Celebrating Earth Day every day

Earth Day 2017’s campaign is Climate and Environmental Literacy, which they hope leads to student attainment of these literacies by 2020. The Earth Day Network site has a downloadable toolkit for educators who are planning an event, as well as a place to register their project and locate other projects in the area. The site also includes downloadable lesson plans to support the teaching of climate and environmental literacy topics during the week of April 22-27, 2017. These lesson plans target both the NGSS and Common Core science standards. There is also an overview of the importance of green schools including data and statistics on their site.

However, teaching specific Earth Day topics during a “special week” reminds me of the Hour of Code  that is worked on in schools during its own “special week”. I feel, if we want students to become stewards of the planet or coders for life, as educators we have to include these topics and related lessons across the curriculum and throughout  the school year. Students need to internalize best practices by getting a chance to explore many different avenues and aspects of these topics.

Think of yourself when you attend an educational conference– you go to sessions with speakers with great ideas, take hands-on workshops,  and collaborate with other educators for a few days. If you don’t continue to explore the things you learned or continue to communicate with your new conference PLN, you often don’t think about what you learned or  see how it relates to projects you are creating throughout the school year. Learning should be a constant event for both teachers and students.

GREEN SCHOOLS

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is one of the most recognized of green building certifications. There are many schools that are LEED Certified, whether this occurred during new construction or renovation. The LEED Certification for K-12 Schools takes into account the health of the students, the ability of the environment to become “an interactive teaching tool” by embedding environmental lessons across the curriculum, and the variety of different types of spaces in a school.

Even if your school is not trying to get LEED certified, the idea that the school environment can become a teaching tool in the area of environmental stewardship is a great one! Following are some resources to help students attain environmental literacy skills by using the school building.

BULLETIN BOARDS

All schools have bulletin boards, and having one or more environmental-themed boards, changed out monthly and attractive and applicable to students, can help students learn some important environmental lessons. In addition, adding student “voice” to the bulletin boards engages them even more!

Here is one I like!

PROJECT IDEAS AND LESSON PLANS

The Ian Somerhalder Foundation offers a quick overview of twenty-one green project ideas ranging from using only recycled paper in the school to setting up a rain barrel and using it for watering the plants outside the school.

The Population Education site offers even more projects that can be implemented to “green up” a classroom. My favorite idea is:

Data, Data, Everywhere: Practice graphing and data analysis skills by creating a “green data wall”.  At the end of each week, count up the number bottles and cans in your recycle bins and weigh recycled paper.  Create a graph in your classroom to track your recycling efforts over time.

I would also suggest students use the data they collect to create infographics to inform and persuade others to “go green”. Students could also create informational infographics for their school similar to this one which was created for businesses.

Scholastic offers some larger-scale projects that help students realize the importance of the environment with these ten topic overviews.

The Oregon Green Schools site offers a huge list of 125 different ways for students to help their school go green. The list is broken down in the categories of Waste Reduction, Recycling, Composting, Water Conservation, Energy Conservation, Hazardous Waste, Green Procurement, Transportation, and Communication.

The Greening Schools site, a joint project of the Illinois EPA and the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center  provides a huge list of lesson plans for all grade levels in their comprehensive collection.

Do you celebrate environmental stewardship all year long in your classroom? Do you have other ideas for using resources found at your school for embedding environmental literacy skills across the curriculum? Please share on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Traditional literacy ideas and resources

This article originally appeared in the Discovery Education blog "Kathy Schrock's Katch of the Month" in March 2017 and is re-posted here with permission.

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I have identified thirteen literacies I feel our students need to succeed.  One of the skillsets is the “traditional literacy skills” of reading and writing. Because March is  NEA’s “National Read Across America Month“, I thought I would concentrate on identifying resources for the traditional literacy skills of reading and writing.

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Reading and Writing Non-Fiction

One of the students in my Wilkes University/Discovery Education Masters program, Lisa Francis, recently wrote the following:

In English, there is a great push on understanding non-fiction and difficult materials. There is also an emphasis on creating arguments and persuasive writing. I believe that students could embed media to understand these elements of reading and writing. For example, students could interview their peers on a non-fiction topic in order to make an argument or counter-argument. This exercise could eventually lead them to follow the same kind of structure in their writing, but it allows them to work with a medium they already know – technology and video.

