Sitting around the dinner table a couple of weeks ago, I had a friend ask me what was one thing that we would never have tried had the pandemic not happened. It got me thinking….​

For me, the answer was our daily schedule. Our traditional school schedule had students visiting 7 classes for 50 minutes a day with a common period in the middle of the day for lunch and activities.  As we started to brainstorm we set out with a clear finish line, knowing what the total number of minutes needed to look like, and began to work backwards. 

We did not take our traditional schedule and move it online. Asking students to sit in front of a computer for 7+ hours, as if they were in class was not an option we thought was viable or in the best interest of our students. We sought feedback and ideas and we completely changed how time was allocated.  Students had learning experiences designed that ultimately took up the same amount of time, but we organized the time in a completely different way.

Our schedule allowed for synchronous sessions in the morning and then time in the afternoon for students to spend minutes in “the work” of learning, meeting with teachers individually during office hours, or in “Content Hours”. (An idea that came from our teachers.)  Content Hours were hour blocks of time that were assigned to departments. In this hour, teachers had the ability to bring all of the students that they taught together at one time. At the high school level, that might mean 180 students or even more if several teachers teamed up together. Our teachers used this time in a variety of ways.  Content Hour allowed teachers to bring in professionals and guests that students normally wouldn’t have access to.  Students were able to meet authors, scientists, and remotely travel the world led by travel guides that normally are escorting groups in person. Teachers also had the ability to give an assessment all at one time, as opposed to giving it 5 times and taking away from the synchronous time they had with students in the mornings. 

Content Hour was one of the biggest “wins” we saw emerge for our students in some courses, but not in all of them.  In the beginning, I believe we should have offered additional learning and collaborative time for teachers to share their ideas about content hour with each other. As a school community, I think we also could have established clearer expectations and set norms for the content hours. 

Developing the schedule was not easy and involving our stakeholders throughout the process was critical. When I saw the "Stages of Thinking" that Farnam Street published, I found it correlated with the process we went through.   During step 2, the tempting thing to do was to just go with a block schedule and spread the time out throughout the day.  ​

In face to face instruction, I loved using simple white boards and having students show their answers to get a quick pulse on where everyone was or what they thought. In virtual instruction I have seen a strategy called Waterfall work in much the same way.

In the virtual world, where students and many adults are hesitant to turn their cameras on or unmute their microphone Waterfall gives them a chance to participate in a safe low stakes way. When everyone is contributing the focus is not on any one person. 

1. Ask a question
2. Students answer in the chat, but do not click send
3. Teacher says or projects an image “3-2-1 Waterfall!”
4. Students all press send together for a cascade of answers!

Waterfall can be used at the beginning of class, as a check for understanding during instruction, or as an exit ticket. It can also be a silly or personal question that fosters a sense of community. 

Make a copy of the template here. 

When you are designing your instruction plan where you will use the strategy. You can simply place the waterfall icon image in the corner of a slide to remind yourself to use the strategy, or you can insert a copy of the slide above to add a bit of color and sound to the strategy.  Press the Play button in the corner as students are typing in their answers and they'll hear a waterfall. (It's the little things like a sound that can make a difference, sometimes.)  Waterfall is a simple strategy that is effective.  

Pandemic problem - students were remote and we needed to send each student their report card at the end of a grading cycle. We did not want to use the U.S. Mail as it was expensive, non-eco friendly, and time consuming, Our solution, mass email individual files to student email addresses. We chose to send the emails and documents to student email addresses because we were confident that they were the most reliable address we had on file for any student, as the email addresses were created and assigned by the school district. In non-pandemic times, we would send the document home with the student. 

Early this year we learned how to send a mass email through mail merge using Word. Thank you Peerti Burns for teaching us how to do this first step! After we learned how to mail merge out a standard email we were met with a new challenge, attaching a specific pdf to each email. Sending each student a specific file took us a bit of time to figure out.  The steps below walk you through what we learned so that we could send individual pdfs to students.  

