I need to be around people who have ideas and who are excited about creating learning opportunities for others. Having felt the power of a tribe early in my career, I have continually sought out communities where I felt connected. Looking back, I have been connected to a tribe at each school that I have worked at over the years.

Seth Godin wrote a book titled “Tribes.” Those who know me well know that Seth Godin is one of my favorite people to read, listen to and watch. I find wisdom and encouragement in his work. I have this AWESOME book that compiles much of his writing. (I just have to show you how huge it is!)​
​

The orange Quickchecks button leads to a list of instructional strategies that a teacher or PLC can chose to use.

Teachers can simply click on a strategy and the app guides them through the use of the strategy in a very simple format that can be applied to any learning environment and offers suggestions to extend thinking past the quickcheck. In the example below, I clicked on the 3-2-1 summary strategy. 

The blue Think It Up button leads to a list of strategies that can extend a students thoughts and lead to deeper understanding of the standard. 

The purple button Resources and Content Builders leads to resources that support Texas TEKS and STAAR testing data. There is good content here for Texas educators, but educators outside of Texas will not utilize this section of the app.  The green button Professional development provides information and links to Lead4ward PD opportunities.

There is a timer at the bottom of the app that teachers can use in instruction. Timers are easy to find on youtube etc., but it's nice to have it accessible in the app.  A teacher can have it open a Quickcheck or Think It Up once time expires. 

In addition to the App the Lead4ward website offers valuable information to Texas teachers regarding standards. The website has resources that vertically align standards. When planning, teachers can quickly see which standards students have covered in previous grade levels.  Using formative assessment teachers can assess if those standards have been mastered and scaffold instruction for students.  Below is an example from English 1, however the website has content available in all core areas.  The standard below is Figure 19 -reflect on understanding to monitor comprehension (e. g., asking questions, summarizing and synthesizing, making connections, creating sensory images). Take a look at how Lead4ward identifies the supporting standards from previous grade levels for a teacher.  

In addition to the content from the app and website Lead4ward offers paid features with additional support for teachers.  Having a solid list of strategies at a teacher's fingertips can facilitate conversations during planning within PLC's  and lead to different paths for instruction. I am looking forward to using and sharing these resources with teachers on my campus.  

What other apps have you found that organize strategies or help teachers when planning instruction?

*I attended TASSP in Austin and spent time in several sessions that focused on checkpoints and questioning. I am sharing some of the takeaways from my learning.

I believe as educators we have to ask better questions, so that our students in turn can learn to ask better questions. Questions are powerful in our classrooms. When crafting a question a teacher must decide if is the question is to pre-assess, lead learning, check for understanding, or for reflection?

Developing and planting purposeful questions takes time and is not necessarily easy. Time spent brainstorming and generating questions as a PLC will pay off. We must remember that the timing of questions is also important, and to get the timing right questions should be generated in the planning stage of instruction. Different levels and types of questions are needed depending on where students are in their learning. When planning there instruction there are three categories questions can fall within to bring out students' thinking.

Prediction/Pre-lesson/Background Knowledge - These questions are asked before a concept is taught. They will give you an idea of students’ background knowledge or opinion on a concept. They might start with these sentence stems:​​

Checks of understanding
These questions are designed to give you information on students’ level of understanding of a concept. For these questions, you want to make student thinking visible. Avoid yes/no, multiple choice, or a simple recall of information. Instead ask students to elaborate in their explanation. Think about starting the questions with words such as:

 Reflection
Reflection questions are designed to get students to think about the lesson or make a connection with the learning or content. I believe that reflection questions are what drive students to connect information and push their own learning further. Some ideas for reflection questions are:

As educators focusing on generating and asking good questions models the power of questioning for our students. Ultimately we want learners to leave our classrooms being experts at asking questions, as it will be the questions that they generate that continue to drive and push their learning.
​
If you haven’t read A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger, I highly recommend it. The books focuses on the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. (Below is the book trailer.)

I would love for anyone to share their journey in questioning or any learning that they have been involved in that has helped them craft stronger questions that guide inquiry.

​

Teach your students how to do this so that when you share slide decks that work off a template they can quickly add to them and create a collaborative slide deck.  Here is a slide deck that I created that students can use to introduce themselves to each other.

Subtract something that you do, take something off your plate and add in something you haven't tried before. Ask you students to help you figure out a different or better way.

Check out some of the resources below to change things up and learn while you are teaching in May!

