The GWAEA Digital Learning Team Blog

Let's Chat about Chalk Talk

3/1/2021

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Chalk Talk provides the opportunity for students to engage in silent conversations. Silent conversations allow students to take the time to consider new thoughts and ideas without being interrupted by a verbal classroom discussion. Instead, students share their comments by recording them, analog or digital. As students consider the comments and ideas of their classmates, they have the time to form deeper thoughts and share new ideas as the conversation grows. In conclusion, students share what was written aloud to the whole class and debrief about the experience.
Once again, when a new routine is introduced, students may need modeling and prompting to push their thinking and to provide meaningful additions to further the conversation. This may not be intuitive to students. Providing stems to support this might be beneficial.
This strategy easily lends itself to a digital learning environment and perhaps could even happen asynchronously as students become more independent, but always ending the routine with a synchronous share out and debrief. A digital tool, like Jamboard, allows for students to record ideas quickly and efficiently. We created a template to help you get started.

To create and use this template:
On the first frame, we added a sticky for the Chalk Talk prompt and additional thinking prompts to support student commenting.
We duplicated this frame for 5 groups. You can duplicate more frames if needed.
You will want to set the editing rights to ‘anyone with the link can edit’ when you share with your students.

Additional Resources:
Ask better questions with these questioning stems

~Gina and Mindy

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Think, Make, Innovate: Problem Solving Frameworks

2/26/2021

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How are you framing your #maker challenges? Learn about two ways to support your students through a maker challenge by putting it in the context of engineer design cycle or a design thinking setting. Each walk students through a problem solving & creating process that will help them to build skills that transfers to many different areas in this month's episode of Think, Make, Innovate.

Explore some resources to help you get started with the different problem solving frameworks we described in the video.

Engineering Design Cycle
Stages: Ask, Research, Imagine, Plan, Create, Test & Evaluate, Improve

Here are a few resources for each stage
Ask: QFT Process to encourage student questioning. 🎥Check out this short video of the different stages of the QFT Process.
Imagine: Brainstorming with a group goes much more smoothly if you check out these rules 🎥in this video from the d.school
Plan & Create: These two stages go hand-in-hand and it's a great way to get students to think about their plan on paper first before they start building. Consider their plan as the first stage of prototyping as explained 🎥in this video from the Whittlesea Tech School.
Test & Evaluate & Improve: Students will need feedback on their creation. They'll need feedback not only from the product itself and how it works, but also from others to help them to help them to clarify their ideas. Consider this 💻Ladder Feedback protocol to give feedback in a way that helps the creators see the value in their designs and ways they can make it stronger.

💻Explore Teach Engineering for more support and classroom ideas to get started.

Design Thinking
Stages: Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test & Share

Here are a few resources for each stage
Empathy: Empathy is such a strong stage of the design thinking process. Consider having students connect with who they are creating for by a creating an empathy map. Learn more about the process from the 📄Interaction Design Foundation.
Define: After connecting with who you are creating for, it's important to simplify and focus exactly what problem you are connecting with and how it will supports the user's needs by considering the empathy map. A POV statement does just that! Read more about the process from the 📄Interaction Design Foundation.
Ideate: Here's the reciprocal video from the Imagine Stage above, 🎥How Not to Brainstorm from the d.school. Sometimes students really need to see how not to, before they can realize how to do something.
Prototype: Building a small-scale model of what you'd envisioned is a great step for students. With design thinking, it really truly is about connecting, considering, and reminding yourself all the time about who you are creating for. Learn more about 📄Prototyping for Empathy from Interaction Design Foundation.
Test & Share: Trying out your prototype and getting feedback from the intended audience is key with design thinking. In a classroom situation, you may be having students create for each other or for an outside audience. We like the 💻I Like/I Wish feedback protocol from IDEO to get feedback to students about their designs.

Ready to Learn More? Check out 💻the d.School

Whatever you try, we'd love to know how it goes! Send us your photos or videos through social media and tag @dlgwaea or send an email to makerspace@gwaea.org and we will post them on our website, www.dlgwaea.org. And as always...

#HaveFunMaking

~Amber & Mindy

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+1 Thinking Routine to Power-Up Your Classroom

2/22/2021

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+1 Routine is very similar to the Take Note Routine that we highlighted in a previous post. This routine is used immediately following new learning or content. It requires students to recall and record key points from memory. Just like the Take Note Routine, students can focus on the in-the-moment learning instead of trying to decipher what the key points are during the learning. But this routine doesn’t stop there. These notes then become collaborative as students engage in a silent conversation in the following step. Students pass on their key points to be added to by other classmates and are then passed back to the original owner to be reviewed. Students can add additional notes from the notes of others if needed.

Anytime a new routine is introduced, it is best used synchronously as students become comfortable with the process. This strategy is easily modified for asynchronous environments. For example, students may read an online text or watch a video. Immediately following this learning, students recall and record the key points with a digital tool, like Jamboard. During a synchronous meeting, students can then review their frame in Jamboard and move to the next frame for the Add (+)1 step. This is a very flexible strategy with the ability to use synchronous and asynchronous learning within the different steps. Our suggestion would be to make sure due dates are very clear for students to make sure the silent conversation is timely.

