Student Engagement

Hi All,

It's been a busy year and we are full into the swing of things. By now, about a quarter into the year is when teachers really notice who's regularly engaged in the lessons, and who comes to class everyday just to take a nap. C'mon, you know who those kids are, be honest.

At the first part of the year I was voluntold that I would be attending a professional development in October about student engagement. Admittedly, I wasn't that excited to go. Historically my district hasn't always offered the most inspiring professional development "opportunities". In fact, most of the time I'm the kid in the back of the room passing notes or taking a nap because I find the information irrelevant or impractical to apply to my own teaching style or student population. So, even thought I didn't really want to go, I did try to keep an open mind for at least the first half hour - and boy am I glad I did.

The PD was offered by Kagan Publishing and Professional Development (http://www.kaganonline.com/index.php). If you are not already familiar with them, it's certainly worth digging around on-line to inquire. I got so much out of it and would recommend that everyone check it out.

To give a very brief overview, Kagan had developed instructional strategies proven to boost engagement and achievement. Some of the strategies are really simple, but totally insightful at the same time. The program focuses on classbuilding and teambuilding activities that are specifically designed to create and emotionally save classroom environment that demands 100% student engagement. The boast that their stratagies create classroom with no more checked out kiddos. I did the one-day training and left with Dr. Kagan's best selling book, Kagan Cooperative Learning, which is chucked full of ideas and tools that any teacher can use.

Honestly, it's one of the most rewarding programs I have attended. Not only did I gain immediately usable and practical engagement strategies, I left feeling confident in my ability to use them, but also the utilization of the strategies requires NO prep or changing to the teaching/learning content. Here's a brief video about Kagan, and honestly this video does very little to share the impact this can have in any classroom or for any age group. We had Pre-K teachers and High School teachers all in the same room and all benefiting from the learning.

I'm really excited to get back to my classroom and implement some of the strategies and structures I learned about this week. I can see them really demanding cognitive presence of all my students, not just a few.


If you do end up going, be sure to bring some cash with you or ask for an open PO from your school. You'll want to walk out with some "extras". There's a multitude of resources available for sale across all age and grade levels. They also want to up-sell you on future trainings. But when you are there you are quite happy to drink the Kagan Kool-aid. I'm straggling how I can hit one of their summer week long institutes. The one about win-win class discipline sounds amazing! Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think of it.

On a personal note, I expect to finish my master's program in about 6ish weeks and will be walking in the graduation ceremony towards Christmas time. Once my program is complete, I will be rededicating my energy and time back to my store. Be sure to keep an eye out for new products after the first of the year. I generally offer my new goodies heavily discounted to my followers for the first few days they are available.

Bringing Social Networks into the Classroom via Edmodo.com

In working with my interactive notebooks this year I encouraged kids to set up study buddies and asked that they exchange phone numbers & emails so that they could support on another in completing missing assignments & making up work when absent. Sounds like a great idea on the surface but I made a couple of errors in judgment that caught me off guard.

First, I assumed that most kids had email and were regular users, Not so much. Few of my students knew how to use email or even had an email address.  My hubby, who is everything tech, mentioned not long ago that email is dying media and will likely go the way of the fax in the next decade or so. He argues that the only people who actively use email are the Gen Xers. It’s certainly something to consider going forward in education.

Secondly, I had a couple of parents express concerns that they were uncomfortable with email use for their children because no one was controlling the content of what was being exchanged. While I have a teenage son of my own, it was a concern that I hadn’t personally considered. It certainly gave me a moment to pause. How do I encourage my students to responsibly collaborate and work on assignments but still maintain control of the content? Is it my responsibility to support the students outside of school as well as in it?

 

 Hmmmm… Okay then. So I by wanting to support my kids to success, I inadvertently opened up a can of worms that I hadn’t expected. How to address this as an educator and support kids in work completion outside of school by embracing technology and encouraging collaboration? What tools are out there?

As it happened, one of my parents who expressed concerns about email pointed me to edmodo.com. Like many other ed-tech tools, I had heard of this but never really investigated it beyond the superficial overview. I dug a bit deeper this week and decided that I would give it a try. After all, it’s free! And as a teacher, it’s really hard to argue against that.

 

So, I just signed up for EdModo this week. And if you haven’t heard of it, it’s a social network style site for educators to set up groups for their students. It’s a little bit blog, a little bit  Facebook. The site complies with child safety regulations for safe use of the internet. And otherwise give teachers free web-tools to use in facilitating social collaboration with their students.