Finals are coming, what does the latest brain research say about how we learn and retain information. Content knowledge is the first step in being able to take what we know and go deeper and create something new or move to DOK levels 3 and 4. Here are 6 specific strategies you can use with content.  It's pretty darn interesting.  How might you use this and other resources to help your students with metacognition and the process of learning?
​
Struggling with students addiction to their cell phones? Grab a great lesson idea to embark on with your students from Ms. Tomlinson's post "Millennials in the Workplace".  (Ms. Tomlinson is one of our English 1 teachers that blogs!)

Challenge yourself to give students choices in the products they create to show mastery! Create a video, have fun adding sound effects and too, learn alongside your students. There are free great video editors available.  Many of these editors have pro versions but their free versions work well and produce great products with no watermarks. A summary of some Free Video Editors by Christopher Barnatt from Explaining Computers can be viewed here.  The BBC recently made available over 16,000 sound effect clips that are BBC copyright, but they may be used for personal, educational or research purposes, as detailed in the license. These sound effects can be used in student videos. Listen to a few! http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/.  

Using a video in class? Technology can make using that video so much more effective. Edpuzzle and Playposit are great tools to integrate. “Using Video-What happens after they hit play” gives you an overview of these tools. They are similar tools but there are some differences. Another interesting strategy to use with video is to show a short clip with no sound and have students discuss what they saw and make predictions. Then watch the video with sound and then watch again with a targeted question.

Formative assessment is a game changer! Make a conscious effort to add additional checks throughout your class period.  Digital tools can help you a do this quickly and efficiently. Take time in May to try some new ones out. Kathy Dyer wrote “The Ultimate List - 65 Digital Tools and Apps to Support Formative Assessment Practices”. There are some tried and true tools listed and also some new ones to try out too. I have found that with must digital tools there are some that work very efficiently for my personal style, while others only slow me down. Dig in and see if you can become comfortable with a new tool.

Haven't tried Google Classroom yet? 
Jump in and try it! Aside from the great workflow that Google Classroom establishes, the ability to comment both to your whole class and 1:1 with students can be powerful. What do you learn from this type of feedback? How does your relationship change with students? Comments invite conversations. And follow Alice Keeler you'll learn more about all the Google Apps and how they integrate with Google Classroom. 

Grab a partner or your whole team and take on something new. Think about what you might learn that could make learning in your classroom better now and help you grow as you prepare for next August. I find myself sometimes putting an idea on my list for next year, when in reality I don’t have to wait.

Personally, I have wanted to work on reaching teachers that I work alongside and connecting new ideas, people, tools. It’s something that was on my list as a goal to add for next year. I am taking my own advice and working to create “Learning Connections; A Virtual Learning Lounge” a collaborative learning space for our faculty to learn in.  I'll share as soon as it is finished.  I need to collaborate and get some input from others! 

That #LastBell will be ringing before we know it, how will you challenge yourself to grow in May? Encouraging everyone to finish strong!  

As our plane touched down in Athens, Greece in late March, I had no idea the impact the experience that traveling with 37 students would have on my ideas about learning. Our tour director in Greece, Michael meet us at baggage claim and guided us to our bus. Once we were on the road, Michael, welcomed us all. He was upbeat and commented on how happy and alert we all seemed after a very long day of travel. I secretly was thinking, ya buddy we aren't really that chipper, but then I gave him the benefit of the doubt in greeting us positively. Michael then went on to ask each of us about our motives for traveling to Greece. He continued to ask questions... What is it you are curious about? What is it you want to know more about? What is it that you'd like to experience? He said repeatedly that a traveler wanders two or three blocks past the ordinary and experiences the people and actions that are actually happening in the culture. ​Michael had my attention.

*Adapted from Driven by Data by Bambrick-Santoyo and EL Education's research. 
​

I have learned a few things about data driven instruction this year.

