Station Rotation: Tips and Tricks to Address Common Questions and Concerns

Many teachers in our school district use station rotation with great success in terms of academic achievement, student engagement, and student self-regulation. However, even the most accomplished teachers encounter complications with station rotation or have misconceptions about the way it "has to" be.

Every Station, Every Day

Some teachers adopt wonderful models like READ or MATH, which involve students completing the same stations within a class period (i.e. manipulative station, application station, technology station, etc.) However, many teachers also feel pressed for time or pressured to see every student group every day. In a recent blog post, blended learning expert Catlin Tucker shared: 

A teacher recently asked me whether students always need to attend every station in a rotation. The short answer is “no.” 

As many practitioners know and practice, station rotations can be spread out over the course of a week, but Dr. Tucker's answer goes beyond this to clarify that station rotations can be designed to allow for students to omit stations or even select stations based on preference. 

By contrast, the must-do versus may-do variation of a station rotation requires that teachers use data to identify student needs and design a rotation in which specific students are required to attend one or two “must-do” stations. In addition to these “must-do” stations, students can select a certain number of “may-do” stations to spend time at based on their preferences and interests.

In this way, students who are ready to move ahead or may be ready for an extension can do so, while students who need more time with the teacher might be assigned to more than one station involving the "teacher table." This can work best with a document to help facilitate a virtual station rotation, allowing students to select from a menu of activities at their 3rd or 4th station. This can involve individual student contracts or playlists...which leads to another tip!

Noise

One concern many teachers have is that a station rotation will be noisy and chaotic, especially if the teacher is scheduled to be at a teacher table. However, a teacher does not HAVE to be at a teacher table at all! A teacher can plan to circulate, especially if direct instruction is delivered in the form of a video. In this station rotation model, the stations can vary based on where in the unit the class is, and the decisions about which stations the teacher will be at are flexible as well, with the teacher at the station for feedback or reteaching depending on the task and the needs of each group of students. 

Dr. Tucker also suggests that in addition to explicitly teaching the expectations for each station (i.e. looks like, sounds like), that teachers have anchor charts or other visual aids to reinforce expectations. For example, many teachers who project their computer screen (since the computer has a microphone) are able to use this noise monitor feature of ClassroomScreen, as well as visuals projected on the screen, to cue students to expectations.

Preparing for station rotations can take a little time up front; it's best practice to start small and really devote time to model expectations, and once students are clear about the expectations, this model can actual DECREASE the chaos and noise. Predictability is powerful!

Accountability

Especially as the year draws to a close, teachers worry about students being off-task at stations, especially if there isn't a "product" that needs to be produced at the end. While talking chips can be helpful at discussion stations and embedded questions (as with Screencastify or Edpuzzle) can help with accountability during instructional videos, sometimes students need more.

This is where checklists can be helpful. As the following video shows, pairing with the checklist (kind of like a playlist, but used for accountability) is almost like giving students a passport from station to station. In order to pass to the next station, students need to complete the reflection, question, or other quick task on the checklist.

At the end of the class, students turn in their checklists as a sort of ticket out of the room, and they get the tangible benefit of seeing all of their tasks checked off!

While station rotation can seem like a lot to pull off, by devoting time to planning and setting up structures, this model can help teachers create the responsive and smooth classroom that we all dream of!

Better Routines=Better Learning

 

How often have you gone through a routine, like brushing your teeth, and then had no memory of how it happened? That's because by definition, "A routine is a sequence of actions that gets triggered by a 'cue' (aka prompt), all of which happens largely unconsciously and with minimal cognitive effort."

As new teachers, we often learn about the power of routines for efficient classroom and behavior management, saving time and creating order so that learning can occur.

However, fewer teachers know that routines can INCREASE how effectively students learn.

Peps Mcrea is an educator/author who puts out a weekly Evidence Snacks update about research in education. In his latest series, he's shared a lot about how routines support learning. (If you want to subscribe to the Evidence Snacks email, which sends you a summary of research once every week or so, click here.) He shares that routines are so powerful in school because:

1.      We can help students to achieve lots with little effort (both from them and us). 2.      Students don't have to expend their finite and precious attention on the process of learning, and so can focus more on the content of our teaching.

Not only do routines supercharge student learning, but they also create a sense of safety, which is particularly valued by students with special needs. And when a routine is in place, we teachers also must think less about what is happening, and so can spend more of our previous mental capacity on monitoring the classroom and responding to student needs as they arise.

In fact, it could be argued that reusing routines from year to year has even more benefit, because the effort needed to get students to a point of "automation" in a routine is lower. Routines are only valuable once they are automated, which can take 20-60 repetitions. That's a lot, but once the routine is in place, the payoff is HUGE!

