one of the reasons that I recommend and choose Buncee and appreciate the team’s investment in providing exactly what educators, students and their families need. It truly has become a go to multi-purpose platform that can do so much, that I feel pretty comfortable in saying that the possibilities really are endless when it comes to creation with Buncee.

Fostering the SEL skills and making connections

At the start of each school year and throughout the year, I focus my efforts on student relationships, learning about my students and also providing opportunities for them to learn about one another. In the past I have done this by using activities in our classroom such as ice breakers or having students work together on different review games and other in class collaborations like that. Earlier this year I created a project for students to learn about the Spanish language and culture and also to engage more in learning about one another. I came up with a project focused on using the “About Me” template in Buncee. I wanted students to share who they were and create one slide to show this using words, animations, stickers, and other add-ins. My hope was that by looking at each student’s slide, we would understand one another better and relate to each other based on similarities and differences.

I also thought this would be a good opportunity for them to choose and learn a little about a place where Spanish is spoken and create an “About_(country)_____” to share that information with the rest of the class. But I also realize that there are many students who are visual learners like me and I wanted to encourage students to be able to quickly look at and process information and represent it in a different way. Rather than simply restating the same content, push them to apply it at a higher level or find a different way to demonstrate an understanding of a concept.

I also wanted students to choose a Spanish speaking country and I placed a limit on the number of actual words they could use because I wanted them to represent what they had learned about the place that had chosen using the Buncee features. The topics they had to include were: languages spoken, school subjects, foods, activities, and other information like that that they could display using Buncee.

How did it go?

It was a fun activity and I learned so much about them and they learned about each other and what life is like in countries where Spanish is spoken. We shared them on a Buncee board which made it easy to access and created a colorful display of students and their creativity. Students shared their slides and gave a brief description in Spanish about themselves and made connections with their classmates. We had good conversations exchanging our likes, dislikes, and learning about our backgrounds.

For the second slide, students were able to get a quick glimpse of different Spanish-speaking countries and begin to understand the culture of some of the places they would be studying. It was fun that they could only include 3D objects, animations, stickers or emojis, to represent the information for each country. So for visual learners, being able to choose the right object to use to share this information made the learning stick a little bit more. Students who enjoy creating but not drawing really enjoyed the activity.

A recent feature is the ability for students to comment and give feedback on the boards. This is a great way to encourage online student interaction whether through comments or emojis!

One other feature that I thought was important to share with students was the new Immersive Reader and how it works. We enjoyed looking at all of the capabilities with it and using Buncee for learning! Check out the video to learn more here!

Check out the information from Buncee for Remote Learning and everything you need to get started here. Want to learn more about Buncee? Sign up for their live webinars happening each day, Monday through Friday at 12:00 and 3:00 pm EST. Sign up here.

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

How I Created a Podcast PD for Teachers

April 20, 2020April 15, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest post by Laura Cahill @engageducate

I’m always looking for ways to innovate professional development. Teachers are busy people and sometimes those after-school, face-to-face sessions just aren’t doable. I actually prefer PD that comes to me…webinars, Twitter chats, blog posts, podcasts…so I ran with that and created a podcast PD for the teachers in my district. Think book club, only with podcast episodes and online discussions. This was really simple to set up, especially because we are a G Suite for Education district but this could be done in other platforms as well. To get this running, I:

Posted a sign-up to my district (this could be done at any level; district/school/grade-level/etc.)
Created a Google Form with links to 20 episodes for participants to vote on (I chose all Cult of Pedagogy episodes for this initial session because I am familiar with the high quality of them but episodes could be from any/many podcasts.)
Chose the top five episodes and created a Google Classroom with the link to one episode per “assignment”.
Added open-ended discussion questions (What resonates for you? What do you agree/disagree with? How can you see this working in your own setting?)
Set two-week “due dates” for each episode.
Sat back and watched amazing conversation unfold…I didn’t really sit back, I participated, BUT I was shocked at how rich and thoughtful the conversation was!

Some logistics:

I offered 2 professional development hours for each week (10 total), assuming that listening takes about an hour and posting/commenting takes another hour.
We require that our PD participants demonstrate learning through some type of product, so we are going to create reflection videos at the end.

The participants are already asking for additional sessions and I’m thinking that participants could make suggestions for podcast episodes in the future! Such a simple solution to creating accessible and relevant PD for educators!

************ Check out my THRIVEinEDU PodcastHere!

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

An In-Home Learning Strategy for Busy Quarantine Families

April 15, 2020April 14, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Guest post byAndrew Easton: teacher, edu-blogger, podcaster, and future author for Dave Burgess Consulting Inc. Follow him on Twitter @EastonA1, on Instagram @andrew.d.easton, or at andrewdeaston.com/

In our household there are two teachers and two primary-age students, and during our first week staying at home, we had a problem. As adults, we still have work responsibilities, and at ages 5 and 8, the kids need help navigating the five subjects of schoolwork they receive each day.

