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The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
Canva is a great service for designing all kinds of graphics for online and offline use. Canva includes a gallery of templates for making classroom posters. Once you have designed your poster you can...
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
Activities that boost gratefulness have advantages for pupils beyond enhancing their social and emotional skills.
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to infuse technology more robustly, consider these 12 questions from Section D* of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Adults Outside of This School instead of Students In This School). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward richer technology integration. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
D. Technology Infusion
Communication. How are students communicating?
Alone** / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)
Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
Communication Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate the communication processes?
Yes / No
If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)
Writing, photos and images, charts and graphs, infographics, audio, video, multimedia, transmedia
Collaboration. How are students working?
Alone** / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)
Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
If with others, who is managing collaborative processes (planning, management, monitoring, etc.)?
Students / teachers / both
Collaboration Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate collaborative processes?
Yes / No / Somewhat
If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)
Online office suites, email, texting, wikis, blogs, videoconferencing, mind mapping, curation tools, project planning tools, other
Technology Adds Value. Does technology add value so that students can do their work in better or different ways than are possible without the technology?
Yes / No / Somewhat
Technology as Means, Not End. When digital technologies are utilized, do the tools overshadow, mask, or otherwise draw the focus away from important learning?
Yes / No / Somewhat
Digital Citizenship. Are digital technologies utilized by students in both appropriate and empowering ways?***
Yes / No / Somewhat
* Actually, the very best ways to integrate technology into your lessons, units, or instructional activities would be to focus on some items from Sections A, B, and C of the 4 Shifts Protocol. Section D just contains some additional technology-related questions to think about. Sections A, B, and C help you focus on the learning, not just the technology, and thus better address the Technology Adds Value and Technology as Means, Not End questions in Section D.
** Working in isolation (no communication with others) or perhaps just communicating with teacher (e.g., call and response)
*** Effective digital citizenship conversations focus on both safe, responsible use AND empowering, participating use. Digital citizenship discussions ideally are natural extensions of and accompaniments to students’ ongoing, technology-enabled work rather than separate conversations or curricula.
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., technology adds value), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
A hardwired. -them mindset can pull kids toward cruelty, away from kindness. Here's what parents could do about it.
(Picture credit: Laurent Hrybyk for NPR)
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to have students drive more of their own learning, consider these 9 questions from Section C of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Students instead of Teachers or Both). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward greater student agency. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
C. Student Agency and Personalization
Learning Goals. Who selected what is being learned?
Students / Teachers / Both
Learning Activity. Who selected how it is being learned?
Students / Teachers / Both
Assessment of Learning. Who selected how students demonstrate their knowledge and skills and how that will be assessed?
Students / Teachers / Both
Talk Time. During the lesson/unit, who is the primary driver of the talk time? [who’s doing most of the talking, determining whom/when others can talk, etc.]
Students / Teachers / Both
Work Time. During the lesson/unit, who is the primary driver of the work time? [who’s making the decisions about the work time, ensuring progress, etc.]
Students / Teachers / Both
Interest-Based. Is student work reflective of their interests or passions?
Yes / No / Somewhat
Initiative. Do students have the opportunity to initiate, be entrepreneurial, be self-directed, and/or go beyond the given parameters of the learning task or environment?
Yes / No / Somewhat
Technology Selection. Who selected which technologies are being used?
Students / Teachers / Both
Technology Usage. Who is the primary user of the technology?
Students / Teachers / Both
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., students’ opportunity to be entrepreneurial or go beyond the assigned task), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
A couple of weeks ago I read a fun history book titled Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure. The book chronicles Truman's road trip from Missouri to New York and back in the summer after he left the...
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
They are early risers and hard workers. Some are the first in their family to go to college. Many are financially independent from their parents. Meet the "nontraditional" college students of today.
(Image credit: NPR)
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
What it is:Plus Happy Numbers is a free kindergarten through second-grade site with monthly math challenges. Teachers can sign up for a free classroom account and assign the monthly math challenge for students to solve. The challenges are designed to tap into higher-order thinking skills and build problem solving cognitive skills like visual spatial thinking. Students each receive their own login so that individual progress can be tracked and reported back to you. Plus Happy Numbers is designed to be used on any device that you have in your classroom including iPad and Mac (via Safari), Chromebook, PC and Andriod (via Google Chrome). Each lesson comes with audio support for early or struggling readers. Students simply click on the speaker icon for audio directions.
How to integrate Plus Happy Numbers into your classroom:Plus Happy Numbers makes for an excellent math center activity for your students. Each lesson comes with visual modeling of a concept, on-screen manipulatives, immediate feedback and remediation of errors, and adaptive scoring that provides just the right amount of practice a student needs to master a concept. Plus Happy Numbers is a great place for students to build mathematical thinking indpendently while you work with smaller groups of students or one-on-one.
I appreciate that Plus Happy Numbers goes beyond computational understanding and seeks to create students who think, and approach, problems like a mathematician by building number flexibility, problem solving, and higher-order thinking. Plus Happy Numbers can be used as a supplement in any k-2 classroom. Each month, a new Challenge of the Month is designed to stretch students’ mathematical thinking and problem solving skills. As students successfully progress through a challenge, the difficulty of the problems increases. Student progress is saved so they can pick up right where they left off. At the end of the month, you can print out a certificate of completion.
Obviously a 1:1 environment is ideal, each student can work on these challenges simultaneously. If 1:1 isn’t your reality, fear not! The individual student login means that you can bookmark plus.happynumbers.com on classroom devices so that your students can login to their account. In this scenario, use Plus Happy Numbers as a math center rotation in your classroom. The challenges are broken down so that students can complete a challenge in as little as 2-8 minutes. If you have a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard, you could also complete challenges as a class, discussing each challenge as your students progress through and giving students turns to solve at the board.
Tips: If you already have a Happy Numbers account, you are already on your way to using Plus! Just use the same login information and you are ready to start assigning challenges.
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
… if your spouse says, “I’m looking for ways to make you interesting and appealing,” that is not a good sign.
Once you look at a lesson and ask, “How am I going to make this material relevant,” you have admitted that the material is not actually relevant. If that’s true–if the lesson is inherently irrelevant–then you need to ask a bigger question. Why are you teaching it at all? Because it’s on the test? Because your boss said you have to? These are lousy reasons to teach anything. More importantly, no amount of stapling on pictures of movie stars will convince your students that you aren’t wasting their time, and wasting students’ time is one of the unforgivable sins in the teaching biz.
Know why you are teaching what you’re teaching. Know why the material has value for your students. This is not always obvious, but this is where your expertise in the subject matter is supposed to come in. You’re the teacher–you’re supposed to know what the connection is between your content material and the business of being fully human in the world. If you don’t see a connection, you need to go study and look to find it, or you need to reconsider whether you should be teaching it at all.
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!
Districts are supposed to tell the government how often students are held or detained. But a new report says those numbers are so inaccurate, there's no way of knowing the prevalence of these methods.
(Image credit: Sam Rowe for NPR)
Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know.
Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do!
Yours In Education!
Time To Teach
Canva is a great service for designing all kinds of graphics for online and offline use. Canva includes a gallery of templates for making classroom posters. Once you have designed your poster you can...
