Ever wish you had an easy-to-follow checklist when designing learning for students? I know I have…often. Some of my colleagues effortlessly design amazing lessons, but I have to plod through each point. But lesson design is something that is critical to ultimate success in the classroom for each student. That’s why I’d like to take a moment to share my latest version of the outline I use. At the end, you will find a custom GPT you can use to get an AI spin on ALDO.
You can also explore this choice board organized with the outline in mind:
As you work through this list, ask yourself, “What schema or plan do I follow?” If you show me your district’s mandated lesson plan format, well, that may not get the job done. At the end of this blog entry, I’ll share a heuristic, a Google Doc, that you can use. I like it because it combines many resources in one place and works to help you more efficiently plan your lesson design.
For now, let’s work through the major components of my Amazing Lesson Design Outline (ALDO). Ready? Let’s get started.
Did You Know?
Robert M. Gagne’s Theory of Instruction (1965) offers some suggestions worth revisiting. He divides instruction into nine events. Those events include 1) Gaining attention; 2) Informing learners of objectives; 3) Stimulating recall of prior learning; 4) Presenting the stimulus; 5) Providing learning guidance; 6) Eliciting performance; 7) Providing feedback; 8) Assessing performance; and, 9) Enhancing retention and transfer. You might also enjoy Mike Schmoker’s Focus: Elevating the Essentials visual or Madeline Hunter’s version. Some prefer the Gradual Release Model. When considering amazing lesson design, it’s important to remember this is well-traveled ground. Find what inspires you.
1 – Relationships First: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Connections
“Teachers must place a strong emphasis on rigor, relevance, but most of all, on developing relationships with children,” says Dr. Asa Hiliard, former Director of Urban Studies at Georgia State University. I’ve seen this firsthand. Let me share that with you.
Watching my wife, a masterful second grade teacher, you’d never guess she had an outline. Her lesson design first includes building powerful relationships with her students. It has her finding out what TV shows they like, what they like to eat, their life story, and building connections through an ongoing conversation with her class. She focuses in to connect academic content to specific students. Her approach leaves me in awe. When she asks her students to get to work, they do. When it’s time to behave, they do.
The first part of my lesson design outline? It’s build relationships. As Dr. James Comer (Yale University) says:
No significant learning can occur without a significant relationships of mutual respect, teacher to student.
“Brain-based learning can positively impact student motivation, attitudes and academic achievement,” say researchers. Without relationships, students won’t trust what you have to say. Absent powerful relationships between students, you have no community. And that would be a tragedy because of the next step.
2 – Assessment
As coaches and teachers, we have to, as Dr. John Hattie says, “Know our impact.” If you don’t know where students are, you will be unable to give them feedback on future growth. Worse, students won’t be able to self-regulate their own learning when given feedback. Students have to be clear on what they are to know and do. They have to know where they stand in their own learning relevant to growth.
To gauge where students are in their learning, you need to assess them before, during, and after. And those assessments can be low-stakes. They can tie into a wide variety of strategies that are proven to work, including retrieval practice and spaced vs massed practice. They can also rely on a wide variety of digital tools designed for that purpose.
Tip: You may want to use the SOLO Taxonomy to chart student growth. Learn more about SOLO via this blog entry.
3 – Teaching and Learning
The first step for those savvy with brain-based learning research is to engage students. Once you have figured how to best engage students, give thought to another question.
“What high-impact approaches align to the learning intention?” That’s a question that kept me up and reading. How can we align effective, evidence-based strategies to students’ learning needs? You can find a variety of evidence-based, high-effect size strategies that you can use at the best time.
Remember, only rely on one strategy at a time. For example, don’t try to put in place two teaching strategies like direct instruction and flipped classroom. Pick one. The same for students. Avoid trying to teach students to do concept mapping and outlining at the same time. Focus on one until you and your students can do it really well.
Social Media Response to ALDO
Thanks to those of you on social media who have shared ALDO with others. Here’s what some of you are saying:
Fantastic visual representation of the stages of learning and using a critical lense when creating lesson experiences! I can’t wait to use this with our new Ts as they continue to deepen their thinking abt. teaching/learning. Thx!via Meg Burke
Thank you for this wonderful resource! I’m definitely sharing it with my teachers! After having a coaching conversation this morning with a teacher about her PBL lessons, this is a great resource for deep and transfer teaching/learning with intentional design. TYvia Myla Lee
The “Amazing Lesson Design Outline” (ALDO) created by Miguel Guhlin @mguhlin for @TCEA features mountains of terrific teaching strategies intuitively organized. Wow! https://bit.ly/3A99v6M via Todd Finley
Get a guided introduction to Hattie’s work via the TCEA Strategies That Workcourses. What’s more, you get powerful videos, a $49 TCEA membership, and CPE hours for the same or less than buying a book. You have fifteen courses to choose from, including the latest Evidence-Based Teaching course.
The Evidence-Based Teaching course provides a detailed walkthrough of the Amazing Lesson Design Outline (ALDO), including the research underpinnings. It’s the perfect way to introduce your instructional coaches, teachers, and administrators to research that works. Participants earn 12 CPE hours, a digital badge, and certificate upon completion.
