#406 – Engaging Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What is the benefit of routine in a classroom?
• How can bell ringer activities improve classroom effectiveness?
• What are the benefits of exit tickets?
• What are your favorite bell ringer activities?
• What are your favorite exit ticket activities?

• 14 Effective Opening and Closing Routines for Teachers (Andrew Boryga via Edutopia)
• Ring Their Bells: A new Way to Deliver Bell Work (Lori Desautels via Edutopia)
• 30 Exit Ticket Ideas and Examples for Immediate Feedback (Elizabeth Mulvahill via We Are Teachers)

#406 Engaging Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets

AVID Open Access
38 min

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Rena Clark 0:00 When they come in and know exactly what to do and are getting started, that classroom feels so different than a room where everyone’s like, “I don’t know.”

Paul Beckermann 0:08 Sometimes it’s helpful just to call it out. You know, this is what happened. This is why we did everything, just to intentionally wrap it up. Otherwise, the end of the day is just about the bell.

Winston Benjamin 0:19 Knowing that there’s a routine allows them to not push that rock, that rock is stable at the top, and they can de-stress and focus on the learning space.

Rena Clark 0:30 The topic of today’s podcast is engaging bell ringers and exit tickets. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes that we can raise the bar for education. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:50 Welcome to Unpacking Education, the Podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark,

Paul Beckermann 1:00 I’m Paul Beckerman, and

Winston Benjamin 1:02 I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators, and

Paul Beckermann 1:06 we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 1:10 Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:15 Our quote for today is from Andrew Bourriga in his Edutopia article, “14 Effective Opening and Closing Routines for Teachers.” He says, “The book ends of class, the first few moments and the wrap up at the end, can transform all the material addressed in the middle.”

Rena Clark 1:37 Hmm, okay, what do we think about that? Do we agree?

Winston Benjamin 1:40 I agree with that, because that sets the stage. It preps the kids, believing, right? The way they come into class, they can be distracted, and then they don’t really want to take time to pay attention to the lesson or even the ending.

And just like packing up too early, as a Dean of Students right now, I see kids walking out of the classroom 15 minutes before the end of class, and you have this like, “Go back into the room.” But I think it definitely does transform how students feel. They matter in the moment and also can participate. So it changes the game for them in multiple ways.

Rena Clark 2:19 I bet you, Paul,

Paul Beckermann 2:21 he called it bookends of the class. And I’m thinking of kind of like a sandwich, right? So then I started thinking about food. It’s like a good meal. It’s like an appetizer at the beginning, and then leaving a review at the end, right?

You can wet their appetite when they come in and get them hungry for more, and then at the end, you give them a chance to rate the place, you know, “How did we do?” And the teacher is the chef in that sense, I guess, and lets you know where you can improve and help your customers come back the next day happy and ready for more or something like that.

Rena Clark 2:54 I like that. I like that analogy.

Rena Clark 2:58 All right. Well, we’re going to dig into this quite a bit deeper, because our topic for today, we’re going to dig into strategies for starting and ending our class periods, or for our elementary folks, maybe just starting and ending the school day. Or a lot of times we kind of have those segments, so starting and ending the segments with engaging, we call them bell ringers, exit tickets, warm up activities, transitions, all of those things.

So to get started, we’re going to talk about why the beginning of the day, why the start of class, is so important. And Winston alluded to it a bit already. Like, why is that so important? The way that we begin?

Winston Benjamin 3:45 I think the start of a class is so important. I think sometimes teachers forget to set students’ mental space, right? Sometimes you can do a quick warm-up, or just even check in with students, because they can have a previously bad classroom. And if a teacher isn’t aware of that moment, then they could be walking, having a chainsaw walk into their classroom.

So for two reasons, it’s like, it benefits the teacher if they can know where the students are coming from before the class starts, and also give the students a chance to set themselves and be prepared for being in a new room, a new space, a new engagement, so that can reset the students.

So I think sometimes the start is so important because it really gives the launching point or all those other keywords that we say. But I think it really can set the stage in several different ways that will benefit everyone.

Paul Beckermann 4:37 Yeah, I totally agree, Winston. It sets the tone for everything that’s going to come. I mean, if students come in and there’s like a lackadaisical start, or nobody knows what’s going on, I mean, that sets up the anticipation that nothing’s really going to happen, you know, or the teacher doesn’t know what’s going to happen, even though I’m sure they do. But if they come in there and there’s this mental readiness, they just

Paul Beckermann 5:00 know when they come into class, they need to engage in whatever the activity is that the teacher has set up. There’s this routine every day. There’s just something that they’re going to do, and they just instantly know when they walk in the classroom, it’s time to get to it.

