A lot of teacher-authors read both my Ask a Tech Teacher education blog and this blog, WordDreams. In this monthly column, I share a popular post from the past month: 

National Dog Day is observed and celebrated on the 26th of August every year. In some parts of the world, it is also called International Dog Day. The day celebrates dogs of all kinds and encourages fostering love and kindness through ownership and adoption, regardless of breed. Having a dog is much more than just having a pet. There are many dogs out there who need saving, who need a home to be loved and cared for. National Dog Day serves as a reminder that dogs have every right to live a loving, abuse-free life.

I’m always on the hunt for good books with dogs as the stars. Here are a few I found recently: (more…)

Today’s tip: How to Teach Writing to Non-writers

Here are seven categories of tools that address specific learning styles, with suggestions:

Art: A picture is worth a thousand words–what better way for a writer to understand the intricacies of a story than to draw them.  Excellent online drawing tools include Lunapic, Paint Studio, and Pixlr.

Audio: Audio “writing” is simply taping words rather than putting them on paper.  They are consumed without eyes (great if you’re driving or watching TV), and appeal to learners who have difficulty with traditional writing methods.  Three great options include Audacity, VoiceThread, and SonicPics.

Comics: A popular medium for blending art and writing is comics. Options include Bitstrips, Pixton, and Powtoons.

Desktop Publishing: Desktop publishing mixes a wide variety of media–pictures, text, audio, visual, color, and layout–to communicate a message. Good options are LucidPress and Canva.

Music: For some students, it’s all about music. Celine Dion’s popular Titanic song drenched millions of listeners in the debilitating emotion of a lost love. Nothing “examines complex ideas” better than music. Popular choice for composing music is GarageBand.

Slideshow: Slideshows have long been the alternative to the written report, used when an oral presentation was required. Most slideshows include bulleted draft text, images, sounds, videos, color, and movement. Three popular tools are PowerPoint, Google Slides and Haiku Deck.

Spreadsheet: For numbers-based communication, nothing turns data into information better than spreadsheets. Traditional options include MS Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers.

Video: For students who aren’t writers and have difficulty presenting to a group, a video is unintimidating and stress-free. (more…)

Every month, subscribers to our newsletter get free/discounted resources to help their tech teaching.

September

Here are some of the items now on sale at Structured Learning (click to visit webpage):

Check back often for new sales!

(more…)

Letter writing Lesson Plan

Kindergarten and 1st graders (and 2nd graders) can write increasingly complex letters like these with guidance and preparation:

How? Follow these steps:

• Discuss letter writing skills such as:
  • open with a greeting
  • describe actions, thoughts, and feelings where required
  • use temporal words to signal event order where required
  • end with a closing
• In a word processing program like KidPix or a drawing program, for grade 2, type heading (name, teacher, date) and align it to the left.
• Have students type a letter to parents about why they are thankful (or another topic). Show 2nd graders how to select a font size 14-16 and adjust font look. Remind them that text wraps to next line—no need to push enter.
• As they type, reinforce age appropriate keyboarding skills such as elbows at your sides, hands on homerow, legs in front of your body.
• 2nd grade: Show them how to check grammar/spelling by clearing red/green squiggles.
• When done, work with neighbor to insure:

• • sentence fluency
  • good grammar and spelling
  • proper letter writing style

Here’s a rubric appropriate for 2nd grade or higher: (more…)

I first ran into Behaviorism in child psychology classes I took for my Early Childhood Education credential (ECE). It was developed by a renowned psychologist named John B. Watson and formed into the Theory of Behaviorism by another famous psychologist, B.F. Skinner. The technical definition they provide is:

“…scientific and objective methods of investigation concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors; all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment.”

They used the infamous example of Pavlov’s Dogs. No surprise, with this gobbledegook definition that used dog training as the example, I laughed, rejected it, and forgot it.

