I think most of us would agree that providing students with some kind of CHOICE in their assignments – whether it is where they sit in the room while they complete it, the order in which they complete assignments, or the tool they use to create a product – providing CHOICE to students elicits more ownership.
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It’s happened to all of us – you work so hard on a lesson – to make it engaging, hook students, and ensure that you cover all the content needed for the formative assessment…. and yet… when you assess… students seem to have not “gotten it”. What can a hard-working teacher do??? Insert some short prompts here and there to help students connect learning to themselves and make it relevant! Check out the prompts below and pick three to have students complete as stopping points throughout your next lesson. See if their connections, memory, and engagement with the content goes up!
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As we look toward the end of a lesson, a unit, or even a school year, we plan time to review the content. This often results in asking students questions (sometimes in creative ways to make the review a game or more fun). I love me a fun game for review, but when I think about the level of thinking in order for the review to be quick and teams to be able to take turns, it usually ends up being pretty low-level questions – recalling and regurgitating information. The other thing I often observe (ahem… and maybe did a lot as a teacher) during reviews (especially prior to a big assessment) is talk a lot. I never meant to talk my students’ ears off – I always started with a review game of some sort and then if a student got something wrong, or if we came to a topic I felt the class still didn’t fully understand, I would suddenly break into lecture mode for 5-10 minutes to tell them everything I wanted to make sure they knew about the topic. As if hearing me talk about it would cement it in their brains? I think we sometimes think if we make sure we tell them everything one more time before the big test, they’ll get it… but that is far from the truth.
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Texas just went through a pretty major winter storm event which kept students across the state home from school. Many of our students made wonderful and scary memories because of this event. Some of our students saw snow for the first time in their lives, but also lost power and may have been freezing and hungry in their homes. No matter what they experienced, our students will walk in our school doors (or Zoom or Google Meet screens) wanting to talk about their experiences. I believe we should most definitely allow students time and freedom to discuss and share their experiences… but at the same time… YIKES! We just lost 5 instructional days!!! How can we value our students, allow them to process and share, but not lose more time?!?! Play a quick game of Stand Up If… followed by a quick write and small group share. 15 minutes or less will allow ALL students to share, feel heard, and hear from other students.
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My son Jackson and I make up stories together all the time and recently, with a lot of research and some hard work, we turned one of our pretend stories into a real PUBLISHED book! Fred and Joe Go to Egypt is now available for purchase on Amazon in both paperback and kindle ebook! How did we do it? I’d love to share so that you, too, can self-publish for FREE on Amazon and I hope to share some tips and tricks I learned along the way to save you some time and energy on your publishing journey!
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Jamboard is a collaborative online whiteboard space with simple, easy-to-use tools. You can access Jamboard by going to jamboard.google.com. I am a little slow to jump on the Jamboard train, but now that I’ve played around, I see so much potential! I’d love to share a couple of templates I created as I explored the features Jamboard offers and then share some tips and tricks I discovered along the way to help you create your own!
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In chatting with my fourth-grade daughter about New Year’s Resolutions and setting goals for the new year, I provided several prompts to help her think about what she wanted to do better, learn more about, remember, and improve on. In prompting her, I realized I needed to take time to reflect on these same prompts before setting goals for myself! When I told her that I wanted to be a better mom, wife, and principal, she was quick to tell me that I didn’t need to improve – I was already a grown up! This led to an awesome conversation where I got to share that as humans we are never done growing and learning and getting better and that I was definitely going to be thinking and reflecting and setting goals for improvement, too.
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I have a hard time stopping. Relaxing is difficult for me. I somehow feel guilt over not getting anything accomplished. I too often forget that REST should be on my to-do list. Doing something just for sheer enjoyment is good for me (and you) and SHOULD be thought of as an accomplishment for my well-being. Something I really enjoy doing is doodling and creating backgrounds and graphics for use in future google slides presentations. Over the last week, I spent time resting and relaxing as I doodled away on my iPad creating the following Rainbow Doodle backgrounds and Frames (some inspired by my children’s choices and suggestions):
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This is the perfect time of year to add a little winter magic and fun to your lessons! I have come across so many truly AWESOME ideas and templates that I wanted to share a list of my favorites! Use these as-is, or pair with YOUR CONTENT for even more magical fun!!!
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I love the whole idea of Thanksgiving – that we should take time to reflect on our blessings and be grateful for the good things in our lives. I also love a great game! Combining those two loves… I have template for you with directions for TWO printable games – Thanksgiving Categories (think Scattergories with Thanksgiving prompts) and I’m Thankful For… which challenges players to think of something they are thankful for that goes with EVERY letter of the alphabet – with points for every unique answer!
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