And you know, you mentioned something earlier, too, Winston, that we don’t know where the kids are coming from. I found as a classroom teacher that it was those students who had the most disruptive lives who appreciated those anticipatory activities the most. It gave them some certainty, some routine. It is a classroom management strategy as well, but it just gave them—they just knew they had something to do. They didn’t have to sit there all by themselves, having nobody talk to them, and feeling kind of like not knowing what to do. There’s just so many benefits, really. Yeah.

Rena Clark 5:50 It’s that. It’s that transitional piece, and you can feel it. Think outside the classroom, like you go into different spaces, and I don’t know, I get that feeling of like when you walk into different space, like going out dancing, and there’s music and people moving. You’re in that mode. If you, if every—if you’re at the dentist office and everyone’s silent and looking at the fish, well, you act differently.

So I’m just, you know, it really transitions students into that learning mode. So as Paul, if you have an established routine, and you know, we’re here to learn, it also helps establish expectations.

And I know, and same with actually everyone here, we have the luxury to be in a lot of different classrooms, and there is a huge difference in classrooms where there are, first of all, where students are greeted at the door, like made to feel welcome. But not only that, when they come in and know exactly what to do and are getting started, that classroom feels so different than a room where everyone’s like, “I don’t know,” have no idea what I’m doing, and it takes 10 minutes to get started.

And as you said, it also just puts an emphasis on what’s important.

Winston Benjamin 6:59 And if a teacher has a good intro routine, they can get a lot of things that they need to get done, like they can [take] attendance, like getting things organized, passing paper around. All of that provides so much more time for the teacher to be able to do their job. But I think sometimes we forget the importance of that routine, as you all were saying.

Paul Beckermann 7:23 And that administrative stuff takes forever. Absolutely, it takes forever. Let’s say it takes five minutes for each class or part of the day, as Rena said for elementary. If that—that’s 25 minutes in a week, it’s almost a half an hour. I mean, that’s a lot of time to recoup and make into productive energy.

Rena Clark 7:45 And I guess that we can just kind of transition, because we talked about the beginning, and we can talk a little bit. It goes back to the quote, that sandwich. Why is the end of class just as equally important?

We don’t want them 15 minutes out early, wandering around, or I always say, even in elementary, like, “Okay, yeah, there might be recess, but we don’t want you getting ready 10 minutes beforehand. We want to learn right up to the last second.”

And why is it just so important? And not just learn, but also, what are those routines to have in place? And why is that so important?

Paul Beckermann 8:22 And you know, it’s kind of interesting, because that closure, it can serve so many different purposes, right? I mean, it can be that check-in at the end so the teacher can see how the students did, give the students a chance to process what happened for the day.

And I don’t think we should underestimate the intentional bringing together of all the things that were learned during the class. Because I even see that in professional learning with adults. Sometimes it’s helpful just to call it out. You know, “This is what happened. This is why we did everything.” And you can do that in a Q&A kind of a format too, but just to intentionally wrap it up. Otherwise, the end of the day is just about the bell, absolutely.

Rena Clark 9:01 Yeah, being intentional, because just, even just teaching—and I’m telling you, like, in math especially, I was guilty of this—like we’re working and we just do it right up to the bell. We might be working till the end. But that is different than closing it up and summarizing, getting insight.

We’ll talk more about, like, exit ticket, getting information to inform me of what we’re doing next, what went well, summarizing our thinking and learning. And often that is what we cut the most. And often that is the most important learning that can happen in the whole day.

Winston Benjamin 9:38 For me, it’s like, I was never good at remembering the beginning or ends, like the topics that we were doing. Like, I never remembered the transition between them unless the teacher gave me the time to stop and say, “Okay, this is what I need to walk away with right now,” so that the next day I have a starting point, right? If it all goes all together, it’s like, “Where does this session, or where does this lesson or this day begin or end?”

And I think sometimes that also gives students difficulties in identifying what they need support with, because they’re not really sure what question came up, right? So it really allows, as you said, Paul, reflection, but also an opportunity to internalize the work, like, “What was the purpose of what I just did today?” I think sometimes we miss that.