I have yet to explore all the features and admittedly I am still working my way through all the site has to offer. What I can say is that it seems to offer the solution I was seeking for how to support my students outside of class. It has a mobile app that allows users to connect in a manner similar to Facebook. Students can post questions and respond to each other as well as to the teacher. As far as I can tell the teachers can act as moderators or facilitators for their groups, which means if a kiddo is in anyway inappropriate he/she can be blocked by you instantly. I like that feature a lot as it addressed my parent concerns about appropriate content. For me that is a big plus.

On the downside, essentially because it is an education based social-network that complies with child safety regulations, you (the teacher) need to go through a verification process in order to invite students to be part of your groups. It makes sense to me why this is done, but it does delay establishing your pages. There are several ways to verify your status. 1) You can connect to someone at your site who knows you. When they acknowledge your status then that counts as verification. 2) There is a system where you can submit a photo ID (literally) from your school, such as a badge, and send it to edmodo. I haven’t done this as it makes me a bit uncomfortable. But this is an option. 3) Complete an on-line form that asks questions about your background and credentialing. I am guessing that this has to be manually verified by someone and it’s unclear to me how long this might take.

I chose option 3 because I don’t know anyone on my site who uses Edmodo. At the moment I am caught in the verification process and unable to move forward until this is done. I am willing to do this because I can see value in how the site will help with my own classes.

Once verified, students will need to register with edmodo. I plan to take my students into our computer lab and have everyone register at the same time. Students will not be required to use the site, but we will add this information into our “Important Information & Contacts” page in our interactive notebooks as a resource for students in addition to our study buddies. Hopefully that will help everyone more than the individual study buddies previously set up.

I think it’s also important to share that there is a parent portal to this site. However, at this time I don’t have any experience for that works. As I figure it out and learn more, I will post on that topic.

As I said, this is all rather new to me and I’m working my way through it. But it is my hope that the site will offer some solutions to my needs of supporting my kiddos both inside and outside my classroom. I don’t plan to spend more than about 10 minutes a day on the site outside of work. And the time I do spend will probably be done using the mobile app. So, if it cuts down on floods of questions inside of class and helps with getting more students engaged and completing both class and homework assignments, then in my opinion it’s time well spent.

Here's to hoping it works!

Making the Most Out of NewsELA Articles in an ISN Format

This is a follow up post from my last article. In my last post about 4 Amazing Common Core ELA Resources I posted about a new website I discovered called NewsELA.com. It’s truly pure Common Core gold.

Students are presented with current events on a variety of informational subjects that are not only interesting but relevant to current media. Students can search topics and find material to read that connects to their personal interests. For example, for our first week, we read an article about a new research study that suggests middle school "cool kids" don't thrive in adulthood. Last week we read about the controversy over Sea World San Diego's new whale tank.

The absolute genius of the website is that all articles are leveled to correspond to lexile reading levels. So conceivably students in your classroom could all access the same story/content, but at their own independent reading levels.

As a teacher-subscriber you are e-mailed daily content to preview for lessons. Plus you get a weekly article to share with students. It’s not clear to me just yet if the coordinator at my site is picking our weekly topic based upon the weekly emails or if NewsELA picks our weekly topic, but either way, teachers receive a daily feeds and can select a weekly story to use with their class which arrives in a Word format. Each article includes 2 questions that encourage students to read closely and cite from the text using a constructed response format.

Teachers can choose a single lexile level to use with the whole class or select from multiple lexiles if greater differentiation is needed. All you need to do is run the copies! Seriously, it’s pure gold.

That said, I shared in my previous post that I have constructed a technique to use these little weekly gems in my Language Arts ISN. For me, I really want to put material in the Interactive Notebooks to ensure that student not only do the work, but also have a resource for reference in the future. So here’s what I did.

This is what I get in my weekly lesson – a four page document that includes a 2 page news article and 2 pages of questions which includes an IVF/summary & two text specific questions for student short answer constructed response:

 I copy the article front to back but the back MUST print upside down. This is essential for affixing the article into the ISN but not sacrificing content or forcing the student to turn their books upside down when reading and annotating. 

 When I hand out my articles, I show students how to glue them into their ISNs so that they are useable. Then we bifold the article so that it fits into the ISN without hanging out. The article is glued into the RIGHT (Teacher Input) side of the ISN.

