🧠 Emojacognition!

Using Emojis for Student Self-Assessment

We talked a lot this August about the power of student self-assessment and metacognition. This strategy is so simple and so powerful, but it draws its power from regular practice.

So how do we make this easier to incorporate into your routine?

Use emojis! (And templates.)

While many of us used emojis during the pandemic for SEL check-ins, emojis are so much more than faces. Sites like emojicopy.com let you search for icons that help emerging readers AND proficient readers quickly identify the choice they identify with, whether it be a stop sign🛑, a bright sun☀️, or big eyes 👀!

Emojis can draw attention 📢 to ideas and more quickly communicate with a variety of learners.

Teachers in Kindergarten use emojis to support blended learning for emergent readers, along with audio and video.

Teachers of English Language Learners use this as a way to scaffold a "write-pair-share" conversations about their weekends. (You might want to give a table of emojis students can pick from to avoid inappropriate fruits!)

If you are looking for a digital exit ticket 🎫, you might draw inspiration from this doc template.

You can assign this to each student in Google Classroom with "Make a Copy for Each Student," and students can use the drop-downs you customize to answer. You can use different colors and symbols to help students quickly reflect on their learning or how well they met the student-friendly objectives for the day. (For more on using drop downs in Docs, check out the linked video!)

You could also use a Google form Exit Ticket with emoji or picture responses for reflection.

 (Click the link above to create a copy of a template with some pre-made options). The advantage is that you get a quick visualization of the data, showing which students did and didn't understand and supporting the development of student groups.

There are so many ideas for using emojis for student thinking and feedback. Let us know in the comments if you are using it!

The Genius of Genius Hour

What is Genius Hour?

According to NCTE,

In the Genius Hour model, instructors allocate a portion of class time—often the 20 percent that gives the approach an alternate name (20% Time)—for student exploration of a self-selected and/or given topic. Students turn to an array of sources in the course of their explorations and consider the topic from a wide variety of angles before synthesizing all of their research into a central understanding. This culminates in a final product, project, or other such artifact, that is shared with the class and potentially the larger school community. …

But an hour is a long time...

so, how can we possibly take the genius of genius hour and make it work for us in LESS time to further personalized learning?

By making a little time for inquiry.

This will undoubtedly look at little different at each grade level, with different structures and supports.

How would this work?

In elementary school, inquiry might be a station that students are able to rotate into once a week, or perhaps an option for students during WIN block. Inquiry might be very guided and on a particular topic, as this kindergarten teacher shows, or it might be a little more independent: students can use grade-level resources (reading, video, or simulation) curated on Destiny Discover, which is curated at GES (with resources like PebbleGo!), GMS, and GHS, or teachers might provide source selections on different topics related to class learning.

Documentation of learning can take different forms and be as long or short as the student can provide. Alice Vigors shares the idea to give a Google slides template for students to use to "Blog" about what they are learning; using Mote or Screencastify (which we subscribe to!) could allow students who struggle with writing to record on the slides...or perhaps students create a Flip post that explains in 1-2 minutes what they learned during their inquiry that day. It might even be an annotation of a paper that students take a picture of and share to Google classroom!

Secondary students might also have research as a station or use WEB or SIB time to pursue inquiry! GMS and GHS students can use Noodletools (See your Library Media Specialist to show you this cool tool!) to easily keep track of and share their learning. 

Melissa Kruse, keeper of the Reading and Writing Haven blog, shares 6 Ways to Differentiate Research Paper Lessons that might spark additional ideas for secondary teachers how providing time for research can help teachers reach individuals and small groups at their different places and paces. 

However, this research need not lead to a paper--students might simply present their learning, students might create TED Talks, or students could create a Google site.

There is so much research behind the benefits of embracing inquiry and so many resources for implementing genius hour--reach out to us if you want to create your own plan!

Templates for Teaching

On a recent Truth for Teachers podcast, Marguerite Redelfs shared how she uses templates to save time AND support deeper student learning. Perhaps this is a no-brainer for some of us, but it can be worth remembering that there are a lot of ready-to-use structures out there to make teaching not just easier to prepare for, but also better for deep student learning.

Brain research supports the use of using and reusing "standardized" approaches to tasks or topics, as the familiarity with the process increases students abilities to focus on the new learning. For example, if we introduce a new review game to students, they spend as much if not more of their mental energy on learning the game as they do accessing the content. Thus, playing Blooket to review at the end of each week or unit allows students to focus on the learning and not the rules of the game.

Likewise, using Google Slides or Google Jamboard templates for Visible Thinking Routines that you can use over and over is not only a huge time-saver for the teacher, but helps students focus more on the product than the process.

Using templates for hyperdocs or other lesson organization structures is just smart. The time YOU save on creating something from scratch can then be spent on other activities that support student learning.

Start with a Vision for your Classroom

There was quite a bit of talk in education circles over the summer about how new advances in VR and in the development of the "metaverse" would impact education. Will this be a way to connect students to people and places they would never otherwise see--or will it be a gimmick?

We'll have to wait to see, but it did get us thinking about the renewed interest in visualization. 

Visualization, imagining things at their very best or mentally (or virtually) rehearsing what you want to see or do before you actually do it, has been proven to have a powerful impact on performance. Olympic athletes use it. Business executives use it. And more and more, educators are using it too.

Visualization is a brain booster, impacting memory, planning, and control. And creating and staying focused on a vision is a great way to meet your goals.

As we start the year, it is worth taking some time to visualize your ideal classroom. 

• What are the students feeling? How do you see this in the way the students are behaving?
• What does the learning look like? What are students doing? Where are they?
• What will the teacher be doing? What is the lead learner's role?
• What academic and social/emotional results are evident?

Brainstorm or take note of what you see. Then identify the 3-5 elements of your "vision" that you want to focus on every day as you set your goals. 

When you plan your lesson, you can keep these elements in front of you. When you reflect on class that day, you can think about how it aligned to your vision--and what you might want to shift to make that vision more of a reality.

You could even try making a vision board. Jennifer Gonzalez recently shared how teachers are using vision board to plan units (it's very cool), and this speaks to the power of keeping this "vision" at the metaphorical or literal front of your classroom, as well as the power of involving students in creating the vision.

What is your vision for learning in your classroom this year?