And even for me, I think the closing out is so good because I’m going to make a transition. I love cliffhangers. And I could remember every single time any cartoon that I was watching if it ended on a cliffhanger, and it gave me a reason to come back the next week, I was ready, right?

And I think sometimes teachers forget to give kids cliffhangers. Like, “Let me draw more about this. Let me find—I want more of this,” right? Like, how do you give that excitement to them to say, “Oh, what’s coming up next? Maybe I can guess. Maybe I can figure out the next move that we make,” right? To give that anticipation of class and learning and ability to be like, “I know what’s coming. I’m smart,” right? I think sometimes that we forget to give students that—that belief in themselves through the end of class.

Paul Beckermann 11:26 That’s kind of a cool perspective, Winston, because, in a sense, your ending of your class is your next introduction.

Winston Benjamin 11:32 Exactly, exactly. Like the bridges, right? What are those bridges for students? Because if they don’t have a bridge, then they’re not going to be excited to run across, because learning is terrifying. Like, the gap between what I know and what I need to know is absolutely terrifying. But if you give a person an opportunity to know that there is a bridge and there’s a walkway and that they’re safe, right? That really allows them to run across and trust you to try to learn. So I think that’s an important piece that we forget to help students do: is like, cross that gap of misunderstanding.

Rena Clark 12:13 I love that, and we’re going to dig in and give some real examples, but I want to talk a little bit about just establishing routine, because this doesn’t just magically happen.

And I know I was the person—this is back before, you know, every kid had a computer, but even now—and I would make my kids practice. We would take 10-15 minutes passing in our papers. We would do it and do it until we could do it in like 10 seconds in a quick manner. That’s just an example of one routine, but we did it that one day, and it saved me.

I calculated one year, because when I finally decided, it saved me so many minutes, which led to hours of instructional time, because I set that routine up and I made them—I’m like, “Nope, we’re going to practice again. Nope, we’re going to practice again.” And they’re like, they got it down. They knew exactly what to do. Put it in that period’s, you know, whatever. Back then, when I had, like, the basket for that period or subject here, elementary can—and it, you know, they can do it from the youngest age to the oldest.

And even if they’re older, I would say more kindergarteners are almost better listeners than the 12th graders. Sometimes ninth graders, it’s like, they need to practice. They need the structure. You need to be specific. But spending time up front ultimately saves you. What is—was it? Pam always says, like, “Go slow to go fast.” And this is a prime example of, I think, when that is so necessary. Sorry, I jumped right in, but y’all have more to add on about routines and establishing those routines.

Paul Beckermann 13:57 Now, that’s great that you were so intentional about it. And I love your point about kindergarteners versus 12th graders. I was working with a 12th grade teacher, and she was trying to teach her students to do blended learning and station rotation things. She just assumed she wasn’t going to need to really tell them how to do it, because they’re almost like adults in the working world. They should be able to figure this out, right? But no, they needed to be—I don’t know if ‘trained’ is the right word—but they needed to learn the routine of how to do this new thing. And that’s any of us at any age. You know, [it doesn’t just] magically happen.

Right. I don’t know if Harry Wong is still a thing or not, but he had the First Days of School book, and it was all about routines and procedures and things like that, and how that sets you up for not only classroom management, but efficiency, even relationships, really, because there’s a trust in that routine and in that—you know what’s going to happen each day. There’s a confidence that this is going to be a safe place for me.

Winston Benjamin 15:02 Absolutely. Like for me, I think routines are the easiest way to establish culture in a classroom, because the kids know what’s expected, and they follow. It’s like the myth of Sisyphus, right? With the kid who has to push a rock up a hill every moment to be focused in the classroom. Knowing that there’s a routine allows them to not push that rock; that rock is stable at the top, and they can de-stress and focus on the learning space, right?

So just having that opportunity for routines means that, as you said, Paul, a student who has a troubled background or is just dealing with life can really benefit from knowing A, B, and C, right? The lack of ambiguity really supports students in those spaces. So I really think that that’s valuable.

But another thing that a routine does is it gives students something that they can be proud of, because they know that their job is coming, right? Like, “I’m the board cleaner. I’m going to make the cleanest board possible.” Everybody else—that kid is going to tell everybody, “You better pay attention, because I want my job. I want to do my job,” right?

