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Back to SchoolLibrariesPlanning and Preparation

Seven Back-to-School Tips for Librarians

by Kristi Starr
written by Kristi Starr

Are you a librarian who likes to plan, or do you fly by the seat of your pants? Maybe it’s a bit of both. Intentions are good but, when the first day of school suddenly stares you in the face, it’s all about survival mode. No matter where you are in the planning process, here are a few suggestions to help you face the beginning of the year with confidence. 

Know thyself.

Be honest with yourself about your skills, your strengths and weaknesses, and the things you can and can’t control. Whether you’re considering sweeping changes or just want to make small alterations in daily tasks, think about what each requires and what stands in your way. Do you need an ally? An accountability partner? An alarm? Never be afraid to ask for help, whether it’s a friend on your campus, a fellow librarian, or a library leader.

Use a planning system.

Find a way to track what you want to accomplish and when! That could mean slotting a time every day, or a few times a week, to create and schedule social media posts or write blog posts. It can include noting days for changing displays as well as ideas for display and programming themes. Your calendar/planner is also a great place to track events going on in your library as well as classes or groups visiting and using the library. Don’t forget to include events you plan to attend and classes you visit. Your planner will also be a valuable data resource when it’s time to provide reports. 

librarian tip calendar
 Created by Zinnia Bayardo

You can find some excellent planner options for purchase or download. Demco offers a library planner designed by Kristina Holzweiss. Zinnia Bayardo of Northside ISD shared this fabulous weekly calendar template that can be printed or used digitally. You can also make your own in Canva or Slides. A general academic planner can also be easily customized, like this Star Wars-themed one from Erin Condren).

Find your go-to programming resources.

Planning and programming go hand in hand. There are many great people and sites to follow to help with ideas and resources. For this, social media might be your best friend. The Book Wrangler is an elementary librarian to follow, and he shares lots of printables on his blog. Shannon McClintock Miller and the VanMeter Library Voice is another good source for programming ideas. Use reading lists, designated months and weeks, and holidays. Or maybe Facebook groups are your jam. If you prefer more random celebrations, check out NationalToday.com for a compilation of popular as well as lesser-known events. Like today, August 10, you get National Lazy Day, National Spoil Your Dog Day, Update Your Bio Day, Vlogging Day, World Lion Day, and Duran Duran Appreciation Day. 

the book wrangler
the library voice

Pick your go-to tools.

Canva or Adobe? Nearpod or PearDeck? Wakelet or Padlet? Genially or BookCreator? Know which tools you can access in a pinch to create amazing content. When you have more time available, then you can play around and experiment with new sites and apps. 

Pick one big thing at a time to focus on.

Some people are better at multitasking than others, but if you want to work efficiently, your best bet is to focus on a job and get it done. Too many overlapping projects can lead to burnout. Weeding, diversity audits, genrefication and shelving changes, or website development are just a few projects that can require extensive time to complete. When you’re trying to launch a new program or initiative, establish one at a time before moving on to the next. Trying to establish a library advisory board, set up your very first book club, and institute a Tech Tuesday can be overwhelming if you’ve never done any of them before. 

Determine the data you need, then decide how you’ll collect it.

I keep track of 3 types of student visits: classes, individual students and small groups, and students needing loaner Chromebooks. I document each in a different manner. Circulation reports are easy. Numeric data is important, but it’s not the only data we need to tell our stories. Materials requests, reading preferences, and patron comments can inform and justify collection development and library services. 

librarians back to school class

Grow your PLN.

I have the best professional learning network ever. Some are friends I’ve only met once or twice face-to-face, but they consistently make my job easier and better. Find and follow the people to follow who fill your cup, who share great ideas, who make you a better person. My PLN contains people all across the state and even the nation, people I consider to be friends. If you’re fortunate enough to work in a district or live in an area with lots of other librarians, use them to learn from and grow your practice. If you don’t, the TCEA librarian community is vibrant, and Twitter and Instagram are wonderful places to connect with others. Iron sharpens iron. 

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Back to School

Quotes for the New School Year

by Peggy Reimers
written by Peggy Reimers

It is getting to be that time of year when you can smell freshly sharpened pencils and a box of brand new crayons in the air. It’s the time when I start to gather all the good ideas I’ve come across in my travels or on social media. As I was perusing Twitter, I stopped on this question posted by an Illinois Director of Secondary Education, Dan Lamboley. “My district is looking for a child-centered, inspirational quote to put on the wall in our entryway. Any good suggestions?”

Immediately, I knew Twitterific educators would promptly answer the call. And they did. Here are a few of my favorites!

Quotes for Teachers

Each one, reach one. – Cori Coburn-Shiflett

Life affords no greater responsibility, than the raising of the next generation. – C. Everett Coop

Tell me, and I forget. Teach me ,and I may remember. Involve me, and I learn. – Ben Franklin

We rise by lifting others. – Robert Ingersoll

To inspire people, don’t show them your super powers. Show them theirs.  – Alexander Den Hejjer

Students don’t need a perfect teacher. They need a teacher who gets them excited about learning. A teacher who smiles and makes them enjoy coming to school. Each and every day.  – Richard P. Feynman

A school is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside. – Lon Watters

A smile is the universal WELCOME! – Max Eastman

Quotes for Students

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose – Dr. Seuss

Here We Grow! – unknown

Amazing things happen here. – unknown

The world wouldn’t spin the same without you! – Brandarius Johnson

Posted by Brandarius Johnson, Las Vegas, Nevada

Be Yourself. Everybody else is already taken – Oscar Wilde

You are capable of amazing things! – unknown

No one is good at everything, but everyone is good at something! – unknown

BElieve in YOUrself. – unknown

Quotes about Kindness

In a world where you can be anything: BE KIND. – unknown

Be brave. Dream big. Show kindness. – unknown

Be Kind. Be Bright. Be You. – unknown

Mrs. Minarich Channahon, Illinois and IDEA Illinois Educator of the Year

Be kind and change the world. – unknown

Kindness matters. – unknown

Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give. – unknown

Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen. – Conan O’Brien

Throw kindness around like confetti. – unknown

Quotes for Art Rooms

Every child is an artist.  – Pablo Picasso

You cannot use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. – Maya Angelou

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. – Henry David Thoreau

Creativity is intelligence having fun. – Albert Einstein

Make your mark. . .  and see where it takes you. – Peter Reynolds

Makers gonna make.– unknown

You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life. – Elizabeth Gilbert

What you create doesn’t need to be perfect. – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Quotes for STEM Spaces

Let’s get in gear with the 4C’s this year!

