Whether you are going back to school in person, or now teaching virtually- solid teaching strategies are essential, and today’s technology enables us to implement those strategies more powerfully. As you begin your school year, consider the following guiding principles for success and combine them with great tech tools to make your Infused Classroom empowering and uplifting for everyone.
Conquer Blended Learning with Connections Flipgrid
- Focus on relationship building Students who feel connected want to learn, and getting to know each other may be challenging in a virtual learning environment. So let’s ease student stress and learn about each other as we build a powerful learning community.
- Use Flipgrid to participate in fun activities that bring us closer. Students can practice tongue-twisters or contemplate questions in a ‘would you rather’ scenario. How about a virtual ‘Bring your Pet to School Day’?
- Shared Expectations In the past, many teachers have set the classroom expectations. Today, let student input guide expectations and build connection! This ensures that students have a stake in their learning and their voices are valued.
- Use Flipgrid to give students agency and allow them to share expectations and what is important to them. What do they think makes a good video conference call? What behavior should be accepted in their online comments?
Conquer Blended Learning with Engagement Hyperdocs
- Activate Curiosity- Let’s face it: many teachers reported problems of student engagement during online learning, and many parents saw this at home. In the digital world, activation of curiosity is something that can be done by a teacher with masterful creativity.
- My favorite way to do this is through a version of a hyperdoc, or what some people call a multimedia text set. For more information, see this short video on multimedia text sets and then head over to Hyperdocs.co to find one that might work for you. Here is a list of some great examples.
- You might also want to join the Hyperdoc Facebook group and the Infused Classroom Facebook group for more support.
Conquer Blended Learning with Organization Book Creator and Wakelet
- Digital Storage Think outside of Google Drive and folders. In a world where we are doing more things digitally, students struggle with finding and getting back to information, so they need the right tools to stay organized.
- Book Creator works like an interactive notebook, with stored assets that teachers and students can add to with interactive links, images–even voice recordings. Students interact with the content and other people while having access to all of their work during the school year.
- Wakelet helps curate information and keep it in a collection for easy retrieval. Students can bookmark and store articles, videos, blogs, tweets, songs and more from across the internet. Learn more about Wakelet with Five ways to Infuse Wakelet in your classroom
For a FREE short course on how to use Book Creator head to infused.link/online
Conquer Blended Learning by Inspiring Critical Thinking with Book Creator and Adobe Spark
- Go Beyond the Worksheet Jo Boaler’s concept of multi-dimensional learning encourages students to make connections and look for patterns in what they are learning. They can explain this by adding media elements that allow them the opportunity to collaborate and critically think in a multidimensional way.
- Book Creator and Adobe Spark are great places to begin. Apps like Flipgrid allow students to explore connections and patterns in their learning and talk about them with their classmates. This fosters a true transfer of learning.
- Check out how this Adobe Spark page writing unit has allowed students to take their words and add images, photos and videos to enhance and layer in critical thinking to their final writing draft. To learn more, head to infused.link/online to take a quick 30-minute course on how to use the three Adobe Spark apps for exceptional ways to add multi-dimensional learning to your classroom.
Conquer Blended Learning by Shifting Assessment with Flipgrid, Seesaw and Screencastify
- Show what you know As we head into a more digitally based learning environment, the new digital pedagogies of assessment signal an important shift. We can now hear from individual students in real time as they explain their learning journey.
- A process I call “Press Record” allows students to record their demonstrations of learning and explain them conversationally: have them tell you what they are proud of and request specific feedback aloud, rather than doing everything in text. After all, we’re getting students ready for the job market, so talking and explaining their talents to a potential employer will be an important interview skill.
- Using apps like Flipgrid, Seesaw and Screencastify gives students and teachers better insight into student thinking as they explain their learning process aloud. This might just be the biggest and most useful change teachers in a modern digital world can make, as it is better at helping us meet individual student needs.
It’s important to clarify the guiding principles for running a smooth class year, and today’s technology tools amplify student learning and voice. No matter our teaching and learning circumstances, we have the tools to build an awesome Infused Classroom.