Setting Kids Up for Success

How nervous are you on the first day of anything? First day of school, first day of a sport, first day of a class you have not been to in over a year and a half.  Some things are familiar but still the nerves set in. The majority of Mrs. Conrad's fifth-grade gifted and talented students have been in her class for many years and know her expectations for them as leaders of JC Thompson Elementary. This year though is a little different. Times are different, and the way we have to approach our kids' learning can be different. Mrs. Conrad knew this and knew she had to set her kids up for success! 

Executive Functioning skills are needed to plan and achieve goals. Kids need to know these skills for life. Home life, school life, and even their tech life. At the beginning of the year Mrs. Conrad sets time aside to get them organized and set up for a successful year in GATES.

On day one, they were given their learning target and goals for this year.  To get them started she had them declutter their Google Drive by creating new folders, coloring folders, and archiving last year's work.

They updated their ePortfolios to reflect their 5th grade year and updated their All About Me pages. Another skill that Mrs. Conrad found useful for her kids to be successful throughout the year, is to have an email signature, so they got started. After showing several examples and talking about what needs to be in an email signature and why it is important, the kids created their own. Check out this example from one of her students.

Their next step is to write a professional email to their principal, asking her for permission to create video announcements this year for the entire school. It is the heart of the year and what students will be focused on.  Creating something like this from scratch takes a lot of planning, organization, and flexible thinking. We look forward to watching these kids' creations come to life.

All of the skills these kids are getting at the beginning of their year will set them up to be Future-Ready students for a lifetime! Organizing, Planning and Prioritizing, Task Initiation, Self-Monitoring are all being done in this classroom as expectations for a good year. We will have to check back in on them when they get their video announcements up and running and see how far these life skills are taking them! 

Setting our kids up for success is a no-brainer, but we can't forget about their digital lives as well. By setting norms and giving them time to organize, declutter, and update their digital space, the year will be on the road to success. 

Stop, Drop, & Animate

If you’ve ever seen an episode of The Magic School Bus, then you have a pretty good idea of what it’s like to be a student in Mrs.Suarez’s 5th grade science class at JCT Elementary. Mrs. Suarez has a knack for engaging students through unique learning opportunities. She reels them in and then once they’re hooked, students tackle rigorous and relevant learning activities.

JCT Elementary prides itself on accepting challenges and maintaining a no matter what attitude. Students and teachers work hard to embrace the motto, never give up! Sometimes this attitude requires flexibility and creative thinking. In an effort to best meet the individual needs of all students, the 5th grade team at JCT recently decided to review their grade level data and arrange students in flexible groups; allowing the ELA and math teachers time to pull small groups. Mrs. Suarez is responsible for providing extension activities for students who have already mastered the concepts being covered during small group instruction. One day a week, this time is devoted to students extending current concepts through new technology platforms.

Mrs.Suarez’ can-do attitude and confidence to experiment with new tools, led her to Stop Motion animation using Google Slides. The idea originated from one of her favorite tech blogs, “Ditch That Textbook” by Matt Miller. Mrs. Suarez had student view the beginning of the “how to” video found on the blog. She then challenged her students to create their first project. Mrs, Suarez says, “Kids are true digital natives. I knew just enough to get them started. Students have amazed me with their creativity and the stories they can tell!” While students were exploring the tool, they were given the option to create a quick story or comic.

One student, Lucas, who become particularly fond of this activity shares, “I liked having some freedom with what I chose to make. But it was challenging to decide exactly what to put next. Then, my friend and I decided to share our stop motion animations with each other and combine our projects!”

The beauty of this activity is revealed during the next unit of study, when students will apply this technology skill into the curriculum with life cycles. Students will use Google Slides to create a stop motion animation that follows an insect through complete metamorphosis (egg, larva, pupa, adult) and incomplete metamorphosis (egg, nymph, adult). Mrs. Suarez believes Stop Motion will deepen students’ understanding of this somewhat challenging concept. Suarez states, “Metamorphosis involves change over time. The Google Slides Stop Motion animations allows students to create this change in small increments, while continuously being aware of the previous and next steps. Students can tell a story through pictures in their slideshow. Allowing students to create this change in the insects from egg to adult will help solidify their understanding of the difference between the nymph and larva stages, allowing them to more easily identify complete versus incomplete metamorphosis!” Students are already enjoying the ability to create their own animations. Grayson shares, “I think it is cool and interesting to make something that is animated that is not just a drawing. It’s digital so you can make it move so easy.”

After the students create their animations, they will use Screencastify to record themselves narrating the presentation slide by slide. Mrs. Suarez is excited to add this aspect because, “it saves the project directly into the student’s Google Drive and they can upload it directly to their ePortfolios! It is pretty seamless integration of so many different technology components!” Taking this lesson one step further, students will share their completed Slides with younger grades as visuals for metamorphosis.

