January 22

FID Day: A More Accurate Attendance Model?

Flexible Instruction Days, FIDs, some people like them, others do not. I personally prefer them over straight cancelations. The debate over these days is not a topic for this post. The focus of this post is going to be tracking my students’ attendance. I discussed this on the PAECT Pod last night, January 21, 2025.

Our school gives students several days to complete remote instruction assignments on these days. I see no problem with that at all, students may or may not have issues accessing the Internet on these days. If you have students with siblings in school, their Internet connection may be taxed to the limit if they are all pullling bandwidth at the same time. The assignments I give students to complete are set up so even students who have unrelable Internet can complete them. The issue I run into as a teacher is that I have students who will forget to turn in assignments, be they on paper or digital in nature, even when in the physical classroom, as I remind them, and ask them, and double check with them, to please submit their assignments. I still have students who will walk out of class without turning in work they completed.

On a FID Day, yes I know adding “Day” to “FID” is redundant, but I like it. On a FID Day, that could be  even more of a negative issue. Not only do I not see the students’ completed work, but they do not get credit for being “present” in class online that day. That can pose a problem. I understand about personal responsibility and such, but from a bureaucratic standpoint it hurts the school and makes my life much more difficult atttempting to rectify attendance. I found a way to simplify attendance, which I wish I would have thought of sooner.

My easy-peasy solution, a ONE POINT ASSIGNMENT, students log into Schoology, our district’s LMS, and go to the current day’s folder. I post what they are to do for the FID Day, and the first assignment is a one question task. Students click “Submit” and type in Schoology, “YES” that they are online. That does not skewer grades, it is just one point, but that gives me proof of their attendance for the day.

There are more detailed tasks they have to complete for class and those vary from day to day. Students must take responsiblility for submitting those for credit, but attendance is no longer complicated. The tasks count for meaningful points and they can be one with limited bandwidth from home. As meentioned previously, they have several days to complete those assignments, so we can work through any complications.

I wish I would have thought of this idea sooner.

 

 

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November 2

Gen Alpha: What a Different Perspective

In my US History class we were discussing rationing and the black markets of World War Two. I asked the class what they envisioned black markets looked like or where they too place and what black marketeers looked like. Man, was I surprised.

I know Gen Z and Gen Alpha perceive the world differently than me and my fellow Gen Xers and Millennials, but a student’s comments totally blindsided me.

The student responded to my queries by saying when they thought of the balck market they thought of the Internet and a hacker as a black marketeer.

This is a far cry from my first thoughts of the black market being an alleyway, vacant building, or the trunk on a late 1970’s Pontiac. A black marketeer to me is a shady character in a trench coat or maybe a Robert DeNiro type from Goodfellas.

The difference between the two views was canyon-like, I realize the Internet and “Dark Web” have a plethora of ways to buy contraband, however the generational divide with my students was such that they did not envision my concept of a black market or black marketeer.

It makes me wonder how many others concepts we differ on.

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June 6

SketchNoting

I am participating in a PAECT Book Study, the book is Thrive Through the Five, by Dr. Jill M. Siler. At the end of each chapter, she includes a Sketchnote of ideas to summarize the chapter content. I attended a series of webinars through PAECT on Sketchnoting with Sylvia Duckworth, and have shown the concept to my classes. I need to revisit this skill over the summer and utilize it in my classes for my more visual learners. I am not adept enough of an artist to Sketchnote while taking notes, I would focus too much on the art and lose the content. I am better at revisiting the content after I take notes in a traditional format and converting them into images.

I will add this to my Summer To-Do List.

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January 19

Chaos of Choice

This past week in class I had my students begin preparing for a Discussion Board assignment: straightforward, direct, rather basic discussion board assignment: they were going to respond to a classmates’ initial discussion board post.

There was one catch…they had to get approval from me as to whose post they would be responding to. As I suspected, they all wanted to respond to their best friend’s initial post. I shot that idea down and made them choose another student’s post to respond to. That is when CHAOS reared it’s mischievous head. Students asked for the same friend a couple of times, others asked for their “other BFF” from class, several tried to argue/debate the reasons why they should be allowed to respond to their friend, others inquired repeatedly as to why they could not respond to their friend, and other students went back to their seats and sulked.

