Learn Lead Grow

Feedback is an essential element to learning, but why do many of us struggle with providing valuable feedback to improve student performance? I've struggled with this too. I recently read an article by Troy Hicks of Edutopia titled Make It Count: Providing Feedback as Formative Assessment , which provided me with valuable strategies to use to provide meaningful feedback to my students. We often think an Edmodo badge, a Google comment saying "Good Job," or a foil sticker communicates feedback effectively. Although, they are wonderful forms of feedback, how do we help our students grow? In Troy Hick's article, he mentioned the RISE Model for  meaningful feedback and self evaluation. This model was developed by Emily Wray and was developed with Bloom's Taxonomy in mind.  Check out the different levels of her model below: What does RISE stand for? R - Reflect  When we reflect, we use lower level thinking skills to make connections, agreements, or disa

If you are a teacher, then you are familiar with the term classroom management or how you manage classroom behavior. Many of us have routines and familiar ways of doing things; however, some of us find it difficult to manage classroom behavior when students have devices in their hands. This is a huge barrier in technology integration and causes many teachers to put away the technology all together. Here are some helpful tips:  1. The Power of Proximity  This one is pretty obvious, but proximity is still very important in managing student technology use - regardless of the device you use. Like the expression states, "when the cat is away, the mice will play." Make sure that you are in a position where you are near students and possibly can see student screens. If you see screens minimizing when you are walking around, there is probably a great chance there may be something questionable hidden on the task bar.  2. Edit versus Read Only A few weeks ago, I did a co

Are you a list maker? We all use them for different reasons: to buy groceries, keep track of our to-do lists, or manage our day. Here are three great tools that you can use to keep yourself organized: 1. Wunderlist Wunderlist  is a great site and app available on IOS or Android devices.  I like that there are also desktop versions available for the PC and Mac. There is a free and paid version of this application available for users. Today I will focus on the free version. You can quickly generate lists, tasks, sub-tasks, and even attach documents to your tasks that can sync between your devices. Set due dates and check them off your list as you complete them. There are filters embedded into Wunderlist to  One of the most exciting new additions to Wunderlist is the fact that you can add files from Dropbox! 2. My Shopping List My Shopping List is an easy to use and free App available for the iPhone or iPod. You can quickly generate grocery lists with a few touches. Get started

What do your students do when they are searching for information? Do they know how to search by key words or do they type in an entire question? For example, if you gave students the task of finding the capital of Russia, what would they type? Would they type “what is the capital of Russia”? Would they refine their search with key words like “Russia capital”? We all feel that effectively searching for information is a valuable 21 st century skill; however, we may not be entirely comfortable with teaching our students how to do this. We may not be familiar with some of the search tools available to students to make searching effective and easy. Google has developed easy to use lesson plans and resources for teachers to use. You can find them here . You will find valuable information like: Picking the right search terms Understanding search results Narrowing a search to get the best results Searching for evidence for research tasks Evaluating credibility of websites

Just as today's classrooms are more diverse than ever, the devices available to teachers are more diverse than ever. Whether you are using tablets, laptops, Chromebooks, or Macbooks, how can you you manage the device diversity that exists? This series is filled with tools that can be used as Apps or on the web. Read Write Think: If you are not using Read Write Think in your classroom, you may want to consider doing so. It is a website filled with classroom resources, lesson plans, interactives, and professional development resources. Today I would like to focus on a tool many of us have been using since the dawn of time - Venn Diagrams. Let's check out Read Write Think's Venn Diagram Maker . Why Use It? Students have been using Venn Diagrams for ages; however, we sometimes forget that students may have difficulties with the tools we provide. Perhaps, they have difficulty writing in the template you provided them in class. Maybe they have fine motor difficulties or