What Is and What Could Be

This week's installment reinforces themes that seem to hold up to the test of time: school and life are often one in the same; "Nice" + "Positive" = Progress;  formative assessments, movement, and enjoyment advance learning. As I try to take on a "growth mindset," I look for ways to improve the blogs and how they present information. With that, I will provide an "executive summary" of the week's offerings that will allow readers to click on areas of interest and skip the scrolling through unwanted information. Here goes:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. CURRENT RESEARCH
• Traits of Successful Kids' Parents
• Homework
• Texting in Teaching 
2. BEST CLASSROOM PRACTICE IDEAS
• Student Motivation
• Humor
• Brain Breaks
• Digital Formative Assessment Tools

______________________________________

Research Says...

Parenting and environment play a great role in a student's educational development.from attitude to homework. Below are two pieces that address what works and what should be encouraged beyond our classrooms.

    1. Parents of Successful Kids Have These 7 Things in Common

       

"...when you praise your kids, 

don't congratulate them for being so smart, 

commend them for working so hard."

• High Expectations
• Higher Socioeconomic Status
• Higher Education Levels
• Provide Early Academic Skills
• Offer Sensitive Caregiving
• Avoid Junk Time with Kids
• Teach a Growth Mindset

     2. Homework vs. No Homework is the Wrong Question 

"What do we believe should happen after 
the end of the school day to help ensure 
that students retain what they have 
learned and are primed to learn more?"

"Aspects of good parenting that could be encouraged by schools include workshops, family nights, and discussion series on ways to promote:

• Children's social-emotional and character development
• Parents spending more time directly interacting with their kids in enjoyable ways
• Parents visibly showing how much they value the importance of education and effort
• Parents monitoring their children's use of and exposure to electronic media
• Children's 'continued learning' in as many possible opportunities during everyday household routines.
• 
  

    3. Why Texting Should Be Part of Teaching

"Research into texting between teachers and students 

shows that it can drive engagement and deliver results."

• Experimental Text group: increased quiz, paper, and exam scores
• Students claim spending more time on task due to "convenience of the information," "interaction with instructors,"  and "connection to the subject"

 Classroom Practice Ideas

    1. Helping Students Motivate Themselves

• Autonomy: choice in organization, procedure, and learning
• Competence:  "build and improve on ideas without using judgmental language" 
• Relatedness: interest in kids, friendliness, flexibility, "growth mindset"
• Relevance: "encourage students to generate their own connections and discover for themselves the relevance of course material to their lives"

    2. Using Humor in the Classroom

"...humor reduces stress and tension 
in the classroom, improves 

retention of information, and 
promotes creative understanding."

• laugh at yourself
• add humorous items to tests, or tasks
• keep quotable quotes
• cartoon files-- start the class with humor
• captionless cartoons- have kids fill in the blanks

3. Brain Breaks & Focused Attention

"When we take a brain break, it refreshes 
our thinking and helps us discover another 
solution to a problem or see a situation 
through a different lens."

• Breathing, Movement, Sound
• The Junk Bag, Opposite Sides, Symbolic Alphabet, Other Language, Mental Math, Invisible Pictures, Rock-Paper-Acisoors

4. 10 Smart Tools for Digital Exit Slips

"Exit tickets are a simple, quick and oftentimes insightful formative assessment method 

employed close to the end of a lesson."

     

Plicker

      Google Forms

     Plickers*
     Twitter

     Geddit

     ExitTicket

     Padlet

*Shannon Johnson has experimented with this simple, 

low-tech idea. Contact her for more information.