We Are INVENTORS!

Where will STEM take you?

Stand back! We’re building a better world.

Get in GEAR and ENGINEER.

Gearing up for Greatness at __________. (fill in the name of your class or school)

A Few Tips

Tip 1: Create a wall of inspirational quotes like Gillian Portwood McColgan. She purchased the Growth Mindset posters from TPT and purchased inexpensive frames from the Dollar Store to create a gallery wall of inspiring phrases.

Posted by Gillian Portwood McColgan

TIP 2: Consider using direct quotes from your students, and have a central bulletin board featuring a quote from a student each week.

TIP 3: To choose a quote for a school wall, invite all students to submit and have the students vote. Democracy in action!

TIP 4: If you are looking to make your own try Adobe Express or Canva. Or just keep it simple- create a background in PowerPoint or Google Slides to create your own. Visit my blog on fancy fonts to jazz up your inspirational quote.

TIP 5: Create a bulletin board word cloud, like Naomi Clark did, using different fonts and an electronic cutting machine (Cricut or a Silhouette).

Posted by Naomi Clark, New Hampshire Posted in the Elementary STEM Specials Teachers Facebook Group

Words could include:

  • work hard
  • ask questions
  • persist
  • be curious
  • try
  • learn
  • read
  • think
  • capable

These inspirational words are just a start. There are millions available. If you have a favorite, please drop it in the comments! I know other bulletin boards and walls across the world would love to showcase your motivational and inspiring quotes.

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STEM resources
STEM/STEAM

Fun STEM Resources for High School Learners

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

When I was Director of Instructional Technology, I had the opportunity to visit high school teachers’ classrooms. Besides visiting the Technology Applications teachers, I would also visit content area teachers engaging in various technology initiatives. It always amazed me how much high school students can do with the proper structure and guidance. If you happen to be one of those teachers who have a great rapport with your students and you are interested in providing a STEM focus in your classroom, this post is for you. Even if you are not a science, technology, engineering, or technology teacher, you can still use STEM resources as a context for increasing motivation and adding relevance, especially for those students who are not naturally enamored with your particular content area!

STEM Resources and Activities

Smoking Dragons

While doing activities with fire is very alluring, it’s probably not the safest with high school students. We definitely don’t want to encourage any future budding pyromaniacs. But playing with dry ice can be equally satisfying and interesting. For smoking dragons, students make a dragon’s head from a plastic cup. The teacher adds a small amount of dry ice to each dragon to get the smoke going. Many other experiments can be done with dry ice that focus on carbon dioxide, freezing/melting, etc. And for more learning fun, check out how to make smoke bubbles.

Exploring Mummification with Hot Dogs

Once you get beyond the ick factor, exploring mummification with hot dogs is pretty interesting. For this experiment, you’ll be burying a meat hot dog in baking soda and examining it after a week. Besides other beneficial properties of baking soda, it is used for its desiccating (drying out) abilities for this experiment. This is an easy activity to expand and learn how different hot dogs fare as mummy dogs. Baking soda has also been used to dry out flowers for arrangements and crafts.

Graph Art: Illustrating Data

GoScienceKids offers a fun STEAM project to illustrate data. This could be done with younger students if less emphasis was placed on the background and implications of the data. To allow students to locate graphs related to their interests, have them go to Google Trends and enter a search term or a topic. Google will share a graph showing how the term or topic has trended over time. You can also see where most people are located who are searching that topic. Students can also see possible related topics to explore. The data can be exported or embedded, but I would recommend that the students take a screenshot of the graph and illustrate it online. For example, they could accomplish this with a tool such as Google Drawings. Below is my illustrated graph on raising chickens. Who doesn’t want to raise cute, feathery birds that can give you eggs for breakfast?!

Questions I’d ask my students to research include:

  • Is the graph seemingly random, somewhat cyclical, or very cyclical? Why?
  • Based on this graph, what do you predict the next 12 months might look like?
  • Choose a single peak and explain what was happening in current events at the time that might have caused the spike.
  • Choose a single low point and explain what was happening in current events at the time that might have caused the drop.
  • What other trending searches might have a similar graph?
  • How can you influence the data to cause a peak? Cause a significant drop?
graph with decorations (chickens, eggs, etc.)
Screenshot by author

Exploring the Fibonacci Sequence

When I was in college, I was introduced to the Fibonacci sequence. Wow! It blew my mind and made me stop and consider if I wanted to really be a botanist. Mathematical, predictable, artistic– it is an amazing expression in the natural world. Have students explore the Fibonacci sequence in nature. Students then focus on phyllotaxis – the arrangement of leaves around a stem. Have them start a journal and identify various plants along with their phyllotaxis. Then have students compare the data they collect. NOTE: Not all plants follow the Fibonacci sequence.

Finding High School STEM Resources Online

Pinterest has tons of resources for high school STEM. It may take you a while to weed through them to find ones that you want to do in your classroom. You might consider tweaking the search to narrow it down to focus on your content area. As you look through the boards, don’t ignore a board even if it has fewer pins. It might actually have more gold nuggets for you and less fluff!

