Showing posts with label A Little Bird Told Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Little Bird Told Me. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: 2021-22 in Review

It's been quite a year. Turns out getting back to "normal" has been hard work, yet teachers have handled it with skill and grace. Enjoy the tweet below from Scott Bayer and be sure to stick the landing as we wrap up another school year!


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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Doing Station-Rotation Better

Check out the tweet below from Stephanie DeMichele about how to do Station-Rotation better. She has created a fantastic video playlist that can help you learn how to align station-rotation tasks to your learning targets, group students in purposeful ways depending on the task, differentiate station tasks, and so much more!

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Tuesday, May 17, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Self-Paced Instruction

Looking for differentiation strategies that will help you move away from whole-group direct instruction? Check out the tweet below from TCEA which links to "How To" guide for setting up self-paced learning experiences for your students from Jennifer Gonzalez, author of  the Cult of Pedagogy blog. 


If you are looking for resources to get started, check out the  Mustard-Mayo-Ketchup-Pickles Choice Board template I created in Google Slides. Feel free to make a copy and plug in your assignments!


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Wednesday, May 11, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: How to Create Learning Stations to Engage Students

 Looking for ways to transition from "Sage on the State" to "Guide on the Side"? The tweet below form TCEA links to an article that offers tips for integrating learning stations into your pedagogical repertoire.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: eSports Champs!

Did you know that West Genesee High School has an e-Sports team? It started an informal club this year thanks to the leadership of Coach Scott English and will look to become a board-approved club next year. In the meantime, WG recently won the East Coast e-Sports Championship for their excellent team play, rising to the top of a 180-team field. Congratulations to the Spring 2022 Smash Ultimate champions, Matt Keiling, Derek Sweeney, and Grant Mathews!



Across the country, groups of students who would not normally participate in traditional organized team sports are experiencing the thrill of competition and what it means to be part of a team through eSports. Students that participate in eSports teams develop a sense of community, build character, are exposed to scholarship opportunities and are engaged in STEM activities outside of the normal school day.


eSports by the Numbers


$16M

In the 2018-19 school year, some 200 colleges in the U.S. offered $16 million in esports scholarships, more than a threefold increase since 2015, according to the National Association of College Esports. 2

18%

The percentage increase in eSports related jobs posted to Indeed between 2017 and 2018. 3

90%

The percentage of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 who say they play video games on a computer, game console or phone. 4


Sources

  1. NFHS.org, “2017-18 High School Athletics Participation Survey” & Data.NYS.gov, “NYS Public School Enrollment 2017-18: Grades 7-12.
  2. NBCnews.com, “High school gamers are scoring college scholarships. But can esports make varsity?”, Sept. 20, 2019.
  3. blog.indeed.com, “Gaming Industry Spotlight 2018: Augmented Reality and eSports on the Rise,” March 29, 2018
  4. Pew Research Center, “Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018,” May 31, 2018
  5. https://www.ocmboces.org/teacherpage.cfm?teacher=3576


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Wednesday, April 27, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: May the 4th be with You!

This Wednesday is May the 4th--a special day for Star Wars fans as it represents a play on words from the famous Jedi greeting, "May the Force be with you!" Check out the tweet below from Sarah Wood as she shares her Star Wars-themed virtual classroom with all sorts of educational and entertaining resources related to Star Wars. Anything that is "clickable" in her virtual classroom will take you to a shared resource.

Of course no May the 4th would be complete without a Star Wars Crawl. Create your own via the Kassel Labs website: https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/
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Wednesday, April 20, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Google Forms & Sheets "Smart Chip"

Have you ever assigned a Google Forms Quiz but forgot to include a field for students to type their names? In the tweet below from Jamie Agombar, you can see how easy it is to use "Smart Chips" in  Google Sheets to convert email addresses to student names. 

  1. Open the Google Forms Response page
  2. Click the green Google Sheets icon to view responses in an organized spreadsheet 
  3. Select the column that includes Email Addresses
  4. Right click and select "Convert to People Chip"
  5. Watch the magic happen as the email addresses are converted into names!

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Wednesday, April 6, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Station Rotation--Save Time, Engage Students in Any K-12 Classroom

If you have ever spent time in an elementary classroom, you would most likely have seen students working in "centers" or learning stations. Teachers design differentiated activities at each station and students rotate through so that the teacher can meet with individual students or small groups. In the tweet below from the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center (LHRIC), there is a link to Matt Miller's Ditch That Textbook blog in which Matt offers tips for leveraging the "station-rotation" model for differentiated instruction at ANY grade level. This is an excellent resource that includes tips for secondary teachers as well as reproducible "task cards" that teachers can use to design their learning stations.

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Wednesday, March 30, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: More Choice Boards to Support Differentiated Instruction

 According to Carol Ann Tomlinson, differentiated instruction means

“shaking up” what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn. In other words, a differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, to processing or making sense of ideas, and to developing products so that each student can learn effectively.