One article dealing with the use of multimedia to support non-fiction reading is this one from Reading Rockets. In addition, Reading Rockets also offers a great overview of literacy instruction with digital and media technologies. The articles are older, but the main points are still very appropriate today.

Discovery has an online series called Spotlight on Strategies (SOS). These integration strategies provide the teacher with the background and implementation strategies, as well as a video, for teaching and learning across the content areas. Many of the SOS strategies are used by teachers in support of literacy, and teachers who are using them in unique ways are highlighted on the Discovery blog “My SOS Story“. Here are a few of those SOS stories that can help in the area of reading and writing non-fiction.

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Science SOS:  The Question Is

“The Question Is” is a teaching strategy that requires students to reverse the common order of question-and-answer. The teacher provides a content-related answer and students write a variety of questions that could work with the answer.

SOS Story: Sarah Yuska

Sarah Yuska, a 7th and 8th grade science teacher, explains how she used this SOS strategy. “Students were asked to read a section in their textbook that outlines all of the functions of the organelles. It is a very dense section, and I knew the students would not be able to absorb all of the information in one evening. It can also be very confusing, especially for those students who have some differentiated learning needs. I knew if I could get them up and moving while trying to recall the information they read the night before, it might make more of an impact than sitting and taking notes.”

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Science SOS: Six Word Story

The “Six Word Story” is a teaching strategy that allows students to practice summarizing and selective word choice. Students use an image or an article as the basis for a story that conveys a big idea using only six words.

Jen Cucchiarelli has her first grade students conduct bat research and then write a six word story. There is no better way to help students pick out the most important ideas than using this strategy!

SOS Story: Jen Cucchiarelli

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ELA SOS: A-E-I-O-U and Half the Story

“A-E-I-O-U” is a teaching strategy that asks students to interpret information from images or videos they have viewed and write down their thoughts next to five descriptive categories: A-E-I-O-U. Afterwards, students pair-share their favorite parts.

“Half the Story” is a teaching strategy that uses images to encourage students to process information and make connections. The teacher zooms in on a selected image, to show only part of it, and asks students to make predictions about the topic of study and explain their reasoning.

SOS Story: Marvin Rainey

Marvin Rainey, a PreK-3 school principal, uses various SOS strategies to engage students in reading. He states, after mentoring a first year teacher, “The students are smiling with excitement because the learning process is fun and filled with innovation.”

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Interactive Online Traditional Literacy Resources

Karen Ogen, a DEN GURU, has a wonderful collection of interactive Web resources on her Interactive Sites for Education pages. These support many content areas for grades K-5, including reading and writing, which is found here:  http://interactivesites.weebly.com/language-arts.html

The Read, Write, and Think site from NCTE, includes many interactive sites for grades K-12, in the areas of organizing and summarizing, inquiry and analysis, writing poetry, writing and publishing prose, and learning about language. These online interactive may be found here: http://www.readwritethink.org/search/?resource_type=16

What are your go-to interactive Web resources to support reading and writing?  Share with us on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Ignite your passion and share

As educators, we are very passionate about teaching and learning. We each have our areas of expertise, and now, with accessible tools that make it easy to create a presentation, podcast, video, or animation, we can share our passion and expertise with others.

One popular model for sharing is the Ignite model. Ignite talks are usually given in person. Each presenter giving an Ignite talk is allowed twenty slides, which advance every fifteen seconds, giving the presenter five minutes to give the talk. Customarily, there are multiple Ignite presenters during an event. Here is a little background on the Ignite talk model.

Although not exactly adhering to the Ignite model,  but close enough, I presented this 5:36, 16-slide informative talk at iPadpalooza 2016 in Austin, TX. You can view other presenter’s Ignite-like talks here.

DISCOVERY EDUCATION’S “IGNITE YOUR PASSION” PROJECT

Dean Shareski, of Discovery Education, has been utilizing the Ignite model for the past few years as part of Discovery Education professional development for teachers. The DE Team holds an informal networking event with 8-10 educators each giving a 5-minute Ignite talk. Discovery Education provide presenters with a common prompt for their talk.