4 – Assess and Gauge Progress
As you did in Step Two, take a moment to re-assess students. Discover where they are in relation to the learning objective(s). You can rely on existing goals.
A Cry for Help: I Can’t Form an Online Community
An email request for help came in the other day. My diagnosis? The teachers had not put in place (yet) what they needed to create a sense of community. As a result, it made everything they tried to do difficult. My prescription? Intensify relationship-building efforts with teachers and students. Also, put into place the following tips:
2- Set up criteria, such as a rubric, not as a staff assessment but, for a self-assessment checklist teachers can use when planning lessons. That checklist is the Amazing Learning Design Outline (ALDO) that appears later in this blog entry.
4-Implement coaching for results. I like Diane Sweeney’s model and suggest you explore the Coaching for Results series (Parts Three, Four, and Five are relevant here). Diane Sweeney has a handy one-pager that is designed to assist coaches with teacher work. It incorporates formative assessments, including entry/exit tickets.
5 – Reflect
Make sure to take some time to reflect on what worked and what did not for both you and your students. What role did technology play in enhancing teaching and learning? You might also ask yourself, What could I do differently next time? How can I assist students in becoming more metacognitive about their own learning experience?
Remember that reflection isn’t only for you as the teacher. It is also for students to engage in.
Get ALDO, the Amazing Lesson Design Outline
Ready to get the ALDO? Keep it by your side as you are planning a lesson or preparing activities. The links to digital tools and resources will soon become gateways to new ideas.
Let’s take a moment to walk through the creation of the prompt via video:
Update 2/5/2025: Please note that ALDO has been updated with the latest effect sizes from the Visible Learning MetaX database, and converted to Canva format (Canva is free for educators). Feel free to make copies and share widely so long as credit is given as indicated and original authors (cited in bibliography on page one) remain included.
Wondering about the connection between brain-based research and high-effect size instructional strategies? I’ve always wondered at what point these two connect. In this blog entry, I’ll try to share my understanding of how they do.
Before We Start, A Quick Reminder
As I’ve mentioned before, there is a plethora of pop research. That is, brain research that is popular, yet inaccurate. Here’s a quick review of brain myths that are completely untrue in case you missed some of the latest updates.
Increasing Long-Term Retention and Performance
If you put brain-based learning in place, you will see increased knowledge retention; it’s simply a fact. What’s more, you will see improved academic performance (source). As we know, brain-based learning strategies affect more than the skills our children learn. They can also affect social and emotional development and improve motivation and attitude.
How might teachers be more deliberate about incorporating brain-based teaching approaches?
Brain-Based Teaching Approaches
Several ways you can engage students’ brain include the following:
Start positive and cultivate physical and emotional safety in the class.
Inject suspense into your lesson by adding suspenseful pauses.
Blending Brain-Based Approaches and Strategies That Work
As you can see from the chart above, there are a wide variety of teaching approaches. The approaches shown run the gamut from brain-based to high-effect size strategies. The high-effect size instructional strategies address items featured in Hattie’s Visible Learning.
You can see that there are some strategies and approaches that appear on both lists. Those include some of the following. I have addressed missing strategies in other blogentries.
Teacher-Student Relationships (d=0.48). This strategy focuses on “the quality of the relationships in the classroom. The more safe and supported students feel, the better the academic outcomes (source).
Practice Testing (d=0.46). Known also as retrieval practice, this involves frequent quizzing over a period of time. It encourages students’ recall of material from memory. The more students recall material learned before, the more significant the retention (source).
Rehearsal (d=0.73). This refers to mental techniques for helping students remember information. It can include memorization, organizing data at random and then repeating it to a visual cue (source).
As you might imagine, this overlap of instructional strategies has a positive effect. It also signals exactly what strategies we can use to great effect.
“We do not want evidence – we want good evidence, evidence that we can interpret to make a difference in the school and class, and we want big picture thinking based on these interpretations of this evidence.”
In The Fundamentals of Teaching, Mike Bell presents a compilation of strategies that work. Hattie’s endorsement of his book, quoted above, makes a powerful point. Several areas of research highlight specific strategies. Some of the strategies he sees of value include:
Prior knowledge
Presentation
Feedback
Repetition
In this blog entry, I’ve shared how brain-based learning research aligns to a few strategies. The ones highlighted in bold are also brain-based. As you might imagine, any solid instruction will incorporate these strategies. Mike Bell suggests teachers can improve learning by first focusing on what works and then second, ridding ourselves of time-consuming, low-effect size practices. You can listen to him present the key concepts in his video below.
I encourage you to continue to explore evidence-based strategies. You can find quite a bit on the topic here at TCEA, in blog entries and online, self-paced courses.
Study the Research
Here are a few reliable sources of research. This list is adapted from Bell’s list. For your convenience, find the links below:
Here are two strategies I rely on. What are your favorites?
#1: Inside-Outside Circle
Pair students up.
Form one circle with students facing out (Inside Circle)
Remaining students find and face their partners (Outside Circle)
Pose a question and indicate what role each partner will play. For instance, “What are three ways to engage students’ brains?” Inside partner speaks; outside partner listens.”
After that, the outside circle rotates clockwise, and each student ends up with a new partner.
