We spend class time giving our students the tools to be able to annotate passages, decode vocabulary and analyze text on a variety of levels. Now it’s time to allow them to show what they know by creating memes, digital stories, images, blogs, and posters.Teachers attending this session will learn how to incorporate literacy strategies, activities and alternative assessment opportunities that support student creativity into lesson plans.

Today’s Agenda

ClassFlow Lesson re: The Real Humpty Dumpty Story 

Esplore creative ways to assess
1. memes
2. gist statements
3. hashtags
4. Videos
5.  BlackOut Poems

Here are my presentation slides.

Tech tools and Assignments that Demonstrate Learning

Have your students create BlackOut Poems in response to text.

Or create Videos to demonstrate their knowledge.

At the completion of each mission, create a blog post with a brief reflection. The reflection should capture your experience and your thinking about the mission and the tool you explored. Here are some questions to guide you as you write your blog posts:

• What did you create, and why?
• What went well for you? What was challenging? What did you enjoy?
• What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, or for using this tool to communicate with families?

These questions are intended to be a guide, you don’t have to answer them.

Thanks for participating.

TODAY’S RESOURCES.

Enjoy.

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

RAFT writing requires that students become a person, place, thing or idea and write from that perspective. They ARE Cinderella, a cell, Santa Claus, a beach, the galaxy, an ordinal number, etc.

RAFT writing can be used to describe a chemical reaction, explain the process of condensation, describe a point of view, envision a potential plan of attack, or solve a problem. It can be creative and informative.

Teaching Process (Click this link for a ClassFlow.com Presentation Deck that can be used to help you RAFT your classroom.)

⇒Step 1: Once your content has been covered, consider all of the various roles and audiences that would allow students to demonstrate their new understandings from different perspectives. Conduct a class brainstorming session to gather numerous possible perspectives on your topic.

⇒Step 2: Introduce the RAFT acronym to with students, explaining what each letter stands for:

R = Role role of the writer. What persona are you adapting? You might be a person, place, thing, or idea.  In developing the final product, what role will the students need to “take on”? Who are you as the writer? Are you President Trump? A warrior? A homeless person? An auto mechanic? The endangered snail darter?

A = Audience. The who or what the RAFT is being written for. Who should the students consider as the audience for the product? To whom are you writing? Is your audience the Canadian people? An enemy? Your teacher? Readers of a newspaper? A local restaurant?

F = Form The form the writing will take, as in letter, song, meme, image, movie, diary, etc. What form will the writing take? What is the best product that will demonstrate the students’ in-depth understanding of their interactions with the text?  A writing task?  Art work?  Action plan?  Project? A letter? A classified ad? A speech? A poem?

T = Topic This is the what that will be the focus/subject of the final product. What are you writing about? What’s the subject or the point of this piece? What event will constitute the centerpiece of the action? To explain bloodflow? To persuade a gangster to spare your life? To plead for a re-test? To call for stricter regulations on logging? A list of characteristics?

⇒Step 3: Give students a RAFTed assignment. RAFTs can be directed or left open to students to choose.  Initially, it is best to assign students to complete specific RAFTs.  As they gain more experience and familiarity with the writing strategy, they can be allowed more freedom.

A lesson about the water cycle in science, can require students to RAFT about being a water droplet:

• R – water droplet
• A – water vapor in clouds
• F – travel journal
• T – the water cycle

After learning about the battle of the Alamo, history students might be assigned a RAFT that allows them to select from roles presented:

• R – Any observer or participant in the battle
• A – Any relevant audience based on format
• F – A newspaper article, a letter, a diary entry, dialog, etc.
• T – The events of March 6, 1836, the final siege of the Alamo

⇒Step 4: Students complete RAFTs individually or with partners. Allow them to do pair shares to insure that they are on the right track.

⇒Step 5: Students share their RAFTs with the class. Other students should listen for accuracy and logic. An accurate RAFT response will accurately reflect the views and perspective of their character.