One of these prompts was “What are you curious about?”

Some of the titles for the these Ignite talks were:

• A bit of a thing for wood
• I like big books and I cannot lie
• Storytelling is not enough
• A buffet of Discovery
• Prairie lighthouses
• From hibernation to transformation: An obsession with learning
• How to grow a loaf of bread
• Connecting
• Are you busy?

Rex Ferguson-Baird, who was curious about leadership, entitled his Ignite Talk “Leadership: A constant process of identity reinvention” and you can view it below.

This year’s Discovery Education “Ignite Your Passion” talks prompt is  “I used to ______ but now I ________.”

The presenters picked a wide range of topics to present about!

• “I used to paper, but now I tech”
• “I used to be bald….”
• “I used to stress but now I Ommm”
• “I used to think boxes were for packing stuff in, but now I now they are for letting things out.”
• “I used to blab…But now I sit back and watch”
• “I used to lay on the couch…’
• “I used to only have iPads, now I have choice & community”
• “I used to think community was important…”
• “I used to pull out my hair, but now I’m painting rainbows”
• “I used to blame parents but now I have kids of my own.”

Tara McLauchlan, a DEN Star, entitled her Ignite talk “I used to read books…” and you can view it below.

Discovery held an Ignite session at FETC17, too. Read about it here!

OTHER EDUCATIONAL IGNITE SESSIONS

I attend lots of conferences throughout the year, and many of the conferences have an Ignite talk session. In an hour time slot, allowing for each presenter to get to the podium and put on the mic, there usually are 8-10 talks. Some conferences record and archive this presentations, and here are some for you to view.

ISTE is one of the conferences that has included concurrent sessions in the Ignite format for the past few conferences. Here is one of the Ignite sessions from 2015.

• ISTE Ignite Sessions (2013)
• ISTE Ignite Sessions (2016)
• ITEC (Iowa) Ignite Sessions (2016)

 HOW TO SHARE YOUR PASSION IN AN IGNITE SESSION

Although some Ignite sessions are informational, most are reflections of the personal passion of the presenter. By watching a variety of these Ignite talks, you will see many types of presentation styles and slide formats. Some talks are emotional, some humorous, some sarcastic, some timely, and some defy classification! However, I do feel all of these Ignite sessions could be classified as very tightly-knit digital stories.

The Digital Storytelling at the University of Houston provides a good starting point when beginning digital storytelling with their Elements of Digital Storytelling. Consider these aspects when developing your Ignite session.

1. Point of View:  What is the main point of the story? Who am I telling the story to?  Why am I telling the story now?
2. A Dramatic Question is a key question, obvious or subtle, that keeps the viewer’s attention and will be answered by the end of the story.
3. Emotional Content: Research has shown that emotion enhances knowledge and understanding.  Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way can connect the audience to the story.
4. The Gift of Your Voice: By using inflection, you can personalize the story to help the audience understand the context.
5. The Power of the Soundtrack: Music and sound effects can add another layer of meaning and embellish the story.
6. Economy: Use just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer.
7. Pacing: Viewers need time to absorb and process the information they have been presented with. (In an Ignite session, this sometimes is hard because of the slide timings required by the model.)
8. Deciding on the overall purpose of the story— is it to persuade, inform, instruct?
9. Attention to the quality of the images and videos included
10. Attention to good grammar and language usage

The process of planning and creating the Ignite talk takes some practice, too. Here is a simple overview of one person’s Ignite talk creation workflow that might work for you. This second workflow is pretty similar.  They both involve storyboarding or outlining, digitizing the storyboard and creating your speaker notes, fine-tuning the timing, developing the visuals, and practicing the talk. Practice recording the talk right within your presentation tool, to see how well you adhere to the automatic timings. Then, find a colleague or two who can give you some feedback on the content and your presentation style during the talk.

Once you feel comfortable with your Ignite talk, consider submitting to present it at a local or regional conference. Ignite session audiences are the best– they love the fast-paced style and learning from many different presenters in a short time!

