Growing Beyond "Normal" with Digital Feedback

When Maya Angelou said, “If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be,” her intent was likely to address a different definition of “normal,” but her words are absolutely applicable in today’s schools. We are at a turning point as educators and the recent pandemic has to become less about us going back to “normal,” or where we were before, and more about embracing growth and creating new and better ways of doing things.

Educators everywhere have recently been impelled to adapt and find digital ways to give feedback to students. Some of those strategies have persisted and even prompted teachers like Cathy Slagle, a business pathway teacher at Eaton High School, to provide her students with immediate and relevant feedback on digital assessments by taking advantage of the answer feedback option in Google Forms quizzes. This feature allows teachers to add comments, instructions, embedded videos, or links to previous course resources so that students can review missed concepts and even extend their learning.

Craig Hardin, another Eaton High School educator, uses Google Slides with his athletes as a creative way to review performance and prepare for upcoming competitions. Coach Hardin recently learned about the comment features in Google Workspace and has begun using written comments to provide timely, meaningful, consolidated, and personalized feedback to his athletes. Coach Hardin says that the team has found this extremely valuable for post-game reflection and says using this strategy for giving student feedback is saving him hours each week as he works individually with athletes in an easier to manage digital platform.

Patricia Smith in Eaton’s Business Management and Entrepreneurship Academy stated that she is “very excited to try out Mote,” an audio recording tool, as a different way to provide feedback for her Academy students. Not only is she using Mote to help record feedback for her students as part of an upcoming assignment but she is also having her students use it in Google assignments to comment and reflect on their work and provide peer feedback within their groups. Using resources like Mote allows teachers the ability to spend less time grading by hand and also engages the students directly in the feedback process. By incorporating a digital feedback resource into her lessons, Mrs. Smith has saved herself valuable time and empowered her students to become more active in the learning process.

Over the course of the last year, as responsibilities and approaches to classroom instruction have been forced to evolve, each of these educators are meeting their classroom needs by adapting the ways they give students feedback. These efforts not only save them time, in comparison to traditional forms of feedback, but the strategies implemented have provided their students with timely, meaningful, and actionable feedback that can be used for reflection and growth, allowing both teachers and students to spend more time creating and learning and realizing “how amazing they can be.”

Raiders of the Lost STAAR

For many NISD teachers, Spring has been marked by the self-paced BINGO challenge. Cassie Brewton, a fifth grade teacher at Hughes elementary especially enjoyed the choice, self pacing, and excitement that came along with the challenge. Cassie soon began to think, “My students would enjoy a challenge like this, especially as they get ready for STAAR.” Using the format created by IT Coaches Jillian, Kelli, and Shelly, Cassie began creating tasks that would help students review for their upcoming STAAR test.

The tasks that Cassie created were an intentional hybrid of individual and group collaboration, digital and face to face work, and all levels of rigor. When walking into Cassie’s class during review, it was clear that each student was working at their own pace and that the tasks were differentiated for all of her learners.  It was also evident that the students were enjoying the challenge.

Ethan, Kellon, and Makena all agreed that the BINGO board was a fun way to prepare for STAAR. Not only was the challenge fun, but it pushed students to work through questions and problems that they may find difficult. Kellon points out, “My favorite part was the challenge in general.” Makena states, “B4 was really challenging. The picture was really hard to figure out. You have to figure out what’s happening and make observations and a claim. I skipped a few, but then made a note to go back.” Kellon added, “I don’t like skipping a challenge, so I kept trying until I figure it out.”

Each student was eager to share their favorite task on the board. For Makena, this was N3. “We made several STAAR questions and created a quiz on Google Forms for the class.” Ethan enjoyed I3 which prompted him to create a Tweet from a template in Google Classroom. The tweet would sum up the main idea and supporting details from the story "Library Lion." Ethan would have an authentic audience as the tweet was posted to the class Twitter Feed (AKA: Padlet Wall). What Ethan may not have realized, was that I3 provided scaffolding for him as he decided to complete G5 first. G5 helped students define main and supporting details to give them a better understanding of the concept.

Other tools integrated into the tasks include: Prism, Pear Deck, Epic, News ELA, and a variety of GSuite tools (Docs, Slides, Forms).