YouTube Playlists can provide many excellent videos that are already curated. Don’t ignore the videos that may extend to elementary school. Some of those may be great activities that just need more complex concepts as the focus!

Facebook has several high school STEM groups, as well as groups that include high school level activities. As you look through these to consider which you might join, be sure to check how many posts there are per day. This will give you a clue as to how active the group is. At the end of the group description, it will say how many typical posts per day, week, or year. You may also tweak the search to find your specific content area (be sure to add STEM after it when you search).

Twitter offers some ideas as well, though you might have to hone your hashtag skills to get the right combination. Clicking on the Twitter link will take you to the latest tweets for high school STEM activities. Be sure to check out what photos and videos have also been tweeted.

TikTok, like Twitter, offers a wide variety of content, some of which is not appropriate for students. My experience is that about half the search results using #STEM are irrelevant. If you are pressed for time, don’t make this your first option for searching. And when you do find some great content, check to see if the makers are on Instagram, YouTube, or another site for content sharing.

Searching Google for STEM Resources

You can definitely search Google for high school STEM resources, but you will probably get too much clutter in your search results– like curriculum to purchase or activities based on specific equipment– which you might not have. Here are a few tips to help you use the perfect search query to get the best results:

Define Results to Universities

Unless you want to buy activities and resources for your students, consider limiting the search results to just educational entities and universities and colleges. Your search query should look something like this. Click here to go to these results.

Exclude Specific Sites from Your Results

If you find that a particular site is cluttering your search results, you can remove it by using the -site function. You can do this multiple times if you add a -site:nameofsite.org for each site. Here is an example that excludes Teachers Pay Teachers from the search results. Click here to go to these results.

What Is Your Favorite?

After looking through and exploring the various resources, hopefully you found a few gold nuggets that you can use. Jump into the comments and share with us what groups and sites you think would be a good addition to the list. We’d love to hear from you.

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writing
English Language ArtsSTEM/STEAMWriting

STEM + ELA: The Eight Building Blocks of Argument Writing

by Erik Murray and Casey Siagel
written by Erik Murray and Casey Siagel

When they’ve been swirling around in my head, words never seem to come out the way I intend them to. Writing and getting ideas down on paper has always been a struggle for me. Even for this article, I’ve spent so much time thinking about what to write instead of just writing it all down! The prewriting process can be a challenge for adults, so it must also be for some of our students.

An ELA and STEM Collaboration

I’ve always been a good builder and engineer. And the idea of being able to physically “build” an essay before writing it appealed to me. I could see this as a way to help students get their ideas organized before diving into the task. So after a teacher-led “unconference” about merging engineering and other content areas, I met with an intrigued English teacher who wanted to approach writing differently in her class.  

After a lot of brainstorming, drawing, erasing, sketching, lego construction, and laughter, we landed on a way to make students’ thinking and planning for argumentative writing visible and tangible in English class: 3D-printed blocks.

Organizing Writing Through Building

Students were learning about the foundational elements of argumentative writing, but they were struggling to understand the correct way to structure an argument. As a result, it was difficult for them to see how all the “parts” of the argumentative piece worked together to form a cohesive presentation. 

To bolster student comprehension and confidence, we wanted to create an opportunity for them to literally construct their argument and then get feedback from the teacher before writing the first draft. We were determined to create an engaging, hands-on learning experience for students to help them plan and revise their writing.

We broke down argumentative writing structure into the following parts: 

  • Central Idea 
  • Thesis 
  • Claim 
  • Context
  • Evidence 
  • Zoom In/Out Analysis
  • Conclusion 

We knew that to help make students’ thinking visible, we had to be deliberate with our design and color choices. So we made our decisions based on the different parts of an argument, their purpose, and their relationship within the argumentative writing structure. 

Colors were intentionally chosen to both highlight function and relationship to other parts of the argument. For example, the thesis was built to only fit into a claim piece because they are dependent on one another within the argument. The transition was designed as a smaller, red block because it should be a noticeable, short phrase that links two ideas together. The context was designed to fit between the claim and evidence. The central idea became a spindle since it is “the core” of the argument. 

blocks for writing
Students working together to analyze text structure using the blocks

The STEM and Writing Mini-Unit

We planned for our two-week, co-taught, mini-unit to be broken down into eight lessons. 

First, students were exposed to the argumentative writing vocabulary and how the parts of an argumentative essay worked in relationship to each other. After becoming familiar with the vocabulary and parts, they were given the blocks and an argumentative mentor text. They were asked to “build” the argument based on how the author structured it on the page. After building, students compared their argumentative “towers” with their peers while we circulated and gave feedback on their structures. 

After getting teacher feedback and practicing with mentor texts, students began writing their own drafts, using the blocks for support. Then, with a partner, they participated in a peer review activity using their rough drafts. They were asked to build their partner’s essay using the blocks. From there, they gave each other feedback on their text structure about what was strong, missing, unnecessary, or out of order.  

We then, as teachers, shared our design process for the blocks with the students, explained our reasoning behind the design decisions, and asked students for feedback on our designs.

new writing block design
Students redesigning and creating their own 3d model of the argumentative model

The result? They gave great feedback, encouraging us to:

  • Modify the blocks to allow for a notecard with writing to be inserted
  • Create different shapes
  • Ensure better fitting pieces
  • Reconsider color choices. 

We tasked them with designing a better version. Afterwards, students used the upgraded design to work on constructing their final drafts. 

new writing block design
Students using the latest edition of the model with their feedback incorporated

Reflections on the Unit  

We observed that students were invested in the lesson in a way they hadn’t been with writing before. They enjoyed having the ability to physically manipulate objects to assist them in the writing process. The color choices and block fittings also helped them interact with the writing differently. They truly internalized the function of various parts of a written argument. We heard things like, “You can’t have a thesis there because the blocks don’t fit together,” and “The central idea is missing. See, your argument is just falling apart!”.

