Upgrading your student engagement tools

by Kirsten Fletcher

We've all struggled with the best way to get all students to participate. Here are a few tricks to give all students a voice in your class. Nothing revolutionary here, but a few good reminders.

Getting them to speak:
Non-tech: 
At the beginning of the semester, I used ask students to write their name on an index card and write a semester goal on the back. Then, throughout the semester, I would shuffle the cards and pull one every time I wanted students to participate. Students rarely argued because they could see I had chosen them randomly. I never put them on the spot without some prep though. I typically used the cards after a think-pair-share when I knew that everyone had something to say. I used the cards to group students quickly too.

With tech:
I now use Team Shake instead of the index cards, but it's basically the same thing. I refer to Team Shake as my "favorite app" and the students groan whenever I open it because they know they need to be prepared to contribute. This app costs $0.99, but it is worth the investment. Once I input my class rosters, I can randomly call on any student in the room. I usually project it on the screen so students can see that it's random. They also know that I'm not only going to call on the kids whose hands are always us, so they take the practice activities seriously just in case. Team Shake is also great for instantaneous grouping students and forming teams.

Randomly group students for classroom activities

Randomly select students to participate

Getting them to apply concepts: 
Non-tech:
My go-to activity for applying a new concept in writing is to ask students to write anonymously on paper or index cards.  Then I collect their writing samples and put a few up on the ELMO or read them so we can identify strengths and weaknesses. While this can be effective, it can also be time-consuming and I tend to lose the students in the shuffling of paperwork.

With tech:
Now, after I teach or review a tricky concept, I often ask my students to log into Socrative to write a sentence applying the new grammar, vocabulary, etc. When asking an open-ended question in Socrative, I choose to make answers anonymous. I project the answers and correct errors in front of the class, but no one knows whose work I am correcting. I find that students take greater risks when their work is anonymous and the discussion is richer. Often, the same mistakes are repeated multiple times, so I can quickly identify common misconceptions. By doing this activity in Socrative instead of on paper, I can give feedback after every question so students can correct their errors before the next question. There are also many other uses for the Socrative app, as outlined by this blog post by Rachel Barry.

Choose Short Answer to allow students
to write anonymous responses.

Display student responses for
immediate feedback.

Comprehension checks:
Non-tech:
For comprehension checks or skills practice, I used to pass out a set of mini white boards, markers, and erasers. I would then project a powerpoint or call out a question and have students write the answers. While this was somewhat effective, it was difficult to give meaningful feedback because students couldn't always see others' boards clearly.

With tech:
Today I do this same type of activity with Nearpod. The advantage of Nearpod is that it functions like an interactive powerpoint. I can frontload the activity with a few slides to review the concept I want to practice. Then I add "Draw it" slides where students can write their own answers. It is not anonymous, so it is best to do this once students are comfortable with one another. I project the teacher view as students work so that I can quickly flip through their answers and make corrections if necessary. If there is a good class rapport, students tend to get creative with their answers.

Students write original responses with
targeted grammar.

Teacher projects students' responses
for class discussion.

Nearpod also allows for multiple choice quizzes and other activities. After the activity, it is possible to print out results or run reports to get a clear picture of student understanding.

Results of Nearpod activities can be emailed to the teacher.

There are, of course, many other ways to engage students and allow their voices to be heard. See this blog post from Mark Heintz on Schoology discussions for more ideas.

Schoology Calendar to Organize a Course

By Mark Heintz

Schoology allows a variety of ways to organize a course.  I mainly use Schoology calendar events to guide students in my course.  I use the calendar over folders or updates because I structure my course with daily objectives and activities.  Calendars are how I plan, so it makes logical sense to me to use the calendar.

For students, posting all of the contents for the lesson in the daily calendar focuses students right away with an easy to follow routine. At the start of every class, students go the calendar to begin.  In the pictures below, the calendar is shown on the right display on the iPad or web.  If you have upcoming quizzes or assignments, the students are exposed to tasks that need attention.  Daily routines keep students focused and guide behaviors into learning focused activities at the beginning of class.

In the calendar, I can post the objective for the day, step by step instructions, images, videos, worksheets, readings, and web links.  I often post images for my bell ringers.  Students can see the images in color and zoom for further analysis. I post the question right there in the event.  This way I do not have to have a PowerPoint slide cued or write it on the board if I am coming into the class in a hurry. Calendar events allow students to post comments.  I often have the students post their answers to the bell in the comments.  

The calendar is great because it is ONE location for the entire lesson's materials. The students do not have to go to a discussion for a simple warm up or exit slip.  They can respond to other's comments, ask questions or do almost any feature a discussion can except grading.  For quick participation, the calendar is great. There are less transitions for students to get lost in the shuffle.  It maximizes classroom time and allows for total participation.   It is really easy for students to post new comments.  Students can see all comments made.

Also, the calendar houses all of the daily materials.  There is little redirection for students to access any of the daily materials. I teacher regular level freshmen, so I try to minimize transitions.  Another benefit is the students can go back to the event for any of the daily activities. If you are using pdfs, the event can have the links that students wouldn't be able to click.

At the end of the class, the calendar provides the opportunity for teachers to have an unplanned exit slip.  If there is extra time, you can have students post three things they learned, a question they have,  a summary of the lesson, or anything else you normally do as an exit slip.  The best part, if you created the event, there is a venue for students to post comments without creating anything new!

Another great feature of the calendar is it automatically archives the event.  Students can go back to any event in the entire semester.  If they miss a day they can go through the calendar and see everything they missed.

If you want to know more about how to do specific features in calendars, Schoology created a how to page. You can access it by clicking here.

Easy Exit Slip

By Mark Heintz

Over the past week I have been teaching my students the Atlantic Revolutions.  I thought they were understanding most of the content.  Since they were going to be writing an essay on the revolutions, I wanted to ensure they understood everything before they began writing.  At this point in their learning, the students had completed an online vocabulary quiz, been lectured to, completed an anticipatory reading guide, read a textbook chapter, read several primary and secondary documents, and completed some comparative activities all on the Atlantic Revolutions.  From all of these activities, I thought they were pretty good on the content. During their learning,  I listened to the conversations, answered questions, and reviewed the activities. Then I gave them an exit slip.

I asked the students to do three things:  one thing they didn't understand, two questions they still had, and three things they learned today.  It took less then five minutes for the students to write down their information, and it really gave me and them an insight into what they did and didn't understand. I really like using three things they learned today so they end on a positive note.

The information they provided helped guide the lesson for the next day.  I took all of their questions and found the common misinformation and went back over the material.  The students who seemed really lost, I was able to pull aside and redirect their learning.

The great thing about the use of this exit slip is that it can be used on the spur of the moment.  You can just have the students pull out a quarter sheet of paper and answer the questions.  Another way to do it is through a discussion post in Schoology.  The benefit to doing it online is you can have students start the next day by answering their own questions, respond to each others posts, or you as the teacher can respond to each one if you are really motivated.  A bonus to using Schoology is that you can hide all of the student responses from students until they respond.  So, you can force the students to post before just taking other students' answers.