And routines can do so much more than remove the executive functioning barriers to learning. 

Routines can encourage risk-taking, as evidenced by one first-grade teacher's use of the "kiss your brain" routine after students work through a hard problem. 

Routines don't have to be boring; they can actually support student choice and voice, as evidenced by examples like article of the week, meme Monday, and discussion protocols from this Edutopia post.

As you work with your teams, consider discussing what routines you want to see students carry from class to class, grade level to grade level, and school to school. How can we make the most of routines to lighten the cognitive load and focus on more learning?

Motivation: Shift to Student-Led

A recent Edutopia article entitled, "Bringing the Harkness Method to Math Class" asks,

Who is doing the majority of the talking in your math classroom? In a traditional secondary math classroom, the teacher is stationed at the front of the room demonstrating examples related to the topic of the day, as illustrated in the traditional model seen below.

This often means that the teacher is doing most of the work. John Hattie has done research that shows most teacher speak for 60-70% of a class period, and this leaves little time for students to ask questions or work out their own ideas. 

Since the people doing the work are doing the learning, this means it is more important than ever to find ways to shift the work to our learners. Katie Novak, UDL expert and co-author of The Shift to Student Led unpacks the research on motivation, which shows that models with the teacher at the center create a self-fulfilling prophecy: students who are overly reliant on the teacher to drive instruction aren't motivated to own their learning. She then goes on to suggest three shifts that can help shift the responsibility and motivation for "transfer of information" to student discovery:

1. The Choice Board

Catlin Tucker (co-author of The Shift to Student Led), explains the benefits of choice boards:

• Choice is a powerful motivator.
• Learner variability means that not all students enjoy the same task.  
• Students have more control over the pace at which they navigate the tasks.
• Teachers are freed from orchestrating a lesson and able to conference with learners about their progress, provide feedback on work in progress, or conduct side-by-side assessments.

While these are often associated with projects, choice boards can be used daily with very little prep from the teacher, such as this example for planning activities based upon the unit standards.

2. Leverage Reciprocal Teaching and Jigsaw Activities

Reciprocal teaching, a cooperative learning strategy that improves comprehension, has long shown benefits to learners. The benefits include:

• It encourages students to think about their own thought process during reading (metacognition).
• It helps students learn to be actively involved and monitor their comprehension as they read.
• It teaches students to ask questions during reading and helps make the text more comprehensible.
• It can be adapted for different content areas.

Likewise, the jigsaw method (and it's adaptations) has shown benefits for learning and motivation, making students depend upon each other for new learning.

3. Make Direct Instruction Differentiated and Bite-Sized

Leveraging small group instruction can provide more time and opportunity for learners to lead, while still allowing the teacher time to give students what they need. Catlin Tucker also recently wrote about how to leverage AI to support station rotations and other student-centered lesson designs, which allow for in-person small groups OR video-based instruction.

Just the Beginning

In closing, there are so many ways to shift to more student-centered learning opportunities. As Crystal Frommert says in her Edutopia article:

Consider ways that you can promote discussion and collaborative learning among your students. How can you, as the teacher, step back from the “sage on the stage” lecture model? It doesn’t have to be an overnight shift; even small changes will promote student voice, equity, and deeper thinking.

 

Feedback to Feed Small Groups

There has been a lot said about the power of small group instruction, but one thing that has come up recently in several educational circles is the power of using small groups to deliver effective feedback.

This got us thinking about how we've seen teachers using small groups in their classrooms to have a big impact on student learning. 

Teachers have pulled groups with similar scores or incorrect answers to conduct targeted review. Writing teachers have pulled groups with similar patterns to deliver feedback collectively, and then teach (or reteach) to support students in making effective revisions.

Using small group time as prime time for feedback not only supports student learning, but also teacher sanity. Certainly it is more efficient to give feedback to 4-5 people at a time, vs. writing painstaking feedback on each piece of work (or meeting 1:1). And if teachers can connect that feedback directly to next steps for instruction, the feedback literally saves instructional time.

And research (i.e. John Hattie's visible learning) would suggest that when small groups are used to give students targeted, timely, and specific feedback (.70 effect size), provide time for deliberate practice (.79 effect size) and thus to build student self-efficacy (.92 effect size), the groups are worth the trouble. 

Planning for Small Group Feedback

Hattie and Yates paper on "Using Feedback to Promote Learning" includes three feedback questions to help guide preparing and delivering effective feedback:

1. What is the goal?
2. What is the progress being made?
3. What is the next step?

In "Feed Students through Feedback," Sandie Novak affirms that feedback is something to be planned for as part of the lesson, and that planning begins with the learning target. Once the teacher and student really know what the goal is, they can begin the process of monitoring and using feedback to adjust progress toward that goal. 