There were several light bulb moments from the kids, and they began to speak confidently about the connection between the blocks and their writing. We heard, “That makes sense. Transitions should be short because their job is to take you to the next part!” and “The conclusion should have a little bit of everything in it, because it’s white, and white has a little bit of every color in it.” 

Perhaps the most valuable part of the lesson for us was when we described our planning process, and decision making to the students and then handed them an opportunity to design their own, better model. Partnering with the students to bring their writing to life not only helped them deeply internalize argumentative writing but also forged an invaluable learning partnership between us teachers and the kids. It opened a critical dialogue about how students learn best and deepened students’ confidence and trust in themselves and their teachers.

About the Authors:

Erik Murray (left) is a Middle School STEM teacher in Lexington, Massachusetts. His focus has been on making simple, hands-on activities. You can follow him on Twitter at @mrstemurray.

Casey Siagel (right) is a middle school English department head and ELA teacher in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is passionate about making reading and writing accessible and meaningful for all students.

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STEM
Coding/Computer ScienceMathRoboticsScienceSTEM/STEAM

Eight Children’s Books to Promote Girl Power in STEM

by Valerie Cox
written by Valerie Cox

Encouraging girls to participate in STEM activities might seem daunting, but it can easily be done simply by reading books. Reading STEM books introduces girls to unique aspects of the STEM community and could encourage them to try STEM activities themselves. Whether reading to students after recess or reading to your daughter before bedtime, books are an ideal way to help promote STEM activities to girls.

1. “Mae Among the Stars” by Roda Ahmed

In “Mae Among the Stars,” readers will learn about pursuing their dreams even when others don’t agree. This book tells the story of Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the first African American female to travel in space. Young Mae is fascinated with space, but discovers her teacher and classmates don’t think she can become an astronaut. With her parent’s support, Mae becomes a doctor, engineer, and astronaut and achieves her childhood dream.

STEM
Harper Collins Publishers

2. “How to Code a Rollercoaster” by Josh Funk

For fans of “How to Code a Sandcastle,” Pearl and Pascal are back and learning more about how coding works. But this time, they’re at an amusement park. As they enjoy the amusement park, Pearl and Pascal use coding to track their tokens and the amount of time they spend standing in line for rides. “How to Code a Rollercoaster” is a great introduction to the world of coding and teaches basic coding fundamentals and principles.

STEM
Penguin Random House

3. “Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge” by Rachel Dougherty

Girls will discover the engineering story behind the Brooklyn Bridge in this interesting read. As a young girl, Emily studied science and math and continued building her skills as she grew, even though many didn’t understand why. After her father-in-law died and her husband was injured after starting the planning and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Emily’s skills were put to good use when she completed this project which became one of the world’s most iconic bridges.

STEM
Macmillan Publishers

4. “The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story of Raye Montague” by Julia Finley Mosca

As part of the Amazing Scientists series, “The Girl With a Mind for Math” presents the story of Raye Montague. She was the creator of the first computer-generated draft of a U.S. naval ship and the Navy’s first female program manager of ships. Young Raye’s interest was sparked by visiting a submarine with her grandfather. Despite having to overcome both racial and gender discrimination, she became one of the Navy’s most-celebrated civilian employees.

STEM
The Innovation Press

5. “Boxitects” by Kim Smith

Not only does “Boxitects” introduce readers to architecture, but it also teaches the importance of teamwork. Meg is a “boxitect” who loves building and creating structures out of boxes. Her creations are always the best until a new student and fellow boxitect arrives at school. Meg and her new classmate must find a way to work together and use their architectural talents to win the contest.

STEM
HMH Books

6. “Dinosaur Lady: The Daring Discoveries of Mary Anning, the First Paleontologist” by Linda Skeers

“Dinosaur Lady” tells the story of Mary Anning who discovered dinosaur bones on an English beach and became the first paleontologist. Mary made many fossil discoveries throughout her career, and some of her discoveries were housed in places that she couldn’t access simply because she was a girl. Mary persevered and continued her paleontology journey even when most didn’t believe females should be members of the science community.

STEAM
Sourcebooks

7. “The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid” by Jeanette Winter

After reading “The World Is Not a Rectangle,” girls will know the story of esteemed architect Zaha Hadid. Born in Iraq, young Zaha discovers a love for math and engineering, and after studying in London, she becomes an architect. Soon, people all over the world wanted her to design a structure for their city. Readers will follow Zaha’s life as she builds upon her love for math and engineering by designing renowned structures around the world.

STEM
Simon & Schuster

8. “Hello Ruby: Journey Inside the Computer” by Linda Liukas

As part of the Hello Ruby series, “Journey Inside the Computer” teaches readers about the different components of a computer and how they operate. Ruby and Mouse discover the computer isn’t working, so they go inside it to find the missing Cursor. As they search for Cursor, they encounter other computer elements that help Ruby and Mouse learn how a computer works.

STEAM
Macmillan Publishers

By reading books, girls are introduced to countless inspiring female STEM leaders as well as different aspects of STEM. Today, it might seem like just reading a book, but it could be the spark that ignites the interest of one of the next great female leaders in STEM.

Interested in learning more about STEM education? Check out TCEA’s self-paced STEM courses and certifications and other STEM and STEAM blog posts.

Valerie Cox is a contributing writer for LOC Scientific. She is passionate about helping children learn more about the science community and has written a number of articles on involving children more in STEM activities. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and volunteering in her local community.

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funding
FundingLeadership

$11.2 Billion in New Funding for Texas Schools

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Today, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the release of $11.2 billion in additional funding for Texas schools from the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER or ESSER III) Fund. This federal funding was passed in March 2021 under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021.

