Participants will leave knowing how and when to apply evidence-based instructional strategies and amplify their effect with digital tools. What's more, participants will see how they can coach colleagues in the adoption of evidence-based strategies and digital tools to support student learning.
(Revised: 09/2022)U.S. fourth-graders who report using tablets in all or nearly all of their classes are a full year behind in reading ability compared with peers who report never using tablets in their classes.
Internationally, students who report greater use of technology in their classrooms score worse on the PISA exam
High levels of technology use in the classroom tend to correlate with lower student performance.
One recent study found that over a third of all technology purchases made by middle schools simply weren’t used. And only 5 percent of purchases met their purchaser’s usage goals.
The Reboot Foundation says, "Our data suggest that technology may not always be used in a way that prompts richer forms of learning." Their findings make these points:
Schools and teachers should be more careful about when—and how—education technology is deployed in classrooms.
Moderate use of technology is often the most effective for younger students, and
Experts recommend limiting the use of devices for young children
Technology seems the least helpful for younger students learning to read, and non-digital tools work better for younger students who are mastering the basics of language.
Digital tools that provide immediate instructional feedback can show high impact, and technology can be particularly beneficial for promoting richer thinking among older students.
Teacher Credibility (1.09)
Success Criteria (.88)
Teacher Clarity (.76)
Feedback (.64)
Spaced vs Massed Practice has us space out over time the intervals when we study information. This ensures that significant learning occurs. Combined with retrieval practice, you can make long-term memory connections for new information. Flashcards, practice problems, and writing prompts can improve learning. Learn more here.
SOLO Taxonomy: Uni/Multi-Structural
Student has a lack of understanding or knowledge of concept. Or, student has an idea of what it is but not what to do with it or how it connects to other ideas.
One of the oldest findings in educational research is the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Word knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension and determines how well students will be able to comprehend the texts they read" (Source: Visible Learning for Literacy).
SOLO Taxonomy: Relational Level
Student can link ideas together to see the big picture.
Jigsaw Method (1.20)
Classroom Discussion (.82)
Reciprocal Teaching (.74)
Concept Mapping (.64)
Metacognition Strategies (.58)
"A deep learning, instructional strategy which aims to foster better reading comprehension and to monitor students who struggle with comprehension. The strategy contains four steps: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.
It is “reciprocal” in that students and the teacher take turns leading a dialogue about the text in question, asking questions following each of the four steps.
SOLO Taxonomy: Extended, Abstract Level
Student can look at ideas in new and different ways.
Transfer Strategies (.86)
Problem-Solving Teaching (.68)
Service Learning (.58)
Peer Tutoring (.53)
"The argument is that readers who establish more connections between a text and their prior knowledge produce stronger situation models, or cognitive maps of a given state of affairs. This situation model, in turn, is aimed to improve comprehension and recall." Gain these benefits when encouraging students to 1) Acquire, record, organize, synthesize, remember information; 2) Skim, identify relevant information, take notes; 3) Study materials for a test
-Miguel Guhlin (@mguhlin)
Focusing on learning outcomes enables both teacher and coach to develop student-centered goals. What’s more, focusing on learning outcomes lets you connect to standards-based goals. Weston suggests several questions. One of the important ones is What priority standards will you focus on? If you were going to write these as “I can” statements for students, what would they look like?
In this action step, you will reflect on the academic standards and skills you want students to know. Weston suggests asking questions that are quite practical. For example, which specific HES instructional strategy will you leverage to meet goals?
Remember to consider these questions:
Where are your learners in their learning?
Where are they going?
How will they get there?
For ed tech advocates, the rush to select a digital tool is strong. So many tech tools are available now, it’s tempting to use as many as possible. However, focus on only ONE digital tool to use with students. Later, you can app-smash but it has to be in service of learning.
“Plan your lesson, every activity, thinking through what your students will do.” Words of insight from a few years ago via a colleague. I was in the throes of planning out a workshop that strained complexity. Whomever your audience for lesson design, put yourself in the place of your students.