If you don’t feel up to presenting at a conference, you can use a Google Hangout on Air to record the presenting of your slides and your face at the same time.

Have you ever given an Ignite talk? Want to share some of your tips?  How about a link to your talk if it is posted online?  Share it with us on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Bring the world into your classroom

The overview of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) includes a three-dimensional framework that has students actively engaging in scientific and engineering practices, using these concepts across the scientific domains, and the inclusion of a focused core curriculum of instruction and assessments to ensure students attain the information they need to succeed.

One interesting method of communication, amateur radio, also referred to as ham radio, meets the criteria of a disciplinary core curriculum because of the many features and domains it involves.

• Within the broad field of amateur radio, the inclusion of electronic circuits, transistors, filters, amplifiers, signal processing, study of the ionosphere, solar weather, communications systems, unit conversions, prototyping, and CAD design targets the physical sciences, earth and space sciences, engineering technology, and mathematics.
• Amateur radio can be a key tool for communicating with others for collaborative purposes and learning, as well as for individual and group problem-solving
• There are social applications of amateur radio, too. These radio networks are used for radio operators, as first responders, to report to agencies during emergencies and natural disasters and for local weather-spotting in conjunction with weather agencies. Amateur radio networks work when other traditional networks are down. Students also learn the skill of communicating clearly and concisely during a time of crisis, which is an important, life-long skill.
• The teaching of the concepts and practice of amateur radio can be started simply, and then built-upon as the students get older.

Take a look at a part of a high school grant proposal which maps the use of amateur radio to the NGSS. And this page contains links to documents that tie amateur radio to various state standards across various disciplines.

Here is a fun video to share with students! In 2005, Jay Leno had a contest on his television program pitting a Morse Code operator and an SMS texting guru to see who could complete a message first.

PROJECTS AND LESSONS

There are many examples of amateur radio being used in schools all over the world and each of the projects has a different focus.

• The Fox River Radio Club (IL) set up a program to get amateur radio into their local elementary schools. The national amateur radio organization, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), did a write-up of the rationale and process of the project. This would be a great place to start to learn more about partnering with a radio club in your area to get started. In addition, local and regional radio clubs often plan “Field Days”, which allow visitors to both observe and try radio communications with a licensed operator. Field Days are a great way to introduce students to the many aspects of amateur radio.
• The Dorothy Grant Elementary School in Fontana (CA) has an Amateur Radio Club for students in grades 4 and 5. The goals of the club, as stated on their site, are to:
  • Promote community-wide understanding of amateur radio communications
  • Promote interest and proficiency in the use of amateur radio communications
  • Conduct activities and programs to advance the general interest and welfare of amateur radio in our community
  • Help students learn the necessary skills for obtaining an FCC license
  • Help students to enhance reading, writing, mathematics, geography and communications skills
  • Help students learn about electronics and radio communication techniques
  • Have fun with amateur radio

Watch the video below and learn more about their program.

• The ARRL has put together a compilation of lesson plans both created by teachers and amateur radio instructors that teachers can download and edit to use with their students. The lessons and activities are broken into six categories– basic electronics, amateur radio, satellite communications, radio science, remote sensors, and MAREA (a robot). They also have a Radio Communications curriculum for students studying to attain their license.
• The ARIIS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Space) project was created and is maintained by both amateur radio associations and world-wide space agencies.  This communications project allows students to speak directly to the crews on the ISS via amateur radio.
• SARCNET is a great Australian-based site that has tons of information and activities for schools and amateur radio!
• My son works for an amateur radio company, Remote Ham Radio, that allows amateur radio operators to use their computer or Chromebook via Internet to to get access to remote antennas and then go out over the airwaves. They have a youth project and a monthly contest for students who are FCC-licensed.

Although fluency with Morse Code is no longer a requirement of the entry-level amateur radio license, students are fascinated with it! They love tapping out their name on their desk and learning how this method of communication is still used. There are even online Morse Code translators which can help students develop an “ear” for listening to Morse Code.

To learn more about students (and you) obtaining an FCC license, take a look at the ARRL licensing information page. If you already use amateur radio in your classroom, please share on Twitter how you use it and any online material, images, or videos you have posted. Having an educational amateur radio network of K-12 students would be a lot of fun and bring the world into our classrooms!