The purpose for my not letting them respond to their “BFF’s” initial discussion board post was to get them out of their comfort zone and to have the interact with other students. Being able to comfortably, confidently, and appropriately interact and respond to others is a necessary skill. And in my not so humble opinion, it is becoming a lost art. I attempted to explain this to the classes, unfortunately my message was not making much headway.

A number of students then wanted me to pick the post they were to respond to. That was also something I did not want to do. The students were encouraged to read over the initial posts again and choose a post that they connected with. Just not a connection based upon being friends with the student. They were to focus on the message, not the author. It took some coaxing, but eventually they came around and chose another post to respond to, even if it was only grudgingly.

In the end the students overcame their angst and the CHAOS settled down. Students used this GUIDELINE to form their responses and overall did a great job for their first attempt at responding to others in a discussion board format.

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January 28

Guided Focus Study Guide?

Teacher or researcher in library Library NaUKMA via Compfight

Let me start with this declarative statement, “I hate our US History Textbook.” Please don’t get me wrong, in its day it was very good, but it is outdated and set up in a fashion that does not suit my classes.  It breaks eras up so that they may be split over several chapters.  Students would read a chapter on the politics of an era, then then next chapter covers social culture, but we jump back 10 years to start the chapter.  This is rather cumbersome and extremely time consuming in my not so humble opinion.

Our department’s goal was to go without texts, replacing them with primary sources and other materials, sometimes we can achieve that goal.  My iPads are at the end of their useful life, my classes are not split evenly, some are overcrowded and some are sparse.  This combination makes it difficult to assist students when technology glitches in an overcrowded class, but that is for another post.

I have started using the textbooks again, but only sometimes; as an addition to other class information sources.  I have enough copies for a classroom set students can use on site.

Instead of having students complete questions at the end of the section after reading the text, I started giving them a “guided focus study guide.”  The goal is to bolster students’ notetaking ability while letting them pull information to suit their learning style.  I have noticed that when review questions are assigned students do not read the book, they search for answers.  They will skim over important information looking for key words searching for specific details to answer the few questions at the end of each section.  They overlook many important details they need to understand the issues we will be discussing.  

This tendency causes issues such as students not being able to explain why an event happened, in fact sometimes they will complain the topic was never covered in class, when it was in the book and discussed, but was not a section review question.  So…no more section review questions, I use…drumroll please… “Guided Focus Study Guides.”

I need a better name, I know, but it is what it is.  I read the section or the chapter, or whatever the resource is several times.  The first reading is to see if the resource is worth my classes’ time and effort, does it fulfill a purpose.  I also get a rough sketch in my head as to what I believe is necessary for the students to understand for class discussions and how the events affected society as we move forward.

The second reading becomes a bit more labor intensive, Google Docs and/or Evernote are open as I now take notes and ponder what these events led to in the world.  I begin typing out directions on which areas to focus on, and statements as to what to look for in each section of the resource.  I add the specific details I find in the resource to my notes, students will ask all sorts of questions, I need to answer them quickly, especially in my crowded classes.

I run through the resource one last time, adjusting the focus guide and my notes as needed.  I want to make sure the guide meshes with my goals for the resource:

  • is easy to understand for the students
  • do the focus areas guide students in the proper direction.
  • does it flow well with the order of information in the resource.

Students are allowed to fill in the guides however they choose, bullet points or full sentences, on paper, in their notebooks physical or digital, which is easy since the guide is shared through Google Docs and pushed out via Edmodo.

We review the guides after students have class time to work on them, this allows for students to make sure we are on the same page if you will.  I do not make the guides worth many assignment points, many students copy, will just write anything down for points, which is not the purpose.  The purpose is to allow the students to pull information from the resource to further their understanding of the topic.  I assess that through open note essay tests, but once again…that is a post for another day.

 

 

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