Thus, the teacher can use where students are making progress and what the next step will be to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Likewise, students can use their understanding of the goal to self-assess their progress.

How might this look in your classroom?

Tuning Out, and Tuning In: Video Instruction May Be More Effective

 

A recent article by Erik Ofgang of Tech & Learning shares an analysis of more than 105 studies comparing the effects of live, pre-recorded, and combination instruction.

Interestingly, the research suggests that students learn better from videos, and best from a combination of video and in-person instruction.

Dr. Michael Noetel, lead author of this research and professor of psychology at The University of Queensland, says, "Sure, we want to make classes interactive and engaging, but when we need to explain a concept in the first place, then videos are some of the best ways of doing that."

Why?

Dr. Noetel says, “Probably because we cut out all of the rubbish and we edit ourselves to be more concise. We lose all of the irrelevant stories, and students can skip the parts of our lectures that they think are boring. That was really surprising, and a little bit of a hit to the old ego to find out that they prefer to be able to skip parts of my lecture rather than have to sit through my stories.” 

In other words, class time can be saved because the teaching gets right to the point.

This connects with the idea of the microlecture. By focusing on one particular concept or skill for only 6 minutes or less, a teacher creates powerful instructional video. This allows learners to slow down or catch up if needed, and frees up the instructor to work more with individual students and structure class time to maximize "interactive, higher-order activities where they can benefit from the support of others" including peers.

Instructional videos that combine audio and visual cues, packaged in easily digestible segments, also aligns to research about how students of all ages learn best.

Other uses for video instruction include, well, giving instructions! By recording instructions for stations or bigger assignments that students can pause, rewind, and return to, the teacher is able to reach more learners directly, by being freed up, and indirectly, by giving learners the power to customize their pace.

How might you use videos to more effectively meet the varied needs of your learners?

For more on making effective instructional videos and incorporating them wisely into class, check out these research-supported steps from Modern Classrooms Project founders and these 9 instructional video techniques that drive engagement from Screencastify.

Podcast Roundup: On Reading Levels and Illustrative Mathematics

 

Back to school is a great time to kick off new routines or to explore new resources. Two podcasts that are of interest to us as we move Griswold Forward are "Literacy Talks" and "Making Math Moments that Matter." 

In the episodes below, researchers and experts weigh in on the instructional practices and curriculum that Griswold is moving forward with. These are worth the listen!

Literacy Talks Podcast, Episode “On Levels: A Candid Conversation with Guest Dr. Matt Burns”

The gist: A famous reading researcher shares the research on what works when working with developing and struggling readers.

Takeaways:

• Leveled readers don’t align with research; decodables do.
• Effective assessments for reading skills help drive intervention.
• Partnered reading is an effective way to build fluency.

Making Math Moments that Matter, Episode “Engaging Students, Empowering Minds: A Conversation with Bill McCallum”

The gist: Illustrative Mathematics co-founder and distinguished math education professor shares the power of connecting mathematics to stories in problem-based learning. He connects to program practices and discusses the potential impact of AI and digital tools.

Takeaways:

• To learn math, students need to do math
• The instructional routines are key to the success of the curriculum.

PSA: Don't Reinvent the Wheel, Copy your Google Classroom

If you are using Google Classroom as your LMS, you are saving yourself and your students from disorganization. If you enable the SIS sync with infinite campus, you can import grades and assignments to make keeping your gradebook up-to-date easy. And perhaps more importantly, if you organize your LMS space well, you are supporting students success.

EdSurge reported that "on an average day, a student has to navigate between as many as 10 different platforms—in a single class! Students expressed frustration with not knowing where to find assignments. Most said they didn’t have a preferred organization system; they just asked the kid in class that seemed to be the most organized."

To support student executive skills, you want to think carefully this year about how best to organize your Google Classroom. Often week-by-week is easiest, with teachers archiving older materials below, and creating a new classroom for each term.

If this sounds like a lot, it's not! Once you have a set up in place, you can copy formatting from term to term and year to year. 

This means that if you used Google Classroom well last year, you can save yourself time and headache by copying your entire classroom or copying your assignments! 

Here are the steps:

1) Prepare the old classroom: remove or note# classwork materials that didn't work or needs revision.

*Note that if you don't want copies of materials, don't copy your classroom with files attached to assignments. 

2) Make a copy!

3) Update the files, if needed, as you go. This is where the # system is helpful.

