Friday Matinee: Enhance Student Engagement with Virtual Social Learning Spaces

Everyone's asking how they can engage their students during remote learning.  Teaching online makes this more difficult than when your students are in front of you in the classroom.  Dr. Catlin Tucker shares ways to engage groups of learners online using technology.  She also includes some ideas and strategies for creating spaces for student-centered learning experiences.

Enhance Student Engagement with Virtual Social Learning Spaces

Many of her ideas include tools that you are already familiar with, including Zoom, Google apps, Padlet. Jamboard, and more.

Friday Matinee: Creating Choice Boards With Google Slides

Giving students a choice of how they can complete an assignment gives students ownership over how they show you what they've learned.  By creating choice boards, in Slides (you can also use PowerPoint to do the same thing) it is easy to create an assignment where the students have to pick a certain number of things to do to complete the assignment.  Many teachers use these boards and have students pick 3 out of 9 options to complete tic-tac-toe.

Here's how to create the boards in Google Slides.

During remote learning, some teachers are having their students work on their choice board assignments when they are remote while they do something different with the students in their classroom that day.  Others are using choice boards to have students work independently when they are not attending class synchronously.

Friday Matinee: Online Learning With Powerful Thinking Routines

Dr. Catlin Tucker teaches high school, but the thinking routines she shares in this blog post can easily be used in higher education.  Created by Project Zero at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, these templates and routines encourage students to be intentional thinkers and to share what they know, their perspective, what they wonder, how their thinking has changed, and more.  Each thinking routine can be modified and adjusted to meet your needs, your student's needs, and your subject area and are great for engaging students both online and in the classroom.  Go to the Project Zero website to learn more about the routine's purpose, application, and find tips for starting and using the routine in your classroom.  There are other routines on the Project Zero site that you can check out.

Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines by Catlin Tucker

The templates that Catlin created are shared in Google Slides, but can easily be downloaded as PowerPoint files.  Just go to FILE >Download > and choose Microsoft PowerPoint.

Friday Matinee: Using Pear Deck for Engagement & Formative Assessment

It actually feels like fall outside and it looks like it is going to be a great weekend to do something outside.  If you have a little time either over the weekend or sometime next week, take a look at Pear Deck.  It works with Google Slides (or PowerPoint) to help you add active learning and formative assessment to your presentations with learners of all ages.  There's a free and paid version of Pear Deck and I suggest you start with the basic free version.  You can add interactive questions, polls, quizzes, and formative assessments right into your presentation.  You can control the pace of the class so that everyone (including those who are attending on Zoom) will be on the same slide at the same time.  Or you can enable your students to work through the presentation on their own.  Let's take a look by checking out these links:

Pear Deck Tutorial For Google Slides

Webinar: Using Pear Deck + Zoom to Make Learning Interactive in a Remote Learning or Online Class

20 Ways to Use Pear Deck to Engage Students

Ideas for Using Pear Deck in the Classroom

And there's lots of tutorials and blog posts on the Pear Deck website!

Friday Matinee: Collaboration Ideas for Remote Learning

Take a big sigh of relief!  The first week of classes is over.  As you start to think about next week, you might try adding an activity where your students can collaborate digitally.  On our website on Remote Learning Resources, we have added several ways to have your students collaborate during class time (or after) using several digital tools.

One of the easiest to try is Padlet.  You can join with your MSU (Google) account and sign up for a free account and quickly set up a discussion wall.  I love using Padlet with inservice teachers to get their ideas or feedback during professional development sessions.  

Another is Wakelet.  Divide your students into groups and let them create a Wakelet on what they've learned, adding resources from various sources on the topic to share with their classmates.  It will take them less than 30 minutes to put together a great Wakelet (or wake) on a given topic.

Collaboration Ideas for Remote Learning

Friday Matinee: Remote Teaching & Learning Resources

As the start of the new semester draws near, many of you are rethinking how you are going to be teaching your classes.  Having students online as well as in the classroom means that you may need to find new digital resources for collaboration, discussion, and to engage your students during your class time.