Who Is Eligible for This Funding?

K-12 public and charter schools are eligible for the funding which is designed to be used for resources purchased between March 13, 2020 and September 20, 2023. The estimated allotment is a district’s ESSER I entitlement multiplied by 10 (subject to change depending on final allotments).

What Can the Funding Be Spent On?

ESSER III focuses on school districts reopening and operating safely, as well as on addressing the possible impact of the coronavirus pandemic on students. In addition, a district must use, at a minimum, 20 percent of the funds to address learning loss through the implementation of evidence-based interventions. Districts must ensure that the interventions respond to the students’ social, emotional, and academic needs. 

With that in mind, the following services are allowable under the federal guidelines (source):

  • The development and implementation of strategies and public health protocols (in line with guidance from the CDC to the greatest extent possible) to reopen and operate schools to effectively maintain the health of students and staff
  • Efforts to prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19
  • Training and professional development on sanitizing and minimizing the spread of infectious diseases
  • Supplies to sanitize and clean the district’s facilities
  • Improving and/or repairing the district’s facilities to reduce risk of virus transmission and exposure to environmental health hazards
  • Improvements in indoor air quality
  • Procedures and systems to improve the preparedness and response efforts of the district, including developing and implementing those procedures
  • Planning and/or implementing activities during long-term closures, including providing meals to eligible students and providing technology for online learning
  • Mental health services and supports, including implementation of evidence-based full-service community schools and the hiring of counselors
  • Educational technology for students that aid in interaction between students and their classroom instructors, including hardware, software, connectivity, assistive technology, and adaptive equipment
  • Addressing the needs of children from low-income families, children that have disabilities, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, homeless students, and children that are in foster care
  • Summer learning and supplemental after-school programs, including planning and the implementation of those programs
  • Activities that address learning loss
  • Activities allowed by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), and the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins CTE)
  • Any other activities that are necessary to maintain operation and services provided by the district, including continuing to employ existing staff or hiring new staff

What Should Districts Do?

TEA provided this information about ESSER III and what districts will need to do. According to the agency, “Effective today, districts and open-enrollment charter schools (school systems) in Texas may apply to receive their allocation of the $11.2 billion appropriated to the State of Texas for public education purposes under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III (ESSER III) Fund. Funds are being provided, supplemental to all other funding sources to school systems, and will not be supplanted at the state level. School systems should use these new funds to respond to the pandemic and to address student learning loss as a result of COVID-19. The eGrants electronic grant application will be available on the TEA Grant Opportunities web page on Thursday, April 29, 2021.” They also provided this chart showing how much each district can expect to receive. Schools should begin to consider the needs of their students and how best to help them recover from any setbacks during the pandemic.

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screenshot by author - blooket
Educational ResearchWeb 2.0 Tool

Assessment-Based Feedback Tool: Blooket

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

By now, most of you have tried Kahoot!, Quizlet, Quizziz, and many others. These tools work as game-based student response systems that provide you with formative assessment options. The teacher creates a free account and then can design quizzes with embedded images and video or use one of the many pre-created assessments. Students rely on an internet-connected device to respond, earning points as they score.

All of these assessment tools and many others such as Knowt offer teachers and students a way to engage in practice testing. They also provide pre-assessment and post-assessment data for instructional coaching. In this blog entry, I’ll introduce you to yet another formative assessment tool you may be unaware of.

First, though, let’s review some of the scientifically-based research around two key concepts: practice testing and assessment-based feedback.

Digging into the Research

As you already know, “formative assessment [serves] as a way to improve the caliber of still-underway instructional activities.” Contrast formative assessment with summative assessment. The latter is “a way to determine the effectiveness of already-completed instructional activities” (source: ASCD). A deeper definition of formative assessment appears below:

Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.

Formative assessment has distinguishing features that include it being:

  • A process rather than a single event
  • A tool useful to both teachers and students
  • A source of assessment-based feedback to both teachers and students

As you may already know from TCEA TechNotes blog entries on feedback (d=0.64), assessment-based feedback must do the following:

  • Focus on the task or product, identifying whether it is correct/incorrect or provide suggestions for improvement
  • Provide information about processes students go through to perform a task or develop a product
  • Give insight into students’ ability to self-monitor and direct their learning through goal setting, self-assessments, and identifying next steps

What are some digital tools that can provide feedback insights to task or product? In addition to formative assessments, what are some ways student learning can be improved? Practice testing (d=0.46) is one approach. Practice testing is also known as retrieval practice or test-enhanced learning.

That video will give you an overview of practice testing and Knowt. Allow me to introduce you to a new tool you can use for retrieval practice.

Introducing Blooket

Another exciting digital tool, Blooket, supports teacher and student accounts. With a free account, teachers can use Blooket to host a question set with a specific game mode. This game is displayed via screen/projector, then students compete on their own devices. Blooket tracks student progress, keeping a record of student responses. In turn, students are able to track their statistics via global a leaderboard ranking. They can also buy and sell “blooks” and avail themselves of community-wide events.

Here are some observations from teachers:

  • “In Blooket, you’re given 8+ different possible game modes that use the same question set. Kids can gain points in different ways in each game mode. Blooket enjoys a ‘classic’ mode that is like regular Kahoot. Kids love it because they can play a different game mode to keep it interesting.”
  • “Many of the games are fun and encourage classroom engagement.”
  • “You can play it live or assign it as homework. It has made this year so much more fun for my classes since it works with distance, hybrid, and in person students.”

As you might imagine, Blooket’s game modes offer variety. “It offers power ups and random sabotage things you can do to other players,” says another teacher. You can follow these steps to get started:

  1. Start with a question set. You can make your own, import one, or find one.
  2. Decide on a game mode. There are several game mode choices. Find one you like.
  3. Host a game and allow students to play. Students use a game identification number to join the game.
  4. Play the game. As students play the game, they answer questions that target content that has been taught in class.
  5. Review results. Students and teachers can review the performance data to identify areas of growth.