Now, if you didn't love how your classroom was organized last year OR you want to make some updates to your classroom copy, check out the video below for some useful tips:

Try Something New as the Year Draws to a Close

The end of the school year is a great time to try something new. Although the best time for "something big" this is in the last month, if you have a lesson idea or tool you are thinking about for next year, why not try it now, when you and your students have less to lose?

One example that many teachers in GPS are trying is the Building Thinking Classrooms approach. While there is plenty written about it that teachers can explore, the crux of the approach is that instead of starting a lesson with direct instruction, the teacher uses more of an inductive learning method by giving students novel "thinking tasks" to work on, ideally in groups.

The creator of this method, Peter Liljedahl, shares the realization that if we want students to push through difficult problems and find their own solutions, we have to create situations that provide opportunities and support for this.

“By and large students spend most of their class time not thinking, at least not in ways we know they need to think in order to be successful in mathematics.” Liljedahl explains. “If they’re not thinking, they’re not learning.”

Also key are whiteboards, or nonpermanent vertical surfaces that allow students the freedom to fail. Liljedahl shares that research supports this, and it makes sense, because students will "try anything and everything because they feel like they can just erase it if it's wrong".

The same can be said for teaching, especially at the end of the year. Try something new--and if it isn't perfect, that's okay.

Community Matters

The Research: "Students writing for real audiences are motivated in a way that churning out papers for grades are not. Students have to experience writing for real audiences before they will know that writing can bring them power." (Rodier, 2000, p.3)

This week, students in GMS technology classes used 2D or 3D Minecraft builds to celebrate their teachers, to be distributed during teacher appreciation week. Instead of just learning the book and quill tools for some possible future unknown application, students learned these tools to achieve a meaningful purpose for a very authentic audience. It got us thinking about some research revisited recently as the LEARN regional book study of Joan Sedita's The Writing Rope concluded.

Writing (and creating) for an authentic audience and purpose has been shown to improve student performance:

• It motivates students to do their best work.
• It provides a practical reason to get feedback, revise, and edit.
• It creates a sense of pride as students see the impact of their work on a greater community.

GPS students have many "big" opportunities to showcase their work, such as the spring musical and Expo night, but we can create similarly powerful experiences with small adjustments to many of our existing assignments:

• If a current assignment is only for a teacher to read, consider:
• How might this work might be used in the real world?
• Who do mathematicians, scientists, artists or historians share this work with? What do they write or present?
• Partner up with another class: who else in the building or district might you share with?
• Consider a contest or competition: who might be an authentic reader or judge of product quality?

An authentic audience can even turn necessary tasks into more meaningful experiences. For example, you might have your students send a bi-weekly email to their parents with a recap of activities or their accomplishments in the class.

For more inspiration, check out the Edutopia article "Creating Authentic Audiences for Student Work" and the MiddleWeb article "Students write better for authentic audiences", and check out this video of 4th graders writing for authentic audiences and purposes:

Do you like free stuff? Scholarships and Edtech Updates.

Free Stuff!

First, because the deadline is April 30, have you thought about professional learning this summer? The Modern Classrooms Project has a limited number of scholarships (a $750 value!) available for their Virtual Summer Institute, which provides self-paced learning and networking opportunities for five weeks, along with individualized coaching from Expert Mentors who use the model. If you want to learn more about using blended learning to increase student mastery and make teaching more enjoyable and sustainable, check out this AMAZING opportunity! 

Special scholarships are also available for special educators!

EdTech Updates

Canva now has Magic Write and Magic Design. 

These AI tools are a great way for teachers to start documents and presentations fast...but it is also a tool students might be using, so teachers need to be aware. Here's a walk-through of how Magic Write works:

If you haven't tried Canva, educators and students can use it for free! It has expanded to include so many capabilities for document design, visuals, and video editing that it is worth checking out. Let members of TLI know if you would be interested in professional learning on this.

Flip now has a Reading Coach in Immersive Reader!

Looking for kids to get feedback on their oral reading? Then this might a tool for you. Check out how it works in this video:

And, even if you just want to have a tool to read text aloud to students or support student reading, consider using Flip and the Immersive Reader to support student learning.

Do you use Newsela? The paywall is rising...

Beginning this summer, users with free Newsela accounts will only have access to a handful of current event articles each month, selected by the Newsela team. One article will be released a week, and articles will disappear after four weeks. The company shares that "Our full catalog of 8,000+ leveled news and current events articles will only be available in our premium products."

Differentiation with Station Rotation

In the past few weeks, we've seen some awesome station rotation lessons at GMS and GHS.