What student data will inform teacher instructional practices? For many educators, learning to analyze state assessment data as a team is familiar. Others may find they need more personalized data. For this, they may rely on a variety of assessment tools, many of which are available online. Some are tech-based, but others can be paper-and-pencil or other.
The goal of these assessments is to gain insight into what students know before instruction. It is also to gain insight into what they have learned after instruction. Use assessments to adjust instruction as well to meet the needs of students
Wish you could learn more about the essentials of coaching for results? You will want to read the Coaching for Results blog series. In this five part blog entries, you get what you need to know to be successful and begin. Grab and share the infographic to the right.
It's amazing how many coaching models are available to you today. Here are some of my favorites for your consideration. Each face represents a wealth of fantastic coaching models and ideas. You can learn more about these and others in the Coaching for Results blog series at the TCEA TechNotes blog.
A tool for guiding lesson design for diverse learners. Use the choice board (right) to get you started on designing. It features four choices for each of the lesson design stages in ALDO.
Also check out, Good as Gold series, Why We Focus on the Wrong Drivers in Education
View video - YouCanBookMe
Confirmations and reminders: Customize confirmation emails. Reduce no shows with email and SMS reminders.
Customize your calendar events: Set up how new booking events appear in your calendar. Include information entered by customers at time of booking.
Automated follow-up emails: Send follow-up emails after your meeting to thank customers or outline next steps.
Time zones automatically detected: Time zones completely solved. We automatically detect time zones so everyone sees the right times.
Pricing: Free for one calendar and profile; Premium – $16 per month; Professional – $48 per month.
Main features include:
Flexible schedule and availability: Set up a regular weekly schedule or customize for every week. Complete control over when you want to schedule meetings.
Duration and appointment padding: Offer fixed appointment durations or give customers a choice. Add padding between appointments for preparation or travel time.
Assistant.to is a Chrome extension that integrates with Google Calendar, letting you schedule meetings right from your compose window.
It cuts out the back and forth between meeting participants, making it a fast, easy way to book meetings.
Pricing: Free
Doodle offers a wide selection of online solutions that radically simplify the process of scheduling appointments, ranging from the group event “poll” that doesn’t require registration to the professional appearance with own branding.
Pricing: Free but Premium available
Virtual coaching, or coaching at a distance, simply means that you and your coachee are in different locales. This could certainly be the case in large districts or when coaching needs mandate a quick session that can be facilitated via virtual means.
Some points to keep in mind:
Choose what’s right for the situation
Text-based tools work for conveying information but not much else. Video may work well but be distracting in certain situations. Audio works well
Find a place that is private and minimizes distractions so you can both focus
As coach, manage the time of the virtual coaching session
Here's another example of a lesson plan in Google Sheets:
See two examples:
Grab A Sample OneNote Lesson Plan Template
Use any type of content – text, pictures, audio, video, ink, embedded files, printed digital paper
Arrange any content type on the page any way you want, just like paper
Use Tags to highlight important points, questions, or create your own custom tag
Collaborate with other teachers in a shared notebook as you build your lesson plans
Use OneNote to record and embed audio to guide the lesson
Use OneNote drawing tools to add visual elements to your lesson plan
Use digital ink to enhance, annotate and be creative with your lesson plans
Change the digital paper type of OneNote to college-ruled, graph, or a custom page template background
Organize and save your various digital resources easily from the Web as you create your lesson (Source)
Before adopting an approach, or using all of them, consider inquiring as to the teacher's description of the lesson to be seen. The teacher might want to identify a particular goal or strategy that more feedback is sought for to focus post observation conversations.
The coach scripts out everything the teacher is doing and how the students are responding
Leave the room and write feedback for the teacher observed
List "Wow" moments
Write "wonders" in question form (e.g. "I wonder how we can facilitate group collaboration with hyperdocs?")
List suggestions or tips to address questions
Make a T-Chart to record teacher and student comments to facilitate reflection on pacing and time management
Note connections on the right side of her paper
On the left side, she connects what she's seeing with what it means to her
The coach scripts out everything the teacher is doing and how the students are responding
Identify a particular goal
Meet with the teacher to review notes with the particular goal in mind to highlight evidence of that goal