Tech Tools: Google Forms Exit Slips

Minor Reflection

Teaching is a balancing act and for better or worse we need to learn to balance.

We balance our free time and our devotion to preparing better lessons.

We balance the needs of our reluctant learners with the need to carry a class forward.

We balance formative assessment to inform teaching with some summative assessment to show the result.

There are lots of ways we can give students an opportunity to take ownership of their learning, promoting a growth mindset in our classrooms. Let's take a little bit of time to focus on some tools that you may use for formative assessment and some examples of great times to use them.

Exit Tickets

When I started teaching (4 years ago) the buzz of exit tickets to check for student understanding came about. Phrasing the Exit Ticket as the key to escaping the classroom before the bell rings adds an aspect of new favorite game Breakout EDU. It is a hard sell though convincing kids that doing 4 more problems to show procedural fluency is worthwhile. I have a hard time convincing myself that the end of class is the best time for this to happen.

Exit Tickets should be brief in any case. They should be equally quick to access as a tool in the classroom. If you are using 1:1 technology forms will work well. Google has a pre-made form that can be found here. Under the education forms, you can find Exit Ticket.

These are general questions that every student can answer like...
What's one important thing you learned in class today?
Did you feel prepared for today's lesson? Why or why not?
What would help make today's lesson more effective?

These questions are accessible to students and serve the purpose of students reflecting and simultaneously informing instruction.

This post by Rebecca Abler does a nice job showing other ways they can be utilized.

The Struggle is Real... Really Rewarding

Start out every year with lofty goals and aspirations of being 'teacher of the year' quality, of making my class engaging and meaningful for students and maintaining a high level of respect and responsibility. It sounds so easy in theory...

Today, I got to get together with my family which invariably led me talking about my career and classroom adventures. Boasting about all my favorite parts of the job, how teaching is going well and everything is great in paradise. Until I share an anecdote about my teaching prowess and ability to reteach and redirect...

"I had some students that were on their phones at the beginning of class playing a game and I told them that they needed to put it away. 'You aren't taking my phone.' Student says in a deep maybe intimidating voice. 'Well I could but I won't have to because you will put it away. (Or something to this effect) I retorted. Once more he was defiant refusing the reteaching being offered. I came back with 'Out of respect for this classroom and the people you will stop playing your game.' (I sound really good in my memory). ' Let me finish this race' the student said acquiescing. Okay, I am going to hold you to that. (Takes off 10 hit points from the student in Classcraft.

As I tell this story to my mother, she begins a tirade about how students shouldn't be allowed their cell phones in class and she 'couldn't believe I allowed students to sit and play games in my class.' Storming out of my family time really upset I felt the need to leave, drive and destress with some good music.

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The tech part of my journey hasn't been as well chronicled but I want to share some key point that I have learned to focus on relationship building.

• Never take anything personally, people have bad days, bad moods or maybe just are caught up in something at the moment. Let it roll off of you and carry on.
• Be a source of positivity and show appreciation and admiration for people that you meet from the janitor to the CEO. How we treat people defines us more than the words we say.
• Never underestimate the power of compliments and flattery, offering compliments freely make people feel good about themselves when other sources of affirmation are hard to come by.
• Always try and to do the best you can to help, and if you can't help find someone that can. This way you can still be the go-to person for people and you still don't need all the answers.
• The most important... Listen. What people have to say, what they are looking for can be key in making a difference in building professional relationships with them as well as helping them go on their day satisfied with the help you could provide.

Have a great until next time and thanks to those of you that stumble across this page.

Let the games begin.

disclaimer: 

So sick of typing I so frequently that I decided to write in the third person.

Let the Games Begin

He spent the summer fired up about how he was going to really make a different set of choices when it came to his health and wellbeing. He would take more long walks, often at night with a face dimly illuminated by my phone. Playing Pokemon Go quickly became an obsession, a crazy spike in interest with everyone talking about it and in the absence of the structure of school he let it control him.

On any normal day, the weather may be fair to great, but the scenery around is still beautiful especially in the lush green of a Wisconsin summer but the man would seldom be found outside before augmenting the reality of the activity of being outdoors was an option. Because of this game on his phone. The young man would cruise around the city on roller blades with a cell phone in hand (which in hindsight may not have been a very wise combination), at night he would go for hour long strolls. A compulsion to play the game kept me going strong... at least for a while. That was until it became a grind much like other games and choices had to be made.

Time for a new game... Classcraft

The young man is determined to play a new game. He takes the beginning weeks of his new job to set up ground rules for the game, mechanics and get his students interested in it but when the beginning of week three starts there is real magic that starts happening. A note of enthusiasm is found especially amongst the students of Geometry that quickly realize that their teacher is interested in having fun and making sure that students find the class equal parts enjoyable as well as educational. Many choose to play and sign the hero pact

The young man prepares (math) curricular lessons but guises the soft skills that students need actively rewarding problem-solving, participation, and question asking all things that teachers crave in their classes. Collaboratively teams work to push each other to better students, giving the opportunity for each student to have roles in their team. Some groups are more cohesive than others, more amicable and keen on helping on another achieve success. It truly brings a smile to the young man's face to see students share an enthusiasm for learning that parallels his enthusiasm to teach his students.

Honeymoon-ing

The energy that comes with the first day of school is amazing. The new class of freshman given a soft landing into high school being welcomed by students and staff. Taking time to give the Freshman a chance to navigate the building but also get initiated positively going through the gauntlet a tunnel of cheers, high fives, welcomes and great to meet you's. So the school year starts with a positive message and an emphasis on compassion, attitude, and leadership.

I decided to tie the school message into my opening lesson with a Math cipher found here.

The focus on PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) is something that we can foster to our daily class, how we conduct ourselves and interact with other people. It may be the singularly most important thing that teachers (a school community) can give to their students.

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Preparation for One to One.

The best part of my journey in tech integration is having the support in place and a dynamic, positive, and collaborative team put together. My mentor/coworker Mrs. Norton (her blog is here). Together we did a lot of the work necessary to make a One to One rollout of Chromebook devices for 1500 students. This was not without hiccups but as a coworker told me "in any other industry 90% or better is great." We did everything we could to help out on our end.


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Launching Activity for Classcraft Game

Every new school year it's my priority to get to know my students as soon as possible. Last year I had them write me a letter of introduction detailing their biographical information, their history with math class, and their hopes for the future. Breaking with that I pursued a crazy idea, crazy enough it might just work.

Using these resources I made: the character sheet, power point, and cover. The Book of Heroes, a binder which contains information shared by my students, their pictures (thanks to my wife for her adhesive roller) and then am using the book as a way to keep myself organized (grade sheets per class) and an in to be graded, and to be returned section. This provided a unique way to track the binding Hero Pacts signed by students when they agreed to play the Classcraft Game.

Preface

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." ~ Confucious.

Wisdom from the new employee orientationBeing a new employee after garnering some experience in my resume changes some things. Primarily thinking about the old friends and familiar faces that you enjoyed seeing every day will soon become a memory. For as often the way that life goes we get busy and these people that have become your 'work' family become people that you used to know. I believe firmly that being in education as a career means that no matter where you work there will be passionate, outgoing and friendly people. With these beliefs validated by experience and interactions I am excited to take on a new role, in a new district as teacher and technology integrator.

What exactly does a Tech Integration Specialist do? Wonderful question... someday I might have the answer for you, for now, I keep an open mind and a positive attitude to every opportunity that comes along. So far adventures and opportunities collaborating on a makerspace, preparing for the one-to-one beginning of year distribution and introducing myself to people to build relationships has been the focus of week one.

Happy Labor Day weekend. I hope it is a good one.