Do you already use ham radio in your school or classroom? Share your ideas on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Looking backward and forward

What was hot in educational technology in 2016 and what are some cool new things that are on the horizon for 2017?

Let’s take a look backward and forward in case you missed anything or want to start planning for some new technologies!

VIRTUAL REALITY

Virtual reality hit the educational community in 2016 with the release of the low-cost 360° cameras (like the Ricoh Theta series) and the prominent use of Google Cardboard headsets for classroom use. Discovery VR, Google Expeditions (iOS | Android), and ThingLink VR are some of the large-scale projects in this area specifically targeted for education.

In my Kathy’s Katch April column, I covered how and why educators might want to use virtual reality in the classroom. Since that time, I have spent time teaching teachers how to have students create 360° images and share these online with others. The ability to share and use local landmarks, trips, buildings, etc., with others around the world helps increase the global literacy of our students.

I have created a Flickr group where teachers and students upload their 360°images for others to transform and use. With a simple app on a smartphone, such as Google Street View (iOS | Android) to create the image and a set of low-cost headsets, students can both share and view images from around the world. I also have a page devoted to both augmented reality and virtual reality that includes successful practices and suggestions for both of these technologies.

Here is a group of 360° images I shot in Sydney, Australia this year. You should be able to scroll around the images with your mouse.

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BREAKOUT EDU

One of the most innovative new things to show up in the classroom in 2016 is Breakout EDU. If you have not participated in a Breakout EDU session at a local, regional, or national education conference, you must do it the next time you see one offered. This is not just a technology experience, but the online collaboration and sharing among the many educators using creating these immersive learning games qualifies this item for a 2016 edtech trend in the classroom.  Breakout EDU experiences have been used at faculty meetings, parent nights at schools, at all types of education conferences, and, of course, in many classroom settings. Breakout EDU games teach critical thinking, teamwork, complex problem solving, and can be used across the curriculum.

Here is a video that gives you a quick idea of how Breakout EDU works. However, you really need to feel the excitement for yourself by participating in a session!

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POKÉMON GO

Who would have predicted this card game of the 1990’s would lead to a world-wide, real-time, collaborative crowd game in 2016? Everyone seemed to get caught up in this fun, outdoor scavenger hunt. It was so interesting to be part of it and finding new “friends” everywhere who would share their tips and locations to visit to gather new objects. In addition, the ability to find cool new things in both my town and in larger cities was really interesting. Did you know that there is a large Statue of Liberty reproduction in an office lobby in Boston? Or that you can find a monument to the now-defunct elevated artery in Boston?

While looking for items to collect and Pokemon to capture, and as I found these fun places, I began to think about the use of this game in the classroom. I started to take my own photos of the interesting spots I visited. I also began to look at the large database of information I was collecting in the game– the number of each Pokemon I captured, the points I received, the “power rating” of each Pokemon I had collected, and the actual time and date each event happened.

Because data literacy is one of the life-long skills we want our students to attain, having them use their Pokemon Go data and photos to write a story, create an infographic, and enter and evaluate their findings is a great way to target the data literacy skills. My August Kathy’s Katch column provides many other ways this phenomenon can be used to support teaching and learning.

The lesson I learned with Pokemon Go is not that gaming and gamification are essential to learning. My idea for the use of this particular game had more to do with using student passions to drive teaching and learning in ways we might not have thought of before.

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CHROMEBOOKS

The Chromebook finally came of age in 2016. They became a bit more powerful and speedier, their screens became easier to use for extended periods of time, the touchscreen Chromebooks allowed additional ways to input information (a big help for those that needed accessibility options), and the newest Chromebooks even began to run  apps from the Google Play Store (the apps that run on the Android phones).  I have the Asus Chromebook Flip C-100 (under $250) and it has an all-day battery life, a beautiful touch-screen that can be folded back and be used as a touch-screen tablet, and it is one of the first Chromebooks to run the Android apps.

