Happy New School Year! As the 2020-21 school year begins, there are some obvious differences from previous school years that we are all learning to manage, but here are a few tech-specific items to note.
Thank you for all your hard work in preparing for students and navigating the unknown. Embrace the adventure and expect a successful start to your school year!
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As we have been getting more familiar with the capabilities of IXL, we are all a work in progress! I have put together a new anchor chart to guide teachers on using the Student Action Plan.
I am now recommending that ALL students, K-6, use the action plan to be more strategic about selecting tiles from the Recommendation wall under the Learning tab. Here’s how it works:
Rationale for this approach: While some of the recommendation tiles come from skill work, the student action plan prioritizes skills based on ASSESSED skills from the Diagnostic. The highlighted recommendation tiles are identified skills based upon how a student was performing when assessed through the Diagnostic. This is more strategic and time-efficient for students than asking them to scroll through the entire Recommendation wall and clicking the filters, selecting from the grade level skill list, and/or requires fewer clicks to target the most needed skill practice. This also simplifies procedures for following the prescribed schedule by having students always navigate to the Diagnostic tab first, no matter if it is a Diagnostic day or a skill practice day. We trialed this with some kindergarteners, and they were able to successfully navigate this path using the Student Action Plan. Here is the anchor chart to use with students to guide the process for skill practice days. As a reminder, the prescribed schedule and goals are:
Check in with your instructional or tech coach, if you would like the procedure to be modeled for you and your students, or for any other support in your IXL journey. As students (and teachers) become more active using IXL, it is important to take time and look at the data to make instructional decisions. The goal is always to improve student learning, so using IXL’s analytics will help us become more strategic about our use of this educational tool to reach this goal. One report to further student learning is called Progress and Growth. At a glance, teachers can view all students in a list; number of skills practiced, proficient and mastered; and diagnostic growth. To get to this report, follow these steps:
A few reminders for interpreting the data:
Using the analytics of Progress and Growth in conjunction with viewing the student’s action plan or Learning Recommendations wall, teachers can make instructional decisions in order to move a student forward by determining which skill(s) to practice and/or address in small group instruction. Upcoming blogs will continue to highlight additional Analytics tools, but feel free to look at this quick guide on the various reports available. For further support, check in with your instructional building or technology coach and take advantage of the wealth of information you can learn about your students from IXL. Computer science is a driving force in our informational age, and Code.org is hosting Hour of Code to promote this content area on an international level during the week of December 9-15, 2019. Great Falls Public Schools is encouraging all teachers to participate in this event, and there are various ways you can do so. If you are wondering what this Hour of Code event is all about, check out this video! For more guidance on how to participate, you can read the How-to Guide. You can choose an Hour of Code activity or you can use the assigned courses under your classroom section in Code.org. Then you can sign up and be eligible for a drawing to win robots or circuits for your classroom, along with putting Great Falls on the map as a supporter of this opportunity for students. If you want support in facilitating this event, please reach out to your instructional coach or instructional tech coach. Let’s get coding!
As we all get more comfortable with standards-based planning and teaching, Planbook has become one of the tools to guide the process and facilitate the conversations. While digital lesson plans are an efficient way of organizing instruction, those lesson plans need to be accessible for guest teachers (substitutes) on those days when teachers are out of the classroom. Planbook has a setting that will allows view only access to lesson plans. After logging in to Planbook, use the Go to menu and select Sharing Options.Then click View - Substitutes. In the View Key box, type in the key word exactly as provided by your administrator. Change the View Range to reflect Current Week to Current Week. Finally, click the checkmark in the top right to save this setting. From this point forward, guest teachers will be provided with the key word and can log in to Planbook using the teacher’s email address as username and the key word as password. They will have view only access to teacher lesson plans for the current week in which they are working.
Hopefully this process will simplify sharing lesson plans with guest teachers while keeping students on track during a teacher’s absence. Feel free to reach out to your instructional coach or instructional tech coach if you need additional support! With the newly adopted Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the supporting program resource, McGraw-Hill Inspire Science, science is taking on a new look and feel in our classrooms. Inspire Science was selected for its ease of use by the classroom teacher and its design specific to NGSS. Now that every classroom teacher has had opportunity to review the print and digital materials through content training, here are a few tips and/or reminders for navigating the online digital resources.