Don’t let the blocks turn you off from using Blooket with secondary students. One high school Spanish teacher (@SenoraCMT) raves about her use of Blooket in this way:

We were reading a chapter in Kristy Placido’s Noche de oro eBook and I wanted to pre-teach some of the vocabulary. Not pre-teach… more like pre-expose! So I made a Blooket.

After playing our first Blooket, I wanted to add one for ALLLLLL the things my students were studying so I made one for my book Bianca Nieves from Fluency Matters, I made one for my Huellas 1 Future and Conditional level 3-AP unit Atrévete, and Kristy Placido made one for my Huellas 1 ART based level 3-AP unit Bajo la mesa! When my Spanish 4 group finishes reading, I’ll make one for our next Huellas 2 unit, Orangután en mi habitación. (Find out more about the Huellas Curriculum here.)

Now that we know how it works, let’s take a look at some of the available features.

A Few of Blooket’s More Recent Features

Blooket has an amazing amount of features that enhance game mode learning. Some new free features include the following:

  • Extend/Reopen Homework
  • Discover Tab Filters
  • Automated Group Subscriptions
  • Button to Set Time Limit for All Questions
  • Remove Students from Homework

More features are available at a cost. Those include:

  • Removing the 60-player limit (+ Only)
  • Merging Question Sets (+ Only)

Curious about what Blooket looks like? Let’s take a  look at pricing before I turn you loose to watch a few videos.

Blooket’s Cost

“I do pay for Blooket premium because it allows me to duplicate sets and have more in-depth reports,” reports one teacher. Wondering how much Blooket costs? Remember, you get free access to many features such as creating and hosting question sets in a variety of game modes. The free version also comes with unlimited question sets and the ability to edit those. In the table below, you will see what else you can get if you decide to pay for it:

Look Before Leaping

Ready to see what Blooket looks like in action? Here is a quick two-minute video you can watch to get an overview. Below this video, you will find even more walkthrough videos you can take advantage of. Check out this fantastic video from Master Heebs:

Some additional videos you can look at before leaping into Blooket:

Please let me know what you think about it in the comments.

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

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ChromebooksLMS

Three Fantastic Solutions to Schoology Problems

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Have a Schoology question that needs answering? Struggling through the use of a learning management system (LMS) on your own can be tough. Thank goodness for other educators out there who are figuring it out. In this blog entry, I’ll share three questions that generated discussion in the Schoology Educator Community.

1 – Mirror My Second Screen, an iPad

“I am having to teach from home for the next 2 weeks.  I thought I could connect my iPad to my laptop and use it as a second screen.  Would this work?  What should I do?  I have to be able to show how to work out math,” asks Jess. This is a tough one that isn’t particular to Schoology. Some of the responses educators shared include the following:

  • “Join the zoom call on both devices. Present your screen on your iPad. See app list below.”
  • “You can use a locker shelf or something similar and run Zoom on both the iPad and your laptop. (Have the sound off on one of them to avoid feedback).”
  • “Get the $20 phone holder gooseneck mount. It works with a variety of smartphones.”

Those first two solutions are great because they mean you don’t nee to go out and buy something else. You will need an iPad app that allows you to have a whiteboard. Here are some apps that you can use, but may need you to spend money on an in-app buy:

The problem with most of those apps is the recurring cost.  You will have to decide if it is worthwhile. Tools like Whiteboard.chat, Google Jamboard, and AWWApp work great on your computer.

Source: Matthew Patty, Northside ISD

A second grade teacher I know well decided to invest in a document camera. She’d rather draw on paper or traditional whiteboard she has. The camera, the HUE USB Camera, connects via a USB port. This makes it easy to get Zoom to use it as an alternate source for video/images. Get the HUE document camera from Amazon for about $90. Prices are going up, I notice so you may want to shop around.

Schoology

Another possibility? Try Sidecar. It allows you to mirror your Mac screen to your iPad. For Chromebook users, the Dualless extension simulate a dual monitor. Looking for more solutions like this? Explore the Teach Without Wires: Mirror Your Device blog entry. It features one of the solutions I’ve invested in, Mirroring360.

2 – Requiring Video Viewing Before Assignment Access

“Is there a way to make sure a student views a video lesson before they have access to the assignment?” If you have students that skip the video on their way to complete an assignment, you can try to stop that in Schoology.

Two approaches that work some of the time include completion rules and magic words. Be aware that you can use completion rules to stop them. After a few seconds, they are able to continue to the assignment. Another way is to put a password or “magic word” in the video. This word becomes the first question in the assignment.

Two solutions that you can try that work well include:

It’s a shame Schoology lacks a more foolproof solution, but do try EdPuzzle or PlayPosit. Either solution will cost you money.

3 – Disabling Assignments at Grading Period’s End

“It is the end of our first nine weeks! Is there a way to do a MASS disable of assignments? Our cut-off day is today, and I don’t want them working over the weekend and messing up my grades! HELP!!!!” That can be a bit of a bummer. You have all your grades set, and then students turn in more of their work.

Schoology

Source: Use the Lock Option in Assignment view, Schoology

Here are a few responses to this question:

  • Put all your assignments into a “First Grading Period” folder and then unpublish it. If an assignment is not published, students are unable to see it. You, as the teacher, will still be able to see the assignments in the unpublished folder. Your Schoology administrator does need to have enabled this option that ensures that unpublishing assignments doesn’t result in a removal of grades.
  • Another option is to lock assignments, but that may be time-consuming if done after. When you set up the assignment, add the lock with a future date to ensure the assignment can only be completed during the acceptable time.

