We are in our second year of 1 to 1 with Chromebooks, and we have been amazed by the incredible engagement we’ve witnessed as teachers have enhanced and transformed their instructional practices. Our classrooms are full of students engaged in a variety of activities enhanced with a variety of digital resources. Teachers are facilitating and our students are collaborating, communicating, creating, and thinking critically on a daily basis.
We’ve enjoyed visiting classrooms and observing, but we needed something more. We wanted to encourage teachers to come together and share how they are engaging students.
We believe that one of the most rewarding professional development activities is when teachers find time to talk to each other. Powerful things can happen when educators from different departments have time to sit and talk to each other about teaching and learning.
- How has student engagement evolved in your classroom this year?
- What digital resources or strategies are making the difference for your students?
Melissa and I enjoyed two days of questions, classroom stories, and educators exploring resources to support engagement. Together, we reflected on this collaborative experience:
- Teachers are excited to have a chance to share how and why they’ve used certain tools to support engagement.
- It isn’t just about the technology. Some of the best discussions centered on facilitating shifts in and out of the technology on the fly. Face to face collaboration and communication still matter!
- Simple strategies like adding a Pear Deck slide at the beginning of a lesson to ask for questions/reactions to homework has made a big difference for student advocacy. Pear Deck has become a powerful tool for engagement and classrooms are using it in a variety of creative ways. We even have some teachers using Pear Deck as a type of backchannel for questions during student-centered activities.
- Students are utilizing similar engagement resources throughout the day, so they are becoming more familiar and confident.
- Many teachers are utilizing or plan to utilize Flipgrid to amplify student voice. It is a quick, easy way to ask ALL student to take ownership of their learning and verbally share out with the class.
- Variety was a common word both days. We had some great discussions about how often you should use one tool. Does engagement fade if it is used too much? We did not reach a solid conclusion, but most agree that have a few different engagement tools is essential.
- Another great discussion topic was how one tool can be used in a variety of creative ways. For example, Google Autodraw can be a tool for reflection, a resource to introduce a new topic or part of the learning process. Students are using Autodraw for sketchnotes, memes, vocabulary graphics, infographics, and more.
- It has never been easier to document student work in various ways: images, videos, writing, and so forth. Resources like Screencastify, Padlet, Flipgrid, Peardeck, and Adobe Spark make this possible, while Google Classroom provides a seamless platform for submitting evidence of learning.
- The Share to Classroom extension can be used to promote student advocacy. Students can share their screen/work with the teacher, and the teacher can then digitally answer questions and support the students.