But it is not just the hardware and software improvements of the Chromebook that have made it a choice for many schools. Thanks to the developers who create online tools, many of these powerful tools now work with the Chromebook. Since the heavy-lifting is done on the Web site’s server, the Chromebook does not need to do the processing locally, and the online tools work great!

I have a page devoted to the tools that work with Chromebooks and laptops, broken down into thirty categories such as animation tools, audio editors, citation makers, curation tools, coding tools, collage tools, image editors, drawing tools, concept mappers, podcast creators, timeline makers, video editors, word cloud generators, and more. I can find an online tool to replace almost any software that runs on a computer, thus opening up the field to the low-cost Chromebook. Getting a device for every student that is low-cost, durable, lasts an entire day without a charge, and can do almost anything is a worthy goal for schools!

That being said, I still believe that the iPad has an important place in the classroom. The simplicity and power of  single-purpose creation apps allow students to easily create a product to showcase their acquisition of content knowledge. I recommend a mix of devices in a school setting so students and teachers have access to the best tool for the job!

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LOOKING FORWARD

I could go on and on with the trends that I have become excited about in 2016– coding, sketchnoting, Open Education Resources (OER), and design thinking are others that come to mind. But these are just my opinions. To take advantage of the expertise of a group of very smart people involved in K-12 educational technology, you should take a look at the NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: K-12 Edition.

The Horizon Report is put out each year. The panel of educators and technologists who investigate and come to consensus on the upcoming trends start off with over fifty important trends in technology that could have an impact in schools. These are narrowed down to six over the course of the creation of the yearly report. However, these trends are not thought about in a vacuum. While debating the choices, the participants are also considering these three questions.

1. What’s on the horizon for K-12 education institutions?
2. Which trends and technologies will drive educational change?
3. How can these institutions strategize effective solutions to difficult challenges?
4.  Give the entire report a read when you get a moment!

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THOUGHTS

What are your thoughts on what was trending in educational technology in 2016? What are your predictions for 2017? Share with us on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Civil discourse in the classroom

During this season of debates and political commercials, the stereotypes, biases, and negativity seem to have taken over civil discourse. As our students watch the televised political debates, read the responses on Twitter or Reddit, or view the video responses from those with an agenda, they need to understand how to value someone else’s point of view and balance it with their own thoughts and beliefs to form an opinion.

POINT OF VIEW

Learning how to look at things from a different point of view and how a point of view can change someone’s version of an event, can start with our youngest students. The ILA/NCTE site has several lesson plans that target point-of view.

• Teaching Point of View With Two Bad Ants has students reading the story in small groups, analyzing the illustrations and text, comparing an ant’s view with a human’s view, and then writing a short story from an ant’s perspective. (Grades 3-5)
• The Big Bad Wolf: Analyzing Point of Views in Texts, in addition to an opening activity where students are assigned a point of view when listening to a story, the teacher reads aloud two different versions of the traditional fairy tale, The Three Little Pigs. Using a Venn diagram, students compare and contrast the story’s events from the various points of view presented in the two books. The teacher follows-up with a reading of the The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Scieszka), which is told from the point-of-view of the wolf. Students then have to re-write a fairy tale from the point of view of an object or character in the tale, such as the pea in The Princess and the Pea or the bean in Jack and the Beanstalk. (Grades 6-8)

Discovery Education offers a video segment and supporting materials for teaching point of view for grades 3-5.

• Point of View : “This segment presents a facts about circus master P.T. Barnum and compares two author’s points of view about the entertainer. A follow-up activity asks students to analyze point of view in a magazine article.” (4:43)

RESPONDING TO OTHERS

I have always believed, when responding to others in a public forum, my comments should be positive or neutral– never negative. If I have a critical response to the author of an article or post, I simply send it to them directly, whether in a direct message in Twitter or via email. I try to be constructive in my criticism and also want to have the chance to use as many characters and words as I need to to get my point across. I don’t want to get in a debate over something in a public venue and only have 140 characters to respond with!
A popular method of feedback I use when responding to my graduate students comes  John Wooden, famous college basketball coach. His coaching methodology is sometimes referred to as The Sandwich Method.