When creating RAFT assignments, be sure to incorporate a variety of interesting responses. The form can be a photo album, letter of introduction, job resume, photostory, meme, gif, etc.The goal is for them to respond and demonstrate that they have mastered the content.

Have fun and be creative with your RAFT assignments. Below is a chart with a few examples in each of the categories; it is meant only as a sampling to spark new ideas and possibilities for building RAFTs:

Here are some examples of what RAFT writing assignments would look the classroom. 

Science RAFT examples

History RAFT examples

Math RAFT examples

I hope that you have a great time RAFTing with your students.

My Passionate Scholars will be researching topics close to their hearts and sharing the results. Many of us have heard of the Genius Hour or 20 time or Passion Projects. These projects are designed to allow students the opportunity to research topics that excite them. Last year I tried it (unsuccessfully) and I would like to do it again this year. I am trying to revamp the project and recreate what worked and change what didn’t work.

Here is what I hope happens….

 The Project

I hope that next semester I will be able to share more student-created videos from my #PassionateScholars. I also hope that they will be more in depth.

Does anyone out there have some tips? Shortcuts? Better ideas? Prayers for success?

Thanks.

Last month, I shared some tools that can help solve ANY problem that you might be experiencing. I talked about 4 electronic resources that can help you out of many situations. These resources, strategies, techniques can help with problems with student engagement, organization, student submissions, student creativity, teacher efficiency, effectiveness, data gathering and assignment tracking.

1. Google Drive
2. Edublogs
3. Classflow
4. Remind

I hope that you tried out or revisited or continued to use some of them. Google Drive, Edublogs, Classflow, and Remind are all great resources and play a key role in my teaching life.

Now, here are 4 more problem solving  resources or techniques to explore:

5. Policies / Routines / Procedures

6. Interactive videos or Images

7. Checklists / Participation sheets

8. Badges / Leader Board

SOLUTION 5: Policies / Routines / Procedures

Many student behavior ‘mishaps’ can be prevented when there are classroom procedures in place for daily tasks and activities. Please don’t get insulted by thinking that I am implying that you don’t have procedures in place. Yes, yes, yes, we all know that it is important to have procedures and routines in place but many times we start off strong and then lose our way as the year progresses. (Okay, maybe not you, but … I have. Sometimes.)  For me, it’s important to remember that we, as Professional Educators, always have the power to hit the re-do button. The re-do button allows us to revisit, reteach or revise the policies and procedures that we have in place. It is a refresher course for both teacher and students. If you initially required a raised hand before speaking and now you are taking responses from the loudest student, it’s time for a refresher. Hit the re-do button. Remind students that there are routines in place that need to be followed.

Your routines can cover: entering and leaving the room; rules for group work; asking for help; going to the restroom; getting a pen; handing in work; etc. What do you need them to do to help make the classroom run smoothly?

Procedures for entering the room can be as simple as:

Be sure to enter the room quietly; put bookbag in front; put homework in the bin; report to your assigned seat; check the board for today’s assignment; begin your DoNow silently and fill out your participation sheet after completing the DoNow.

Remember that it’s okay to re-do, revise, revamp procedures, if necessary. You have my permission to take the time to re-teach procedures and make your classroom climate stronger. 😉

Solution 6: Interactive images or videos

Using videos and images in student learning activities can inspire and engage students. Many display increased motivation because of the enhanced learning experience. Being able to see and hear images / videos breaks down walls for many students and allows the learning to begin.

Visuals allow us to take students to places textbooks can’t go: a digestive system, another country, another planet, another decade. Students have a better chance of understanding complex and abstract concepts when they can see the concepts.

Animoto  (quick and easy way to make photo-movies)

• Here is one introducing my class
• Student created this one in response to a research project about gaming and violence.

Notecard confessions: Notecards are displayed with the message and recorded. (Your cards can be about ideas from the text)

• Examples of student created notecard confession videos

Memes and Gifs: Memes are images with a related text message and Gifs are a rapidly moving series of images. I used these slides to collect memes from my students about poems that we read in class.

STUDENTS can create WordArt, memes, gifs, interactive images, etc.

