This is the fifth in a series of blog posts discussing the collaboration of the Collab Lab and our EG Ed Prep students. Please follow along on our journey using the hashtag #214EdPrep or clicking on the label #214EdPrep in the word cloud!
By: Karolina Rusiniak
I intern at Clearmont Elementary school with the ESL program. The teachers compose normal lessons with the students, such as math centers etc. just like they would in their regular English classroom. I decided to try the app Classkick with the class this last Friday. [See this past blog post about the Spark Session on Classkick.] I prepared a slideshow of about 12 pages of line graphs and worksheets and fraction free response questions.
When I arrived, the class was divided into six groups each working at a different math center and would rotate every ten minutes or so. The students were very excited to do the classkick! They told me they have never done such an activity where they could directly write on their chrome book and have the teacher check their work automatically. They informed me that they loved the fact that I could check their work as they go and that I could give them stickers as rewards. Also, they loved working at their own pace through the presentation.
What we found as a challenge was that it was hard to write on their chrome books and having the opportunity to write on their tablets would make it much easier. Some students successfully logged into classkick through the internet on their tablets and said it was much easier than working on their laptops. I am still working on exploring the program, but, personally, the only challenge I came across was that since the kids were divided into six groups, some would get on and some would get off the program and I would have to take some time and look for the students that are on the program to check their works- they were scattered all over the list.
Other than that, I really loved using the program and they informed me that they would love for me to make another slideshow for their math centers again. I think that if I could change some things about the program, I would come up with a more effective way to alert the teacher when the student presses "please check", and I would love to have the students who are working on the program to show up in one place and the students who aren't to be moved somewhere else, yet still visible. Overall, I really enjoyed working with the program! I took some pictures, but I was told I could only use them for classroom purposes, but i will gladly show them to You in person.
More blog posts to come. Follow #214EdPrep and @EGCollabLab for more!
Showing posts with label ClassKick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ClassKick. Show all posts
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
#214EdPrep: Spark Sessions for Formative Assessment
By: Rachel Barry
This is the second in a series of blog posts discussing the collaboration of the Collab Lab and our EG Ed Prep students. Please follow along on our journey using the hashtag #214EdPrep or clicking on the label #214EdPrep in the word cloud!
Students in the District 214 Ed Prep Program will be competing in an "impromptu lesson" challenge among students from other schools. For this competition, they will placed in groups to develop a lesson plan on a given a topic. The Collab Lab will be following along and supporting our EG students through this process.
To give students ideas for this lesson, their teacher Kim Sander and I decided to provide the class with "Spark Sessions". As a staff, we have used Spark Sessions at numerous teacher-led Institute Days to provide new instructional ideas, feedback methods, and brainstorming tools for teachers to use in their classrooms. We figured a similar process would help ignite lesson ideas within the students.
On the first "Spark Sesson" day, I presented students with two different modes of formative assessment: Classkick and Socrative.
Spark Session 1: Using Classkick to provide feedback to students
To begin, I had students enroll in a Classkick activity (code: QGT VY4) composed of Math, Human Geography, and English questions.
The purpose of this activity included:
- to see the uses in multiple content areas
- to witness the impact of immediate feedback on learning
- to learn the ways that Classkick allows the teacher to differentiate your instruction based on student need
- to see how students can collaborate on the given problems
- to observe the classroom management benefits of using this method of formative assessment
- to add slides as students are working to extend their knowledge
To learn more about the uses of Classkick in the classroom, view this previous blog post.
Spark Session 2: Using Socrative to provide feedback to students
Once students had experienced the open-ended feedback of Classkick, I had students log in to my Socrative Quiz. This formative quiz consisted of Math, English, History, and Science questions all at the third grade level.
Here, students were able to see:
- how to give students immediate feedback on multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions
- how to use data to drive instruction
- how to provide students with an explanation when they answer incorrectly
View this blog post to see how Socrative can be used to provide immediate feedback to students.
Student Thoughts
I asked students which of these lessons they would most utilize in the classroom, and here were some responses:
"I really liked the Classkick and how you could have the students working and doing different problems while the teacher is helping other students and checking answers at the same time. I think it will be good for warm up problems as well as review for quizzes."
"I think in my future classroom I will use classkick for warm ups or formative assessments. I think it is effective and refreshing for students. It also provides an easier method of multitasking possibilities for the teacher."
"I could see class kick being used really well for certain subjects. And socrative useful for others. Both have ups and downs in the class room but both are useful."