Repeat process with a new question: “What is one way YOU start positive with your students?”
Brain-Based Strategy #2: Sage and Scribe
Develop students’ ability to explain concepts in a clear manner. Taking notes or detailing the process in writing also is a surface learning activity, great for introducing new ideas, skills.
Students work in pairs. Designate one student as the sage (speaker), the other as the scribe (silent writer).
Ask a question and allow a few moments for sages to think. For example: “Explain how concept mapping works.”
When the teacher says “Begin,” the sage explains the process to the scribe.
The scribe writes down the sage’s spoken version of the process on paper (or types it).
Once time has expired, sage and scribe switch places to respond to a new question. For example: “What is one way you can use bell ringers, or entry/exit tickets, in the classroom?
Over my 40-year career in education, I have come to recognize that what I was taught back in college about being an effective teacher is not necessarily true today. It’s not just because times have changed (they have), students have changed (they have), or the world has changed (it has). It’s because, over the past 30 years, more research has been done on what works best in teaching and learning than in all the years before that. And the results of all of that research are startling, to say the least. One of the most astonishing findings has to do with the value of following Bloom’s Taxonomy.
The History of Bloom’s
The taxonomy was created in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and some of his colleagues as a way to leave behind behaviorist theories of learning that were being used at the time (memorization, rote learning) and embrace higher-order thinking skills. They incorporated aspects of cognitive, affective, and psycho-motor domains into the taxonomy to make it more all-encompassing. It was a radical change in how educators were taught to teach. Then, in 2001, Anderson and Krathwohl offered a revision to Bloom’s, indicating that “in the cognitive domain, creation appears as a higher-order process as compared to evaluation.”
Bloom’s Taxonomy is easy to implement. We are all familiar with the “verb chart” that lets us select the level of thinking we want our students to work at. We pick a content standard, decide what level it is best learned at, find a verb at that level in the chart, create the learning activity, and we’re done. But is this approach still valid today?
Why Bloom’s May Not Be the Best Approach
The first reason to reconsider using Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom has to do with how the brain works. Thinking does not operate within hierarchies (as outlined in the taxonomy). All of these “levels” happen simultaneously in a variety of places in the brain.
The second reason to stop relying on Bloom’s is that it was created before rigorous research into its effectiveness was put in place. At more than 60 years old, the taxonomy is simply not supported by any empirical research on learning. The only piece of this hierarchical approach that is validated today is the existence of factual-conceptual knowledge, often called prior knowledge. But there is no clear research on its basic assumption that there are lower- and higher-order thinking skills. The brain doesn’t look at a problem to be solved and decide that it only needs a lower-order process.
The third reason Bloom’s may not be the approach you want to follow in your classroom has to do with new research on the social relation of persons in the creation of knowledge. The taxonomy does not consider the learner and the differences that each learner brings to the table. Motivation, their intellectual values, their past experiences with the content, their differences in cognitive processing: none of these are considered. The approach is based on the belief that all learners are at the same place in their learning, which is inherently false. In short, Bloom’s Taxonomy focuses on abstract cognitive domains and not on the individual learner. It is teacher-centered and not student-centered.
Conclusions to Take Away and Next Steps
I realize that this blog may shock some educators. And for that, I’m sorry. But we want to put our time, effort, and focus into instructional strategies and approaches that we know will work best for our students. And I believe that we must stay current with what the latest (and verified!) research says in order to do so.
So what might your next steps be? Make time to examine what the latest and best research says about effective teaching and learning. TCEA has a series of blogs on instructional strategies that have been proven to work, as well as several online, self-paced courses that will help you dive into how to apply the best approaches in your classroom. Be open to new ideas and new ways to help your students master the content. Question the strategies that are your “favorites” and ensure that they are based on valid, current research. And talk with your colleagues and administrators about getting more professional learning on the most effective teaching methods.
Research and Supporting Articles
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
Bandura, A. (2001). Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective. Annual Review Of Psychology, 52(1), 1
Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a Psychology of Human Agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, (2). 164.
Bloom, B. S.; Engelhart, M. D.; Furst, E. J.; Hill, W. H.; Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Company.
Briñol, P., & DeMarree, K. G. (2012). Social metacognition. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Motivation, personality, and development within embedded social contexts: An overview of self-determination theory. In R. M. Ryan (Ed.), Oxford handbook of human motivation (pp. 85-107). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Efklides, A. (2006). Metacognition and affect: What can metacognitive experiences tell us about the learning process? Educational Research Review, 13-14.
Kim, Y. R., Park, M. S., Moore, T. J., & Varma, S. (2013). Multiple levels of metacognition and their elicitation through complex problem-solving tasks. The Journal Of Mathematical Behavior, 32(3), 377-396.
Schraw, G., Crippen, K. J., & Hartley, K. (2006). Promoting Self-Regulation in Science Education: Metacognition as Part of a Broader Perspective on Learning. Research In Science Education, 36(1-2), 111-139.
If you’re looking for ways to practice mindfulness, reduce anxiety, and foster art appreciation for yourself and your students, you may want to bookmark this blog entry. In it, I’ll share some great digital coloring book options that will enable your students to have so much fun. You might even enjoy them, too!
Coloring books can lead children into a deeper understanding and appreciation of art (source).