To help you get started implementing this thinking routine in your classroom, we have created a Jamboard template. To use this template:

You will be forced to make a copy of this template. Make sure to rename for your purposes.
On the first frame, we added the recall prompt for initial thinking and the three prompts for Add (+)1 and a few additional instructions.
We duplicated this frame for 5 students. You can duplicate more frames if needed.
- We also added template frames for classes with over 19 students (Jamboards are limited to 20 frames) that divides each frame into two sections, if needed.
You will want to set the editing rights to ‘anyone with the link can edit’ when you share with your students.

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'Take Note' of this Thinking Routine

2/15/2021

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Take Note is not the traditional note-taking or outlining of a lecture you may initially connect with. Instead, it promotes students to actively engage in the learning with the opportunity to reflect, take notes, and engage with discussion after the learning. This thinking routine helps students develop their memory and focus during learning by NOT worrying about capturing all of the details in traditional lecture notes. It supports students in learning to use their brains more efficiently by inviting them to distill out the key points of the learning they are presented with.

This strategy will be best used synchronously when first being introduced and for a fair amount of time following the introduction. However, as students become more familiar with the routine, the learning could be done asynchronously. For example, students might watch a video prior to meeting for class, take note following the viewing, and come with notes to be shared in a class discussion. This independence is the goal and requires student understanding of the importance of the routine.

If using this strategy from a distance, a great tool for students to digitally record their notes could be Jamboard. We’ve created a template that could be used for students to share their notes and discuss the ideas of others.

To create and use this template:

We added the four questions to each frame for easy reference.
Each frame has 5 numbered squares that will be used by a different student in that group. If needed you can add more squares for your groups.
Frames were given different identifying colors to distinguish different groups
When students move to discuss the notes of their classmates, they will be assigned a different color frame (group) to discuss.
Each student will read aloud and respond to the square that matches the square number on which they recorded their notes.

Below you will find a table with suggestions of how to tweak the Take Note Thinking Routine to be more effective in alternative learning environments.

Click here to learn more about COVID Cohorts.

We would love to hear how you have used Take Note with your students! Share your story in the comments!

~Mindy and Gina

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Incorporating Thinking Routines into Instruction

2/4/2021

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What are Thinking Routines?

Thinking routines are essential for helping students develop a deep understanding of content. According to John Hattie’s research on student learning strategies, the incorporation of strategies that support “student metacognitive and/or self-regulated learning” have some of the highest effect sizes. Like any instruction, thinking routines should be intentionally planned for and modeled to students. The end goal of incorporating thinking routines into instruction is to help students develop a robust “tool-box” of thinking routines that can be selected and applied independently. Watch the follow video on thinking routines from Project Zero to learn more!

Why are Thinking Routines important?

Thinking Routines help students...

Build capacity to approach independent learning/tasks
Apply simple routines for deeper understanding
Build a community of learners
Apply thinking routines across all content areas

How can we make Thinking Routines work in a variety of learning environments?

These Thinking Routines can be a powerful tool in any type of learning environment. Although these routines were originally built for face-to-face learning, they are easily adjusted to fit hybrid, concurrent, and fully virtual classrooms. Over the next four weeks, we will be introducing four different thinking routines and demonstrating ways in which they can fit into our current educational models. Along the way we would love to hear from you and how you have incorporated thinking routines into your classroom.

~ Mindy Cairney and Gina Rogers
Digital Learning Consultants

Resources

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Think, Make, Innovate: Prompting Creativity

2/1/2021

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Creative prompts can help students focus their creativity and hone problem-solving skills. Creative prompts can be open-ended or more structured--depending on your maker goal. Check out the video below to learn more.

Digital Design Cards

You can find our Digital Design Card site here.

Defined Learning

If you are an educator within Grant Wood AEA, a Defined Learning account has been purchased for you and an account has been created! See below for details of how to log in!

Because we have already created an account associated with school Gmail address, you can click on Sign in with Google, choose your school email address from the prompt, and get started!

Solve in Time!

Take a minute to check out Solve In Time! Additionally you can find a great template for Remote Solving in Time Slides here.

We'd love to see what you make! Make sure to tag us with @DLGWAEA on social media or use our hashtag to share with us! And as always!

#HaveFunMaking

~Amber and Mindy

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<<Previous

Let's Chat about Chalk Talk

Think, Make, Innovate: Problem Solving Frameworks

+1 Thinking Routine to Power-Up Your Classroom

'Take Note' of this Thinking Routine

Incorporating Thinking Routines into Instruction

What are Thinking Routines?

Why are Thinking Routines important?

How can we make Thinking Routines work in a variety of learning environments?

Resources

Think, Make, Innovate: Prompting Creativity

Digital Design Cards

Defined Learning

Solve in Time!

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