Blog Posts

Grab Student Attention With Their Own Faces

2/16/2021

Michael Crisantos, a first-year special education teacher in Round Lake School District, used this clever trick to grab his students' attention this week. During a review of counting by tens, he replaced some of the numbers with photos of his students. When he revealed the slide, the students had to be ready to fill in the number for their spot!

Not teaching counting? I can think of several other ways to use this:

Set up any questions or work in a 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4 grid and incorporate student images to indicate who will answer that question.
If reviewing geography, remove state or country names with student photos.
Reviewing steps in a process? Add student photos to some or all of the steps.
Replace some of the images on an alphabet chart - instead of an apple for A, a student face

Thanks, Michael, for sharing this idea and for all you do for your students!

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Support for Reading Digital Texts

2/11/2021

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Students everywhere are struggling with maintaining attention to digital texts. This can occur when a teacher or student is reading aloud while the others are meant to follow along, or when they are reading independently. Of course, if the teacher or student can use highlighting tools or arrows, that can be enormously helpful, but it is not always possible.

Lately, I have found it helpful to think about how I might have addressed this if I was with students in a school building, rather than a virtual setting. If so, I might have offered them a colored acetate strip to use in their paper book. Unfortunately, most students don't have access to this type of item at home, so I tried another idea last week.

Ask students to find a scrap of paper, and fold it to approximately 6 inches by 2 inches.
Direct students to use a bold marker to draw a line along one edge, and repeat with a different color along the other edge.
Explain that they can hold it up to the screen and use it to follow along while trying to read the digital text.
Suggest they try different colors to determine what works best for them.

The touch of tactile interaction is a novel change of pace from using digital tools and increases the number of neural pathways involved in the task of digital reading. Best of all, it is simple and free!

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Improve Descriptive Writing with This Highly Engaging Strategy

11/17/2020

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Recently, I used a strategy that I originally posted about in 2013. It was a success then and proved just as effective now!

The Slow-Motion Writing Strategy teaches students to expand their descriptive writing by imagining the events taking place in slow-motion.

Ask students to write down the sentence “They sneezed.”
Show this slow-motion video clip of several different people sneezing, while pointing out specific actions students can see happening.
Ask students to rewrite their sentences with more detail.
Continue the process with Slow Motion Flying Cats, Slow Motion Water Balloon, other slow-motion videos. There are dozens of them on YouTube.
If desired, have students videotape themselves doing various actions (throwing a ball back and forth, drinking water). Then replay in slo-mo, asking students to write detailed sentences about what they see.
Ask students to find a short sentence in their own writing that would benefit from more detail. Encourage them to close their eyes and picture the action in slow-motion, then write details into their sentence(s).

Students were highly engaged and remembered the strategy over the course of several weeks. The last assessment showed that student writing was much more descriptive!

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DIY Document Camera Idea

9/23/2020

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I saw this post last week and finally found time to try it --- and it works! So if you or your paraeducator don't have access to a document camera, or can't use your phone to project, then here is a simple DIY idea. You could also teach students how to do this so that they could show you any handwritten work.

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The Secret Answer Strategy

9/21/2020

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Increase curiosity and engagement with The Secret Answer Strategy. Announce near the beginning of class that you need a volunteer to “hold” onto the secret answer. If you are teaching in-person, place it into an envelope and seal it shut. If you are teaching remotely, create a Google slide, similar to what you see here, and share the link with a student.

At an appropriate place in the lesson, ask students an intriguing, close-ended question and have them share their thinking. After everyone has shared, direct the volunteer to open the envelope (manually or digitally) to reveal The Secret Answer. Adding this little bit of novelty can increase attention without distracting from your content or taking time from your pacing.

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Virtual Classrooms with Embedded Links

5/14/2020

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Here's an awesome idea I found on Twitter and am sharing with Amy's permission. How much more engaged will your students be if they are clicking embedded links rather than traditional urls? This idea is so adaptable to any content or grade level. I just found this on Tuesday but am already working on making a few of my own. Thanks, Amy!