This source refers to the practice of coloring books for adults for the purpose of anxiety relief.
Researchers found that the use of mandalas decreased two types of anxiety. Those types include state anxiety (i.e. contextual emotional experience). Also affected, to a lesser extent, is trait anxiety (i.e. personality characteristic). Reductions occurred in as quick as thirty minutes.
As for children, some people argue against children coloring, whileothers will suggest that there are several benefits for this activity:
Improved motor skills
School readiness
Stimulate creativity
Language development
Improved focus and hand-to-eye coordination
Spatial awareness
Self expression
Therapy and stress relief
Here are some additional health benefits (including cultivating executive function), as captured by the ColorPsychology.org video:
Finding Digital Coloring Books and Pages
You may find a rich assortment of coloring books online and available for a price. Some sources for these coloring books include Digital Book Cafe and Numeral Paint. These books cost money, but they offer a great assortment of images to color!
But there are some digital coloring books and pages that are available at no cost. You will find a roundup of a few of both below. You can color pages on your computer, Chromebook, Android, or iOS device. And, of course, you can print images out, as well.
#1- Google Arts & Culture
Your favorite reindeer is available for coloring via Google Arts and Culture’s Christmas Edition of their coloring book.
Google Arts & Culture offers a variety of art coloring books. You can find an array of images in the following editions:
Christmas Edition: This includes a series of images such as classic Christmas cards and favorite characters such as Rudolph, cats in the snow, and more.
Famous Paintings: You’ll explore a wide variety of images to color such as the Statue of Liberty and other well-known figures and pieces.
Hanukkah Edition: Here, you will come across menorahs and tender scenes that delight the eye.
Kwanzaa Edition: This features a color-rich set of images, including stamps and logos.
Panda Edition: Oh, those most popular of bears! Appearing in a variety of action shots, as well as repose, they are giggle-inducing. Given the birth of panda twins in 2021, these are sure to engage.
Ramadan and Eid: You’ll come across beautiful images that are both colorful and insightful.
The Diwali Edition: Here it is possible for children to color beautiful Diwali artwork.
These full-color images can be converted into coloring book-friendly images, and you also get a color palette to work with.
You can save your completed work of art as a PNG image-formatted file or share a link (e.g., Google Classroom support available).
#2 – 40 Free Coloring Books
Looking for free images your child can color? Then you may find this collection of 40 free coloring books of interest. It offers a wide selection of images for coloring, such as:
ABCs Coloring Book (58 pages)
Animal Alphabet (27 pages)
Butterflies (107 pages)
Cat Coloring book (150 pages)
Christmas Coloring Book (56)
Although these are Adobe PDF files, you can color without printing. These are easily usable in apps like Seesaw or Xodo.com, which you can use for free.
#3 – Zen Coloring Book for Adults
Zen: Coloring Book for Adults is an app for Windows devices. You can choose from “tons of gorgeous designs, blending and texture options.”
Some of the images offered are available for free, while others require purchase. These anxiety-reducing mandalas are free, for example.
#4 – The Color
This fun, online coloring space offers a wide variety (4,663) of images for coloring. Organized into a variety of categories, you can find holiday images, such as Dia de los Muertos. You can also find many different categories including Aesop’s Fables, baby animals, dinosaurs, insects, monsters, and much more.
The coloring interface is easy to use, as you can see above. When done coloring, you can send colored images via email. With a free account, you are able to save images to your gallery feature on the website. Selecting Print gives you an image you can save to your device.
#5 – Coloring Apps
You may be wondering what coloring apps are available for your smartphone or tablet. Below, find a quick roundup of apps. Free apps top the list, but be aware that some may include advertisements.
Note that you will need to log in with your personal Google account, not a Google Workspace account, to get the Android apps shown above. If you have a Chromebook that can access Android apps, you may be able to load these there.
You may find that coloring books are making a resurgence. Aside from reduced anxiety and improved mindfulness for adults, there are benefits to children who find coloring relaxing and fun. I hope you will join us in coloring.
Putting evidence-based research into practice can be tough. One of the challenges I encountered was shedding my own flawed beliefs. For example, I had a vague idea of specific strategies that would work in the classroom, which made classroom implementation an ongoing experiment of what worked and what didn’t. In this blog entry, let’s connect an evidence-based research strategy with a digital tool to accelerate student growth.
Strategies
Of course, you already know the value of formative assessment in the classroom. As I mentioned in this blog entry, formative assessment provides feedback that teachers can use to adjust ongoing teaching and learning with one goal: to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.
As a K-12 student, I hated quizzes. I came to see them as a poor means of formative assessment. Pop quizzes did review the material, but made me live in fear of the words, “Pop quiz!” Of course, the underlying evidence-based strategy is one you may well be familiar with. But entry and exit tickets, for example, take advantage of Rehearsal Strategy as well as RetrievalPractice (d=0.46):
Also known as “practice testing,” this involves frequent testing. The research is in and it’s positive about “the testing effect.” Flashcards, practice problems, and writing prompts can improve learning. Learn more here.