We have started to build a website of curated resources that may be beneficial to you.  This site is a work in progress and we will be adding to it during the upcoming weeks and beyond.  If any of you have resources or ideas that you would like us to add to the site, let us know.  Please email me with links, videos, and any details that I would need to add the information.

Remote Learning Resources

Remote learning requires us to rethink the way we engage our students and interact with content. Digital resources can assist in the facilitation of small or large group discussions, support collaboration activities, or make presentations more interactive. The purpose of this site is to bring together resources that could be useful in a remote learning setting. If you have any questions, feel free to contact any member of the KATE team.

Check out Torrey Trust's website that includes Online/Remote Teaching Resources.  Torrey is an associate professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  On her site is an infographic on Rethinking Teaching 2020.  Be sure to check out her "Instead of this, try THIS!" section.  There are so many great ideas on this site.

Another great resource is a blog post from Dr. Catlin Tucker entitled, "Enhance Student Engagement with Virtual Social Learning Spaces" where she shares that by providing virtual places for students to interact helps them learn from each other. Catlin shares ideas for creating these spaces in breakout rooms, by using the Google apps, for Jamboard and Padlet, as well as Flipgrid and Wakelet.  Most of the apps are mentioned here in this site and how-to videos are available.  Catlin's blog has great posts with practical learning strategies that work online, blended, or in person.

Remember that KATE is available to help.  Need to brainstorm an idea for a class?  We can help!

Friday Matinee: Zoom Scheduling & Basic Controls

Zoom sessions are very easy to schedule and use in the classroom and it's important that you are comfortable setting up meetings and using the controls from within it.  Besides setting up your Zoom link for your class in Canvas, you can schedule on the Zoom website.  Setting up a Zoom session outside of your Canvas class link can be important if you need to meet with a student or small group during the semester or set up a different virtual office hours link.  Check out the videos on how to do this.  

Scheduling a Meeting on the Zoom Website

KATE's website: Using Zoom at MSU

I'm also adding a video on the fundamental Zoom meeting controls that are available when you are in a Zoom meeting.

Host and Co-hosts Controls in a Meeting

Friday Matinee: Ways to Make Online Learning More Engaging

The semester is over and you've taken a big sigh of relief!  Teaching online is over for now.  

It's a great time to start thinking about summer and fall classes and possibly teaching again online.  You've got the basics down and are delivering the content, but now is the time to start thinking about making your classes more engaging for your students.  

Check out ISTE's (International Society for Technology in Education) blog post showing 3 ways to make remote learning more engaging.

Friday Matinee: Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors

Happy Friday!

I recently came across an article that is part of a guide entitled, "Sustaining Higher Education in the Coronavirus Crisis," and wanted to share it with all of you as you begin to get ready to teach online this summer or think about classes for this fall.  The article not only has advice for new remote instructors, but includes a link to a Google Sheet created by Daniel Stanford, the director of the faculty development and technology innovation at DePaul University.  This sheet includes a great number of resources curated from universities.

Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. Here's Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors

Friday Matinee: Choice Boards & Learning Menus

Choice Boards are a great way to give your students some choice in how they will complete an assignment.  Some of our students may excel at creating a Google Site, where another student would rather create a video or write a paper.  Some may want to watch a video on the topic and others would prefer to read a chapter in a book.  Choice Boards let us differentiate our assignments and engage our students at where they are.  During these times when we are all teaching online, we as teachers need to create the best learning experiences possible that will keep our students attention, maintain a positive attitude, and keep them committed to doing their best job possible.

Here's a 3 part mini "course" that is entitled "The Ultimate Guide to Choice Boards and Learning Menus" by AJ Juliani.  He talks about why Choice Boards are important, especially now, describes a step-by-step process for creating them, and gives examples of choice boards in action.  This was written for K-12, but can easily be modified for your teaching here at MSU.  It's easy to use Google Docs or Slides (or Word or PowerPoint) to create these menus for your students.
Choice boards are perfect for online learning, student choice, and differentiation.  Here's what Kasey Bell of Shake Up Learning says about choice boards/learning menus:

What is a Choice Board?
IT’S ALL ABOUT CHOICE!