In one GMS special educator's classroom, students were able to experience a variety of tasks and work in a variety of ways on math problems. At one station, students played a competitive game with dice and a game board. At another station, students completed individualized practice on the computer. And at another station, students worked collaboratively. The teacher was able to casually circulate, providing support and feedback to individuals, as needed.

One GHS social studies teacher used the station rotation to break apart and scaffold a complex document-based response activity. Instead of giving students a huge packet of resources, students rotated to different pieces of evidence around the room and used guiding questions to support their comprehension and analysis of these documents. The teacher was able to target support to each group based on their document, and an early finisher station allowed some students to move ahead at their own pace. By tackling the task piece by piece and in collaboration with peers, the students were more engaged with the topic and more eager to write a response.

A GHS special educator used station rotation to have the opportunity to pull students in small groups for targeted instruction according to a timed rotation, with other students working on independent tasks at other stations. The rotations allowed her to provide differentiated content and processes for students based on their needs and abilities. The teacher was able to provide real-time, high-quality feedback to students as they worked, allowing them to be partners in the learning process and ensure that their practice was perfect.

Perhaps most interestingly, the teachers shared that not only were they more relaxed in the pace of the station rotation, but the students happier and more on task. Several of them used technology, like video or slides tutorials, to free themselves from needing to explain things to the class, and others used ready-made online practice to support personalization of practice.

These teachers showcased how station rotation can be used for a myriad of tasks and in support of differentiation. There are so many ways to use station rotation to make life better for teachers and students. If you want more ideas or answers to frequently asked questions, check out this blog post from Catlin Tucker or talk to a member of TLI.

Just Escape

Escape rooms aren't new, but they are a game-based learning technique worth dusting off when review threatens to get stale. Kids as young as preschool can find success with these tasks when provided the right modeling and support!

The Benefits

We recently observed a 4th grade teacher using an escape room in math to review place value/rounding. In addition to the benefit of the task being fun and academically engaging, the teacher and students experienced additional academic and SEL benefits. According to the teacher:  

One of the greatest parts about using the [digital] escape rooms is the computer knows the correct answer so the students are provided with direct feedback as to whether their response is correct or incorrect. This allows for me to be able to assist students without having to provide each student in the class with feedback (checking their work immediately).

Students love the challenge of attempting to "escape" and they dive right into each escape room, determined and ready to solve any problem. I typically have them work in partnerships/small groups in order to be able to discuss and share their thinking. Many times, there is quite a bit of dissonance taking place and I absolutely love it. I am consistently telling them to persevere and they own it!

This aligns with the research: in addition to supporting motivation, game-based learning contributes to stronger problem-solving skills, language development, memory, self-esteem, and cooperative work skills.

Planning an Escape

There are many pre-made escapes and templates you can use to build your own escape room, such as those that use Genially or Google forms or Google sites.

But really, before doing any of that (admittedly fun) stuff, be sure you have a clear picture of the skills you want your escape room to test: what is the focus? How will the applications show student mastery of the concepts and skills you have been covering in class?

If an escape room sounds like something you want to do, someone from TLI would love to support you in the planning process, whether it is helping with the template, the plan, or even just connecting you with another teacher who has used an escape room in your content area or grade level.

Game on!

Managing March Behaviors with "Better" Questions

We've heard from teachers that students are antsy and testing limits, so it must be March, the longest teaching month.

A recent podcast and article by Dr. Angela Watson shared some wisdom that just might help with this. She asks us to consider how asking better questions of our students can garner better results.

In "The Power of Asking Better Questions," she shares that just by asking students who are off-task, "What should you be doing right now?" she enters into a productive discussion with students instead of a power struggle. Instead of asking, "What are you doing?" which is self-evident and likely annoying in some way, the teacher can ask a question that they might actually want the answer to. 

Seriously, how often has a student, when asked "Why are you pushing him?" delivered a satisfactory answer?

By training yourself to calmly prompt the student with a version of "What should you be doing right now?", you encourage the student to draw upon their executive skills: they have a moment to consider their choices, and often, a reminder to make a better one without shame or embarrassment. If the student replies with an answer that shows they know the directions, you could follow up with, "How can I help you get started?" or "Is there anything you are stuck on?" If, on the other hand, the student says, "I don't know," or names something outside the scope of your directions, then this provides you the opportunity to clarify or:

"bridge the gap between what [you] need the student to do and what the student feels they need to do. It gives some insight into what's distracting the student or causing them to make choices that aren't aligned with [your] expectations."

The examples of questions and their alternatives are all too relatable:

• "Why is your coat on the floor?" becomes, "Where should your coat be?"
• "Why aren't you on the right page of the textbook?" becomes "What page should you be on?"
• "Why is your cell phone out?" becomes "Where should your cell phone be right now?" 