So just that opportunity to feel that they have some sort of ownership and participation in the classroom through those routines really gives students a chance to say that, “I am a member of something,” and I can say no to other students to say, “This is a learning space.” So I think that gives a lot to the routine.

And just like again, like how I come into my house, I do the same thing, and it makes me feel comfortable that I’m home, right? And sometimes we forget that doing that same thing for children in classes really allows them to be able to say, like, “I can put that stress away and put my learning cap on.”

Rena Clark 16:52 I love that. Well, let’s get into some specifics. Now we’ve kind of given a lot of theory, philosophy, some ideas, but let’s just get into some—let’s just share some of our personal favorites. We’re not saying these are the best. These are just our favorite bell ringers. There’s so many out there.

And the nice thing is, with this team, we got a perspective, and we pretty much cover all the grades, K-12, and then actually even dabbled, like Paul, even some college, so we have it covered. So what are some of our favorite bell ringers?

Winston Benjamin 17:28 So for me, one of my favorite bell ringers is a—we use it in the state of Washington in our Danielson training—and the practice is “My Favorite No.” And it’s in a math class, and it’s an opportunity for the teacher to—their “Do Now”—the teacher gets the chance to have the student review the work, but after they do the “Do Now,” they teach and collect the information, and then select the answer that is the most wrong but provides the most learning.

Now, even if you, the kid who got it wrong, you know you’re valuable, because the teacher says, “This is my favorite thing. This has something to benefit and teach everyone.” So that gives students an opportunity to even take the risk of doing the “Do Now,” even if they have it wrong, so creating a low-stress, low-worry area, as well as providing students the opportunity to say that “I’m valuable,” is one of my favorite welcome [activities].

So you could do that in any class, not just the math or science class, and that could be like an easy way to bounce from last session to this session. “What do you remember? What do you don’t remember?” And that misunderstanding could be your way to make everybody more clear on the work. So I really love “My Favorite No.”

Paul Beckermann 18:49 I haven’t heard of that one; that’s a new one for me.

Rena Clark 18:53 It also lifts up the fact that even though you got it wrong, you—there was still, like, good things about it. Like you were on your way towards the standard, or you had to point out what you did well.

Winston Benjamin 19:07 Absolutely.

Rena Clark 19:11 And you don’t put the child’s name on “My Favorite No,” and a lot of times it’s like from other periods, like you grab ones from other classes, sure.

Paul Beckermann 19:18 And I always tried to have something that tied in with my learning objective for the day, but I didn’t want it to be like overly cumbersome or workload-ish. You know, you only got so much time in the day, and you don’t want to be having to spend, you know, another half hour every day trying to come up with bell ringers.

So if you can find something that’s sort of a routine in itself, like in creative writing, there was always a writing prompt, for instance, so they would always be writing to start the day. In a literature class, they’d start with maybe five or 10 minutes of reading their book of choice, and then we’d be doing something with that later on. Or another English class, maybe we would do a grammar activity, like a quiz question or something like a grammar problem, you know, something like that.

I know a history teacher once that I was talking to. He would take historical photos and he would put them in Google Slides, but then he would cover quadrants of it, so, like, maybe only one out of eight quadrants was showing, so it would only show part of a picture. So that the bell ringer activity was, “What’s going on in this picture?” And the students had to write about it or whatever, and reflect on it.

And then when class actually started, he’d uncover the picture, and they’d see, like, they’d say, “Well, I didn’t see that coming. You know? I only saw this.” And it was really a great lesson in perspective, right? If you only have so much information, you only have such a small perspective. And those things don’t have to take a lot of time, but they can really engage kids. And those are just a few of my favorites.

Rena Clark 20:52 Yeah, and I think that’s key, is that we’ll give you like some [that] maybe take more time, but it doesn’t have to take a lot, and it can be things that are consistent. Maybe you do something different, but it can be the same thing. You know, “Get it in and get in your book and read.” Okay, well, that’s not hard to set up. Maybe it’s more of, “How do I choose a book? How do I make sure I get in my book?”

But similar to “My Favorite No” is the “Best Thing.” And kids might pull out something they did the day before and they’re just sharing with their neighbor the best thing that they did, or the thing they think they did well. And so then, or they share it with a group, and groups like, they can just point out what they think is the best thing from the work example. So then every kid gets to have, like, something shared that they’re doing well. So it’s like, “What’s the best thing?” because everyone’s doing good at something.

