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Showing posts from February, 2018

Keeping in Touch with Parents

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One of my latest emails resulted in a teacher asking about best methods to communicate with home and keep/get parents engaged. Social media might seem like a great first step. But I've found that there simply aren't enough parents/students engaged in platforms like Twitter to make it a valuable time investment. Don't get me wrong. I love Twitter . But I love it for a way to connect with other tech minded teachers and coaches to keep up with the changing world of educational technology. It's how I build my personal learning network (PLN). But it wouldn't be my first step for communicating with the entire staff at a school nor would it be for connecting with my students or their parents.

Empowering Students with Choice Boards

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An example of a student choice menu that has students chose one item from each "course". I've been working with a teacher lately who has struggled with her students completing a summative paper in her class. This trimester, we're working together to find a way to increase buy in and hopefully have a higher percentage of students complete the project. While investigating options for her, the first thing that came to mind was using a choice board or learning menu to enable her students to select the method that would work best for them rather than prescribing a multimedia project. There are a wide range of ways that you can put choice boards in to action. Tic-Tac-Toe, Menus, Choice Board... there are lots of different words to use to search for them. But the premise for all of them is the same. Give your students a selection of options to chose from and let them go with it. Beyond hopefully boosting engagement, the teacher gets the added benefit of not have a ga