Your sincerity and your acknowledgment of their control over the situation will yield a much more satisfactory response than the alternative. Really, you are shifting your mindset and giving students agency by reframing the question. 

So when you are feeling frustrated with student behavior, take a deep, calming breath, and sincerely ask the student a question that provides an opportunity to think about their choices and the expectations. 

What should you be doing right now?

It might take practice, or it might take a sticky note on your ID, but if you get in the habit of asking the better question, you will find you'll get a better response.

Infinite Campus: Use the Knowledge Base & Save time with Student Groups

 If you haven't gone into Infinite Campus's Community, you should check out the Knowledge Base. This menu provides tutorials for features that will streamline your work.

One such tool is the "Student Groups" option, which allows teachers to divide a class into small groups for an assignment or to simply have as a record to refer to for classroom activities. For example, you might create a roster of accelerated students who might benefit from more challenging small group work into a "Green" group, as well as students who need more support during reading into a "Blue" group. 

One big selling point, aside from the ability to quickly group students and create rosters, is for GMS/GHS teachers to adapt their gradebook at the same time:

"You can use student groups to give assignments to only a subset of students in a section. Once a group is created, you can select it in the Scheduling/Grading Alignment area of an assignment. The assignment only appears for the students in the selected group; all other students are automatically marked as exempt in the Grade Book."

You wouldn't need to take the time to duplicate the assignment or mark students as exempt--talk about a time saver! What's also great is that the differentiated assignment The link to the directions for Student Groups is here, though keep in mind you will have to login with your Infinite Campus credentials to access.

You can also save time adding assignments in gradebooks that cover students in the same course by using section groups. Infinite Campus shares that "groups make scoring assignments easier by combining matching assignments into shared columns in the gradebook."

As you can see in the image to the left, the teacher in this example grouped all his math classes into a section called "Math Classes." Instead of toggling between gradebooks, he can create the assignment once for all of those groups, and then he can select that section to score all at once. You can see that the different class sections are denoted by colors (green and blue) on the left hand side.

The link to the directions for Section Groups is here, and again, you will have to login to Infinite Campus to access the directions, with the linked video tutorial and simulation at the bottom of the page.

Finally, you can modify due dates and details for groups using either of these section tools (and for individuals too! See this video for a how to.). 

Want support for setting up student groups? Contact _GPSTLI@griswoldpublicschools.org

Have you visited the TLI Website lately?

NWEA MAP season is almost upon the teachers and students of Griswold, and that means it's time to dust off that handout reminding you about how to administer testing. 

But if you lost your handout, remember that there is another way to access not only those directions, but tutorial videos and other resources of value: the TLI website!

GPS staff can access a wealth of resources that are specifically targeted to our teachers and support staff (often with student support materials too!). And while the homepage might largely look the same, updates are made regularly to each page, with new resources to support curriculum, instruction, templates for blended learning, and support for SBAC IABs and NGSS Interim tests as well. In fact, coming next week are some tutorials for downloading your data and using Excel or Sheets to quickly analyze it. Templates will be shared too!

It's worth setting a reminder to check the TLI website for news and updates every month or so. To find out what's new, in addition to looking at the instructional spotlight, you can click on the "News & Updates" tab to see what's been updated (and to see the archives of the Spotlight, so you can clean out your email). 

What kinds of resources are you looking for? Add a comment below, and the TLI team will respond!

The Triple E Framework: Is it worth it?

 

Whenever a new educational tool comes out, we're often asked by teachers if it is worth it.

And that makes sense. It usually takes at least some time and effort to learn a new tool, and if a teacher not only needs to learn it, but to teach it, then that tool better be worth the time investment.

But often times, knowing if a tool is worth it or not has more to do with the teacher/student needs and goals than with the tool itself.

A recent ISTE blog post made the point that,

"Technology, when integrated seamlessly, should make teaching and learning easier to access for both teachers and students, and when it doesn’t, then everyone suffers."

At the latest ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference, many people were talking about the Triple E Framework for evaluating how well technology tools fit into a lesson. The idea is that the learning target comes first. Then, the teacher considers how well the planned tool will help students engage with, enhance, and extend that learning goal. 

The framework is pretty simple to use, and the creator even made an online tool that allows you to quickly and easily evaluate your technology. Take a look, and see if this inspires you as you plan to use technology to level up your learning.

Innovation and Imperfection: Embracing B+ Work and Beta

Risk-taking is part of innovation.

