Unleash Your SuperPower!
Preparing for Tech Visits
The 4 C's for 21st Century Learning
As you think about your lesson plans for next week, here are a few suggestions to incorporate the 4 C's of 21st century skills, while respecting that many of you are preparing students for quarterly testing. Remember, it's not just about the laptops - our visitors are looking for great instruction, high levels of student engagement, and that "buzz" that comes from student-centered classrooms.
Collaboration and Communication
Can You Hear the BUZZ?
- Students work in teams to prepare their own study material Infographics to share with other class members or other teachers' classes (Try Piktochart)
- Pair classes in common content areas to create and play virtual games against each other using Jeopardy Labs, Quizizz or Socrative.
- Have students create a collaborative study guide using Google Docs to collaborate virtually with another teacher's class.
- Use student-led small groups to review key concepts in station-style rotations. Consider using Today's Meet for a backchannel.
- Have students create newsletters to share with parents about what they've learned - practicing their synthesizing skills and using images to support (cited properly of course!). Try Smore.
- Set up a Mystery Skype or Google Hangout with another classroom in our district (or another school in a neighboring district) or an outside expert in your content area. Let students develop questions to ask related to their studies, or teach a lower level grade about topics they are "experts" in. Click here for more information on Connecting Outside the Classroom.
CREATIVITY
Can you see the student empowerment and real-world audience connection?
- Give students a choice board of tools from our MMS Cool Tools Symbaloo to create a product that shows what they've learned in the past 9 weeks. Create a virtual gallery walk using QR codes collected in a Google Presentation (See this template for a starting point)
- Have students create arcade style games using Sploder that incorporate review questions or skills.
- Have students create tutorial or review videos with embedded quizzes using Zaption,Educanon, or EdPuzzle.
critical thinking
Can You See The Higher Level Thinking Skills?
- Have students review their data from tests / quizzes to identify a study plan based on their weakest standards. Have them track their data points in Google Sheets and graph their progress to date.
- Use a carousel activity to have students brainstorm key points for various topics. Have them take pictures of the carousel sheets, post it on a Padlet and comment with additional study resources for the topics. Here are instructions on how to do a carousel brainstorm.
- Create a Thinglink Image Slam using a brainstorming app like Popplet to create the background, then add touchpoints that link to various study resources for those topics.
- Make a QR Convo Cube with essential questions from your standards. Students roll the cube, scan the code and work together to answer the question. Here are directions to make a QR Question Cube - you can make them ahead of time or have students create them on Tuesday. QR Convo Cube Template
- Let student pairs work together to curate study resources, helpful videos and tutorials and infographics using Scoop It or Live Binders as an interactive digital notebook.