17. Reduce academic barriers before
they occur?
Provide resources and supports to
help increase the chances of student
success?
Help ALL students learn – regardless
of ability?
What if instead, we used LiveBinders
to…
24. Barriers I have at the Milton Hershey
School
• Reading ability
• Vocabulary
• Motivation
• Past failures
• Vision difficulties
• Poverty mindset
• Background
• Family
• Attitude
26. OVERCOME: What high-probability barriers
do I have control over in my classroom?
CONTROL
Vocabulary
Motivation
NO CONTROL
Past failures
Poverty
27. Recipe # 1:
Enhancing Reading
Assignments
PLAN: What resources can I embed in my
LiveBinder to help my students?
48. Another Screencast Option
• Revisiting grammar
lessons in the LA or
Foreign Language
Classroom
• Diagramming
Scientific Processes
• Solving Math
Problems
59. Ingredient # 1 – Easy-to-Find and
Impossible to Lose Directions
60. Ingredient # 2 – Communicating
Announcements and Goals
The human brain is
incredibly goal-oriented
and objective-driven
61.
62. For those students who need an
extra reminder to get started!
Hello class! Your
project is due
Monday morning!
Make sure that you
print out 2 copies.
84. Think Simple
Think about Learner Difference and tools
to help address differences
Think of potential barriers to accessing
information and how to address them
Use tools in strategic ways
What is the Key?
I’m not going to show you any new technologies, but I am going to show you strategic ways to use them
Do you remember when you were in school? You would visit your locker, carry a stack of books and place all of your papers in your binder. Some teachers may have made you organize.
Fast-forward to the future and think… does this sound like you? You go to a professional development workshop and get cringe because they give you another binder to place in your vast collection!
You begin class on Monday morning by asking everyone to take out their binders to produce their homework from over the weekend and file away the newest worksheets. You see Alana’s organized and decorative binder with décor that could rival Matha Stewart. Paul’s binder looks like it has been through World War 3. And you are amazed that Tyler’s binder seems to swallow every single assignment that you have ever given him. You see 30 different binders and 30 different learning styles sitting in your classroom.
Oh yes binders! Either you hate them or love them. Or you love to hate them because of how much space they take. But what if there was an easier way to organize and manage information for your students?
Easy way to share all of your classroom resources in 1 place
Many people are using Livebinders as a way of social bookmarking. Instead of using Diigo and Delicious, they are using Livebinders.
If our Goal is creating expert learners with higher level thinking, then it just makes sense.
Share some recipes that have worked for me in my position.
Getting there may involved barriers that I can and cannot control
Traditional Curriculum are often designed with one type of learner in mind: goals, methods, materials, and assessments.
UDL takes a flexible approach.
100% of my students come from poverty and they often don’t read because they have not experienced success.
Students are not reading, they are bored, electronic media, etc.
Omri – needed PDF copy of text
Jamary = get in trouble and listen
According to research from Marzano, “The achievement gap is largely a vocabulary gap.” Many of our students don’t read because they don’t understand certain vocabulary terms. Providing a dictionary may help students understand words better.
It comes down to the “Matthew Effect,” which is a term that was coined by psychologist Keith Stanovich.
Extensive research on reading and language disabilities
The "Matthew Effect" refers to the idea that in reading (as in other areas of life), the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
If a student has negative experiences with reading early on in their career, they are more likely to experience difficulty and avoid reading altogether
Marzano states that students need 6 meaningful actions with vocabulary terms to understand them. Let’s say that I am using specific vocabulary with very specific definitions. Then I will create a customized set of flashcards with Quizlet. Quizlet can even give you a chance to add images to flashcards, depending on your subject matter.
Visuwords is a great site to use for your visual learners and hands on learners, who need to manipulate and move around text and different definitions. I found that this tool was a little too confusing or cluttered for my younger learners.
Visuwords is a great site to use for your visual learners and hands on learners, who need to manipulate and move around text and different definitions. I found that this tool was a little too confusing or cluttered for my younger learners.
Visuwords is a great site to use for your visual learners and hands on learners, who need to manipulate and move around text and different definitions. I found that this tool was a little too confusing or cluttered for my younger learners.
For example, I had my students read an article called the “Tale of Two Cultures” This article described the difference between the company culture at Enron versus Zappos. I had my students read the article and use Read-Write-Think’s Venn Diagram tool to label the differences and similarities (if any) between the two cultures. We used this as a discussion tool for the next day.
For example, I had my students read an article called the “Tale of Two Cultures” This article described the difference between the company culture at Enron versus Zappos. I had my students read the article and use Read-Write-Think’s Venn Diagram tool to label the differences and similarities (if any) between the two cultures. We used this as a discussion tool for the next day.
At the very end, express their opinion and thoughts.
To activate background knowledge and make connections
PDF Outline
Audio Version of the text
To help support something and gradually take it a way. Same with learning, sometimes our students need something said again, need another way of seeing information, or need a different way of interacting with materials.
My students recently completed a project on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We discussed it and now it was time for my students to demonstrate their knowledge through creating a Prezi Presentation.
Blackhole lost for ever
PDF Directions allow for the flexibility for students to zoom in and zoom out, but most importantly they can’t lose them!
Each day at the beginning of class, I communicate announcements and goals once.
Have you ever felt like a broken record? If we said that to our kids, they may give us funny looks. The point is…do you feel like you are repeating yourself over and over again?
I communicate announcements and expectations once. When you have a student who straggles in, all they have to do is listen to my Voki Avatar. If they have further questions, they can ask me. But the point is, I can give my kids basic due date and handing in instructions. Sometimes this works better!
Then I started putting supports in place to reach all learners in my classroom. Many of my students needed some extra resources to understand Maslow’s Hierarchy, so I provided a link to a website that would give more information about Maslow.
You could also add your own customized Google Search engine, which could be used where you can customize the sites that will appear in your search. http://www.google.com/cse
In the past, whenever I have done projects involving new technologies, I have always had 3 types of students:
The experts who could teach me how to use the technology
The amateurs who are comfortable with the technology, but need help with a few things here and there
The overwhelmed who need my every moment of support!
In any assignment I give, I tend to have 3 different types of students. The experts, the clueless, and those who need a little direction.
I created small 1 – 2 minute video clips on my most frequently asked questions about using Prezi. This gave me the opportunity to help ALL students at the same time. The experts had resources they could turn to. The amateurs had their FAQ’s answered, and my overwhelmed students had my undivided attention.
How do you create small “how to videos” to answer those FAQ’s? I use a program called Screencast-o-Matic, which will allow you to create video clips up to 15 minutes long and either save them as a video file on your computer, upload to YouTube, or save in your own personal library on Screencast-o-Matic.
SLIDE Share and Dropbox
SLIDE Share and Dropbox
In 2010, I was given a really unique opportunity. I would co teach a course called Honors Business Management with the Hershey Company. For 34 weeks, my students learned about every single aspect of the Hershey Company from Marketing to Packaging. What textbook exists for that? Therefore, we had to be creative and make our own.
We used LiveBinders to compile a wealth of resources for students to use.
SLIDE Share and Dropbox
It was a living and breathing textbook that students could use as a college textbook.