But failure is scary, and frankly, people don't learn well from failure. Who really sees an "F" on something and then thinks, "gosh, I just need to grow more"? 

Plus, teachers don't want to fail when the well-being of learners is at stake.

But innovation doesn't happen without risk.

So how do we, as teachers, find the balance between soul-crushing perfectionist behavior and failure?

Recently, GPS educators from around the district met and talked about how scary it was to take risks and try something new, but also how powerful those risks were in terms of their growth as professionals. Blended learning techniques like playlists, incorporating new stations like VR, or using new tools all took time to plan--time that they were afraid might be wasted. Part of what made it work, they said, was planning--often with other teachers, for both time-saved and moral support--and being comfortable with embracing something that was less than perfect, knowing that they would learn what worked.

This aligns with what educators call the power of "teaching in Beta" and settling for B+ work. You cannot get a 100 on every task--who among us has never cooked a not-so-great meal or missed a spot when cleaning? Dr. Angela Watson reminds us that "perfect is the enemy of done":

If we make a task into something that’s hard work — something that feels like it’s going to be outstanding — that often makes the task feel overwhelming. It becomes something we build up in our heads: B+ work is not going to be good enough; a little effort will not suffice. This must be amazing! It must be mind-blowing! It must be as close to perfect as I can get it!
When we think this way about a task, working on it becomes very daunting. We raise the stakes and start to feel overwhelmed. Then we procrastinate, or fail at it and don’t meet our own expectations.

PBL expert professor John Spencer agrees that expecting things to go perfectly is the enemy of innovation, which requires iterations to grow. He advocates embracing the idea of viewing new lessons, projects, and teaching practices as being in "beta" form, like a new piece of software:

It’s the idea that you release your work in beta, knowing that it’s not perfect and perhaps it’s not even very good at all. However, you’re going to send it to an audience so that they can see it, experience it, and play around with it to let you know what you should do to improve it. This feedback leads to self-reflection, where you ultimately change your design and then release a new version. As you move through multiple iterations, you eventually reach a place where your work is pretty good. Eventually, it’s great. But you never stop creating those iterations. You always experiment.

With this in mind, we urge you to give yourself permission to aim for a B+. It doesn't have to be perfect, and it will require reflection, but it's the only way to grow. 

Can you smell what the podcast is cooking?

Science suggests that as you listen to a podcast or radio show about cooking and you hear the sizzle of the stove as the broadcaster describes adding garlic, the smell center of your brain will light up, activating memories and prior knowledge. You might actually SMELL the food cooking. 

"When we listen, our ears aren’t just passive absorbers of information. We are activating systems in the brains that are responsible for sight, sound, motor control and olfaction. 'We imagine sounds using the same brain regions that allow us to hear real sounds,' says cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen."

Audio, and podcasts in particular are powerful in the classroom for so many reasons:

• Helps build empathy and impacts social-emotional well-being.
• Models powerful/fluent speaking.
• Supports listening comprehension skills (which are tested on SBAC)
• Helps build vocabulary.
• Builds background knowledge (especially for ELLs or struggling readers)
• Supports the development of reading (see the Simple View of Reading formula)
• Provides models for composition/presentation.
  

Other benefits? You can often speed them up, slow them down, or use tools that read along with transcripts to increase accessibility. TED Talks on the TED platform include transcripts in multiple languages, which highlight as the speaker talks.

How can I use them?

• There are many short (under 5 minute) podcasts for kids. These might be a great warm-up once a week, with the class working on retelling, identifying key information, or just brainstorming questions about a topic or current event.
• You might use longer podcasts as part of a station rotation to build prior knowledge or provide more first person, non-fiction accounts of events.
• You might use podcasts to appeal to different learning modalities, giving kids the option to listen to sources rather than simply reading all of them.
• You can create IAB-style comprehension questions to help students practice for the listening part of the SBAC test, and discuss the techniques students used during listening. Kids can listen and discuss  individually, in small groups, or as a whole class.
• You can use them to model, guide, and have students practice the note-taking skills you teach.
• Have students write (or use flip to record) the connections they make between the current events from the audio to the historical events, general science topic, or other concepts they are learning about.

For links to elementary-age podcasts, check out this resource.

For more research, check out the Cult of Pedagogy blog/podcast about using podcasts.

For more ideas, listen to or view the video podcast from Truth for Teachers.

Supporting Student Digestion (of Content)

 

In Catlin Tucker's recent episode of her SEL series of the podcast, The Balance, she talks about how important Self-Management is to student development, and how vital it is that we provide students with opportunities to make choices.