Our first thought was to set a schedule so that routines would be established. In that way, designated times would kick-start certain subjects and tasks.

Fail.

What we quickly realized was that sometimes the kids needed support with certain tasks, and if there happened to be a Zoom staff meeting or any other commitment that prevented us from supporting them in that immediate moment, the structure fell apart. The schedule needed more flexibility.

Then, we tried a checklist.

Fail.

Next, we tried using a checklist. I mean, who doesn’t love the feeling of crossing things off your to-do list?!? Well, the answer to that is my children. Even though a checklist does not have to be done in a specific order, don’t try telling that to them. The checklist was frustrating, and stopping a task to take a break routinely killed all their motivation to continue on with their work.

Finally, an answer.

Recognizing the shortcomings of our initial attempts, we felt optimistic about using a “To-Do, Doing, Done” board. The idea was that each day we would write down each item on their to-do list on a separate post-it note. Those post-its get placed in their “To-Do” column, and then as they start a task, the post-it moves to the “Doing” column. Once complete, it gets moved to “Done” and five completed tasks earns a sticker that is worth 30 minutes of free time.

Success.

Here’s what’s happened since we started. The kids now wake up each morning and run to their board to search through their list for the day. We intentionally scatter the post-its so that there is no implied order, and we like to put a fun, surprise activity on a post-it and hide it in the mix.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes, chores also go on post-its.

The “Doing” column has also been a godsend. There are times throughout the day when our responsibilities as adults make us momentarily unavailable to lead them through a portion of their work. The kids now know that they can leave a task in the “Doing” column and start something else if an adult is busy.

The “Doing” column has also been great for motivation. When the kids choose to stop mid-activity, we ask them to reflect on how close they are to finishing and to move that post-it to the place between the start/finish lines in the “Doing” column that reflects just how close they are to completing that task. Last week, my daughter had stopped her writing earlier in the day, but she was bent on moving the post-it to done. Seeing just how close she was to finishing, she, unprompted, wrote for an additional 30 minutes later that night.

Overall, this board has made our household happier and more productive. It’s helped us to maintain a more positive learning dynamic during these stressful times, which is why I wanted to share our story. I hope this strategy can help you!

So from our family to yours, please know that we are thinking about you all and are sending our best wishes your way.

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Teaching HardDoes Not Always Equate to Teaching Well

April 10, 2020April 7, 2020Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Opinions expressed are those of Guest Blogger

Guest Post by Kwame Sarfo-Mensah, Founder of Identity Talk Consulting, LLC. (www.identitytalk4educators.com)

Math Educator & Teacher Development Specialist, @identityshaper

I have been in many situations throughout my teaching career where I spent countless hours planning, what I thought, was the greatest lesson ever! I then delivered the lesson plan with the expectation that all of my students will be successful. Over the course of the unit, I provided classwork & homework assignments, conducted small group instruction for students in need of additional support, sacrificed my lunch periods to tutor struggling students, and pretty much did everything in my power to reach all of my scholars. After weeks of teaching my heart out, I gave my students an end-of-unit test with the confidence that all my efforts would translate to passing test scores. To my dismay, the converse of that expectation happened and that left me totally dumbfounded and wondering where it all went wrong.

For too many of us, we’re quick to place all the blame on our students for their failures and stand on the notion that we did everything we needed to do to fully prepare our students for success. As I write this piece, I’m not questioning the effort and energy that I exerted into our lessons nor am I questioning my dedication and love for them. The paramount question I had to ask was whether I taught the lesson well enough for my students to demonstrate mastery of the academic standard. Given my past failures, I surmised that my students had gaps in their understanding because I had gaps in my own understanding of the academic standard. That being said, I had to ask myself the following questions:

Did I unpack the language of the academic standard? It is one thing to identify the academic standard but it’s another thing to decipher its language and develop a complete understanding of what it actually means. I visited the Common Core Standards website to identify the standard of focus and read it carefully to identify the verbs (i.e. what students need to do), as well as the nouns (i.e. what students need to know) within it. Some standards require students to perform multiple skills so I needed to make sure to highlight each individual skill.

Did I identify the prerequisites of the academic standard? To determine the starting point for my lesson, I had to figure out what prior knowledge students should already have in order to master the standard. As I’ve taught previous lessons, I realized that I didn’t give some students a fair shot at having success because I never addressed the gaps in their basic skills foundation. By identifying the prerequisites of the standard, I was able to determine if I needed to reteach previous grade-level concepts before formally introducing the new standard to the students.