Differentiation was a key aspect of this challenge. Cassie points out, “I made changes to the board daily based on student responses. For example, After noticing kids struggling on I3, one student realized that another task on the board was a great scaffolding activity, so we created a few additions to the ‘task card’ to explain where they could go to practice the skill before completing that specific activity.”

While the Raiders of the Lost STAAR was a student centered and student paced challenge, it was the intentionality of Mrs. Brewton that made it a success. The articles that she choose for students to read were at the appropriate lexile level, the resources that students used to answer questions encompassed relevant information that they needed to know, and the independent reading time helped with literacy and comprehension.

Not only were students review key terms, concepts, and skills for STAAR, but they were also becoming problem solvers. Mrs. Brewton states, ”I think my favorite part about the Bingo board was seeing the students work so well with their self-management. They were great at managing their time, choosing tasks that fit their schedule, and taking time to stop and reflect on their work before coming to me for a code. They wanted to make sure it was their best before asking for a code because they knew the expectations were high, so the incentive to work hard was powerful!”

Twenty Five task challenges can be quite a bit to create, but the aspect of self-paced lessons and units, can be created on any scale using Hyperdocs. Check out this Basic Hyperdoc Lesson Plan Template (The HyperDoc Girls)

Finger Snappin' Good

Seventh graders in Mrs. Davis and Ms. Brown’s ELA classes at Chisholm Trail Middle School recently took an in depth look at the various structures, styles and literary devices used in poetry. Students used their new knowledge of poetry to compose original narrative poems revolving around the concept of choice. Ava said, “I learned that poetry can take any moment and emphasize it to where it becomes bigger than it really is.”

By utilizing Google Drive, students were able to work both independently and in groups to write, revise, edit, publish, and present their original poems. Google was utilized as a platform for drafting, revising, editing, and publishing the poems. This platform allowed students to collaborate in composing the poems, authentically.

“The most challenging part of the project was trying to convey our message to the listener and/or reader in a way that could show what we had in our heads”, says Makeeda. After composing and rehearsing their poetry, students presented their narrative poems in a poetry slam with their respective classes. Using a traditional scoring method of a 1-10 scale, peer evaluation determined which students from each class would be moving on to the next round. Careful consideration was given to both the poem itself and the performance of the piece while scoring.

The winners from the in-class poetry slams went on to present their poems in the cross-district poetry slam held via Zoom Conference with Medlin Middle School. Students from both campuses were able to share their poems with students across the district through live-streaming. Classes were able to interact throughout the Poetry Slam by using Today’s Meet, as they discussed and provided feedback, while a Google Form was used to provide student presenters with more detailed feedback from their peers.

Ashton shared her thoughts on the poetry slam. “Google helped us by being able to have others edit our poem and add feedback. It also helped because my partner and I were both able to edit our poem at the same time. Zoom allowed us to present to Medlin and receive their feedback.” Students and teachers are hopeful this event can expand throughout the district next year.

Ava's Poem

Makeeda and Ashton's Poem

Technology is Making a Big Impact

Google Sheet Learning Journal with Peer Feedback

How did technology influence, impact or change _______? 6th grade students in Mrs. Wilsie's Tech Apps class at Tidwell Middle School were tasked with this question and got to fill in the blank with the topic of their choice. They soon realized that keeping up with their ideas, sources, and summaries would be a big task!

The Tech Apps class has had many opportunities to utilize their Google Drive this year. This project, however, revealed that Google Sheets could be more than a place for numbers. Mrs. Wilsie found a resource to share with students that allowed them to organize their research and thoughts in different columns and tabs. After a few days of research, students shared their sheet with a small group to gather feedback on their progress. They then used the feedback to go back and fill in gaps.

Aryi wants to be a dermatologist, so she chose to research how technology has influenced the medical world. She's especially enjoying using Google Sheets for the learning journal. "The learning journal was very helpful. When I use technology for projects, it’s usually not very organized, so I go back to using paper. The learning journal showed me how to organize my information." She added, "I got to write out what I had learned in the different columns which was good because it kept me from just pasting a bunch of research in one place." Another student, Brody, points out, "I like using this because it’s an easy way to track your data. The sheet keeps up with the dates for us, so that we can go back and find them. I also like that I can have group members comment on my research." 

