Category: Engagement

Can Puzzle Obsession Increase Your Learning?

6/4/2016

I have just finished playing another hand of Solitaire, my fifth in a row. Before that it was several games of Red Herring and Cut the Rope. While I enjoy the win, it is more about the process for me - the puzzling, persevering, trying to figure it out. So, rather than quitting while I'm ahead, I continue on for another round.

Neuroscientists (Panksepp, et. al) explain this experience as the SEEKING System. As our brains engage in productive struggle, dopamine is released. Dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters that make us feel pleasure and a desire to persevere. Scientists used to believe that the largest release of dopamine occurred upon successful task completion. They now know that opioids are released upon completion instead. Opioids differ from dopamine in that they result in a boost, or high, that drops off quickly. Dopamine, a more long-lasting high, is released during the SEEKING, or puzzling, process.

How can we enhance this process during prescribed lessons? Many teachers struggle with trying to make scripted lessons more engaging for all students. In a recent unit, I tried three different ways to add some puzzling to the learning process. Each of these ideas could be developed for any content or grade level, with very little teacher prep. Students were attentive and highly motivated to complete the puzzles.

1. Crossword Puzzles – I used a free online puzzle maker to create a simple crossword puzzle with the key vocabulary words.

2. Fill in the Blank – I turned the learning target into a fill in the blank puzzle.

3. Wheel of Fortune – A variation on the t.v. show Wheel of Fortune. I provided some of the letters and then had teams compete to fill in the rest.

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Are Your Students Escape Artists?

5/20/2015

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Always on the search for new ways to motivate students to read carefully and closely, I decided to craft a lesson about being an escape artist. Two recent experiences inspired this lesson - a trip to the awesome Denver Escape Room and a visit to a Houdini museum exhibit in Appleton, WI.

Students were "locked" into Room 1, our first Google doc. In order to escape, they had to read this document and answer the questions (questions represented the lowest two levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.) If they answered correctly, they were given a code by the teacher (a tiny url) that would get them into Room 2. Again, they had to read text and answer questions, this time from the two middle levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. If correct, they received the code to get into Room 3 where they encountered a high level challenge based on our recent energy unit.

Check out and download the documents here.
Escape Room 1
Escape Room 2
Escape Room 3

Because escape artists usually have time constraints, we projected a visual timer on the board and gave students 40 minutes to try to escape all three rooms. Individual accommodations were made for a few students (text to speech, visual highlighting of key sections, etc.) and an extra challenge for early finishers.

Motivation and engagement was very high. However, we also had students who were highly frustrated. (Most of the mistakes came from rushing or not attending to details.) This led to great conversation with students about the need for persistence in the face of difficulty.

The structure worked really well and my co-teachers and I are already planning on designing more of these for next year. We will try to use text and questions that we already have, rather than creating from scratch like I did with this lesson. As student skills progress during the year, the escapes can become more challenging.

If any of my supremely tech savvy followers can think of a way to do this even more seamlessly, please let me know!

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Green Screen Success

10/13/2014

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Over the summer I shared with you my initial attempts at using a green screen and the Green Screen by DoInk iPad app. Now that school is in full swing, we had a chance to have students use it.

The 5th graders at Tarver Elementary school produce a daily news announcement that is broadcast in every classroom. It includes the typical school info - weather, lunch menu, special activities and the Pledge of Allegiance. This week students produced their video broadcast using a green screen. Here is their very first effort - I can't wait to see what they are able to do with it as they gain experience!

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Brain Bursts

7/18/2014

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Keep students actively attending during read aloud or lectures with these Brain Bursts!

Combine a brain image with a burst image, print, laminate and adhere to a wooden craft stick.

Explain to students that their brains have bursts of electricity when they make connections and think about new ideas.

Then give each student a Brain Burst and ask them to use their dry erase markers to write the concept of the day on the brain. In this example, students were learning about similes.

They kept the Brain Bursts on their desks, and were encouraged to raise it high whenever they heard a simile. During read aloud time there were several, but the teacher also used them in her conversation throughout the day.

Students were paying attention and excited to have the opportunity to share their brain burst with the class.

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Learning Time Line

6/19/2014

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A Learning Time Line is a wonderful way to capture learning over time or throughout a unit of instruction. Because research supports the use of non-linguistic approaches to capture and review concepts, I have used this strategy with students in the past. This week I decided to try it with adults. During a 3 day professional learning workshop on co-teaching, we documented our learning with words and pictures on a scroll of chart paper hung on the wall. I love no-prep strategies like this one!

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Are your students REALLY watching that video?

