Teacher Magic: Multiply Your Presence in the Classroom to Reach All Students

image source: Smithsonian.com

Scientists in China made headlines recently for being the first to successfully clone a primate. Ethical controversy aside, wouldn't it be great if you could multiply your presence in the classroom to provide each of your students with individual attention? The good news is that you don't have to be a scientist to make this a reality. In fact, the technology to do so is most likely sitting on your desk. I'm talking about the Aver Document Camera. With this simple tool, you could create a short "explainer" video as you demonstrate a skill or explain a concept and share the video along with an assessment to reach every student, even if you are engaged in providing direct instruction to a small group. Here's how:

1.  Review this video to learn how to download and install Sphere Light, connect to your document camera, and use all of its features.
2. Set your camera up and prepare any worksheets for your lesson--have a writing utensil handy as this activity will require pen and paper!
3. Record a short video of you demonstrating/explaining a skill. Pro Tip: Kids love learning through video instruction (i.e. YouTube), but be sure to keep your custom videos short--up to 3 or 4 minutes for elementary-age students and up to 5 or 6 minutes for secondary students.
4. Save your video to your Google Drive
5. Share your video via Google Classroom. Some options:
1. Create an "Announcement", attach the video from Google Drive, and prompt students to comment in response to a prompt you share with them
2. Create an "Assignment", attach the video from Google Drive and require students to turn something in so that you can assess their understanding. This can be a pen and paper assignment or a digital assignment that is turned in via Classroom.
3. More options: Create and attach a Google Form that prompts students to reply to assessment questions based on the video.
4. Pro Tip: Make sure that headphones are available for students to use so that the noise level is not a distraction to learning.
6. For Secondary Teachers: You may want to consider assigning your custom video and assessment for homework a la "the flipped classroom" approach to teaching and learning.
7. For Elementary Teachers: You can set up independent centers in which small groups of students consume your video & assessment while you work with other groups of students.

To learn more about blended learning strategies, check out this article from TeachThought.