With these supports in place, teaching science will take on a new dimension that should engage students and help guide teachers, along with the teacher’s edition. It simplifies modeling for students and facilitates instruction. For additional support, be sure to reach out to your instructional coach or instructional technology coach. Happy New School Year! As the 2019-2020 school year begins, I want to recap and highlight a few (okay, maybe more than a few!) items to help you transition into the new year.
Here’s wishing you much success as you embrace the new school year and the students entrusted to your care and teaching! Be sure to check in with your instructional or tech coach for any questions or needs you may have. We are happy to support! Breakout EDU is a fun and engaging avenue for supporting problem solving, creativity, collaboration and content in the classroom. While Breakout EDU lessons are appealing, the setup can be intimidating and time-consuming. However, because of the high engagement, GFPS has purchased six Breakout boxes for checkout from the Curriculum Library, and our fabulous Curriculum Library Coordinator, Lori Rhodes, tackled the overwhelming task of creating sets of lesson materials ready for checkout. Teachers now have the ability to check out the following Breakout EDU lesson materials and boxes, and Lori will kindly set up the materials, locks, and boxes ready for your pickup! To check out, simply call or email Lori with your request (the same process as ordering a set of books from the curriculum library) and plan for picking up the prepared Breakout EDU boxes. When your Breakout EDU lesson is complete, put the materials, locks, and boxes back to the same state you received them and return to the Curriculum Library. The following titles and descriptions are categorized by grade level, but feel free to consider above and below your grade level to see what will best work for your lesson objectives. KindergartenMATH: NUMBER NINJAS (NUMBERS 1-100)
First GradeMATH: OPEN THIS ZOO! (ADDITION / SUBTRACTION)
Second GradeMATH: KING TENFRAME'S TREASURE TROUBLE (FACT STRATEGIES)
Third GradeMATH: LUCY'S LEMONADE STAND (MULTIPLICATION)
Fourth GradeMATH: ANIMAL SHELTER SHENANIGANS (DIVISION)
Fifth GradeMATH: BRENDA'S BAKERY BONANZA (FRACTIONS)
Sixth GradeMATH: A CASE OF THE MONDAYS
All Grade LevelsMATH: CUSTODIAN GAMES
As the 2018-2019 school year is quickly coming to a close and next school year seems still a distant thought, the IT department wants to make sure you have information to consider in your planning over the summer and for the upcoming year. We will send this information out again when we return in August, but thought it might benefit everyone to be informed ahead of time.
Have a fabulous summer, take some time to relax and enjoy, and then revisit this list when you’re ready to make plans for next year! As many of you may now know, the District leadership has determined that SuccessMaker is no longer a viable program to maintain for a variety of reasons, but primarily because of funding and functionality. The District has relied on SuccessMaker for many years to provide a differentiated opportunity for student learning on a daily basis, but next school year, SuccessMaker will not be available. As a result, classroom teachers and building administrators need to begin thinking of ways to purposefully and strategically use the time and space previously allotted to SuccessMaker.
Let’s first think about the amount of instructional time gained. One of the main struggles of most classroom teachers is the demand for time. With 120 minutes of ELA (includes intervention), 90 minutes of math (includes intervention), 20 minutes of social studies, 30 minutes of science, 15 minutes of handwriting (K-4), keyboarding (2-6), along with specials of gym, library, music, and art, not to mention the all important and necessary recess times, it’s not a surprise that time is in high demand! So what if we had more instructional time? I’m so glad you asked, because you may have just gained anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes of additional instructional time. Guided reading groups, where intentional, differentiated instruction happens, can benefit from additional time to reach every student every day. How about the writing process? Or with the implementation of the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the INSPIRE Science program, teachers can appreciate the time to dedicate towards the scientific inquiry process of claims, evidence, and reasoning. Or perhaps you may have time to implement the Daily 3 structure in math by using the 10-10-10 leveled instruction guide. And then what do we do with our computer labs? How do we continue to meet our technology standards, particularly with K-1 students? With computer lab schedules essentially wide open, teachers could schedule lab time when needed rather than forcing or rushing their use of the lab. Now teachers could set up lessons in Seesaw through a collaborative effort in the classroom, and then when students are ready to demonstrate independence in their final products, the computer lab provides opportunity for students to do so. As we restructure how we spend this time and use of the computer lab space, we want to avoid simply filling time and space with drill and kill programs. Instead, let’s aim for quality, meaningful use and take advantage of this new opportunity to structure learning for our students. |
AuthorAs an instructional coach for technology, I get the pleasure of working with 1 preschool and 15 elementary schools to support integration of technology with classroom instruction. Archives
August 2020
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