Here’s a quick video that introduces you to Retrieval Practice:
You can see how I’ve explored this strategy in other blog entries. Different strategies are often introduced along with Retrieval Practice, and these other strategies include spaced vs. mass practice and interleaving:
Spaced vs Mass Practice (d=0.65) involves spacing out the intervals of study over a longer period of time.
Interleaved Practice (d=0.44) includes a schedule of practice or study where many subjects or topics are mixed to improve learning. Contrast it with “blocked practice,” which has students studying one topic in depth, mastering this topic before moving on to another (source).
Have questions about retrieval practice? Read these frequently asked questions (FAQ). Setting up students to answer questions improves learning. Now that you know that, you’re ready to adapt technologies to match the strategy.
We could choose a wide variety of technologies to match up to retrieval practice. But you’re better off if you pick one digital tool to match one evidence-based strategy. In that way, both you and your students can become proficient at each.
Digital Tool: Introducing Podsie
With increased digital access, teachers can now use a wide variety of strategies and tools to create fresh learning experiences. To add to your toolbox, consider giving Podsie, a free tool for both middle and high school students and teachers, a try. It offers great features at no cost to individual teachers (see school/district pricing).
Podsie combines several research-backed learning strategies. These include retrieval practice, spacing vs massed practice, and interleaving. It relies on customized mastery data of each individual student to enhance learning (source).
As a teacher, create your no-cost Podsie account with a Google or Microsoft account. That’s great because you won’t have to remember another username and password. Once you create your login, you will identify your school from a drop-down list.
Benefits of Podsie
Podsie automates some of the tasks, and I’ve included several embedded links to explanatory videos that appear in the feature list below.
Podsie:
Creates automated, personalized reviews of content aligned to evidence-based practices
Relies on a Personal Deck that offers students an ongoing, differentiated review experience
Produces realtime data on how students are doing as they review content
As Weston Kieschnick suggests, make every effort to map out what you will be doing in a lesson. Also, make sure you know exactly how students will be relying on technology to learn. Follow his five action steps to master the art of successfully blending strategies with technology.
My collection of cool websites and resources for ed tech enthusiasts is bursting. So it must be time for another issue of this blog series. Get ready to be wowed!
Math Virtual Manipulative Collection
Help your students master critical math concepts using this wonderful collection of free virtual math manipulatives. It’s been put together by Julie Smith, the Techie Teacher, and can be shared with students in Google Classroom, Seesaw, Canvas, or any other LMS you’re using with this link: https://bit.ly/TechieTeacherMath.
Small Shifts in Teacher Talk Make a Big Difference
How we phrase things everyday to students makes a big difference in whether they are excited to learn or just wishing the activity was already over with. As this article from ASCD emphasizes: “Do you tend to emphasize student or teacher ownership? Does your language emphasize engagement or compliance?” Check out the table below and then take a look at how you are talking to students.
Learning Styles Is a Myth
Jennifer Fritschi gets it. As she tweeted out: “Data from an analysis of over 15,000 educators showed that over 85% still believe in learning styles. This article explores why this myth is so widespread in education, and how to change it.” Yep, there is no such thing as learning styles.
Free, Online, Interactive Courses in STEM for High School Students
If you are looking for ways to help better engage those difficult high school students in complex content, look no further than Brilliant. They provide free access to more than 60 different courses after the teacher completes an online application. Each courses focuses on stimulating student curiosity through problem solving and interactivity. Students will have access up to six courses at a time and Daily Challenges for free. You can add, remove, and change courses as much as you’d like throughout the year. Some of the courses include:
Mathematical Fundamentals
Number Theory
Joy of Problem Solving
Algebra Fundamentals, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2
Geometry Fundamentals, Geometry 1, Geometry 2, and 3D Geometry
Waves and Light
Classical Mechanics
Electricity and Magnetism
Solar Energy
Computer Science Fundamentals
Cryptocurrency
Machine Learning
Removing Shading from Copied Text
Have you ever copied some text from the web to use (and cite, of course) in a lesson or handout, but the text, when pasted, was shaded and you couldn’t remove the shading? That happens to me all of the time. Tiffany Carey shares that highlighting the copied text while holding down the CTRL key and the space bar will remove the shading.
Computer Science, Coding, and Robotics Unplugged
If you teach a STEM subject, you will want to follow Erik Murray on Twitter; he has some great resources. He recently lost power in his classroom and had to teach his tech subjects anyway. So he came up with this choice board of coding and robotics activities for his students to choose from.
Use Immersive Reader on Websites with the Chrome Browser
Immersive Reader from Microsoft is an absolutely amazing tool for students that improves comprehension and encourages independent reading. And it’s free add-on for OneNote and works in the Edge browser. But what if you’re not using OneNote or Edge? Here’s a free extension that adds Immersive Reader’s functionality to the Chrome browser. It can read any open page in the browser as well as PDF files in Canvas, emails, and more.
Having students reflect on their learning is critical to ensuring that the learning is sustained. One teacher shares his “Give One, Get One” strategy for accomplishing this, along with some templates and ideas for doing this if you have to go virtual.
I hope that you discovered at least one new resource in today’s blog. You can catch up on past Tidbits blogs here.