It appears that the best solution is, “Lock assignments after a specified time (e.g. one week after due date). No late submissions allowed.”

Sharing Schoology Solutions

Need any more ideas for getting things done with Schoology? Be sure to check out the TCEA’s Schoology Educator online, self-paced course. You may also want to explore the TCEA Community.

Schoology

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LMS

Virtual Learning Tools, Part 2: Button Menus for Canvas or Schoology

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

How many teachers are now getting ready to throw their computers across the room? Although we have access to graphic user interface (GUI) editors, they’re not enough. In this blog entry, you’ll learn how to do some simple HTML editing that will save your sanity. These tricks will work in learning management systems (LMSs) like Canvas and Schoology. What’s more, they will make it possible for you to create button menus for your students to use. There’s even a video tutorial at the end. Ready to get started?

Meet the Problem

You can “hear” the howls of frustration from teachers trying to bend the LMS GUI editors to their will. Failure is a given since they often don’t know realize that the HTML editors in those LMSs are light weight. If you want to get some real editing done, you’re going to need an HTML editor. These editors are available and you can be successful without spending a lot of time.

Consider this teacher who is experiencing trouble in the Canvas LMS:

Please, somebody, before I throw my laptop against the wall….why can’t I adjust table row height or width in the content editor? I’ve even tried doing it with HTML code and nothing changes. However, if I add a row or column, the whole thing goes haywire. I’m at the end of what little wit I have.

Table row height or width are easy to adjust…when you’re using the right editor. Before we explore the solution, let’s dig into Canvas and Schoology a bit more.

Did You Know?

TCEA offers an online, self-paced class each for both Canvas and Schoology learning management systems. Sign up now and find out what you’ve been missing. Learn more online.

A Look at the Canvas LMS GUI Editor

When you look at the Canvas LMS editor, you’re going to see something that looks like a word processor:

button menus

As wonderful as that editor looks, it’s not enough if you want to edit HTML code and have it work. Step back for a moment and look for that EDIT button in the top right hand corner:

button menus

Once you have found it, click on it. You’ll get the full edit window:

button menus

What you may notice is that at the bottom right hand corner of the page, there is an icon that looks like four dots on top of each in two-dot rows. When you click on this, you will be able to edit HTML, as shown below:

button menus

Unfortunately, there’s not much help here. It’s only you and the HTML code. Let’s say you wanted to add a clickable button menu for your students to click on. What could you do?

Did You Know?

Sign up for the Remote Learning Tools self-paced course. You’ll pick up a variety of tools that make flipped classroom, hybrid/remote learning easier.

Creating a Button Menu

To create your button menu, you can begin the journey with the GUI editor Canvas LMS provides you. You can insert the the days of the week into your table cells. It will look something like this:

button menus

After inserting all your images, you can link them to other pages in your course:

button menus

When you vary the length of the text from cell to cell, you’re going to see that everything is center aligned. This may not be the way you want content to appear:

button menus

How do you adjust the vertical alignment for content in each of the cells? While you can adjust horizontal alignment (Center, Left, Right), finding how to adjust vertical alignment in Canvas may be a bit difficult. I cover exactly how in the video tutorial at the bottom of this blog entry.

button menus

You’ll have to use a different solution. But, what?

Introducing HTML 5 Editor

One free, web-based tool you can use is the HTML 5 Editor, although there are several similar tools you can use. Here’s a quick list of a few you can try:

Try each out and see which one is your preference. They are all quite similar and give you that split view. On one side, you’ll find a “rich text editor” and on the other, HTML code. Editing one side will change the other. This can be great when you don’t know how to adjust the code.

For now, I’m going with the HTML 5 Editor. Let’s get started.

Canvas LMS’ Rich Text and HTML Editors

To begin, I copied the HTML code from Canvas and pasted it into the left side of the editor. This is what I get:

button menus

If I click in the cell I want to adjust the vertical alignment for, then go to Table->Cell Properties, I can make alignment changes:

button menus

In this way, I can change the vertical alignment to TOP. This moves the text for the cell to the top of the cell. I can also make the table borders set to zero. This has the effect of making the borders invisible.

This changes the code to reflect vertical alignment. You can see the difference below:

Before:

button menus

After:

button menus

Here’s what it looks like in Canvas LMS HTML code editor:

button menus

And this is what it looks like when you switch to Rich Text Editor:

button menus

As you can see in the image above, the text in each cell has a vertical alignment to the top of the cell.  At this point, I can work with the Canvas Rich Text Editor and make adjustments I want. If need be, I can always switch to HTML view and copy the code. Then I can paste the code into my web-based HTML editor to make changes. When I’m done in the HTML 5 Editor, I can copy and then paste it back into Canvas. It’s easier than it sounds.

In Schoology, No One Can Hear You Scream

This is not an uncommon problem in Schoology, too. You may want to make adjustments, but not know how. As you can see below, Schoology is about as helpful as Canvas:

button menus

You can copy the code (and I’m going to simply reuse the code I edited earlier), and paste it into the HTML code view:

button menus

When I switch back from code view to the rich text editor, it looks exactly as intended:

button menus

Oh, wait, it’s not exactly looking the way I want. In this case, the images are too large. I’ll need to adjust those. I can eyeball them and adjust one by one. Or I can go into the code and customize the height and width for each.

button menus

A small change in the code for each image, as shown above, and I now have thumbnail images that look fine. Each one of them is clickable and takes me to a different page of content:

button menus

Quick Video Overview

Here are two videos that summarize the blog entry. In the first video, I share how to use an HTML editor to create a custom table with button menus that are linked to specific pages in the LMS. In the second video, I shared how to create a menu of choices.

Video #1: HTML Editor

Video #2: Button Menus

Canvas for Littles

What? You thought those were terrible videos? Ok, I have another video series you may enjoy. Have you heard of the Canvas for Littles video series? Check it out:

And, That’s All, Folks!