When glued in this way, the document easily flips back and leaves the lined paper free for adding notes or content. Personally, I am having my students do margin notes when annotating their document and using this page to do a Step Up to Writing IVF and Summary. Since there is limited room to write a summary, I show them how to add paper to the bottom of the page.

 The LEFT side of the page is then freed up to use as the student output page. Remember those nifty questions? This is where I use those. I have students copy the questions into their ISNs and respond on this page. 

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to rotate this image in Blogger.

When it’s all said and done, this is what you get a nifty two page activity that addresses both close reading & informational text!

Now, this seems like a lot at first, but honestly it isn’t. Here’s how I make it work for me and my students. The first time I introduce a NewsELA article I am strategic about using an easy lexile whole class that will ensure comprehension for the vast majority of my students. I want it to be an easy read so I can train my students in the expectations for the activity. 

WEEK 1 - First Exposure to NewsELA - Direct Instruction "I DO/YOU DO"

On day one, I spend a whole class period explicitly teaching how to set up the ISN pages. We go slow and I explain why we are doing it this way and tell students that they will eventually be expected to do this on their own each week.

On the second day, we do a cold read and our first warm read where we annotate the text. Students learn my expectations about annotating text.

On the third day I teach IVFs and finding the main ideas. We complete the IVF box, write an IVF topic sentence, and pick 3-4 main ideas that we felt were relevant to the text. Their homework that evening is to write a summary.

On the fourth day I have pre-prepared 3 sample summaries based upon our story. The examples are my mock-up of a low, mid, and high level summary. We decide as a class which seems to do a good job and deconstruct the summary model.

On the fifth day of the first week I show them how to give a constructed response using citations from the text. I tell them that I want one direct quote and one indirect quote. Each of the 2 questions must have one or the other and they have to show both each week. So, if they use a direct quote in question one, they must use an indirect quote in question two.

WEEK 2 - Slow Release to Independence - Direct Instruction - I DO/WE DO

Now they have a working model of what I expect each week. The next week on the Monday I spend about 15 minutes helping the class set up their ISN page. We cold read the article and students are expected re-read the article to do their IVF for homework. 

On the second day we check student IVFs and then do a whole class warm read and annotation. For homework that night students are expected to find 4 main ideas on their own and write a summary.

On day 3 of the second week, I teach the close reading questions. I only spend about 20 minutes doing a constructed response lesson with the class. Here we do the first question together in class use a direct quote. For homework that evening students answer the second question using an indirect quote.

Day four I simply check that students are doing the assignments. Day 5 (Friday) is when this is due and I check that the work is complete.

WEEK 3 - Release to Independence - WE DO/YOU DO

By week three students are really getting into the groove. On Monday they set up their ISNs (10 minutes). We cold read the article as a class (10 minutes). Homework is to annotate, write their IVF, pick 4 main ideas, and write a summary. Tuesday we debrief the article (10 minutes). I model a constructed response (10 minutes). Homework is to complete the questions. I check on Wednesday but don’t collect until Friday.

WEEK 4+ - Independent Assignment - YOU DO

Now we are at week four. On Monday I allow 10 minutes for set up. We do a cold read together (10 minutes). Students can ask questions about words or concepts they don't understand. They are now independent with their News ELA Articles and I don’t see it again until Friday when it’s due. 

Differentiated Lexiles = Student Success & Achievement

When we reach the point of student independence, this is where the differentiated Lexiles hit home. I begin to filter out high from low readers and give each their own leveled story. I print 3 versions of each story. Above grade level (green paper), On-grade level (white paper) and below grade level (pink paper). Students quickly learn what their color is. As I pass out papers on Monday, students tell me which color they need. 

Ta-da! Differentiated instruction that can be easily adjusted with minimal hassle!!! This whole thing becomes a weekly homework assignment for them that is assigned on Monday and due on Friday. Then most investment of weekly instructional minutes is the setup and cold read which I model using the on-level “white” version.

Anyway, that’s how I use it. It does take a bit of upfront structuring to ensure that students both buy into the expectations and feel successful in the management of the lesson. But it seems instructional minutes well spent to ensure that they are reading informational text on a regular basis.  It’s truly worth my time and theirs.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long blog post. Hope it was helpful!

BTW - if you are wondering what an "IVF" is, it's a Step Up to Writing buzz word for "Topic Sentence". It stands for identify text & author, use a strong verb, and finish your thought. That's all. So even if you don't do Step Up to Writing, it's still a totally doable lesson for what ever writing program you use.

Enjoy!