While there is no single tool to help teachers differentiate their instruction effectively, Choice Boards offer an instructional strategy that supports student agency by allowing students to decide not only how they learn, but also how they demonstrate that they have learned. Check out the tweet below from TCEA that shares a link to some outstanding resources that explain the whys and hows of using Choice Boards as well as links to templates and other resources.


As an added bonus, check out the tweet below from Edutopia that links to an article on using Choice boards to boost student engagement.

But wait, there's more! As a second added bonus, check out the tweet below from TCEA that offers tips on how you can design your own Choice Boards through the lens of students' learning profiles.


source: Tomlinson, Carol Ann. "What Differentiated Instruction Is—and Isn’t." How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms, 3rd ed., ASCD, 2017, pp. 1-11. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7330200009/GVRL?u=ocmboces_ascd&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=e7fbba34. Accessed 3 Feb. 2022.

 

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Wednesday, March 23, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Scheduling Assignments for Multiple Classes in Google Classroom

Be on the lookout for a new feature in Google Classroom--the ability to schedule assignments for multiple classes in Google Classroom. Check out the tweet below from Eric Curts demonstrating how to use the assignment-scheduling flow to configure the due date, post date, and topic. Google started rolling out this feature on March 17th but has noted that it may take up to 15 days to be visible on our Google domain. 🀞 that it shows up sooner rather than later!


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Wednesday, March 16, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: How to Get from PLC Light to PLC Right

This week, many of you will be participating in workshops led by our Solution Tree partner, Barb Phillips, during which you will learn more about PLCs at Work and how collaborative teams can work together to answer the 4 big questions to ensure that all students learn at high levels:
  1. What do we want students to learn?
  2. How will we know if they learned it?
  3. What will we do if they don’t learn?
  4. What will we do if they already know it?
Check out the tweet below from Solution Tree for a quick overview of three characteristics of the most successful PLC teams:
Our partnership with Solution Tree is a three-year commitment to help West Genesee transform into a true Professional Learning Community. 

Year 1
  • 3-day conference during the summer to introduce educators to PLCs at Work (focus on K-6)
  • Guiding Coalitions at WGMS, CMS, East Hill, Onondaga Road, Split Rock, Stonehedge, Strategic Planning Committee
  • Collaborative teams establish team norms and protocols, discuss student learning, and create and monitor SMART Goals
Year 2
  • Save the Dates--August 1 - 3: 3-day conference during the summer to introduce educators to PLCs at Work (focus on 7-12)
  • Guiding Coalition at WGHS
  • Collaborative teams unwrap essential standards, create assessments to align to the identified learning targets, plan for MTSS structures and schedules, and establish and monitor SMART goals
Year 3
  • Guiding Coalitions continue to meet and drive the PLC process throughout the district
  • Build schedules and refine practices for MTSS
  • Establish and monitor SMART Goals

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Wednesday, March 9, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: The Best Strategies for Small-Group Instruction

Looking for ways to organize small groups instruction in your classroom? Larry Ferlazzo has some advice. Check out the tweet below from the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) as they share Larry's Education Week article highlighting some best practices for setting up and getting the most out of small group instruction within a whole-class setting.

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Thursday, March 3, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: One Size Does Not Fit All

Carol Ann Tomlinson is a professor, author, and thought leader whose expertise involves helping educators understand the principles of differentiated instruction and develop competence in creating responsive classrooms that meet the diverse learning needs of today's students. According to Tomlinson, differentiated instruction means
shaking up what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn. In other words, a differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, to processing or making sense of ideas, and to developing products so that each student can learn effectively.

In the tweet below, Sam Kary from the New EdTech Classroom offers a brief overview of how you can leverage technology tools, choice boards, and concepts that support Universal Design for Learning to help meet the needs of 21st century students. If you have 10 minutes, check out Sam's video to learn about some "First Steps Toward Classroom Transformation." 


Sam's video is part of a 6-part series about building the classroom of tomorrow. If you have time, feel free to check out the entire series about engaging students today while building the classroom of tomorrow: 

  1. Fixing What's Broken in Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipnxE... 
  2. The First Step Toward Classroom Transformation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2jH... 
  3. Make THIS Your Teacher Super Power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWt39... 
  4. What It Takes to Reach ALL Students: https://youtu.be/YDFoCYQrh0I 
  5. How to Become a 21st Century Teacher: https://youtu.be/OqayVxDNx68 
  6. Your Questions, Answered! : https://youtu.be/U9ky-RljLtY


source: Tomlinson, Carol Ann. "What Differentiated Instruction Is—and Isn’t." How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms, 3rd ed., ASCD, 2017, pp. 1-11. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7330200009/GVRL?u=ocmboces_ascd&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=e7fbba34. Accessed 3 Feb. 2022.




