When teaching remotely, engaging students in assessments—whether in a live or self-paced environment—can be challenging. This week’s podcast episode shares digital strategies and tech tips for giving students voice and choice from the first days in their virtual classroom so that their creativity can bring learning assessments to life.
Our Digital Learning Specialists share tips for how to think about the first day, first week, and first month of your virtual classroom, where you go slow to go fast. Take the time to work with your students to establish norms, practice using the technology, and build routines together so that when it is time to pivot to a new teaching model, everyone feels prepared.
Below, you will find resources and tips shared during the podcast to support your virtual teaching goals.
Start small. Think about your highest leverage norms, tools, and learning goals and be intentional about providing time and space to let students practice and give students a voice in developing these routines.
Rena Clark, Host and Digital Learning Coach, Renton School District, WA
Resources
In this week’s episode, we discuss the following strategies and resources that are available on AVID Open Access for you to explore in more depth.
Set Your Students Up for Success
- Get Started With Live Remote Teaching: The articles in this collections will guide you through the process of setting up and delivering a live remote-learning experience.
- Get Started With Self-Paced Remote Teaching: If you are facilitating asynchronous learning, your work will largely happen before and after your students engage with online content. The articles in this collection will provide strategies for setting up and delivering your online self-paced learning.
- Tip! Engage, Explore, and Explain: Consider implementing an Engage, Explore, and Explain lesson design model. Begin by getting students interested in the topic (Engage). Then, provide opportunities for them to discover more (Explore). Finally, have them explain what they found (Explain).
- Tip! 5 for 50: Take 5 days at the start of the school year to build relational capacity and set norms that will benefit your students 50 days down the road.
- Teach the technology and routines in the first weeks of school.
- While technology is not the ultimate goal, it is the means to accomplish our learning goals.
Virtual Assessment Strategies
- Teach Remote Lessons and Assess Student Progress: This collection offers strategies and tools for the instructional phase of remote teaching and learning.
- Reimagine Summative Assessments for Increased Student Agency in Remote Learning: Provide students with voice and choice in demonstrating their learning with strategies, such as models, simulations, and TED-Ed Student Talks.
- Tip! Waterfall Chat: During synchronous sessions, pose a question or item for consideration and have students jot down their thoughts in the chat. Give a signal or visual cue when it’s time for everyone to submit their response. This strategy provides students with think time and alleviates the pressure of having to respond quickly.
Digital Tools
Let us help you look for new ways to engage students online. We share tips for the following digital tools in this week’s episode. Each digital tool review in AVID Open Access includes a takeaway tip sheet and overview video.
Book Creator: When working with younger students, it can be challenging to help them demonstrate their learning virtually. Book Creator helps young learners create digital texts, where they add text and draw to illustrate their understanding. While great for young learners, Book Creator is an easy-to-use tool that’s appropriate for grades K–12.
Edpuzzle: This web application helps teachers make video viewing more interactive, allowing them to add voice-over and different types of questions to guide students through their mental processing of the material.
- Tip! Virtual Stop and Jot:
- Create virtual activities where you can stop students every 3–5 minutes to have them react or respond to their learning.
- Edpuzzle can help support your students in their processing by having questions appear every couple of minutes that ask them to summarize or explain their learning.