Here is a post that wrote about students creating memes and interactive images. 

Solution 7: Checklist / participation sheets

I am currently teaching 9th graders and they need to have an agenda and checklists so that they can monitor their work.

I use checklists to support and scaffold their learning. Checklists break up a task into bite-sized pieces that students can successfully complete complex tasks. They do a better job of completing a task if they can tackle small steps along the way.

My students fill out participation sheets that record the lesson’s objectives and daily assignments and then they check off the assignments that have been successfully completed. Every day my students use computers to complete their work and many of them waste time and do not complete their needed tasks. Their participation sheet allows them to see and check off completed assignments before jumping onto sites to play games and other time wasters. Many of you probably have your own setup. Whether it is a sheet like this participation sheet or using their agendas.

If your students are having trouble keeping up with or turning in assignments, try checklists or participation sheets. Each can be sent home and signed if you want to be sure that the parents are also on board with class assignments.

Solution 8: Gaming leadership awards badges

Leaderboards really do make a difference with my kids. I use Kahoot regularly for review because the students are extremely excited and engaged while playing. We recently played a game that I used to gather information to see what they knew about Word icons. I couldn’t stop laughing because many of them went out of their way to make sure that they appeared on the leaderboard. Kahoot allows them to get bonus points for answering not just correctly but the fastest. Many of my students took advantage of that and tried to answer first. Sometimes they knew the answer and other times didn’t but they knew that points could be gained for answering first even though points would be lost for wrong answers. This year I have displayed leaderboards and printed out certificates from Typing club and I have created and issued badges using Classflow.com. My students love to earn badges and have their accomplishments display on the leaderboard. Acknowledgment helps. For them and for us (I won’t stop playing a Solitaire game until I win. YES, I still play Solitaire.)  As adults, we too, appreciate acknowledgment and recognition.

Now that you have gone through my list, honestly, is there a problem that you have that can’t be solved by one of these resources? Seriously? Hmmmm, think about it. These techniques, procedures, and resources allow you and your students the opportunity to ORGANIZE and CREATE. Those are two of the most critical things that we have to address regularly. If we, students and teacher, aren’t organized, NOTHING works right. If we, student and teacher, can’t create, learning is just a chore and not a joy.

Quick recap of these 8 tools

1. Google Drive – Teachers and students create and organize notes and slides
2. Edublogs – Teachers create blog posts as an online classroom and students can blog and publish their creations
3. Classflow – Teachers create assessments, organize data and allow student creative responses.
4. Remind – Teachers organize classroom notifications
5. Policies / Routines / Procedures – Teachers organize classroom movement and students will flourish with the consistency.
6. Interactive videos or Images – Teachers create engaging images and videos for learning activities and students create visual text responses.
7. Checklists / Participation sheets – Students organize their classwork
8. Badges / Leader Board – Teacher rewards academic excellence and students blossom under the attention

Because I live in Louisiana, I can’t give you a list without giving you lagniappe. Lagniappe is an extra gift.

Soooo, here is tip #9 Your cellphone

Your cellphone can be a connection to… everything. It’s not just for selfies, talking to friends and texting family members. I have my apps organized into folders so that they are easy to navigate. If I forget to post to my assignment blog, I have the ability to pull up the app in my

If I forget to post to my assignment blog, I have the ability to pull up the app in my Work Station folder and post as I walk towards my room. But before I post it, I grab a bitmoji image or create a word swag picture from my Pics folder to insert into the blog. When my scholars do something awesome, I open up my Social Me folder and post a picture on Instagram. A coworker needs access to something I have in Google Drive, my app in the Work Station folder lets me quickly send out a link.

I grabbed some pictures and quickly made this video about what we were doing in class. Yes, I know that the template isn’t the best for the subject matter *(although I do love my kids, of course) It was me experimenting with a new app in my pic folder. If you want to see kids get on task, start to make a movie about their work. My phone allows me to work without having a laptop or desktop. I can edit Google slides, grade papers, post to my blog, create cute photomovies, share files, etc. If you have not fully embraced the power of your phone, try it. It might become a great resource for you and your class.