I think this one’s kind of fun, similar to that puzzle you’re talking about: “Two Truths and a Lie.” So you give three statements about the day’s topics, and they have to identify which one’s truth and what’s one’s false. Or they guess, like, what is really going to be happening today, and they can write about it or talk about it, just really quick, kind of a fun one for them to jump into.

And then, similarly, an “Aim a Meme,” or an image analysis. And they guess, like, what’s coming a little bit. But I like Winston’s idea of, maybe you show that at the end for the cliffhanger of what’s coming the next day. So I hadn’t thought about that before. I’m thinking even guessing, and then, like,

Winston Benjamin 22:23 That’s the thing that makes them want to be there, even guessing.

Rena Clark 22:26 Yeah, you have the “Silent Debate,” which I love because of the quiet, but, and they can do this all digitally. You post that question, which you want them to reflect on, or maybe it’s a question for what’s upcoming, or you’re just trying to gain knowledge about how they feel that day. It could be a question about anything, and students write their response on a shared doc with a sticky note. And they’re just then you have it really quick and visually, maybe you’re doing a word cloud.

Something just quick for the littles, if you—I’ve seen this a lot, even if you don’t have, like, a smart, interactive board, but I’ve seen it with those touch screens where the kids just come in and they go and use their finger and they put like, click on the emoji. It’s kind of like at the—you pick the emoji of how you’re feeling that day, and then you get a real good check in, like, after recess, “How is everyone feeling?” Because sometimes they’re good. And everyone gets to share. They just do a quick, like, check emoji, put that up. “This is where I am in my space right now. How ready am I to learn? Or how did I feel about what we did yesterday?”

So you could just do like, a quick check in with the littles that is picture based, and they’re not writing.

And the last one—I have a lot—but we’ve talked about before: Flipped. So if you have your video of your lesson, or your five-minute video of you for them to watch while you’re going and doing your attendance and everything. And that’s kind of the instructional piece that everyone gets. And maybe you have it with questions or whatnot, and you have those videos saved, and then you can use them again and again, but you can also just have them watch that flipped video. So it’s another one you could do.

Paul Beckermann 24:02 I love that, because then you can get right into the application, the deeper level stuff.

Rena Clark 24:07 Yep, it’s no waste, no wasting time, like, just right into it. All right, so then we’re going to flip that and go talk about exit tickets.

Paul Beckermann 24:19 I see what you did there, Rena.

Rena Clark 24:26 So some of our favorite exit tickets.

Winston Benjamin 24:29 One of mine that I’ve seen that a teacher has done, and yeah, it takes a little bit of time in a routine, is: “Write tomorrow’s Do Now, or a class intro.” What’s the question going to be for tomorrow? Prepared like so, or even like, “If you had to write a quiz, where would one or two questions be for today?”

And that’s a really good way of helping the students really think about what they’ve mastered. And again, kids are mean, so they’re going to ask the hardest question possible to try to fool everyone else. So I think that way you can check to see their understanding depending on the level of questions that they’ve written, right, the nuance of it.

So that it gives you two ways of checking in on their understanding, and also ways to do a little less work. [You] need to use one of those questions, and we reframe it to help students get in the next day. So I’ve seen that as a really good way of doing it.

Also a “Stand Up Meeting,” where a teacher has the students do a stand up meeting and then share, or share where they are: What was their struggle? What would they need to do next to be able to get ahead? Or what were their challenges that made them not able to focus as much? So those are also some really good things that I’ve seen.

Paul Beckermann 25:51 I like to take advantage of digital if I can, just because it automatically compiles the results, and you can just scan it real quickly, because time is of the essence, in the exit tickets, too, right?

So it could be a quick three-point quiz. It could be students putting something on a scale that just aggregates, and you can kind of see where the students are on average on a scale.

But I would add, it doesn’t have to be tech either. I actually had an experience with a science teacher at a high school, and one of his building leaders was kind of pushing him and saying, “You have to do a digital exit ticket.” And he’s like, “But what I’m doing works. The kids are working a problem on paper, and I can flip through these papers in literally 30 seconds. I know how the kids did. It’s working for me.”

I would say, if it’s working, don’t force the tech in, but the tech can provide some efficiencies if you’re looking for a quick and efficient way to scan that feedback.