Students using a variety of tools from the
Tools That Make IT Click Blog to
create their final presentation

Another neat aspect of this project, is the amount of choice involved. Now that the research is complete, students are grouped based on their research topic. They will be putting together a presentation for the class on their research. Students are using the Tools That Make IT Click Database to get ideas. Brody comments, "We went through the tools and saw Emaze. I have used it once before and we chose it because we think that we can embed our different projects within the slides." 

Tatum is doing her research on Quantum Physics and is presenting her information in a Google Site. She wants to take something big and outside of the box and make it easier for others to understand. Another student LiLi is creating a PowToon video for her presentation. "I’ve never used it before, but it looks like a cartoon and I think my class would enjoy watching this." 

Students will be presenting their research presentations to the class this week. According to their research, technology has influenced many different areas of life, but it has also made a BIG impact on these Tech Apps students who get to try new tools and learn new skills daily!

Fourth Grade Authors, First Grade Audience

by Hayley Sample, 4th Grade Language Arts Teacher, Sendera Ranch Elementary

My 4th grade Sendera Ranch Elementary students had been writing narrative and expository pieces all year. This time was going to be different and we all were excited to integrate technology into the mix. After studying the ins and outs of children's literature and all it has to offer, together we created a Google form survey (see snip below) asking interest questions for each story element ie: characters, plot, problem, solution, sequel etc. We then met up with our first grade buddy. Each 4th grader took their ipad , books they were using to help plan their story and sat with a first grader asking them the questions for what they would like to see in the book that would be written specifically for them. This perked not only the first graders interest but my students interests as well. After we conducted the survey through google forms. We viewed the results and had a class discussion of the importance of having a good balance of what your reader wants and what the author wants when creating a book. 

Next was creating the plot pitch. Students planned out their story making sure to include all the components of the assignment as well as keeping in mind what the survey results showed. Great conversations resulted and many began see the full scope of what needed to be taken into consideration as the author of a book. My students faced this challenging task head on. Students who might typically be unmotivated where thriving. It was amazing to see their creative ideas come alive through the planning and then continue to develop and change throughout the process.

Once they finished their plot pitch, conferenced with a partner, they were ready to meet with met. Each child discussed their plot pitch with me. Once it was “publish ready” I approved the pitch and the budding authors began publishing in book creator on the iPad.

Book creator is a wonderful app that allows for all kinds of possibilities. There is a free and paid version of this app. My campus leadership agreed this was a great investment and bought the paid version for us because it allows an unlimited amount of books to be made on one iPad. The free version only allows one.

Prior to starting this project I made a PowerPoint with specific directions to “get to know the book creator app.” It was prior to reading STAAR.  We used this time to review and also learn the app so when they kids began to type their books they would feel comfortable and allow everyone time to become successful. This was the ultimate lifesaver. The kids were able to review in a fun way and learn a new app they would soon use!

The students typed all of their text for their book into book creator first then added their illustrations. There are many options for illustrating. Several drew on paper and then took a picture and imported them into their book, others brought props from home and took pictures of those and imported them in, some found pictures off the internet for their backgrounds and some drew with the pen feature in the app. Basically the opportunities were endless! During this process kids stayed focused on producing their books. They would ask others opinions, assist each other with drawings or trouble shoot if they couldn't figure something out.

Once their book was “done” they had to partner revise and edit. This process is a natural part of the writers workshop all year long, it resulted in many great conversations and significant improvements to students’ product. 

When the students were ready to publish they uploaded it to Showbie. Showbie is a excellent management app that is like drop box. It is free and you can create folders for each assignment. The kids then upload it into Showbie where it can be graded and left with verbal or written feedback. Through Showbie I would access all of their books to grade using my iPad. Within Showbie I retrieved the book then opened each book in iBooks where is makes it into an actual page turning book (this blew the kids minds). You can also email from Showbie. To continue the interaction and sharing of books, I emailed each book to our first grade friends teacher. Then she had each one of the books on her iPad for the first graders to read.

After 2.5-3 weeks of writing and illustrating our books were ready to be revealed. We made our way down to first grade and shared them. The kids loved their books that were specially made for THEM. Several of my kids dedicated their books to their first grader and this was very special.

After doing this project and sharing about it at assembly the word was out. I then helped third grade teachers learn the app and their students created a book to go with their inventor for their living museum.

This integrated learning experience allowed for such deep collaboration on so many levels. Across the country, district, campus etc. It impacted these young lives and was a tremendous SUCCESS!