It is important for students to receive valuable feedback on their work. Typically as educators, we assume full responsibility for this and become the sole distributor of feedback in our classrooms. But developing students’ ability to give peer feedback is a much-needed skill. Even though we may have modeled how to provide good feedback, that doesn’t necessarily translate to students having the skills to give that same quality feedback to their peers.
I found this out the hard way when I was a classroom teacher. I asked my students to get with a partner and share feedback on a writing prompt assignment. Consequently, I almost needed to call in the counselor to do therapy for my students because their partners were brutally honest, sharing that this was the worst writing they’ve ever seen. That day I was reminded that even third graders can give honest but cruel feedback unless taught how to say it constructively.
One of my favorite videos that deals with feedback is Austin’s Butterfly. It’s a true story told by Ron Berger. In this story, first graders learn to give constructive and helpful feedback to each other as they work on an art project that they want to submit to their state for a postcard. NOTE: These are typical first graders. They’re not descendants or protégées of van Gogh, Monet, Kahlo, or Cezanne. As you watch the video, think of how the same process could be tweaked and used with your students. Also, it might be helpful for you to show the video as you start talking with your students about giving quality feedback.
Feedback: What It Is and Isn’t
If we’re not careful, we can assume that everybody has a shared understanding of the definition of feedback. Marzano noted in his research that knowing the critical attributes of something is essential to understand the topic, concept, or skill better.Dictionary.com defines feedback as “a reaction or response to a particular process or activity.”Dr. Valerie Shute brings the definition more into focus by noting that feedback is the “information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify his or her thinking or behavior for the purpose of improving learning.” Wow! That’s exactly what we want when we give feedback: to cause a change in students’ thinking or behavior so that they improve their mastery of the skill or concept we are teaching.
So, for our purposes, feedback isn’t sharing our opinion about their work. Feedback is not saying something like “Good job!” or “Great work!” These types of statements don’t strengthen any particular skill, nor do they offer corrective insight to consider.
Here are a few ideas to help you and your students develop the skill of giving quality feedback. And, as with any skill, we want to consider going from concrete to abstract in our scaffolding. For most, if not all, of your students, this will be a skill they have not been taught before. We will be using the example of giving peer feedback on a piece of writing. But you may find it helpful to tweak these activities for providing feedback on student products, presentations, or other assignments.
Activity #1: Identifying Helpful and Unhelpful Feedback
In this first activity, you will begin by working with your students in a whole group setting. Start by asking students what “feedback” means to them. What is it? What is it not? Ask students to share a time when they received helpful or meaningful feedback. What was the feedback and how did it help them? Ask for non-examples where they received “feedback” that was confusing, didn’t help them, or wasn’t specific. Following this, share Dr. Shute’s definition of feedback above.
Ask students to work with a partner to translate Dr. Shute’s definition into what could be used in your grade level. Then, they will draw a picture of what feedback is and isn’t. Refer to the image to the right as an example layout.
For the next part of this activity, you will need a sample text for which students will provide feedback. I recommend that you write it yourself. You will need to make sure there are some errors for students to catch so that they can practice crafting feedback to share with the class. If you need help priming the pump for sample documents to use, consider choosing one from these:
Once you have given them the document to read and review, give them a few minutes to discuss the writing with their partner or table group. If the piece of writing comes with a rubric, then create some example feedback cards in advance based on the rubric. If not, create your own feedback cards to use as examples. Depending on how many cards you have, you can call on a group, a partner team, or an individual.
Some sample cards might say something like:
I can’t follow the writer’s thinking.
Good use of adjectives when describing the animals
The handwriting is terrible!
Each sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with punctuation.
Be careful not to start multiple sentences in a row with filler words such as “and” or “then.”
If needed, you can download theSample Feedback Cards document and edit the cards. There should be some examples of valuable feedback and examples of unhelpful feedback in the mix.
Randomly select one of the example cards and call on a group, team, or individual. Then, read the card aloud and ask if it is quality feedback or not. If it is not quality, ask students for suggestions on making it more meaningful and focused.
If you would like to learn how the feedback you the teacher provide to students can be improved, check out our online, self-paced course Assessment-Based Feedback Tools. You’ll get more practice in providing effective feedback and learn some new ways to use technology in the process.
After reading the writing, looking at the product, or watching the presentation, ask students to give feedback based on the rubric. In this activity, they can only give feedback based on the criteria identified in the rubric. When a student gives feedback, ask for a show of hands for who agrees and disagrees with the feedback. Ask them to justify their agreement or disagreement. After discussion and practice, ask the students to use the rubric to score the document. Scoring might be easier if done in pairs or small groups. Once finished, ask each pair or group to share a piece of feedback that is not included in the rubric, but would be helpful to the author to make their work better.
This is where the rubber meets the road and students start giving real feedback to each other. We want to ensure that students understand how to give quality feedback, but in order to do so, they need actual practice. This activity gives them the opportunity. You will use Flipgrid to set up a Topic in which students record their work. If it is a writing assignment, have students do a screencast to record themselves reading their writing aloud. Because this isn’t a reading fluency test, allow students to ask others to read their work as a “guest narrator.” Feedback isn’t to be given on the reading of the piece, but only on the writing, and I suggest providing a rubric for the students to use to keep them on track.