The Sandwich Method of Feedback

1. Start with positive feedback about someone’s idea
2. Provide the constructive criticism you want to share
3. End on a positive note

Ashely Hurley, a professional development specialist, penned a useful post in 2014 titled “The A-B-Cs of Giving Feedback to a colleague“. She provides examples and methods of how to keep the feedback accessible and action-oriented, how to focus on the basic information, and connecting the feedback to the content. Ashley also includes links to additional information about feedback. Even though this post is about teachers giving peer feedback, the same tenets can easily be applied to support students during student-student feedback.
Debating is a form of targeted feedback and there are some great resources for those who wish to debate, whether in person or online, and do so with clarity and purpose. I love this strategy from Marco Witzmann in an article about how to become a great debater. The article goes into much more depth than the following, but the main components of the strategy are:

• State: use clear wording in one short phrase, stating your point
• Explain: Use the word because to explain why your point is valid.
• Illustrate: Use examples to illustrate your point and make the audience identify with your arguments

Students can learn about this strategy and then, while re-watching a political debate, keep a tally on how well the debaters did in each of these three areas. Was their main point understood? Did they explain why they took that stance? Did their examples help or hinder their presentation of their main point?
Simon Frasier University, located in Canada, offers this concise overview of how to debate which includes the basic debating skills of style, speed, tone, volume, clarity and eye contact as well as the content components of the argument including the case and the rebuttal. Again, once students understand the parts of a debate, they can dissect a political debate using this information as a starting point.

LISTENING SKILLS

Of course, in order to understand someone else’s point of view or dissect a debate, students need to know how to listen. It is too easy to get caught up in wanting to respond and interrupt with your own opinion. Learning how to listen is a practiced skill and Discovery Education offers resources to help students attain this important skill.

• Listen Up “is a teaching strategy that encourages students to either watch or listen carefully…Students switch roles between viewer and listener and assist each other in putting the pieces together to understand a piece of media.”
• Developing Your Listening Skills: In this 1:53 video segment “Slim Goodbody gives examples of how to become a better listener. He also explains that when you are a good listener you hear the meaning and feeling behind the words which lead to better communication.” (Grades K-5)
• Active Listening: “This 4:11 segment presents a short piece about Monument Valley and discusses active listening techniques.” (Grades 3-5)
• Communication Skills: “Through a series of role-plays, two students resolve a conflict by using active listening skills and I statements.” Grades 6-8 (7:33)
• Becoming a Better Listener and Communicator: This 3:09 video segment provides tips the important communication skill of listening. Grades 6-12

Other good lessons plans I found dealing with active listening include:

• Active Listening: “Students practice active listening by paraphrasing what they hear.” Grades 3-6
• Are you listening?: This lesson plan takes students through two different ways to listen. Grades 7-9
• Social Skill- Active Listening: This is a 23-page packet which teaches students about active listening and has them actively listening during both the lesson and in real-life situations. Grades 9-12

These practical skills of thinking about point of view, learning how to deliver critical feedback, and the process of actively listening to others are important as our students grow to be the voters and leaders of the future!

How do you teach point of view in your classroom? Share with us on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Observation and self-reflection in the classroom

SELF-REFLECTION

There are many ways teachers and administrators can self-reflect in a school setting. Janelle Cox, in a TeachHub blog post, offers a few suggestions for collecting information for self-reflection.

Self-reflective journal: After each lesson, simply jot down feelings and reactions about the lesson and also include observations about the students. This can easily be done in a paper notebook or with a journaling tool such as Penzu which is available online and for both the iOS and Android operating systems, syncing the information between the online tool and the app.

Student observation: Having students complete a simple survey with their thoughts about the lesson can provide valuable information for the teacher, too. This can be a paper survey that is handed out, or students can enter information into a Google Form or SurveyMonkey online survey. Here is one sample survey which has students evaluating teacher performance.

Peer observation: Having a peer observe a lesson can provide useful information for self-reflection. A peer observation can be one of two types — a whole lesson observation with a follow-up discussion about objectives, materials, student engagement, classroom management, and effectiveness — similar to one an administrator might complete. The second type of peer observation is one in which the two educators meet ahead of time, identify a certain component of teaching or learning for observation, and follow-up with a targeted discussion about this one component. An example of these specific components would be wait-time, mentoring, asking higher-order thinking questions, or anything else the teachers wants to work on.