In conclusion, with a little freedom to explore and time to create, students mastered a new tool that will provide them with an easier way to comprehend difficult processes. Extending beyond the walls of the classroom, some students are even motivated to continue their work at home. Fia explains, “It was so awesome! I thought stop motion would have to be done with something super fancy. I was surprised it was so easy. Now, I make them all the time!”

Technology Tackles Tricky Standards

Over the past few years, Texas math teachers have been challenged with updated TEKS.  One of the new standards (4.5 A) requires students to utilize strip diagrams to represent their work.  Strip Diagrams can be difficult for students to comprehend without a clear visual representation. Mrs. Mooneyham, teacher at J.C. Thompson Elementary, met this challenge head on and turned to technology for help teaching students about the valuable strategy.  

In this 4th grade classroom, students spent several weeks utilizing strip diagrams to decode and represent word problems.  As a way for students to showcase what they had learned, the teacher created a Google Slides presentation with an individual slide assigned to each student in the class. On the first slide, students were presented with a word problem and asked to solve the equation using a strip diagram.  





Students were provided Thinking Blocks from the Math Playground website as a resource to create their strip diagrams. Once completed, students took a screenshot of their diagrams and added it to their slide, along with a written justification of their thinking.  An example can be seen to the left.

Mrs. Mooneyham always strives to provide students more opportunities for written feedback.  To take this activity deeper, students were asked to look at the work of one of their classmates and use the comment feature of Google Slides to ask questions and/or provide meaningful feedback to one another.  Feedback from the teacher was also given in the same way.  Mrs. Mooneyham found this piece especially valuable stating, “Students took giving and receiving feedback very seriously. They were able to see multiple ways to represent the problem using strip diagrams and were exposed to a lot of great feedback that would be lacking in a notebook.”

Through this learning experience, students were able to further develop their problem solving, collaboration, and critical thinking skills.  The integration of technology into this lesson, increased engagement and deepened the level of learning.  Natalie, a student in the class, enjoyed this experience. “I liked how we got use this cool app that helped me understand strip diagrams.  The technology gave me the opportunity to do something outside of our other work.”  Thinking outside the box and looking to the vast array of resources available through technology, took this seemingly simple lesson to the next level.

The "E" in ePortfolio

When ePortfolios were introduced during the GT PLC last fall, Marcie Conrad (click on link to follow on Twitter) immediately saw the benefit it would have for her students.  Mrs. Conrad, GT Teacher at JCThompson Elementary, is a trailblazer when it comes to providing her students the most innovative and engaging learning environment.  When you observe her with her students their is a constant buzz of enthusiasm, excitement and energy.  Additionally, she constantly, through every opportunity, is coaching students with their personal choices, short term goals, long term plans and life-long passions.

When ePortfolios were launched on the secondary campuses and by choice at the elementary campuses, Mrs. Conrad saw this as the trifecta of learning. After some initial planning and consulting with her I.T. coach she was ready to launch. Like all great instruction, she introduced the “why” of portfolios.  It was not long before her students, who only see her a limited amount of time, were finding every reason to come down and work on their ePortfolios in her class. They eagerly worked on it at both home and at school.

Every aspect of the Google site involved student choice.  The students determined what work was “ePortfolio” worthy, understood that showcased work could go beyond the academic day, and reflected both on their own work and their peers’ work. Mrs. Conrad gently coaching and facilitating as they moved forward in the process.

Before too long they had ePortfolios they were not only proud of, but were becoming the talk of other GT teachers and educators taking the same journey.

Her enthusiasm, excitement and energy to facilitate the journey of ePortfolios was effective. Why? Because her students embraced the ePortfolios as their own and were equally enthusiastic, excited and energetic about the ePortfolio they had crafted and the products they had selected to showcase.

It was effective because in all parts it was reflective.  At every turn students were sharing their ideas and plans for their ePortfolios, then in the same motion would suddenly pause and ask themselves was their idea truly “ePortfolio worthy.”

How was this done?  It seems that the following quote best captures the practice in Mrs. Conrad’s class, “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”-James Levin

Through this experience students met challenges, learned to embed pictures, upload files, create tabs, create links, etc.  Most was done with students helping students, with support from Mrs. Conrad and the I.T. coach.  What resulted was excellence and a futuristic mindset.  Now when ePortfolios are discussed there is always a mention of how what presently is done will impact the future. All of it student-led.

Mrs. Conrad and the I.T. coach knew there was potential and possibility with ePortfolios.  What has been realized is far beyond what they even imagined.  When possibility is wrapped in enthusiasm, excitement, and energy there is no other option than to be effective. How ePortfolios was embraced and executed by the Students on their own drive and force was far more effective because Mrs. Conrad and the I.T. coach shared the vision, but let the students determine the path to excellence.