Rena Clark 26:52 I mean, you have to be careful with student names and stuff. So I always give my students numbers, but like, and not their student number—we’re not talking about that—but you can also just now take quick pictures of that stuff, and upload it in AI, and it can give you a synthesize a little bit for you as well, if you’re trying to figure out like groups or where you want to go as a whole class. Not so much for the individual, but you can think about how you might want to group students, or what you want to focus on.

But I sometimes found paper much easier myself, just depending on what you do, a bunch of sticky notes or if they’re literally just putting dots or paper, kind of like they could digitally, but just on a meter on their way out. I have a parking lot chart or whatever. I found that to be easier sometimes. So doesn’t have to be digital. I think that’s fine.

My favorite, probably one of my all-time favorites, is the “3-2-1”: three things they learned, two questions they have, one thing they found interesting. I love that one. It gives a lot of feedback, minimal prompt.

I always like to, I don’t necessarily if we’re talking about I just want them to summarize what they did for the day, is they turn and talk, maybe, or they’re sharing, but “Explain it to a five year old.” So I want you to take what we did today, put it in your own words, maybe write, but then you’re going to turn, you’re going to tell someone, you’re going to pretend like you’re explaining it to a five year old. We just summarize what we did like you’re talking to a sibling or a little kid. Now I wouldn’t have my kindergarteners because they are five, but you get the idea.

Paul Beckermann 28:27 Yeah, what if you had a four year old?

Rena Clark 28:29 Yeah, it’s mostly for my middle, you know, my older kids. And we used to say, like, “Tweet it.” You can only use so many words. Kids wouldn’t even know what that is anymore.

Now I’m like, “Oh, if you were making a social media ad on TikTok, and you get 20 seconds. What would you say in that 20 seconds to summarize, what would your TikTok video say, or what would your ad say, or what would your hashtag be for the day?”

So and then some of my visual learners, you know, we’ve done depending on the subject, or, you know, math, or whatever we could sketch it. Or I, like Winston said, like “Headline News.” So if I were writing an article about today, what would the headline be for you?

And the other thing I always say is, I always love this one is, “What could I do better?” So I want you to tell me, what could your teacher have done better today to make this learning better for you? And it is very interesting, sometimes the feedback, like things you never realized were a problem, like, “Don’t use the red marker on the board because it’s horrible.” Or things you just didn’t realize were even a problem. And you’re like, “Well, I can do that.”

And then always, yeah, just checking in. Because I’m always like, “What does data say that informs my instruction for tomorrow, to make it better for kids, to really improve their learning?”

Paul Beckermann 29:47 And if you don’t need it specific, you can even do what—the red, green, yellow light kind of a thing. Are you a red light today? No disaster. Green light. I’m ready to go. You know, the yellow light. At least you can get a little bit of [information]. You could do that with a thumbs up or a 1-2-3 on the hand.

Rena Clark 30:03 Yeah, just what do you need? What information are you trying [to gather] and for what purpose? Yes, I always feel like it needs to have a purpose. Because I feel like throughout the lesson, you can do a lot of formative assessment, but if, depending on the class, a lot of times I’d have them do a quick math problem, and that would help me set up for the next day of what we need to do. But I didn’t need that every time.

Paul Beckermann 30:30 Well, you know what does have a purpose? Our toolkit.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 30:34 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? Toolkit. Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 30:46 All right. Toolkit time. We’ve been kind of dropping tools the whole episode, but let’s drop some more. Rena, why don’t you go first?

Rena Clark 30:55 All right, I had a couple in here. My favorite one that’s been fun that my teachers have been using a lot in my district, especially, I feel like for starting a unit or starting the day, is the setting up. We particularly use School AI, and so we like their chat bot, which is Sidekick.

Now, for the free version, you can have 75 uses per day, which gets you, like, two classes if you don’t have the paid version. So just know that there’s that limit, but it’s lovely. You can make your chat bot, and what I love about it is it will summarize in real time. It will give you feedback. It’ll let you know very, very quickly. And you can set it up with all kinds of parameters on whatever subject, and kids seem to really engage well with it. So I think that one’s really fun.

Winston Benjamin 31:51 I think I’m thinking about something you said earlier, about in your conversation about safety and how routines allow for safety. It’s like a classroom management thing.

Like, what is it that you—and it’s low tech. You don’t always have to do high tech. Just say hi to kids. How are you welcoming them in the room? What are you doing at the door? Like, what are the simple things that you don’t even need a lot of high tech? It’s as simple. “Hey, y’all, welcome to the class. These are my expectations for us today,” and re-establish the expectation, because each class they have to shift and switch.