• Choice boards are a form of differentiated learning that gives students a menu or choice of learning activities.

• Learning menus and choice boards can be created in a variety of styles and mediums.

• They’ve been around for a long time and originated in a static, paper format.

• With digital tools, we can bring the menus to life with interactivity and creation.

From Dr. Catlin Tucker, a post on Student Agency: What Do Students Want to Create to Demonstrate Their Learning? will help you understand how choice boards allow students to make key decisions about their learning and helps you personalize learning for each student.
I've added several examples of choice boards below.  Have a favorite?  Share it with us!

Google Chrome PD Choice Board

TicTacToe - Choice Boards

Interactive Tic-Tac-Toe Menu Choice Board Template

Novel Study Tic-Tac-Toe Choice Board

Choice Board - Google Slides

Halloween Choice Board Example

Friday Matinee: Google Slides Discussion on Using Google Meet in the Classroom

As many of you know, I've been teaching our students how to use Google and one of the things I had them do this semester was to come up with a way to use Hangouts Meet in their future classroom.  The way I did this was to share a Google Slide deck with a directions slide and another slide that I called the student slide that was set up for them to add their name and their response.  We sometimes call this collaboration slides.  Here is the file that I shared and their responses:

Using Hangouts Meet in the Classroom

This activity can be used in any class and on pretty much any topic where you want students to discuss something and comment on each other's input.  It works very well as an online discussion board and can be easily changed as the topic changes. 

I'm adding a template that includes a basic set of directions and an additional student slide.  These are the only 2 slides available in the slide deck.

Discussion Slides

To use this, go to FILE then choose MAKE A COPY and copy the entire slide presentation.  This makes it yours to use.  I would keep this as your master and make a copy of it every time you use it for a discussion.

You can edit the slide with different backgrounds and text.  Here's a video on how to do that:

Using Collaborative Slides by Creating Master Slides

Friday Matinee: Resources for Teaching Online

This was shared by a professor that we follow on Twitter.  It is a podcast with a lot of resources for teaching online.  Some things may not apply, but there's a lot of great information that is provided.  Torrey Trust, who is interviewed on the podcast (there are several links and a great slide deck shared as well) is a professor and past president if the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Teacher Educator Network and an Associate Professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

https://www.sfecich.com/torrey

Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning, did an interview with a teacher who has been teaching online since leaving China where she taught at an international school and she shares tips, tools, and best practices for this special situation.  She mentions that closing for the Corona virus is different than closing for a few snow days especially with the added stress and emotions that everyone is experiencing.

https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/coronavirus-closures-online-learning-tips-for-teachers-and-schools-interview-with-an-american-teacher-in-china/

Keep in mind that a lot of companies are opening up their wonderful resources for free to schools, but we don't need to be throwing a lot of new tools at students during this time. Use one or two that they are familiar with and leave it at that.

Friday Matinee: Using Collaboration Slides in Your Classroom

Welcome back and I hope the semester is off to a good start.  I wanted to share with you a way to create a collaborative template that can be used in many ways with your classes.  We demonstrate it with Google Slides, but you should be able to do the same thing in PowerPoint.

The video will show you how to create 2 master slides, one will have your directions on it and the other will be the slide that the students will add to share their answer.  Once students have answered their question on their slide, they can then read and comment on other students slides.  This is great for discussions, for a quick assessment to make sure your students got what you discussed in class, or even to review for a test.  Once you have done this, you can make a copy of the file, quickly edit it, and used it again.  Be sure to give your students editing access to the file so that they can add their slide and comment on others.

The video will start part way in at the point where I discuss this method.

Using Collaboration Slides in Your Classroom

This file will show you how students responded after reading 3 articles on teaching remotely.  We recommend that once you've created this file, that you call this your template or master and make a copy of it each time you want to use it.  That way you'll always have your template that is blank.