Fast forward a decade, to a time I was studying for my teaching credential. One of my classes reviewed education pedagogies such as Purpose-driven Learning, the Socratic Method, Depth of Knowledge, Unschooling, and Behaviorism. Applied to education, Behaviorism focuses on:

“… conditioning student behavior with various types of reinforcements and consequences…”

I still cringe at words like “conditioning” and “consequences”, but in the fullness of the class, I came to understand that whether teachers know it or not, they use Behaviorism as an effective, reliable teaching tool. I’ll get back to that later but first, I want to deconstruct how a theory that started with training dogs is now a cornerstone in education pedagogy.

Note: I have posted about this before. If it sounds familiar, that’s why.

What is Behaviorism in Education?

Behaviorism in the classroom revolves around observable measurable behaviors. This is actions, not thoughts or feelings. Since its introduction to education in the 1950’s, it has become a teacher’s best friend in helping her/him to define classroom behaviors that shape order and enhance learning. It establishes boundaries for students, provides expectations that they can rely on, and offers a reliable way to self-assess student achievement of class goals:

According to Skinner, behavior is a learned response reinforced by the consequences resulting from that behavior. For instance, if students are rewarded for doing extra work, they’re more likely to repeat that behavior.

It accomplishes much of what B.F. Skinner predicted when he suggested it as an effective methodology for revolutionizing an education system that didn’t seem to work anymore. It has become popular in education theory by other names such as PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports) and through the use of apps like Too Noisy or Hero K12.

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Why use Behaviorism Strategies in Teaching?

The short answer is, for many, Behaviorism works. Because of its clear guidelines and easy-to-understand cause-and-effect relationships, it improves student performance and discourages classroom behavior that interferes with education goals. It manages to quantify responses to notoriously subjective issues (like the student who needs to entertain classmates) and encourages objective and measurable metrics that provide a win-win in the difficult area of student assessment. Students appreciate an even-handed approach which favors no one and everyone at the same time. Teachers appreciate an unbiased framework that is defensible when discussing issues with parents, grade-level team members, and/or administrators. When stringently applied in an objective manner, students get more out of class lessons, get better grades, and classroom behavior is more conducive to everyone’s learning.

So, if you’ve tried other classroom management strategies to no avail, try this one for three months. In many cases, it will be exactly what you need.

How to use it

The application of Behaviorism relies on observable behavior, nothing else. It rewards the positive, punishes the negative, and in that way shapes student actions. It’s unbiased, without opinion, must be consistently enforced, and can’t be influenced by thoughts or emotions. Most teachers already use this strategy and appreciate the results without even knowing that’s what they’re doing. For example, when they thank students for sitting down quickly upon entering class or for starting a warm-up activity without being told to, the teacher is using a behavioral strategy. When homework is assigned with the expectation that students will return to class the next day with it completed, teachers are training student learning behavior. If your school uses positive reinforcement tools like Class Dojo, Empatico, Hero K12, or Sown to Grow, they are acknowledging the effectiveness in education ecosystems of Skinner’s Behaviorism.

There are four types of reinforcement:

1. Positive reinforcement concentrates on applauding good behavior
2. Negative reinforcement punishes the unacceptable
3. Presentation punishment applies a negative outcome in response to a behavior that is not desired
4. Removal reinforcement simply eliminates the negative stimuli.

Each of these can be equally effective in helping students achieve their learning goals.

How you already use it

Here are ways you already use it without thinking about it:

• grading papers and then accumulating the grades for a summative report (such as report cards)
• keeping kids in class instead of releasing them to recess to give them time to finish work they didn’t do
• providing treats for right answers
• applying consequences for the use of cellphones in class when they aren’t allowed
• setting classroom rules at the beginning of the school year
• using award systems like Classroom Dojo or Hero K12
• awarding badges for achievements and/or the completion of specific skills, tasks, or units
• timing a test or another classroom activity, expecting students to complete the task within the time parameters
• providing rubrics that spell out expectations for a project
• modeling appropriate behavior as an encouragement for students to do the same
• sharing samples of projects students will be completing as examples of what you expect
• expecting students who are late for class to get notes from parents or a teacher before being admitted to class
• expecting student athletes to maintain a C average (or whatever your school requires) to participate in sports

You can start the application of Behaviorism by applauding good behavior but include evidence to support it as well as making clear your willingness to use logical consequences that don’t embarrass the student if behavior is unacceptable.