Video recording: Video recording is probably the method that works best for both observation and self-reflection. Instead of having a peer review the lesson, the educator can simply video record the lesson and self-reflect and self-correct while viewing the recording.

There may be other times when a teacher is just interested in reflecting on his/her speaking and questioning skills in the classroom. An audio recording, rather than a video, can be just as useful in this case. One audio recording app that allows unlimited recording length, is the iRig Recorder app, available both for iOS and Android. The teacher can just press record and carry the smartphone around or put it in a pocket, and the entire lesson can be recorded!

Jordan Catapano, in a TeachHub blog post entitled “A technique for self-reflection: Video recording“, offers a short list of questions educators can ask themselves while viewing a recorded lesson.

1. How loudly do I speak?
2. Do I get off track at all? How often?
3. Do I do anything annoying or distracting with my voice, gestures, posture, etc.?
4. How clear are my instructions for activities?
5. How clearly do I communication the big ideas in a lesson?
6. Am I interacting with students effectively?
7. What are students doing as I am speaking?
8. Does my method of instruction seem appropriate for the content and goal I have in mind?
9. How much time do I spend talking about things that don’t need to be talked about?

One way for teachers to internalize these questions and practice self-reflection is to view other teacher-recorded lessons. These can be found on the Discovery Education in Action site, in the video section of the Teaching Channel site, and by searching on YouTube.

HOW TO CREATE A SELF-REFLECTION VIDEO

One way to record a lesson is to simply set up a camera or smartphone on a tripod and record the entire lesson from a fixed location. At first, students will be painfully conscious of the camera and either try to avoid it or “ham it up”. However, once a camera has been in a classroom for a period of time, it becomes “invisible” to the students.

One of my favorite instructional videos for learning the basics of how to successfully video a classroom lesson comes from the Teaching Channel titled Using Video to Improve Practice: Video 101. Richard Hart, a teacher and TV reporter in the area of media technology, provides tips that are applicable to any video creation. He talks about camera location, how to hold the camera and stop any shaky movement, panning and zooming, and how to effectively record audio. This great video, found on the Teaching Channel, showcases a teacher who uses this simple method to record in her classroom. For those that want additional specifics on more formal recording of video in a classroom, this working white paper by Daniel Kilburn offers additional information and a more technical overview of the process.

There are new technology devices that can provide a better classroom recording experience for reviewing by teachers and administrators. The 360° spherical panoramic cameras, like the Ricoh Theta S, can be set up on a tripod in the center of the classroom and will record everything in all directions for up to 25 minutes. Below is a 360° video I took of a BreakoutEDU session at iPadpalooza in June of this year.  Notice you can drag the video in any direction with your mouse or finger. Imagine being able to see what went on behind you while you were teaching!

The toolkit for taking these videos includes the camera, a tripod, a smartphone and, if you want to view the finished product in virtual reality mode, a Google cardboard head-mounted display.

Another new technology tool that can be used to record a classroom lesson for both observation and self-reflection is Swivl. There are two main components of Swivl– the Swivl “robot” that follows the movement of the teacher and a small, handheld, wireless device (called a “marker”) that is carried to both have the Swivl robot follow the teacher and for recording audio. Swivl is best used with a tablet versus a smartphone, and the software is available for both iOS and Android. The recordings can be saved to a cloud service to share with others, or they can  be kept private for self-reflection. There are a few options for additional accessories, like a wider view camera that attaches to the tablet and additional software for creating presentations and lessons with Swivl.

Here is a short video overview of how Swivl works.

Introducing Swivl from Swivl on Vimeo.

While viewing the recordings from Swivl, the teacher or administrator has the opportunity to leave time-stamped comments for the observation results or self-reflection thoughts. Multiple teachers can leave comments on a single recording, so Swivl would also be a nice support tool for a PLC that is focusing on improving teacher practice.

Do you have ideas and thoughts on other observation or self-reflection techniques? Do you take advantage of these methods or others to self-reflect on a regular basis? Share with us on Twitter! #kathyschrock