After recording or uploading their videos, ask students to choose three peers to whom they will provide feedback. Subsequently, they will respond via video based on the rubric. For this, make sure that you turn on moderation of videos and comments. This allows you to approve responses before students hear them, just in case someone provides hurtful or unhelpful feedback. If a student offers feedback that isn’t helpful, you can use it as a teachable moment. Help them think of how they can say their comment (assuming it is a good comment but poorly expressed) so that the author has a clear understanding of how to improve their writing. It may be helpful to post the THINK poster (download asPDF orPNG file) around your room or in the recording area to remind students of best practices when giving feedback.
Once you have reviewed and moderated the comments, bring the lesson back to the whole class and identify a few students who did well at giving feedback. Ask the receiver of the feedback how it made them feel.
You may have to do these exercises a few times for the concept to sink in with your students. Encourage them to look for other times to practice giving feedback to others. It could be at the grocery store, at the restaurant, or even in the lunchroom. Generally, we all want to benefit from constructive and helpful feedback.
If you want to learn more about feedback, check out these other TCEA blogs on the topic. Then share with us in the comments how you help your students grow in giving feedback to others. And, if you have a humorous story about feedback, we are always up for a good chuckle.
If you wish you had an easy way to engage students, the author of Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning by Judy Willis, M.D., offers suggestions for taking every student’s attention intake filter into account. Suggestions include influencing the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in our brains, and in today’s post, we will explore how brain-based bell ringers can improve retention and engagement.
What Are Bell Ringers?
Bell ringers are activities that students do as they walk into class and wait for the bell to ring. According to practitioners, this “bell work,” as it’s known to some, has benefits including but not limited to:
Engaging students in short assignments or assessments
Reviewing key concepts already taught
Stimulating classroom discussion that supports the lesson
Identifying misconceptions and misunderstandings learners may have
There is a lot more information out there about why bell ringers are beneficial. Reviewing brain-based research can give us insight into what types of bell ringers will be most beneficial for students. Let’s take a look.
What’s the Brain-Based Research Connection?
A part of our brain, known as the Reticular Activating System (RAS), works as an information filter. According to Dr. Willis, the RAS allows only one percent of the information to filter through. That’s right; your attention intake filters block millions of bits of information, keeping out the irrelevant. According to the author, this presents a challenge for teachers because it prevents students from paying attention to and retaining what is being taught.
Let’s now examine how we get critical knowledge and information past this attention filter to retain as much as possible.
Designing Bell Ringers
Since learning relies on what gets past the attention filter, bell work must help the information sink in. To do this, bell ringer activities should engage students in new, unusual, or unexpected ways. Using curiosity, prediction, or metacognition (the CPM process) to review, revisit, practice, and assess skills and concepts that were previously taught or to present new information that students may not normally retain can be highly effective.
Before exploring the CPM process, know that you can find a wide variety of bell ringers or bell work online. In fact, I’ve included links to over 400 bell work examples in the graphic below. And, of course, you can follow the Twitter hashtag for more #bellwork.
Another approach could be to use bell work as a way to engage students’ curiosity. To do this, use bell work to kick off a learning experience. Then, facilitate the CPM process. This process, as adapted from Dr. Willis’ work, might look like this:
As you may know, metacognitive strategies such as prediction are evidence-based, and play a key role for self-regulated learners. Prediction works to sustain curiosity, consequently deepening the learning. What’s more, it makes the learning more desirable and memorable. Our brains want to know the outcome, which is why this strategy works. When students make predictions about their learning, they remember more as a result.
You can extend learning with metacognition during bell ringer activities. One way to do this is by having students keep notes about their learning, write down questions they may be curious about, or note predictions related to the bell work.
Entry Ticket Bell Ringers
Using entry tickets as bell ringers makes reviewing and introducing concepts easy. You can learn more about entry tickets by exploring the Wakelet collection below.
Using bell work is a great way to engage learners as class starts, especially using metacognitive strategies to spark curiosity and invite predictions in new and exciting ways. I hope you find these resources helpful in implementing effective, brain-based bell ringers in your classroom.
In the first blog on the topic of which approach might work best for struggling students, we looked at the differences between acceleration, remediation, and intervention. Research shows that, for most students, acceleration works best to help them catch up on missed learning. But what does that look like in the classroom. Let’s take a look. But first, a brief review of exactly what acceleration is.
What Acceleration Is and Isn’t
“The primary focus of remediation is mastering concepts of the past. Acceleration, on the other hand, strategically prepares students for success in the present—this week, on this content. Rather than concentrating on a litany of items that students have failed to master, acceleration readies students for new learning. Past concepts and skills are addressed, but always in the purposeful context of future learning” (source).
The difference is in how students are enabled to develop prior knowledge specific to the content being studied. “The correlation between academic background knowledge and achievement is staggering: prior knowledge can determine whether a 50th-percentile student sinks to the 25th percentile or rises to the 75th (Marzano, 2004). Accordingly, a crucial aspect of the acceleration model is putting key prior knowledge into place so that students have something to connect new information to. Rather than focus on everything students don’t know about the concept, however, the core and acceleration teachers collaboratively and thoughtfully select the specific prior knowledge that will best help students grasp the upcoming standard” (source).
