When looking back at how “simple” I thought teaching was when I first started, I was very very wrong.

I started out with planning coming easily to me. I could create a lesson on a topic the morning before teaching it and then teach and preform like I was on a stage and it was the hundredth time I had done it.

I have come to realize that real teaching brings much more than presenting a topic to students. It takes thought and careful consideration as to how to make it meaningful to students. A big piece of this is technology. Students are exposed to technology on a daily basis in the world. In order to teach relevantly I have to bring that in to keep the content relevant to them.

Realizing to keep my students engaged in a pandemic when they are on computers all day they must get some extra rather than notes and homework. When gaming is involved the students are much  more likely to participate and engage in the learning. They bring in what they have heard and seen and done through their notes to try and beat their classmates. It also lets those know that aren’t sure that they may need to participate in class more.

Document editors: 

1. Kami– This chrome extension has become a lifesaver for my school this year. You can take a PDF and assign through classroom for students to edit. They can do anything they would do to a paper plus more. Text to speech buttons are included, as well as speech to text for students that struggle with typing. (For all you math folks it has an equation editor button). The free trial is much longer than typical 30 day free trials! Yes it is worth the money.
2. Explain everything- Think a big whiteboard that you can work on with students digitally! Super cool.
3. Google Slides- Not my favorite but making a pdf into a background on slides and inserting text boxes for students to write in (takes longer to work with).

Game Practice:

1. Word wall– This is my new favorite! Free to make up to five resources and you can assign them or embed games that you create. You can make the games have up to 100 questions! The game format is up to you whether matching, multiple choice, a pac-man like game where you find the answer and lead your character to it. There is also a plane game where you fly into the answer. This is super cool! After creating the questions you can move between the format of the game and choose different games without going back to the question entry!
2. Kahoot– A kid favorite for all. My classes always have more students online if Kahoot is involved.
3. Quizlet– Students can play at their own pace or in a similar way to kahoot play as a class. This one has the answers shown rather than the color boxes.

Math:

1. Math Games– No it is not just games that you do a few problems on. Compare to IXL. The ads on this have become a bit extreme but is still functional for some specific skill practice. You can also create worksheets from the site and a grade book feature for paid accounts.
2. Mathaids– free worksheets for math that can be downloaded.
3. Kahnacademy- Nice for review and practice when you don’t have the time to work with individuals.
4. Prodigy– Kids love it. I like that they love it but practice is game based, and they do answer math questions to fight off the bad guys. Students can also connect with  one another and play together.

Reading:

1. Epic– Students can read books or listen to audiobooks and teachers can see how much they have read weekly. Teachers can also assign “libraries” where students can choose from various books within the assigned limits.
2. Vocabulary– Students can work through learning vocab they have learned in class!

Science:

1. Legends of Learning– Assign topics for your class, and watch them progress. This is similar to prodigy with science and math options.
2. Mope.io– Ecosystems where kids play a game. (kids do get obsessed and want to play all the time). Climb the food chain with cute little characters.

Starting out using class dojo I implemented it with positives and negatives and just introduced to students the points they can earn and when they lose for negatives. I realized with this many of the times I was using it I was taking many more points than giving. I used things like “speaks without permission” and students would lose points each time they did that. Then when students raised hand and waited to be called on for the positive I did not notice and record these as much.

This year I wanted to try something different. I have found using only positives with expectations works much better. Students have three categories with things they are expected to do. For each category they get warnings for not doing these thing, and if they get three of those they don’t get any points for the category. For example the category of “wearing mask properly” If I do not have to mention their mask they get three points, if I ask them to pull it up or fix it once they get two points, and if I have to ask them to fix twice they get one. Any more than twice and they do not get any points for that category. I did the same thing with raising hand, and being on task with the same warnings.

I then thought in order for this to be something to work for I gave an incentive as a store they can buy things like chips, fidgets, candy, and other things. I choose to do the store daily, but it could also be implemented once a week, or every other week.

While the store is open if any students talk without permission they lose the chance to use the store that day. This has helped the chaos at the end of the day in an amazing way.

Let me know class reward systems you have and what works/doesn’t work!

This week my school is doing all of our benchmark tests for Reading Language arts and Math. I get frustrated and stressed each time we do these, like many teachers I know. We use these tests to place students and look at them to see where they are not meeting grade-level standards. However I do not think they are the most accurate.

Students take two tests: FastBridge and I-Ready Diagnostic. The only times they have to take these are during benchmarks. They do practice with I-ready throughout the year, and work on skill building. The kids despise these “adaptive” tests. We stress that if they do not do their best they will end up in lower classes, but if we stress this and that is truly where they need to be don’t the kids feel inferior? I know as teachers it is necessary but during a pandemic, we should focus more on their positives and worry about the catch up later. These kids are going through so very much.

When looking into connected learning theory I found that it is giving a definition to so many of the technology courses I have been taking for my masters. In each of these classes we looked at different tools that we could use in order to engage our students whether to create, interact with outside world, or collaborate with one another. Connected learning brings these together as a whole to make the goal of the learning to be all of these things. Students working together across media and learning to work together.

Starting out..

When thinking of what to do with redesigning my instruction in order to engage students I first looked to my students for opinions. I had a class discussion with my in person students (12 kids). I wanted to start with this small sample because it was easy to get their honest opinion through voice and discussion rather than through a google form. I asked them which classes they felt most engaged in. They let me know that out of their classes (math, science and language arts) that they were most engaged during math (the subject I teach them). I then asked them why they felt they were most engaged, their responses varied from “being able to answer in the chat” “getting shout outs live that they had the right answer” and “Working through notes together and with the same steps each time.” I then asked when they felt most engaged in their other classes, my students responded that when they got to play games like kahoot for science or language arts. They also brought up they would like to do prodigy (a game based math program) more for math.

The goal:

After my conversations with my students I decided I needed to have more games to engage them and get them excited about math. I want them to enjoy their math practice and be able to have fun while doing it. In a normal non-pandemic year I would have task cards and other games and activities to engage them with, but this year with all computer work I have lacked. What game based math practices do you have in your room? What has worked? What doesn’t work?