2/24/2014

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Are you looking for a better way to engage students with videos? The newest entry to the field of interactive video viewing might be just the answer. eduCanon, currently in beta stage, is the first interactive video tool that I have found to be flexible enough for teaching. It allows you to load any youtube, teacher tube or any public video and then insert questions at any point in the video. Other tools have limits on when and how many questions can be entered, but educanon gives teachers control over these decisions. The free version allows for multiple choice questions, but the paid version incorporates open ended questions. In addition to the Q & A, teachers can include detailed explanations of why an answer is correct or incorrect. Set up multiple classes, assign video viewing and collect student response data.

While much of the promotional material touts eduCanon for flipped lessons, I think it also has value within classrooms and for professional development activities. I tested it this week with a group of educators in my "Co-Teaching that Works" workshop and it received positive comments from everyone.

For a non-tech way to be more interactive during video viewing, check out this post from last year.

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How do you compare 2 informational texts?

2/4/2014

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How do you compare 2 informational texts? One of the anchor standards for reading expects students to be able to analyze two or more texts on similar topics to compare approaches the authors take. My co-teachers and I worked on this standard with our students this week, and, as usual, I wanted to be put a visual/tactile spin on it.

We distributed pieces of yarn, about 12 inches in length, to each student, and broke the students into two groups. They read a passage in the history book, and then another document detailing the same event in history. The second text was chosen in part because it portrays the event with different facts.

After reading each text, we asked a series of questions designed to encourage students to read closely. For example, “Who was Edward H. Moffat?” This historical figure is described very differently in each text. We then asked the students to use their piece of yarn to connect the location in each text so that we could compare. This forced them to be very focused on the textual evidence, before beginning to draw inferences. We then had robust discussion about why the authors chose to describe the person so differently.

The yarn served a great purpose of focusing students on specific evidence, and engaging tactile learners during a difficult reading task. Simple yet effective!

PS Some students chose to tape the yarn in place using restickable highlighter tape.

image by Lori Ann mamawit.wordpress.com

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100% Participation with TodaysMeet

1/9/2014

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100% participation - always an instructional goal of mine - happened today thanks to TodaysMeet.com. TodaysMeet allows anyone to set up a temporary chat room (free!) where students can share their ideas and questions with each other. Quick and easy to set up, and just as quick and easy to join in, a teacher could decide to use this website without any advance preparation.

Today I used the site to have students share sentences that included our social studies vocabulary terms in a variety of contexts. Our current unit is on economics, so terms included incentives, opportunity cost, etc. The photo shows a screenshot of some of their entries.

Some students quickly entered their sentences. This allowed others to see examples that sparked their thinking. Because all of the students knew that their work would be visible, they were a bit more motivated to check their spelling and grammar (although still not perfect!) As a group, we went through the sentences and discussed which worked and which needed tweaking, making sure that everyone really understood the terms.

Warning - to join a classroom, all you must do is enter a name. This means that a student could choose to enter a fictitious name and type inappropriate comments. Be sure to review appropriate use guidelines before you begin.

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Pass the Plate

12/10/2013

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Pass the Plate is a quick, engaging way to have students generate lots of ideas about a topic.

1.Put students into groups of 3 or 4 and provide each group with a plastic picnic plate and a transparency marker. (Paper plates work, too.)

2. Tell students that they will be given a word to write in the middle of the plate, and then they will pass the plate around their group, adding ideas, for 2 minutes. They will be given points for every idea on the plate, (I usually give 1000) and bonus points for any idea they have that no other group wrote down (5000.)

3. Rules for Pass the Plate - spelling doesnot count, they may not use resources (other than each other), and they may not skip a turn.

This photo is of a group of teachers playing Pass the Plate at one of my workshops. I provided the word "big" and they had to generate synonyms for the word. Teachers, like students, enjoyed the friendly competition and were very engaged with the activity.

When you are finished sharing ideas, simply hold the plate under the water faucet and it will rinse right off!

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Question the Text

12/4/2013

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Years ago I read an article by Alfie Kohn in which he claimed that teachers were ruining students' abilities to think critically. He wrote that the educators tend to prefer students who are compliant (very true) and that by demanding compliance from students, we were squashing their natural inclination to question things.

While I didn't fully agree with him, it did get me questioning my own practices. Was there a way that I could encourage students to challenge authority in a respectful, appropriate way?

Out of that reflection grew my Challenge Authority Cards. While I have developed a variety of them, I particularly like these that ask students to challenge or question the text they are reading. This skill is especially important as students read information on unscreened internet sources.

I find this is a great way to engage some of the higher level thinkers in a class - or early finishers. If you keep these handy, you can use them on the spur of the moment. So, just Copy These Questions, cut them up and hand them to students who are ready for a challenge.

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<<Previous

Can Puzzle Obsession Increase Your Learning?

Are Your Students Escape Artists?

Green Screen Success

Brain Bursts

Learning Time Line

Are your students REALLY watching that video?

How do you compare 2 informational texts?

100% Participation with TodaysMeet

Pass the Plate

Question the Text

Anne M. Beninghof

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