Making Acceleration Work
There are basically two key components to make acceleration work. One, as noted above, is the careful identification of specific prior knowledge that students must have in order to master upcoming content. The other is vocabulary. As Marzano stated in 2004, gaps in prior knowledge are largely related to a lack of content vocabulary. So what do these two pieces look like in lesson planning?
“Moving forward with students in an acceleration model requires teachers to carefully lay out the pieces of exactly what students need to know to learn the content at the desired pace. Before other students have even begun the unit, the accelerated group has gained an understanding of:
The real-world relevance and purpose of the concept.
Critical vocabulary, including what the words look and sound like.
The basic skills needed to master the concept.
The new skills needed to master the concept.
The big picture of where instruction is going” (source).
Since it may seem overwhelming to identify all of these components for each lesson, the teacher should start by prioritizing the most critical grade-level content for that grade and subject. What is it that students absolutely must know and learn? Ask yourself “Will this help every student get back to grade level?” If the answer is “no,” then it may not be a critical piece.
Let’s take a look at English/Language Arts as an example. You can narrow all of the essential standards in ELA down to these four:
As a former ELA teacher myself, this short list initially upset me. What about all of the other wonderful things we cover in this subject? But remember that our goal is catching all students up to grade level so that they can master the new content they need to learn. Some cuts will, most likely, have to be made.
This is what it might look like for math:
The Downside to Acceleration
Acceleration typically requires the most time to see results, often taking up to two years before student success is clearly evident. But it also has the greatest possibility of working for the majority of the students, as is clear in the research. It also, unfortunately, requires the most time up front by teachers and administrators. That’s why the experts recommend that a team is put into place to identify the critical pieces of content and determine the vocabulary needed. This reduces the work load on an individual teacher.
Acceleration Resources
To get a better handle on using acceleration in your classroom or district, take a look at these resources:
EduProtocols – Instructional lesson frames that are designed to engage students in learning through critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. The templates provided can be used with any subject, any grade level.
Working as a classroom teacher or instructional leader? Then you’ll love this easy reference collection of evidence-based strategies. Finding evidence-based research you can trust is hard. In this blog entry, you will see some resources that expand your knowledge of what works in the classroom.
Before we jump into that list of five sources, let’s review what “evidence-based” means.
What Is Evidence-Based?
Since you’ve no doubt seen the term “evidence-based” around, let’s dig into it a bit. Does objective evidence inform your selection of a specific method or strategy? If so, then it is evidence-based. Some may describe it as data-based, research-based, and/or scientifically-based (source). When used in a consistent manner, evidence-based strategies support greater student learning and achievement.
Explore the importance of identifying and selecting evidence-based practices in this online module, one of three you can work through. The list of modules includes:
Give these a whirl. Speaking of these modules, this brings us to the first resource I wanted to share with you.
IRIS Center
The IRIS Center includes a wide variety of resources. Besides the evidence-based practices series of the three modules, it offers much more.
Here you can find a wealth of research summaries on a variety of strategies and interventions. The IRIS Center connects the level of effectiveness, as well as age groups, with each strategy. This makes their list of research summaries an invaluable aid for instructional leaders. Topics covered include:
Assessments
Behavior and Classroom Management
Content Instruction
Diversity
Early Intervention/Early Childhood
Learning Strategies
Mathematics
MTSS/RTI
Reading, Literacy, and Language Arts
School Improvement/Leadership
Transition
Whether you are an administrator or coach, this site offers you a repository of amazing content that you can share with teachers who may be unsure about a strategy. And you can get FREE certification on various topics relevant to classroom instruction.
If you need to learn more about literacy, math, or emergent bilinguals, then the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and their research is for you.
WWC reviews the existing research on different programs, products, and practices. It also reviews policies in education. Their goal is to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions. They seek to answer the question “What works in education?” through a focus on high-quality research results (source).
The Learning Policy Institute takes a slightly different approach to providing innovative content through their collection of videos. Some of their topics include:
Aligning School Practices with the Science of Learning
Creating Safe and Inclusive Schools
How Learning Happens
Project-Based Learning
Strategies and Practices to Advance Deeper Learning
These are powerful, well-researched videos that will get you leading and teaching in innovative ways.
If you are interested in what the research says about early childhood, assessment, accountability, school leadership, teacher effectiveness, and how technology and real life impact student outcomes, then you need to take a good look at the Rand Corporation. They offer a series of blogs that focus on education and literacy.
Oft-mentioned, Corwin’s amazing Visible Learning Meta X database is incredible. Not only can you see all the “influences” at once, you can also see the underlying research studies and a detailed glossary.
You can also see influences by domain:
Student: Factors relating to background, beliefs, and physical influences.
Home: Factors relating to family resources, structure, and environment.
School: Factors relating to school type, pre-school, school composition, and leadership.
Being able to carefully examine what the research says about the best instructional strategies to use when teaching a particular activity, content area, or skill is critical for all teachers and leaders today. These five resources will provide you all the background information you need to make the best decisions for your students.
If you’d like more information about research-based education, be sure to check out our online, self-paced courses focused around instructional strategies and higher student achievement.
A Cry for Help: I Can’t Form an Online Community
Android Apps in the Google Play Store:
What Is Evidence-Based?