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There are two tools that I used to help make the process simpler and go faster. I reference them in the videos, but I am linking them here too.
Links to Plug-Ins
AutoSplit:   
https://www.evermap.com/AutoSplit.asp

Mail Merge Toolkit: (Remember to try trial and make sure the version you buy attaches your file.  I am not sure what the difference is between Personal Attachments and Personalized PDF in attachment. There were not two versions when I purchased the add-in). https://www.mapilab.com/outlook/mail_merge/#purchase  

Also, I used two formulas that you can copy and paste into your spreadsheet to help complete your data sheet.
Links to Formulas:

• Formula to remove characters from ID Number:     =LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-4)    
• Formula for Vlookup to match file with ID Number  (Remember to change file to your file’s name.): 

          =VLOOKUP($A2,'[Report Cards Sample File.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$1:$G$3193,7,FALSE)     

Learning to send documents individually to students has added an additional layer to  our communication channels. It's efficient, reliable, and cost effective.  The challenges we have faced during the pandemic have been immense, learning to leverage email to distribute unique student information is one way in which we have gotten better through the pandemic months.  I hope what we have learned helps you communicate with your community.

Baamboozle is a free game platform that can be used in-person or in a synchronous learning session. Baamboozle has a built-in library of thousands of games ready to play in all subjects. Also, the easy game creation tool in Baamboozle allows you to make and customize games in no time. Don't see a game that meets your needs, let students create games from the learning they have been engaged in. Allowing students the opportunity to author the games for your classes to play allows for students to share and reinforce their own learning. Students are placed on teams (options range from 2-4 teams in the free version) and compete against each other.  Baamboozle is an excellent way to get kids speaking as answers are given verbally and points awarded to the team.  There are three different modes that games can be played in. 

• Quiz Mode is straight forward question and answer and points are awarded.
• Classic Mode with power-ups
• Classic Jr Mode with simple scoring

You might be wondering what "Power-Ups" are. They are a twist that keep teams on their toes.  Power-Ups pop-up as a separate box when a question is selected. They add an additional layer of fun to the game. Power-ups allow teams to earn extra points, lose points, or other game-changers.

While Baamboozle can be integrated into any content area or grade level, the listening and speaking aspect of the game platform makes it a solid resource to use with English Language Learners. 

I found a nice tutorial created by @MattBergman14.  It walks you through creating and running a game session. Watch it below. ​

Give Baamboozle a try and change things up.  Remember how important retrieval practice is in learning, Baamboozle is a great tool to not only formatively assess where students are but also sprial content back into your learning sessions.  If you try it, let me know how it goes. 

As a warm-up, brain break or connection activity this is a fun site to add to your toolbox! Ian Byrd designed this quick and easy Random Emoji Generator writing prompter. Students can write about anything they like. When they run out of things to say, they can select  "And Then..." and another random emoji will appear next to the first one to continue the story. This can go on for as long as the student likes. Consider having students do this in pairs or triads and then share out with your class.  Pretty much the full range of emoji's can be generated, so your student might get a toilet or the poop emoji. You might want to address how those types of emojis might be referenced and incorporated before students get started. 

My past #words
2020 - Consistent, Intentional, Ship
2019 - Arena, Moments, Faith
2018 - Create
2017 - Connect, Blend, Voice
2016 - Grow

Matt Enlow’s tweet on December 2 started a thread that gave insight into changes that teachers were making and although there is no one size fits all assessment solution, there are ways in which we can grow and assess better. ​

Below are five ways we found that assessments and final exams might be given and adapted during COVID-19 and beyond.