Did I closely monitor and assess my students’ progress throughout the unit? Throughout any lesson or unit we teach, we should be actively assessing our students’ understanding of the content. The assessment of student progress towards academic standards should be daily and ongoing. Regardless of whether the assessment is formative or summative, we should be gathering data and analyzing what type of errors they are making in their thinking. Are there specific concepts within the unit where students are demonstrating a level of mastery? When students are sharing their thinking verbally or through writing, are we solely focusing on their response or going the extra mile by asking them clarifying questions to investigate the thought process they underwent to arrive at their response? The bottom line is this…….if we are proactively assessing how our students are progressing throughout the unit, then we should have an accurate gauge of how well they will perform when given a final assessment.

Did I make the tasks challenging enough and accessible to each and every student in my class? With any new standard, teachers have to thoroughly assess the scope of it and determine the appropriate tasks or assignments that our students need to complete in order to build their knowledge of the standard. Every student enters the lesson at a specific developmental level so using a uniform instructional method probably won’t yield the best results. Some students may be further along the learning curve than their peers so teachers need to differentiate their instructional approach and create tasks that will meet the diverse academic needs of their students. To assess the difficulty level of the task, I used Bloom’s Taxonomy as a reference point. If I’m only giving my students “easy” tasks so they can feel good about themselves, I’m doing them a huge disservice.

Teaching is a hard enough job as it is. With the overemphasis of standardized testing, we sometimes find ourselves in a position where we don’t always have the time allotted to thoroughly assess how well we are teaching. However, our students cannot excel academically if we don’t develop the habit of asking the aforementioned questions and take the time to evaluate our performance as facilitators. If we are bold enough to point the finger at our students when they fail, then we must be equally bold enough to point it back at ourselves when we fall short.

**********************************

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

************ Also check out my THRIVEinEDU Podcast Here!

#1 Student Portfolios

#2 Worked Examples

#3 OneNote Breakouts

#4 Feedback

#5 Differentiation

Immersive Reader – Reads any typed text, PDF, or word documents to the students!

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

************ Also check out my THRIVEinEDU Podcast Here!

Schools are not designed to adapt quickly

More than the internet

Teachers are pros at building relationships

Teachers are stuck waiting

Uncertainty and sadness

Moving forward

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

************ Also check out my THRIVEinEDU Podcast Here!

Times of Uncertainty

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Guest Post by Allie Beldin @alliebeldin

Why should you consider creating a green-screen video for your students?

10 Steps to Create a Green-Screen Video

Step 1: Buy a green screen. You can buy a fancy one online on Amazon OR you can do the cheap version like I did. I bought two yards of green, non-reflective fabric from JoAnn Fabrics craft store. My grand total? A whopping $9.15.

Step 2: Tape or push pin the fabric in a well-lit room. Find some floor lamps or lights in your house to make sure there are no shadows behind you when you stand in front of the green screen. You do not want shadows because it will lower the quality of yourself on your video.

Step 3: Use your personal device, an iPad, or a video camera to take a test video to make sure your lighting is working. I did a test video just to see where the best place to stand was in the frame. [Please excuse the dance party.]

Step 4: Figure out which lesson you want to teach. Teach your lesson in front of the green screen. Refer to examples from a PowerPoint that you have used in your classroom or create new examples. It is okay if you mess up! Don’t stop the video, just keep recording and start over.

Step 6: Open up a video editing app. I highly recommend using iMovie because it is extremely user-friendly for editing purposes. Drag both videos to the top of the screen.

Step 7: Drag down the background video first. This is important. Then, drag the green screen video and place it on top of the background clip.

Step 8: Click on the green screen clip. On the top right panel, click on the drop down menu that says “cutaway.” Select the “green/blue screen” option from the drop down menu.

Step 9: Edit the green screen clip during the parts that you may have misspoke or messed up. Add music at the beginning or end if you want to make your presentation more engaging.

I hope this helps some of you during the remote learning process. Please reach out to me here or on Twitter if you have any questions or ideas about creating green-screen videos for your content.

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here.

Looking for a new book to read? Many stories from educators, two student chapters, and a student-designed cover for In Other Words.

Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

Step 1: Buy a green screen. You can buy a fancy one online on Amazon OR you can do the cheap version like I did. I bought two yards of green, non-reflective fabric from JoAnn Fabrics craft store.
My grand total? A whopping $9.15.

Step 3: Use your personal device, an iPad, or a video camera to take a test video to make sure your lighting is working. I did a test video just to see where the best place to stand was in the frame.
[Please excuse the dance party.]

I hope this helps some of you during the remote learning process.
Please reach out to me here or on Twitter if you have any questions or ideas about creating green-screen videos for your content.