Please, don’t pull your hair out or fling your computer across the room. Editing HTML code in Canvas or Schoology can be a pain. But if you rely on free HTML editors available online, it’s a breeze. Give it a shot!

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LMS

Virtual Learning Tools, Part 1: Make Schoology Work For You

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

As schools embrace learning management systems designed to make teaching and learning easier, challenges abound. Many educators are struggling to navigate the wealth of tutorials and videos available for Schoology. In this blog entry, the first in the series, we explore three Schoology-related questions. Before we go any further, allow me to share another reason why Schoology has become so pervasive in Texas.

TEA Offers Free Learning Management System

If you missed the July 30, 2020 announcement, you may not have heard that the Texas Education Agency is offering a free LMS in support of the Texas Home Learning initiative. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:

As part of THL 3.0, TEA announced this week that it will offer all Texas school systems a world-class Learning Management System (LMS) from PowerSchool’s Schoology for two years at no cost. Like other THL 3.0 offerings, use of the Schoology LMS will be optional for Texas school systems. Currently, Schoology is used in schools representing more than one million students across Texas (1 in 5 students statewide).

If you are embarking on your first use of Schoology, this series on LMSs Made Simple will address some key questions teachers are asking.

In This Entry

This first set of questions includes the following:

  • How do you keep parents in the loop about missing assignments?
  • How do I set up non-graded discussions?
  • How do I disable students’ ability to reply to each other?

Ready to get started?

Did You Know?

The Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) is offering a free webinar for parents. The webinar, taking place on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 at 6:30 PM, is Helping Kids Thrive in Today’s World. The speaker is Christine Fonseca. Fill out this form and TAGT will send you a link to the webinar.

Identifying Missing Assignments in Schoology

We know that students may sometimes fail in completing all their assignments on time. One way to motivate them is to make sure parents can access the list of missing assignments. How do you get that done in Schoology? That’s the question Maria is asking below:

Does anyone know a way for teachers to identify missing assignments for the week? A report that shows all weekly assignments and their completion status? Families are having a hard time and I would love a quick way to provide feedback to them. Thanks for all your help.

In Schoology, the teacher can mark assignments as missing in the gradebook. Parents who have signed up can receive updates via email on missing assignments.

Did You Know?

Sign up now for this online, self-paced course that covers everything you need to know about using Schoology and setting up courses. Learn more online.

The first step involves marking student assignments as missing in the gradebook. You can see what that looks like below:

schoology

As the teacher, you can export the parent access codes as a comma-separated values (CSV) file. Open this file type in Excel or Google Sheets and then you can email merge it to send to parents. Parents can then sign up via the Schoology website using the access code:

schoology
schoology

The parent view shows them what assignments are missing or scores/grades received:

schoology

In this way, you’re able to keep parents informed of their child’s progress.

Setting Up Discussions

Setting up discussions in Schoology is straightforward. Let’s take a moment to consider the request Kris shared:

As a K-4 educator, my principal informed me I would be using Schoology this year. As a counselor, I need to set up bibliotheraphy with discussions. I don’t need to grade. What should I do?

Bibliotherapy involves using books as therapy or treatment. School counselors rely on it as a way to treat mental or psychological disorders. As the author of this study points out:

Using quality children’s literature for bibliotherapy helps students to grow socio-emotionally. It assists students in identifying with the main character in a story. That character has a disability which leads to personal insight and growth.

Source: Afolayan J. A. (1992) Documentary perspective of bibliotherapy in education. Reading Horizons 33: 137–148

While reading the book, you can set up activities such as the ones Kelly Bear suggests:

  • Ask open-ended questions about the story
  • Retell the story
  • Act out roles
  • Use puppets
  • Write reactions
  • Record thoughts through audio/video
  • Create art

Jumping into Schoology

How will you do this in Schoology in an online environment? One approach can involve using free digital tools like Flipgrid. You can use Flipgrid to create a safe space for student-created book talks. You embed the Flipgrid topic in a Schoology page or discussion topic. Since you can embed content into Schoology pages, assignments, and more, the sky is the limit. You can also encourage students to use Wakelet, Google Docs/Slides, or Microsoft 365. Organize their exploration of a text using one of these tools.

Did You Know?

Sign up for the Remote Learning Tools self-paced course. You’ll pick up a variety of tools that make flipped classroom, hybrid/remote learning easier.

Schoology allows us to set up book-centered folders that may contain relevant resources. What’s more, we can use groups in grading to assign specific students to the bibliotherapy. This means we have to take a few steps though first.

schoology

The first step is to get a list of students into the Bibliotherapy course. You have the option of either creating a course for each book (cumbersome) or student, or a course with many books. That is, create the course and then create a “Materials” folder for each book. Then you are able to create pages or discussions that take advantage of grading groups.

Here’s a short video on how to do that in Schoology:

Disabling Students Replying to Each Other’s Posts

Mayra shares a common challenge. At the start of the year, you may want to limit students’ ability to send each other messages. Schoology has an amazing feature known as “Updates.” Google Classroom users have it as well, but for them, it’s the “Stream.” This common feature also appears in Edmodo.

schoology

What may not be so obvious is “How do you disable students’ ability to reply to each other’s posts in Schoology?” Some possible responses include:

  • Adjust Course Options to turn on moderation or turn that feature off
  • Ask your Schoology administrator to disable that and the “liking” feature
  • Disable comments for each post
  • Set up a discussion that requires students to post first. This means they must post first before they see what others have written.

Since it can be a bit confusing, let’s walk through each of these in a short video.

Hopefully, this first blog in our series was able to answer a question or two you may have about Schoology. In the next installment, we’ll cover some of the ways educators are brightening up their online courses.

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