So I like what Paul was saying about safety and routines and how that allows for better management. So I would add that to my toolkit about not even high tech—there’s a low tech, “Hey, how y’all doing?”

Paul Beckermann 32:38 Low tech’s fine. Low tech, no tech. All those work. I mean, I’m kind of hanging on Rena’s Sidekick one too, because I think the AI chat bots, the custom chat bots, have a ton of potential. And you can go in there and you can program a custom one for the students in School AI or Magic School, whatever your tool of choice is.

And like Rena said, there’s some limits on how many uses you get, but you can do a custom chat bot that’s tailored to your subject for the day, and then students can have a conversation with that chat bot to kind of process the learning from the day. And then, like Rena said, you, your teacher, can kind of get a summary feedback on that that I think is going to continue to become a big game changer for teachers, because it’s going to allow us to clone ourselves in some ways. It’s not going to replace us by any means, but it should turbo charge us a little.

And if you want to go not quite—if you’re not ready for the AI scene, even a tool as simple as Socrative, it has a built-in exit ticket right in there. All you got to do is click “go,” and students get a code, they put it in, they answer the questions, and you get a scale to see how the kids are doing.

Rena Clark 33:49 Yep, there’s a lot of those built in.

Winston Benjamin 33:52 Yeah. I think that’s a great thing for us to remember, is that there’s a beginning and an end, and guess what we’re doing right now.

Transition Music 34:01 It’s time for that one thing. Time for that one thing. It’s that one thing.

Winston Benjamin 34:12 Time for that one thing to support our ending. So what’s the one thing that’s going on in your mind? What are you still thinking through about this conversation?

Paul Beckermann 34:24 I think I’m going to hang on, just be intentional about the beginning and end. I think that intentionality goes a long way, and for all the purposes and reasons that we’ve talked about today, be intentional about starting and ending strong, because that does strengthen the middle.

Winston Benjamin 34:42 Rena, what are you thinking?

Rena Clark 34:44 Well, I was thinking we talked a lot about beginning and routine setting this up, but I was thinking, even in my own experience with my own students, none of these go if you don’t have good relationships with your kids. If you don’t create that, but having those in place helps create the class culture, helps set it up, and that is part of it.

So you could, you know, serves a dual purpose. But as Winston [said], like greeting those students, showing them that you respect their time, like that they matter enough that you are prepared. You have these things ready. I think that is huge, and that you put so much value on their learning.

And it’s not that I put value on the math or the reading, it’s actually I put value on you, your time, and how important it is for you. It’s all about how you frame and talk about it. And again, it’s back to those good relationships. You have to have those. But this can—you can help build relationships, and you need them to make it go.

Paul Beckermann 35:44 I love that you said that they intertwine together, because your bell ringer can be a relational capacity thing, right? I mean, it can be the mystery student of the day. Maybe the first day of class, everybody has to write up all these things about themselves, and you just put a different one up on the screen to start each day, and the kids have to figure out who that is. I mean, you’re building capacity amongst each other, right there. So many ways.

Winston Benjamin 36:09 Absolutely.

Winston Benjamin 36:09 And the thing that I—that I’m still thinking about, as we all been stating, all of this goes to support the middle, the middle of the classroom, the actual instruction, the actual doing of the work. The beginning and the end makes the middle stronger.

And if you are intentional about your beginning and your end, then your students will do the middle work, right? Like, as you say, Rena, that they’ll do work for you because they know they’re safe and they have a relationship with you.

So I think that’s such an important part, is like, yes, we’ve been talking about the ends, the bookends, but as I quote in the beginning said that if we don’t think about the ends, we won’t have a good middle. The students won’t do the work. So let’s get them to do the work.

Rena Clark 36:55 It’s purposeful. We don’t just do things to do things. Everything does have a purpose, and kids know the difference, right? So I think that is—that’s it. Well, y’all, that’s the bell, just like a great exit ticket. We hope we’ve left you thinking, so we will hopefully talk to y’all next time.

Winston Benjamin 37:22 To be continued.

Paul Beckermann 37:24 Cliffhanger.

Rena Clark 37:27 Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 37:30 We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 37:44 We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education, and

Rena Clark 37:49 remember, Go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 37:53 Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 37:54 You make a difference.