I ask again, is there a problem that these resources can’t handle?

Let me know.

These 8 tools can help solve ANY problem that you might be experiencing. Seriously, give me a problem and I guarantee you that one or more of these sites/strategies/resources will help you out.

Are you having problems with student engagement? Problems with organization? Problems with student submissions? Problems with student creativity? Teacher efficiency? Teacher effectiveness? Data Gathering? Assignment tracking?

What do you need?

help with… 

organization? presentation? engagement? accountability? assessments? platform for creative student responses? way to keep students and parents informed? means to share and collect information? 

Solution 1: Google Drive 

Google Drive .. to the rescue. I use Google Drive every day. My lesson plans are created in Google Docs and they are hyperlinked to a larger Google Doc that houses relevant lesson plans, presentation slides, resources, and assessments for my weekly lessons. Google Slides with the daily agenda and directions are embedded on the class blog. Google Forms allow you to create a quick and easy assessment or poll. Google Drive allows me to have access to my documents from anywhere on any device. The majority of my photos, videos, and files are in the Google Drive cloud.

For Student use:

• create a class journal or resource guide. These slides were created in response to the prompts I’m from or Where I’m from
• create a presentation to display research results

For Teacher use:

• guide your daily agenda with google slides
• Google forms can be used as tests or prereading assignments.

Solution 2: Edublogs.

I use Edublogs daily. It serves as my chalkboard. It houses my daily assignments and directions for the students. Each of my students also has an ePortfoloio that is hosted by Edublogs. I fell in love with them years ago because Edublogs is geared towards teachers and students. They are very responsive to customer needs. I had problems when my students were creating their ePortfolios and the Edublogs crew quickly responded with solutions.

For Student use:

• post current event items of interest
• publish an ePortfolio of work done in class

For Teacher use:

• maintain a daily/weekly assignment blog
• post topics of interest for students to comment on

Solution 3: Classflow

Online assessment for me has now become a must have. Classflow allows the students to receive immediate feedback on quizzes so that they can see where their strengths and weaknesses are. Classflow assessment allows me to quickly copy and paste and populate the fields to create an online assessment that allows me to gather data about my students’ strengths and weaknesses.

But don’t think that it’s only good for assessing. It is also a great tool for creating and delivering assignments, providing students a space for creative submissions and a collaborative space.

For Student use:

• create cards that display research results

For Teacher use:

• comprehension quizzes are simple to make and deliver
• lecture cards can be delivered to different students for differentiation purposes

SOLUTION 4: Remind.com

I use a reminder to send out reminders about assignments as well as relevant mean schedules resources to my students I can schedule reminders to go out during class before class before school after school that future is one of the most convenient features of all with remind. You don’t have to send it when you remember it, you can schedule it to be sent when appropriate.

For Students

• class assistants can send out reminders
• students can contact me for information

For Teachers

• notification of class assignments
• send links and documents out

Alright, I know I said eight tips and resources. I decided to break my tip list in half so as not to overwhelm anyone. That is why I am willing to give you four resources now and four resources the same time next week I challenge you to use and talk about these resources this week and next week try out the other four resources that I share with you.

I do not want to hit you with you too many things to try out and examine. See if these resources don’t help make your life easier and take care of some of the problems that you might be having in your classroom. Try them out. See if they help.

If by chance, you are living on fairy dust and are not having any problems, try out one of the resources to see if your world can get even better.

Now that you have gone through my list, honestly, is there a problem that you have that can’t be solved by one of these resources? Seriously? Hmmmm, think about it.

If you do still have an issue that I haven’t given you the solution for, be sure to tune in next week.

Same bat time.  Same bat station.
When I will share the FOUR other survival resources.

Spencer Kagan has developed many classroom structures that promote positive interpersonal peer relationships, equality, self-esteem, and achievement. Students follow the structure steps, work together and strengthen the classroom climate. The structures are designed to build team spirit and positive relationships; share information; assist critical thinking; support communication skills; and, develop mastery of specified material.