Category: Classroom management

Assessments have become a critical piece to education reform. To prepare students well for college and career means they must deeply learn the material and its application to their lives and future learning.That means assessing student knowledge authentically and accountably.

This doesn’t stop with quizzes, tests, and memorizing facts. Those approaches may be prescriptive, but they don’t measure results in a way that leverages learning. Good assessments should verify:

• that students have unpacked a lesson and applied it rigorously
• that students have connected lessons to other learning and applied it to their lives
• that students take responsibility for their learning by embracing deep learning
• that students think creatively with their new information
• that lessons are scalable and dependent upon each child’s learning style
• that students are stakeholders in this effort, not passive consumers

A well-formed assessment achieves these six characteristics constructively. It’s not always measured by a grade, as is common in summative assessments. Sometimes it derives evidence of learning from anecdotal observation, watching students apply prior learning, working in groups, or participating in classroom discussions.

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There’s a secret to teaching kids how to use technology. It’s called ‘delegate’. I don’t mean sluff off the teaching to aides or parents. I’m referring to the importance of empowering students to be their own problem-solvers. Encourage them to be risk-takers and then expect it of them. Here are seven ways to make this happen:

Let students know technology isn’t difficult

OK. I see the disbelief in your eyes, but it’s true. Take it from someone who’s taught thousands of students over a span of fifteen years: Computers are only hard to learn if kids are told they’re hard to learn. They might hear this white lie from parents or friends, but once they cross the threshold of your classroom, tell them the truth. Compare keyboarding to piano–a skill lots of kids feel good about–or another one that relates to your particular group. Anything worth being proud of takes practice. Remove the fear. Make sure skills are age-appropriate with proper scaffolding. Listen to students’ suggestions that achieve your goals in a different way. Don’t put a time table on learning–let students learn at their own pace.

To some students, ‘difficult’ is ‘bad’. This isn’t true. In fact, Merriam Webster defines ‘difficult’ as:

‘Needing much effort or skill to accomplish’

That includes online games, soccer, a musical instrument, reading a good book. If technology is difficult, it’s in good company.

Teach students how to do the twenty tech problems they’ll face half the time

There are twenty to twenty-five problems that make up seventy percent of a students’ down time in technology. These include issues like the monitor doesn’t work, the computer doesn’t work, passwords didn’t work, a webtool wouldn’t work, and a program froze. Expect students to know solutions to these common problems.

Where do you get this list? Ask students, other teachers, the librarian, and parents what problems children face that stop them from completing tech assignments. Skip problems like, ‘I ran out of paper so I couldn’t print’. Collate these into a list on the classroom wall and let students see it every day. It may look something like this:

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Has this happened to you? You spend hours rewriting an old lesson plan, incorporating rich, adventurous tools available on the internet. You test it the evening before, several times, just to be sure. It’s a fun lesson with lots of activities and meandering paths students undoubtedly will adore. And it’s student-centered, self-paced. Technology enables it to differentiate authentically for the diverse group of learners that walk across your threshold daily.

Everyone who previewed it is wowed. You are ready.

Until the day of, the technology that is its foundation fails. Hours of preparation wasted because no one could get far enough to learn a d*** thing. You blame yourself–why didn’t you stick with what you’d always done?  Now, everyone is disappointed.

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With a new year upon us, I want to share three items I’ve discovered that help organize my desk-related items like nothing else I’ve tried. I didn’t want these to be the ‘pencil caddy’ sort of ideas, but those that popped a light bulb over my head, significantly improving my ability to get the job done while sitting at my desk.

Here’s what I came up with. See what you think:

Computer Privacy Screen Protectors

Have you ever gotten that prickle in the back of your neck that someone is reading over your shoulder? Maybe you’re working on a sensitive email while students are in the classroom (during lunch break, say) and when you turn, you see a student standing there, politely and quietly waiting to ask a question. Or your computer screen–like mine–can be seen through your classroom window, which means anyone walking by can see what you’re doing on your screen, even if it’s grading student work.

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You became a teacher to inspire the next generation, to guide students toward their future with patience and wisdom, to be able to go home at the end of the day having accomplished something important. You figured a typical day would include predominantly teaching with the addition of planning lessons, remediating those who were struggling, and differentiating for those who needed a different approach. You’d happily miss lunch to help a child or a colleague.

What you didn’t realize was how much of your time would be spent managing the classroom. That includes tasks like arranging seats, quieting the noisy and energizing the shy, fairly and objectively choosing teams and partners, insuring resources are equally available, filing papers, making time to catch up students who missed a quiz or got sick during it or just couldn’t get to school that day.  It didn’t take long to realize these tasks are just as important as how you teach, your depth of knowledge on a subject, your ability to unveil information in multiple ways, and how you scaffold and spiral. At the end of the day, these as a group are a barometer of your ‘teacher effectiveness’. In fact, how well you manage your class decides whether students trust you enough to listen to what you teach.

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It used to be simple to post grades. Add up test scores and see what the student earned. Very defensible. Everyone understood.

It’s not that way anymore. Now we’re looking for understanding, transfer of knowledge, scaffolding for future learning, habits of mind, depth of knowledge, and a general preparedness for college and/or career. Here are factors I consider when I’m determining grades:

• Does s/he remember skills from prior lessons as they complete current lessons?
• Does s/he show evidence of learning by using tech class knowledge in classroom or home?
• Does s/he participate in class discussions?
• Does s/he complete daily goals (a project, visit a website, watch a tutorial, etc.)?
• Does s/he save to their digital portfolio?

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Here are three tools that work-around problems you have every week–maybe every day–in your classes. Sit down with a cuppa and be prepared to be wowed.

I get lots of questions on how to deliver a tech class. What’s included? How do teachers blend it with other learning? How do you answer all the student questions?

Here’s a video with the answers to those questions and more. I’d love to hear how your tech class runs–add a comment at the bottom:

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I’ve talked a lot of about class internet start pages–where you collect links in one place for student access.  Here’s an article, but for many that’s not enough. They want visual–so I created a movie. Let me know if this answers all your questions:

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