Instructional Balancing Act

October is upon us, and as my students finish their first unit, I am super excited about the progress made over the past month and a half. My 1:1 journey has just started, but I must admit that my classroom has completely transformed from previous years, and I have learned so much about engagement, collaboration, and instruction. 

One of the biggest obstacles has been figuring out how to balance my classroom lessons in order to meet all of my students needs AND make sure I cover the skills I must teach and assess per our curriculum. Direct instruction and student centered learning must both be utilized in the classroom, and it has become essential for me to really dig into my learning targets and decide how I want to devote my precious class time. In addition, with my goal to not assign any homework besides reading, I need all 47 minutes for instruction, student work, and formative assessment. 

One small change to my classroom instruction has helped me bridge the gap between direct instruction and student centered learning in order to make both of them work in my classroom at the same time. 

In the past, my students have followed my lesson by viewing my Google Slides presentation and taking notes/completing activities in their notebooks. Now that we have Chromebooks, I have been sharing my class lessons and presentations with the students in Google Classroom, and it is really transforming my lessons to make them more student centered and engaging. After finishing my lesson, I add it to Google Classroom (I added a "topic" called Classroom Lessons and Resources) and I make a copy for each student. From there, as we complete the lesson, they can take notes in their slides, complete activities that I put in the presentation, and then work with others around them as I direct them to do so in class. I can also add links to external sites, other lessons, and various activities within the presentation, making it a pretty powerful HyperDoc.

Example - The Catcher in the Rye Chapter 1-4 Overview 
This example includes my class lesson with embedded Google Forms and a final collaborative activity in Padlet. The class period flew by, and the students were engaged and learning - per their work in Padlet and the exit slip. 

I have found it is extremely important to work collaborative time into these lessons. In addition, I must have students lower their screens at times to just listen or direct their attention to the front of the room. Shifts in classroom management have helped with this process. The students seem to take more notes and add their own thoughts throughout the lesson to their slides - more so than they used to do in their notebooks. They tell me it is easier to listen, focus, and talk with their classmates with the information right in front of them.

My classroom balancing act continues each day, but this small instructional change provides significant improvements to my classroom environment. In just 47 short minutes, I am able to provide direct instruction as needed, but it is student centered and offers opportunities for critical thinking, curiosity, and collaboration. 

#whatsup  

Figuring Out the Hype with Hyperdocs

Hello world. It has been a while, but we are back in action in the classroom, and I am excited to share our journey this school year. I am currently piloting 1:1 in my classroom, and it has been an interesting start to the year as I navigate through this new classroom environment. 

Last year, I made it a priority to create a more learner centered environment in my classroom. Students were asked to take ownership of their own learning as I started to incorporate more choice, project based learning, and future ready tasks. I am a big believer in the 4C's - Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Communication - and with the addition of Curiosity, I challenged my students to take risks and choose their own paths when it came to some of the lessons, writing assignments, and projects we completed. By the end of the year, I was thrilled with what my students accomplished and the enthusiasm they displayed during class. 

This year, with students each equipped with a Chromebook, I craved an even more student centered environment, and my first goal was to start incorporating more HyperDocs in the classroom. A HyperDoc is a document created, using GAFE, that includes tasks and links to external resources in order to foster learning in the classroom. I read a fantastic book this summer that helped guide me in the process of planning and creating my first few HyperDocs: The HyperDoc Handbook. After creating and utilizing two HyperDocs in my English II classroom, I am amazed at how much I have learned about what needs to change in order to continue towards my goal of a student centered classroom that highlights the 4C's.

HyperDoc...Round 1
We always start the year with our sophomore students writing a narrative essay. I decided to revamp the assignment and created my first HyperDoc in order to provide students choice and ownership right away.

My first HyperDoc: Your Snapchat Story Narrative Assignment

After creating and using this first HyperDoc assignment, I figured out a few things that I didn't like and wanted to improve. With the Narrative HyperDoc lesson, I found the classroom environment quite boring because the students were just working silently, on their own. With this, I wanted to add a collaborative element to get the students up, moving, and talking with their classmates. I improvised in class and asked them to get up and talk to their peers periodically through the period. This was an effective quick fix, but again, I realized very quickly that I would have to add in some active collaborative activities into the HyperDoc if I wanted to liven up the classroom. 


HyperDoc...Round 2
We are starting The Catcher in the Rye next week, and in order to get them interested in the book and the controversy around it, I created a HyperDoc and Collaborative Web quest for them to complete. One of my colleagues has a web quest she created that I used as a starting point, and then I added some extra elements to incorporate research, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. I hoped it would help foster an engaging learning environment where students can take ownership of their learning. After day 1, I realized that although collaborative elements are incorporated, I still need to encourage them to actually engage in this part of the process. In addition, various students are rushing through the HyperDoc and not actually reading/viewing the resources provided. The process is better....but still needs work. 

My second HyperDoc: Intro to Catcher - Exploration 

What's next, you ask? 

After reflecting and collaborating with my #BFF and coworker, Steve Wick, I plan to incorporate some formative assessments into the next HyperDoc or student centered lesson I create. I hope to try Recap to get verbal feedback from my students and/or some competitive digital formative assessment tools during the process or at the end of the lesson. 

I love that I am learning so much as I go through this process, and I look forward to future successes and challenges as I work towards my goal of a student centered and engaging classroom environment!

#whatsup