This week's Spotlight on Success highlights Bielefield Elementary School's own dynamic duo Marty Skelly and April Baehr. Last week, we asked for members of Middletown Public Schools to tell us about stand out teachers who demonstrate successful practices in their hybrid learning environment and how they creatively integrate technology into their classrooms. It took less than 30 minutes to get a glowing recommendation about this pair of fourth grade teachers. We contacted Marty and April and asked them to reflect on the question below. After being humbly surprised by this much deserved recognition, this is how they responded (and demonstrated why the spotlight should shine brightly upon them!): Do you have any words of wisdom or tips for your colleagues on how to be successful in this hybrid environment and/or integrating technology with your students? Marty & April's Response: We would start by saying one word: KISS, (Keep It Simple Silly) followed by the statement; “Don’t be afraid to take risks!” My partner (April) and I had been using a variety of technology for years. We had been using Google Classroom for many assignments and our students were somewhat comfortable with it. All that changed on March 13th and every day since has been a learning experience. Our successes have come through many mistakes, reflections, and adjustments. We came up with a system that has worked well for the students as well as for us.This includes a Padlet we created with our Weekly schedule and linked it into Google Classroom as material. This is the only link students have to go to because we have linked all assignments, classrooms, and resources through the Padlet. Basically, we are using Google Classroom as a clearinghouse for assignments and keeping it simple for the students to find assignments with ease by not having to navigate around the Google Classroom unnecessarily. We have set controls to eliminate excessive alerts, notifications, and emails, etc that overload our inboxes and platforms that significantly reduce the amount of time spent going through the digital clutter. We have also eliminated the student chat and post features to prevent possible time consuming negative cyber situations while promoting digital citizenship through other more controlled means of student digital interactions on platforms like Zoom and Jamboard. We have been using live Zoom meetings while keeping the meeting open and available for students to be in constant communication with us throughout the school day. To expand upon the theme of we are all one class no matter where we are sitting, and to promote educational equality, the daily Zoom meeting affords all students access to the classroom teacher and peers for synchronous and asynchronous learning every day. The access to breakrooms has been tremendously successful in increasing student engagement and accountability and providing frequent opportunities for discourse, student-led learning opportunities, small groups, conferencing, and socially and emotionally development. In addition, we use ClassDojo as a means of regular communication with families. This is especially helpful when students are having technical difficulties with accessing Zoom, providing parents with a direct line of communication to us to help troubleshoot issues so that valuable instruction time is not lost over simple fixes. Although every day we face new challenges while embracing the dynamic change in our role as educators, we have found these strategies in this hybrid environment that enable us to successfully integrate technology with our students. Do you have a colleague that should be recognized for their success integrating technology into instruction or implementing successful hybrid learning practices? Please let us know by emailing Michelle Gohagon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
MPSiTechWelcome to the Middletown Public Schools Instructional Technology Site MPS iTech Newsletter
Newsletter Vol 1, no 8
Newsletter Vol 1, no 7 Newsletter Vol 1, no 6 Newsletter Vol 1, no 5 Newsletter Vol 1, no 4 Newsletter Vol 1, no 3 Newsletter Vol. 1, no 2 Newsletter Vol 1, no 1 Archives
May 2021
Categories
All
Who we follow: |