1. Bringing up Concerns in Coaching Conversations
Are you an instructional or technology coach? Ever found yourself in a sticky conversation? How do you bring up concerns without risking the relationships you have built up? This post by Clint and Alyson Dowda shares how you can use a 4-step system to bring up concerns. The 4 steps are:
- I’m wondering…
- I’m concerned…
- I’m uncomfortable…
- We cannot go on until…
I think these are great ways to start a conversation to help steer teachers in the right direction without it being too subjective or personal.
What other ideas have you tried?
2. Making Feedback Valuable
Holly Painter tried a new way to provide feedback to her students that didn’t involve a grade or students not taking the time to really read the feedback. Instead of marking up assignments and telling students what is wrong, she highlighted parts with different colors. Yellow represents outstanding sentences, while green meant students need to look at additional feedback and fix errors. This put more of the learning on students and gives them a chance to correct issues and learn better for the next time.
Depending on what LMS you have, you may also be able to do this digitally. I couldn’t remember if the annotation feature in Canvas would allow for different colors and after testing it out found that it does. You do have to select the highlight tool and choose a color. If you keep highlighting text, it will stay the same color. However, if you choose a different tool and select the highlight tool again and select a different color, you can have multiple highlight colors on one assignment.
3. Copyright Free Video Additions
One of my favorite ways to assess students is to have them create videos! It makes students think critically on multiple levels as they have to 1) know what they need to include, 2) do some research to further explain, 3) write a script, and 4) create. But sometimes it’s hard to find additional footage, images, or music to add videos that are copyright free. So I’m happy Tony Vincent shared his go-to sites for copyright free items that can be added to videos.
4. Restoring Deleted Files/Pages in Canvas
After spending about 3 hours with Canvas support this weekend to restore a module that mysteriously vanished from a teacher’s Canvas course, I figured this would be good to share!! It probably won’t work for an entire module, but it definitely DOES work for quizzes, assignments, or pages.
5. Talking to Students About How Messy Thinking Really Is
What a powerful article! This reminds me of how in my design sessions at conferences, I like to walk participants through my process of designing, laying out my thinking process: how I put items in a certain order or why I don’t like something and try another route. Most people don’t know how complex it can be! I show them because they have never really seen anyone work through it. But while I’m working, they’re picking up strategies for their own process and understanding how items can be pieced together. It’s the same for students. They may need help thinking through the process.
What’s your favorite Weekly Find this week? Do you have a Find to share and think it should be featured? Leave a comment below!
You can see all Weekly Finds in this Wakelet collection.
Ms Priester EDU 