• Looking at summative data when students have left a classroom and moved on can be compared to looking at an autopsy of their learning. We can see what they did and didn't master but we have lost the chance to impact their learning. Educators can use the data as an overall scorecard for the curriculum, but it can't drive instruction for incoming students in a measurable way. 
• If new universal assessments are brought on board to help measure growth, teachers need to be educated about the research behind them, their purpose and how the data will be used. (If this doesn't happen, teachers may see the assessment as a compliance piece and the assessment may not be administered with fidelity. Then in turn the validity of the data that is being looked at may be questioned.)
• When on-boarding new tools to disaggregate data, start small with something like a unit test. Beginning with backward planning is critical. Guide PLC's through the use of a Data Inquiry Cycle to analyze and act upon data. Encourage each PLC to be as concrete as possible.  
• Too often the teacher is the only one that sees and tries to make meaning of data. The quicker and more personal the feedback is to students the better. Using data with students empowers them and allows them to take control of their learning. Students can use data to help them understand that learning is a process of growth over time. Educators who realize the full potential of data go beyond occasionally sharing test results with students. The systems and tools that a school uses should make it easy for students to view their own data. ​

​

It takes TIME even with great tools.  As the time spent yields results and teachers see student's  learning progressing, buy-in builds. Rich, interesting discussions emerge within PLC's.  We have to honor this time and make sure that our teachers have it. 

As with most new things, it has been hard and we will continue to learn from others and ask questions. I am grateful for strong campus leadership committed to continuous improvement guiding our work. I also appreciate the honesty and feedback that the PLC's working with data on our campus have offered about their experience. I am convinced that with time, good tools and applying best practices, rich data mixed with the art of teaching will continue to impact learning.

A book that has been helpful in my own learning this year is  Driven by Data by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo. Thank you for the sharing this as a resource  @Jennifer_Hogan   and @DrJimmyShaw.  And a shout out to @cwehde for all of her help and support this year.

If you have thoughts, resources or blog posts that can help in our journey, I would love for you to share them!

​How many times have you wanted to edit a PDF or have it in a different format? Now there is a free online tool that will help you do just about anything with a PDF file! 

Check out, PDF Candy! The image below shows you all the file conversions the website can process for you. 

One thing it won't do yet is convert a pdf to an excel file. Maybe that's something that will be added over time.  It's a tool that's worth bookmarking and sharing with others!

Over the winter break I finished reading  Outstanding Formative Assessment – Culture and Practice by Shirley Clarke.  The book is based on research and full of wisdom and sound strategies to put into place in any classroom to leverage the use of formative assessment. One of the things that I appreciated about the book is that as professionals our learning around formative assessment is ongoing and that spending time continuing to learn and improve our practices will directly impact the learners in our classrooms.  

A learner being able to identify what they understand or don’t understand is the first step towards them making connections and growing in the depth of knowledge that they have about anything.  Formative assessment empowers learners and allows them to assess where they are in their own learning.

In her book, Clarke provides questions/activities that can be used at the beginning of instruction to push learners past simply recalling or guessing information. She has an entire section of her book that addresses the use of formative assessment to effectively start a lesson. Questioning strategies, exploratory activities and examples of pupil work are used to establish prior knowledge and capture interest.  I created templates in Google Slides for my 4 favorite starters that Clarke writes about. They allow a learner to assess and explore what they know from the beginning of instruction.  Pairing students to reflect is recommended. Clarke emphasizes throughout her book the importance of talking partners. 

I would suggest having these loaded and ready in an app such as Google Slides, Socrative, Pear Deck, Go Formative or Nearpod. (My examples are linked below.) If your students have access to a device, please take advantage of it.  Paper and pencil cannot get you the information anywhere near as quickly or efficiently.

• A Range of Answers  - Students are asked a big question and given a a range of answers to discuss. Example: What does a plant need to grow? Air, Zinc, Lemons, Water, Heat, Soil, Milk, Light, Oxygen. (Students can explain why they selected their answer choices. The range of answers will be wide.) 
• A Statement - Students are given a statement and have to agree or disagree with it.  They discuss their response with a partner. Example: 40% of 500 is greater than 55% of 300. Do you agree or Disagree? Explain how you know. (The statement can also offer answer options of “always, sometimes or never true”.)
• One that works and One that Doesn’t - Students are presented with two scenarios and are asked to explain which one works and which one doesn’t. The discussion allows for students to think, discuss and analysis. Example: Why is this sentence grammatically correct and this one not?
• Start from the end - Students are given “the end or answer” and asked what the  question is.  Example: The answer is 360°. What is the question?   

Clarke writes, “The most powerful educational tool for raising achievement and preparing children to be lifelong learners, in any context, is formative assessment. The research evidence for this is rigorous and comprehensive.”  I believe it’s worth our time to continually learn new strategies to get formative feedback from our students and for our students to use the feedback to self-assess. 

*Tech tip - if you want to use a template of a slide from above in a slide deck that you already have created or are creating, you can import the single slide into your deck.  The screencast below will show you how to import slides into a Google Slide Deck.