More blog posts to come. Follow #214EdPrep and @EGCollabLab for more!
This is the second in a series of blog posts discussing the collaboration of the Collab Lab and our EG Ed Prep students. Please follow along on our journey using the hashtag #214EdPrep or clicking on the label #214EdPrep in the word cloud!
Students in the District 214 Ed Prep Program will be competing in an "impromptu lesson" challenge among students from other schools. For this competition, they will placed in groups to develop a lesson plan on a given a topic. The Collab Lab will be following along and supporting our EG students through this process.
To give students ideas for this lesson, their teacher Kim Sander and I decided to provide the class with "Spark Sessions". As a staff, we have used Spark Sessions at numerous teacher-led Institute Days to provide new instructional ideas, feedback methods, and brainstorming tools for teachers to use in their classrooms. We figured a similar process would help ignite lesson ideas within the students.
On the first "Spark Sesson" day, I presented students with two different modes of formative assessment: Classkick and Socrative.
Spark Session 1: Using Classkick to provide feedback to students
To begin, I had students enroll in a Classkick activity (code: QGT VY4) composed of Math, Human Geography, and English questions.
The purpose of this activity included:
- to see the uses in multiple content areas
- to witness the impact of immediate feedback on learning
- to learn the ways that Classkick allows the teacher to differentiate your instruction based on student need
- to see how students can collaborate on the given problems
- to observe the classroom management benefits of using this method of formative assessment
- to add slides as students are working to extend their knowledge
To learn more about the uses of Classkick in the classroom, view this previous blog post.
Spark Session 2: Using Socrative to provide feedback to students
Once students had experienced the open-ended feedback of Classkick, I had students log in to my Socrative Quiz. This formative quiz consisted of Math, English, History, and Science questions all at the third grade level.
Here, students were able to see:
- how to give students immediate feedback on multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions
- how to use data to drive instruction
- how to provide students with an explanation when they answer incorrectly
View this blog post to see how Socrative can be used to provide immediate feedback to students.
Student Thoughts
I asked students which of these lessons they would most utilize in the classroom, and here were some responses:
"I really liked the Classkick and how you could have the students working and doing different problems while the teacher is helping other students and checking answers at the same time. I think it will be good for warm up problems as well as review for quizzes."
"I think in my future classroom I will use classkick for warm ups or formative assessments. I think it is effective and refreshing for students. It also provides an easier method of multitasking possibilities for the teacher."
"I could see class kick being used really well for certain subjects. And socrative useful for others. Both have ups and downs in the class room but both are useful."
- "I think in the future I would use class kick
because I think it is good way to have kids do work at their own pace and get
help when they need. It helps shows the teacher what students still need help
on."
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Classkick Classroom Visits
By: Rachel Barry
Yesterday, Tom Walloch and I had a unique opportunity to bring to our classes. A representative from the app Classkick had reached out to me to preview their upcoming web-based version. Classkick For Web will be launching in a few weeks. Now, schools with devices other than iPads (laptops, Chromebooks, etc.) will be able to use Classkick.
The representative, Laura Litton, came to our classes to showcase the new version and take pictures of our students in action. Overall students enjoyed the experience, especially that their picture may be featured in some of Classkick's promotional materials.
Some of the feedback from the students was that after using the iPad version, it wasn't as user-friendly to write with the mouse on the web-based version. They also acknowledged that their opinion was based on using it in the math classroom and that there are other applications in other content areas that may find the web-based version more efficient.
In talking to Laura, she mentioned the much greater network of teachers they could reach using a web-based version, due to the limited number of districts able to purchase iPads for their students. Some schools are investing in Chromebooks for the lower cost, while other schools are limited to computer labs. Investing in this web-based version allows for more teachers to benefit from this awesome method of formative assessment!
And here is a special note from Classkick:
Yesterday, Tom Walloch and I had a unique opportunity to bring to our classes. A representative from the app Classkick had reached out to me to preview their upcoming web-based version. Classkick For Web will be launching in a few weeks. Now, schools with devices other than iPads (laptops, Chromebooks, etc.) will be able to use Classkick.
The representative, Laura Litton, came to our classes to showcase the new version and take pictures of our students in action. Overall students enjoyed the experience, especially that their picture may be featured in some of Classkick's promotional materials.
Some of the feedback from the students was that after using the iPad version, it wasn't as user-friendly to write with the mouse on the web-based version. They also acknowledged that their opinion was based on using it in the math classroom and that there are other applications in other content areas that may find the web-based version more efficient.