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Tic-Tac-Toe Menus for Remote Learning

5/5/2020

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During COVID-19, tic-tac-toe menus and choice boards are an approach to differentiation that is more helpful than ever. Typically, the teacher creates a 3x3 grid and develops nine activities for students to choose from. Usually the choices address a variety of processes and products, including no-tech, low-tech and high-tech. Students can be directed to choose one of the nine activities or aim for three in a row, as in the game of tic-tac-toe.

Menus can be designed to honor the varying circumstances students find themselves in – limited technology access, outdoor opportunities, home alone or with siblings – as well as their various interests. Choice always increases motivation but can be especially effective when the choices are based on student interests.

Depending on the platform you are using to teach, you might be able to load a tic-tac-toe menu to a collaborative document and have students work in small groups to fill all nine spaces. Better yet, have them create their own tic-tac-toe boards that include different processes and products, and still meet your learning target. Here's a Google Slide template.

Here are a few examples of tic-tac-toe boards that you could tweak to fit your content and students. Even if it isn’t your content area, notice how you can keep the first part of the task and just change the second part. For example, if it reads “Create a rap/poem that informs people about healthy nutritional choices,” you can use the words in red so that you are not starting from scratch. No need to be creative on top of all the herculean tasks you are already preforming!

Accessing Text (options for reading comprehension across content)
https://tinyurl.com/y9y5eqho

Nutrition (specific content example)
https://tinyurl.com/y96p4dy6

A collection of various approaches to choice boards with lots of examples
https://tinyurl.com/y754lwcf

A quick internet search yielded dozens of sites that offer examples. You may find just what you’re looking for, already generously shared by another teacher. Just keep in mind that most were created before remote learning and may require students to have technology or other resources that are unavailable.

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The Importance of Chunking for Virtual Instruction

4/22/2020

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Are you a memory champion? If not, you are probably like the rest of us – you have fairly good recall when you are attentive and engaged. However, if your mind wanders or you attempt to multi-task or you are anxious, etc., your ability to recall what you are learning diminishes.

Try the following exercise, without scrolling down the page! Give yourself 30 seconds to attempt to memorize the following display of 15 symbols. After 30 seconds, look away and write down as many, in order, as you can remember. Then check your accuracy.

How well did you do? If you got all 15 correct, you may have the makings of a memory champion! You should be quite pleased with yourself. Most of us, though, don’t do all that well. We need our information to be chunked in order to remember it better. Now try the following exercise, with the same approach – 30 seconds to memorize, look away and write down as many as you can.

I’d bet real money on your improvement. When information is presented and studied in chunks, it is much easier to make sense of and remember. This “chunking” is essential for virtual instruction because so many distractions abound. The refrigerator calls, others in the house are making noise, no one is watching, etc. Most experts suggest that virtual lecture should not last more than 3-5 minutes before providing students with an opportunity to process, discuss, retrieve or in some way interact with the information. This is especially important for students who might have a learning disability or attention deficit disorder.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite, simple ways to add processing time with any content:

Silent written reflection
Draw a symbolic representation
Write a one-sentence summary
Create a slogan for our content
Sort info and name the categories
How would your fav celebrity summarize this?
Compose a #hashtag
Create a quiz question and answer

Before your next virtual lesson review your plan and check to see if you have chunked the content, allowing processing and interaction every 3-5 minutes. Not only will you increase your student engagement, you will increase student outcomes!

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Co-Teaching in Virtual Times

3/31/2020

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My colleague, Sonya Kunkel, and I have created a tip sheet for co-teaching in the virtual world. Please feel free to share it liberally with co-teachers everywhere.

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Keep Them Included for Testing!

2/26/2020

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While it is common for many old IEPs to have "alternate testing location" listed as an accommodation, research and practice suggest that for *most students this becomes a disadvantage. Listen to this 3 minute interview with two middle school co-teachers as they share their journey into inclusive testing.

*This should always be a decision based on individual needs in varying circumstances. Just as all don't need alternative locations, all may not do well in classroom settings for testing.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cd2ram8dhvb7bhq/Testing%20in%20the%20Inclusive%20Classroom%20Co-T%20interview.mov?dl=0

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