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Conclusion

Applying Behaviorism to your classes could be one of the easiest changes you make to your classroom management with the greatest chance for success. I’d love to hear your experiences with this pedagogy.

Here’s the list of articles:

Constructivism

Depth of Knowledge (DoK)

Flipped Classroom

Frayer Model

Growth Mindset

Habits of Mind

Inquiry-based Teaching

Mastery-based Learning

Morning Meeting

Orton-Gillingham

Personalized Learning

Project-based Learning (PBL)

Purpose-driven Learning

SAMR Model

Socratic Method

Standards-based Grading

Understanding By Design

Unschool

VARK model

Visible Learning

Whole Brain Teaching

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“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: 5 Tips to Stay on Top of Technology

If you’re like most teachers, it’s a struggle to stay on top of technology. Here are five suggestions:

1. Keep up-to-date on trends.
2. Use up-to-date devices at home.
3. Surround yourself with technophiles.
4. Build your own app.
5. Read articles and books about new and future technologies.

For more, visit “5 Ways Teachers Can Stay on Top of Technology” on Ask A Tech Teacher. (more…)

In fifteen years of teaching K-8, one factor provides a reliable barometer for student success: Parent involvement. In fact, it’s crucial. According to the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education Research Review and Resources, no matter income or background, students with involved parents are more likely to have higher grades and test scores, attend school regularly, have better social skills, show improved behavior, and adapt well to school. According to the School Community Journal, “There is a sizable body of research literature supporting the involvement of parents in educational settings and activities”.

The data is so overwhelming, one of our important jobs as teachers must be to facilitate the involvement of parents in their child’s education. There are as many ways to do that as there are parents who need alternatives to the traditional parent-teacher conference and back-to-school night. Here are some of my favorites:

(more…)

Constructivism is a student-centered philosophy that emphasizes hands-on learning and active participation in lessons. Constructivists believe that learning is an active process so the most effective way to learn is through discovery. New information is blended into prior knowledge. Learning is constructed, not acquired, and is based on the fullness of a person’s individual lifetime of learning. It is continuously tested as new ideas are added, either causing long-held beliefs to evolve or be replaced.

Constructivism is not a pedagogy or a theory. It is a mindset — a way of thinking used to guide learners.

(more…)

August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day.

During WWI, the Choctaw language had been used to transmit U.S. military messages. With this thought in mind, Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary grew up on a Navajo reservation and spoke the Diné tongue fluently, brought the suggestion of a similar code to General Clayton Vogel early in 1942. The Diné language has no alphabet, uses no symbols and one sound may hold an entire concept. The idea was tested and proved to be faster and more reliable than the mechanized methods. The language has more verbs than nouns, that helps to move the sentences along and makes it far more difficult for outsiders to learn – making it the most ingenious and successful code in military history.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: The Easiest Way to Outline

Q:  My fifth graders are learning to outline. Can technology make it easier?

A:  Outlining can’t be easier than doing it in MS Word or Google Docs. Here’s what you do:

• Select the Numbered List or the Bullet List in the program toolbar. They’re usually grouped together.
• Once you press it, your first bullet or number appears on the screen. Type your item.
• When finished, push enter to add another number or bullet.
• Use the ‘indent’ tool or push tab to create a subpoint.
• Use the exdent tool or Shift+tab to push a subpoint up a level.

That’s it–three keys: 1) bullet list or numbered list 2) indent, and 3) exdent. (more…)