1. Student Choice

Design tasks that allow students to spiral back through the most important standards you have covered during the semester.  Let students earn points for the challenges that they take on. Here’s a challenge board that teachers can customize.  Another way to approach this type of assessment is to list the standard and then it’s the student’s job to submit evidence that they understand or have mastered it. The length of time across the bottom of the board could be adjusted to grading periods or to the complexity of the challenge. An example of a product that might be submitted was created by high school student, Shirley Zhu, “Combinatorics: Sticks and Stones”  

     2. Evidence of Mastery using Flipgrid. Example from Mike Mohammad  (A secondary science teacher) 
Create a Slide Deck and have each slide with a standard or learning target that students can submit a flipgrid response to. Check out the Bingo Card he created for students and the Slide Deck with Instructions.   Students are presenting evidence and it’s in short snippets. If they are recording something in Flipgrid, it’s specific and not drawn out. They hit their target and move on to show evidence on the next standard in another Flipgrid submission.  Everything is linked in a slide deck which makes it organized and easy for the teacher to assess. To make assessing the Flipgrid responses quick and efficient, organize students as individual topics (now called groups) in flipgrid.  Greg Kulowiec explains this hack here. 

      3. ​ Final Exams or Epic Finales by Anthony Crider 
Could exam week become the best week of the year?  Anthony Crider took the traditional exam and flipped it upside down to create a culminating experience at the end of the semester.  After seeing a colleague tackle a final by asking one really good question, he set out to do the same thing. 

      4.  A Google-Proof Assessment  
Developing an assessment that allows students to use their notes and the resources that are available to them on a daily basis.  It is a question that can not be directly answered via Google because it requires analysis, interpretation, and application. The web will be a very helpful resource for students in collecting information related to these questions, but search engines will not lead to easy answers. Use Blooms Digital Taxonomy, adapted by Andrew Churches, to help craft questions that cause the learner to create, evaluate and analyze. Creating these questions will take time and practice. Get with your team and divide the learning targets that you’ll be accessing and use this template to help develop your questions. 
      5.  ePortfolio - Collecting Evidence of Learning   
A portfolio allows the assessment to shift and have the learner own the assessment process.  John Spencer has a great collection of resources to help establish a portfolio process to collect evidence of learning and has included steps to take while curating a portfolio during distance learning. 

Retrieval Practice is a powerful strategy that improves learning by pulling information out of students' heads.  Allowing students to quickly connect learning in both a flexible  and low stakes way has been shown to have a huge impact on long-term achievement. Learning is not about what you put into the brain but what you can retrieve and take out. Integrating retrieval practice into instruction offers student's the opportunity to transfer knowledge and apply it to what they already know.  

Two quick strategies to integrate Retrieval Practice into your virtual, hybrid or in person teaching environment are Brain Dumps and Two Things. 

1.  Brain Dumps
At any point during a learning session, pause and ask students to write down everything they can remember about the topic you are learning about.  Students are given a short period of time to write and just "dump" their thoughts.   Click here to make a copy of my Brain Dump Form.  It has a timer built into it, so the students can begin the activity on their own. 

2.  Two Things
At any point in a learning session, ask students to write down two things in response to a specific prompt. Possible prompts include: What are two things you have learned so far today? What are two things you learned yesterday (or last week) that connect to today's learning? What are two takeaways from this unit thus far? What are two things that you might want to explore further? What are two things from your own life that relate to today's lesson?  Click here to make a copy of my 2 Things form. You can edit your copy or use it as is.

Consider integrating either of these strategies while also using  "Think, Pair, Share", having the Brain Dump or 2 Things strategy be the "Think" stage in the process. ​

An example of the Retrieval Practice Challenge Grid being used in math is shown by @MsJonesEdu.

Templates to create your own Retrieval Challenge Grid were made available by Mark Anderson and can be accessed here. 

Leveraging the research of cognitive scientists like @PoojaAgarwal will boost the learning in any classroom.  (Additional strategies can be found in Retrievalpractice.org guide "How to Use Retrieval Practices to Improve Learning") I have not read her book yet, Powerful Teaching, but it's on my list for winter break. 

If you have additional strategies that you have found to be effective, please share them below. 

My Bullet Journal

Evolved - that's what I have to say about my Bullet Journal. In the beginning, they were called my "notebooks". I am on version 7 of what I now call my Bullet Journal.  Each year I have tweaked how I set my journal up and utilize it. I look back at each year's book and cherish the memories, documentation and learning that I see as I read through the pages.  Ryder Carol is the original creator of the Bullet Journal Method and his book is a solid resource.   