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Tuesday, February 15, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: SlidesMania Education Bundle

SlidesMania is one of my go-to resources for creating a Google Slides presentation. Paula, the person behind SlidesMania is such a creative talent! In the tweet below, Mickie Mueller shares an outstanding School Bundle that includes templates for the following:

  • Frayer model
  • Weekly planner
  • Station rotation
  • Choice board
  • Bingo
  • One, two, three and four blocks for analysis, comparisons and free writing
  • Class debate
  • Parts of a story
  • Collecting evidence
  • Cause and effect / Causes and consequences
  • Mind maps
  • Bracket challenge
  • Morning Meeting
Feel free to make a copy of the School Bundle template by visiting this link and clicking on "Open in Google Slides." 
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Tuesday, February 8, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Clothespin Bumper Cars

 Are you looking for a strategy that will get students out of their seats and talking to their peers as they discuss course content? Check out the tweet below from John Meehan as she shares his Clothespin Bumper Cars strategy. You can click here to read more about how to play and click here for the template that includes a timer and directions for students (feel free to make a copy to share with your students).



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Tuesday, February 1, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: 25 Virtual Field Trip Ideas Plus 10 Activities for your Class

While it may be difficult to travel and plan field trips given the state of the pandemic, it is still possible to introduce our students to all of the wonder the world has to offer through virtual field trips. Check out the tweet below from Matt Miller as he shares 25 virtual field trip ideas as well as 10 activities for your classroom.


Google Arts & Culture

As a social studies teacher, one of my favorite sites for virtual exploration is  the Google Arts & Culture website. The site has lots of content relevant to Global and US History. You'll want to navigate to the "Explore" page. From there, you'll see a link for the following:
The Street View collection also has some cools stuff like the Taj Mahal, Palace at Versailles, Pyramids of Giza, Colosseum, etc. Keep scrolling on this page and you will also find content like the ballcourts of Chichen Itza, Tikal, Machu Picchu.

It may be useful to give kids time to explore the content independently for activating prior knowledge before you dive into your direct instruction and/or enrichment for those who finish a lesson before their peers. Check out the video below to learn how to search for quality content.




Google Earth

Google Earth has some fantastic resources to share with your students. There is a tool built into Google Earth called "Voyager" that includes various categories for exploration. If you navigate to the "Culture" page, you will notice that there are lots of engaging pre-made tours that depict historical events relevant to US and Global History. The tours are shareable via a link that you can post on Google Classroom or insert into a HyperDoc to give kids time to independently explore content with text and images. Added bonus--students can use the "Street View" option for a 360 degree immersive view of a location. Check out the video below to learn more.



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Monday, January 24, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: GIFs for EDU

Do you say GIF with a soft g like the peanut butter brand, JIF?  Or do you pronounce it with a hard g like the word "gift" (without the t)? Regardless of the pronunciation, GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format and are a type of animated image file. Inserting a GIF into a Google Slides presentation is a fun way to communicate with your audience. Eoghan Young has taken it upon himself to collect and categorize a variety of GIFs for teachers and students to insert into their Slide Decks. Feel free to make a copy of his work! Like other image files, the GIFs that are shared on the Slide Deck can be copied and pasted into your own Google Slides presentations. And for what it's worth, you can read more about the GIF/JIF debate here.

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Wednesday, January 19, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Why Wordle Works

I AM OBSESSED WITH WORDLE! For the uninitiated, Wordle is an online word game that has taken the Internet by storm. You are basically tasked with guessing a daily 5-letter word with no context clues. You get six attempts to get it right. The rules are simple:


People all over Twitter are posting their results which show the color-coded attempts without revealing the correct answer. What is it about Wordle that makes it so engaging? Check out the Tweet below from Dan Meyer, a math instructor and developer at Desmos, as he ponders "Why Wordle Works" and what lesson design ideas teachers can take away from it.


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Tuesday, January 11, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: 2,000+ Lesson Plan Templates and Ideas for K-12

Looking to breathe new life into your lesson plan repertoire? Look no further than the tweet below from TCEA, the Texas Computer Education Association, as they share over TWO THOUSAND lesson plans and templates from the Pennsbury School District in Pennsylvania. There is something for every grade level and subject area in this treasure trove of resources searchable by content area, resource type, category, and grade level.

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Friday, January 7, 2022

A Little Bird Told Me: Great Google Classroom Idea for Students Who Miss Class

If you are experiencing or anticipating high numbers of absent students, this tweet from Amanda Sandoval is for you! Check out her strategy for communicating and sharing assignments with students who miss class. In the tweet below, notice how she made a "Topic" in Google Classroom and created "Material" to communicate her message. Bonus points for the emojis!
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