And here is a special note from Classkick:
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Teaming on Tuesday: Immediate Feedback using Classkick
Written by the Collab Lab Team
Today we had our first "Teaming on Tuesday," our professional learning days that offer staff an opportunity to see learning in action in short class visits followed by optional Learning Labs in the Collab Lab. Today's "Teaming on Tuesday" focused on providing immediate and targeted feedback and engaging students in their learning. We visited the classrooms of Tom Walloch, Mark Heintz, and Rachel Barry to see how they use the Classkick app as a formative assessment tool to provide students with feedback.
The premise of "Teaming on Tuesday" is that we meet for a 10 minute classroom visit and then come back to the Collab Lab to discuss how to use this tool and to play around with ideas for implementation in our own classrooms.
Teachers who came to observe Rachel Barry's 2nd period Advanced Algebra class agreed that Classkick is a great vehicle for engaging students during a class warm-up because students can work at their own pace and obtain frequent feedback from both their teacher and peers. After observing, we returned to the Collab Lab to experiment with the app and discuss other ways of providing students with timely feedback.
Another strategy that was brought up is the idea of grouping students to work together. If students login with the same name, they are linked to the same interactive whiteboard, which allows them to collaborate on problems, ideas, etc. This idea was shared and expanded on in a later session - students could be paired up digitally to eliminate the time component of students moving to get into their groups or avoid the "I don't want to work with that person" conversation (you can assign groups anonymously).
Tom Walloch also shared that he has used this for after-school review sessions by presenting the class with a code at the end of the period and telling students the hours that he would be available that night or weekend. This is a great way to allow students to collaborate with their peers (an option in ClassKick) as well as obtain feedback from their teacher.
Thank you to all who participated in today's Teaming on Tuesdays professional learning day: Ami Heng, Effie Kalkounos, Dan Saken, Amy Burke, Elissa Ricchetti, Matt Snow, Kristen Guth, Izabella Wnek, Sharon Horwath, Amanda Willner, Eleanor Pattie, Mindy Perkins, Megan Knight, Quinn Loch, Linda Ashida, Kim Miklusak, and Kirsten Fletcher. We are expanding our collaboration across schools and were happy to include Matt Hamilton, ITF from Prospect, and Rudy Gomez, District 214 Technology Systems Supervisor, join us today.
Today we had our first "Teaming on Tuesday," our professional learning days that offer staff an opportunity to see learning in action in short class visits followed by optional Learning Labs in the Collab Lab. Today's "Teaming on Tuesday" focused on providing immediate and targeted feedback and engaging students in their learning. We visited the classrooms of Tom Walloch, Mark Heintz, and Rachel Barry to see how they use the Classkick app as a formative assessment tool to provide students with feedback.
The premise of "Teaming on Tuesday" is that we meet for a 10 minute classroom visit and then come back to the Collab Lab to discuss how to use this tool and to play around with ideas for implementation in our own classrooms.
Teachers who came to observe Rachel Barry's 2nd period Advanced Algebra class agreed that Classkick is a great vehicle for engaging students during a class warm-up because students can work at their own pace and obtain frequent feedback from both their teacher and peers. After observing, we returned to the Collab Lab to experiment with the app and discuss other ways of providing students with timely feedback.
Another strategy that was brought up is the idea of grouping students to work together. If students login with the same name, they are linked to the same interactive whiteboard, which allows them to collaborate on problems, ideas, etc. This idea was shared and expanded on in a later session - students could be paired up digitally to eliminate the time component of students moving to get into their groups or avoid the "I don't want to work with that person" conversation (you can assign groups anonymously).
Tom Walloch also shared that he has used this for after-school review sessions by presenting the class with a code at the end of the period and telling students the hours that he would be available that night or weekend. This is a great way to allow students to collaborate with their peers (an option in ClassKick) as well as obtain feedback from their teacher.
Thank you to all who participated in today's Teaming on Tuesdays professional learning day: Ami Heng, Effie Kalkounos, Dan Saken, Amy Burke, Elissa Ricchetti, Matt Snow, Kristen Guth, Izabella Wnek, Sharon Horwath, Amanda Willner, Eleanor Pattie, Mindy Perkins, Megan Knight, Quinn Loch, Linda Ashida, Kim Miklusak, and Kirsten Fletcher. We are expanding our collaboration across schools and were happy to include Matt Hamilton, ITF from Prospect, and Rudy Gomez, District 214 Technology Systems Supervisor, join us today.
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