Five reasons why you should consider creating and using a Bullet Journal are:

1. They are customizable to meet your needs and budget
2. They are easy to Set-Up
3. They are visual 
4. They are comprehensive, in that everything is in one place
5. They are helpful in tracking short and long term goals

I have a favorite when it comes to my physical Bullet Journal.  I crack open a new Leuchtturhm 1917 every July.  ( I start mine each year in July as I plan for the upcoming school year.)  I love the feel and the weight of the Leuchtturm paper.  At the beginning of each journal their is a blank table of contents. Utilizing the table of contents allows me to quickly reference notes. The Leuchtturhm 1917 also has  pre-printed page numbers that can be referenced in the table of contents.  These features make organizing and finding your content easy and efficient.  

A Bullet Journal can be set up in a number of different ways. Some people's Bullet Journals are works of art, others, like mine, are not.  (I have art envy for the effortless creativity and artistic skills that some people possess!) There are tons of resources you can sift through when setting your Bullet Journal up. Masha Plans is one blog that offers ideas and inspiration. Below is the method I am currently using with my Bullet Journal.  I section my journal into three parts:

• Weeks -  I divide a page into thirds and give each week for the year a section. I enter in items that need to be taken care of during that week or notes that I need.
• General - Day to Day Meetings and Notes (This is the largest section as most everything goes into these pages. I can find notes quickly by using the table of contents.
• Learning  -  This section is where I take notes and process things that I learn during the year.

And finally pens, my favorite bullet journal accessory! I have tried a lot of different pens over the years and Paper Mate Flair Felt Tip Medium pens have become a favorite of mine. They are reasonably priced, don't bleed through my Bullet Journal pages, write smoothly and come in a variety of colors.  If you are reading this on Black Friday,  Paper Mate Flairs are on sale today on Amazon for half off. 

If you use a Bullet Journal and have tips or advice, please share them with me below. My Bullet Journal will continue to evolve! 

And a quick shout out to others that I know on the Bullet Journal journey - Dan Greenberg, Amanda Seba, Michael McDonough and Kori Catlin!

This week we held a meeting to touch base with student leaders on our campus.  At the beginning of the meeting we opened it up and asked students how everything was going?  We received some solid feedback about online learning and the challenges and successes that students were experiencing. 

Communication came up a few times and specifically the challenge they were facing with email. This was something that I had not even thought about.  Prior to COVID email was not a system we used across the school to routinely communicate with students.  Our student email addresses are formatted with a string of numbers and at a domain that has been hard for students to remember. Students did use personal gmail or other domain specific addresses but we did not utilize our district addresses. Not having a centralized email system was one of the first things we realized we needed to use when we transitioned to distance learning.  As we prepared to reopen in September virtually, we made sure that students were aware of their district emails and taught them how to find and sign into their accounts.  And that's where we stopped. We assumed that accessing their email account was all that they needed to learn. ​

At the meeting, one student leader brought up the challenge of managing their email account. The student talked about the many notifications and assignments that they received from our learning management system as well as other platforms.  As he was speaking I was thinking, we haven't introduced them at all to the tools that are available in their Outlook account to help them manage email and stay organized.  (I know as an adult and experienced user of Outlook, I struggle to stay up to date and organized.) I explained that there was a way to set up rules in Outlook to filter emails into different folders as they arrived. Students' hands went up from across the meeting asking to be taught how to utilize this feature. I told them I would send out a screencast showing them how to create rules. Following the student meeting, I retold this story to a colleague. They looked at me and asked if I would send the screencast to them because they did not know how to create rules. Reminder, we don't know what we don't know.  ​

While COVID has slowed learning in some ways, it has accelerated the learning in other areas that are not necessarily a part of the standards and course content.  Many of these skills I am realizing we just assume students/adults know because they have had access to them on their device. ​ I am going to continue to look for the nuggets of learning that are happening in spite of the pandemic.

If you haven't met with your students or solicited feedback, I highly recommend it. This is one of a handful of things we learned from one brief meeting.