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. 
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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. ​

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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. 

Dunn describes the new way of restaurants, "This new wave of restaurants is not defined merely by long, uninterrupted opening hours; diners and brasseries have those, too. They’re set apart by their genre-bending flexibility, the way they’re engineered to cater to those seeking everything from coffee klatsches to salads on the go to sit-down dinners. Their menus are flexible, too, and affordable enough to encourage multiple visits per week—yet sufficiently polished to appeal for an evening meal. They defy definition as cafes, fast-casuals, coffee shops or bars, but borrow aspects of many of those formats to sync up with the rhythms of contemporary life."

As I read the article I couldn't stop thinking about our classrooms. Are we pivoting to meet the needs of the students that we have in front of us today or, are we expecting them to continue to come to a learning environment that was designed for information that was static and slow to change? 
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Take a minute to read the article and think about ways that you can possibly start a conversation about a pivot in your school or classroom.  Think about homework, grading, classroom procedures and daily schedules.  It all has to start somewhere!

Please leave a comment and share an example of a pivot you have seen in a school or a classroom that is helping meet the needs of today's students. 

Now back to packing up that cabinet.  😀
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At Thanksgiving Kate, my daughter a junior at Baylor University, bounded in the house full of energy as usual. After finding the dog and spending some quality time with clearly the most important being in the house, she unloaded her car bringing in her backpack last. As she placed her backpack on the kitchen table, she let me know she had work to do over the break. What I thought she meant was she had a lot of studying to do to prepare for finals. The work she was challenged with was none of that. She was enrolled in a poetry class and she needed to create something that reflected her work and learning over the semester. Over the weekend, I watched as she looked through her work. She experimented with different ways that she could share or present what she had written. The process made her uncomfortable and pushed her. With her permission, I share what she created below.

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Kate inspired my #OneWord for 2018...CREATE. To create is to bring something new into existence.  I often find myself learning something new and storing the knowledge and not actually creating something from it and sharing it with others. So in 2018 I am committed to creating and encouraging teachers to look for innovative ways that students can show their learning through creating original thoughts, writing, projects and presentations. I also think of creating as making learning visible.  Simply beginning with the end in mind will change much of what instruction and student learning looks like along the way. If it's not going to be a test with a lock down browser that is used to assess the learning, I believe the experience in the classroom will look drastically different. 

Technology now allows for the creation of multi-modal content easily. To take advantage of the resources that we have, we have to make an effort to teach digital literacy and how to use the tools that we have at our finger tips.  Creating and making learning visible doesn't have to be a polished product either. Simply creating a video that explains a concept or sharing a draft at any point along the way is creating. The ability to share what is created along the learning journey with others and receive feedback is something that technology allows to happen seamlessly.

I want to thank Dr. Chloe Honum at Baylor University for pushing and inspiring my daughter to continue to learn, take chances, and create. I am so grateful that her time  over Thanksgiving was spent creating something that is original and beautiful. This is just one of many examples of higher ed is challenging students in a far different way than rote lectures and exams. 

Here is to learning and creating in 2018! ​#Create

What other ways have you found for students to collaborate and work together to master new vocabulary?

An exit ticket is one or two questions or problems for learners to answer quickly at the end of class. Exit tickets are a deliberate way to reinforce the expectation that students will reflect on their learning at the end of the class period. Not only are exit tickets a great way to assess what was learned, they are also an effective tool for teachers to use to evaluate the strategies used with students. If it is clear that most learners didn't understand, then adjustments in your next steps of instruction can be addressed.  

How and why do Exit Tickets work?
The exit ticket strategy enables teachers to see how much and which information actually made it into the learner's long term memory. Long term memory consists of two different types. Explicit declarative which includes facts and memorized items, and implicit nondeclarative, which includes skills and emotional connections. Non-instructionally, an exit ticket can also serve as a quick check-in with learners on a personal level. The exit ticket below asking about a student's plans for the weekend, is an example of this.) 

Implementing this strategy in your classroom?
​You need to make sure that your exit tickets are short and simple, and focused on the essential question of the lesson. To successfully implement this strategy in your classroom, make sure that you have the exit ticket questions ready before class begins. Don't waste time at the end of class trying to come up with questions. I created eight digital exit tickets that you can make a copy of and use immediately. Feel free to revise any of them for your own use. Make a copy of any of the forms and add to your Google Drive. Then share the link or embed your form in Google Classroom or your LMS. You can also create a QR code that can learners can scan at the end of your class.  ​

Below is a short screencast to show you how to make a copy of a Google Form.

• You will want your own copy so that your data goes to your own sheet. (Creating a Copy of a Google Form is a little different than creating a Copy of a Google Doc. )
  
• *Note that the form doesn't display as it will when published when in editing mode. The header will appear to be cut off.