One research-based and easy way to do this is to provide students opportunities to monitor their own progress through checklists. Chunking big assignments into smaller pieces is often a recommendation on individualized student plans, and this makes sense: just as we wouldn't do well shoving a whole candy bar in our mouths at once, our students won't digest the task well if we ask them to conceptualize it all at once.

Additionally, education specialist Dr. Kathleen Dudden Rowlands believes checklists are more than just a way for students to stay organized and on-task: 

"Metacognitive research consistently suggests that students who know how to learn, know which strategies are most effective when faced with a problem or a task, and have accurate methods of assessing their progress, are better learners than those who don't."

So what to do?

Option 1: Provide Assignment Checklists

If you already know the steps to take for students to successfully tackle a task, why not give them a checklist? Many teachers do this for longer assignments anyway, but this can also be valuable for daily assignments. This can even be done "on the fly" for individuals in need.

Option 2: Support Students in Creating their own Checklists

Not only is breaking tasks down an important life skill, but it helps students grasp the scope (and best sequence) of the task at hand. You can scaffold this by providing a partial checklist, with students brainstorming minor tasks under a major heading, or even by creating the checklist together as a whole class or in groups. 

If you want a lesson plan idea for supporting students in breaking down directions, check this out. If you want to support students by using technology, be sure to include some time to model the tool!

Technology tools to try:

Are kids mobile? Kids can use Google Keep, which is great for use on computers and mobile devices, quickly saving content, and collaboration. (Learn more about using Google Keep with students at ShakeUpLearning.)

Is the task big? Students might also use Google Sheets for a more involved project. Each part of the task can have its own tab and set of checklists. TLI also has some templates that you can provide students that cross items off the list when the box is checked AND show progress in a progress bar.

Want to keep it really simple? Google docs has also just made it easier to create and use checklists, which allows for students to check and cross out items (or uncheck, if they realize it isn't done). Check out the 2 minute tutorial below that shows a few ways to make checklists!

A note about behavior: Do you have students who might benefit from an academic behaviors checklist? Enlist them in creating their own self-management goals for the day with this tool from Intervention Central.

Take Time to Save Time: Planning to use Rubrics and Success Criteria

In a recent conversation with a team, the topic of rubrics came up. Several teachers shared that they weren't sure it was a good use of their team time and effort to put details into a rubric that students don't use well.

And this raises a good question: do we always need detailed rubrics?

Well, the short answer is, no!

But research suggests that having clear success criteria--and in cases where a skill recurs, develops, or is reviewed for a long period of time, rubrics--is powerful:

"When students are clear on expectations of learning, they tend to double their rate of learning. Moreover, when students are clear on expectations, they have a better chance of assessing their current performance and using feedback accurately. As John Hattie explains in Visible Learning, self assessment, feedback, and student clarity yield substantial growth in student learning."

So how can we make this easier on teachers and on our time?

1) Have clear learning targets for the assignment, and share them in student-friendly language.

One big concern teachers share is that students can't or don't accurately monitor their progress or provide accurate feedback to each other. The more "targeted" and clear we can make expectations for students, the more likely they are to hit that target.

“When students understand exactly what they’re supposed to learn and what their work will look like when they learn it, they’re better able to monitor and adjust their work, select effective strategies, and connect current work to prior learning.” (from Brookhart and Moss “Learning Targets. On Parade” Educational Leadership, October 2014, v. 72 p. 28)

2) Use models to help build success criteria.

There is power in SHOWING, not just telling, what we are looking for. In fact, for bigger assignments, this can be done as a co-construction activity, in which the teacher shows examples of what they are looking for and asks students to identify what made the work successful. In this way, students "own" the drafting of the criteria for success. 

This can even develop as a checklist! This checklist can become the core of a rubric, or students can use those criteria to review their work during and after it is created.

3) Build in time for students to use them.

Giving class time for students to use a rubric or checklist to review and revise their work is tough--after all, there is a lot to cover in that precious time! But if we want to make sure students feel more success the first time, and to save ourselves time reteaching (and taking home assignments to write feedback on!), this is time well spent. One way to engage students is to use a single-point rubric

Not only does this save time in creating a big, detailed rubric, but it provides the student (and teacher) space to provide specific feedback on how the student work does or doesn't meet the criteria. This can be a formative assessment, as students who can't or incorrectly identify evidence that they meet the success criteria are good candidates for reteaching, while those who can identify why they aren't yet meeting success may be able to improve after self-reflection. 

Make time to save time

It seems counterintuitive to plan more class time to review learning targets, co-create success criteria, and spend time using a rubric, but that time is shown by research to be well-spent. Students show greater understanding and success, and teachers do LESS of the work in the long run. It's a win-win!