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Teachers & Tech

Highlighting the Work of Cornell Teachers, February 2021

Teachers &TechHighlighting the Work of Cornell Teachers, February2021

Cornell teachers have had a busy first semester! Read on to see what they've been up to.

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Some of What's New This Year

  • 8 staggered cycles offer teachers a new start date every month
  • Shared Teacher Innovation Plans help the coach and teacher stay on the same page
  • Teachers can choose to meet virtually or in-person
  • Post-cycle follow-ups assist in driving change in practice and offer sustained coaching support
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Ms. Dunning

For her 7th grade math students, Ms. Dunning has been working hard to figure out the best way to incorporate a few daily problems that focus on foundational skills. After several iterations, she has found Desmos to be the perfect tool for this, allowing her and her students to utilize an easy equation editor or, if needed, sketch things out. She can even upload images for her students to reference. Desmos makes it easy for her to see student work whether they are in class together or remote. How awesome that Ms. Dunning found a tool to incorporate into her class' daily routine!

Mrs. Del Greco

Our youngest learners' needs can be very different from those of their older counterparts, and many tech tools that are widely used weren't necessarily designed with the little ones in mind! Mrs. Del Greco has learned how to bring the power of Seesaw to her classroom so her students can practice content and demonstrate their learning in a more intuitive way. She can create assignments and even record herself reading the instructions. Students write or draw over a background image, they create their own pictures, and they can even record themselves talking alongside their work or practicing reading. She is particularly excited about the prospect of students using Seesaw to read/listen to directions for an offline activity, and after the students complete the offline activity, they can return to Seesaw to upload a photo or video with them showing their work and even explaining it. Mrs. Del Greco plans to continue learning how to leverage all that Seesaw offers. We are sure that as more teachers continue to use Seesaw in their lessons, students will benefit from a tech tool that is easy to use and that helps make learning fun and engaging.
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A Seesaw activity from Mrs. Del Greco
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A kindergartener's Seesaw entry
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Mr. Dean

It is always interesting to see the creative ways in which teachers use the tools that are available to them. Seeing how Mr. Dean uses Google Meet during in-person elementary classes can remind us to think outside the box. Mr. Dean often has his students open Google Meet during part of the class. He asks them to respond to questions that come up in discussion by using the chat feature. There are so many benefits to this, including giving some quieter students a voice, letting them process each others' responses by being able to read them, and keeping them really engaged for the duration of a lesson. Mr. Dean even encourages emojis at times to add an extra element of fun for the students and also to support some of our youngest students. It is easy to see why students ❤️ his class this year!

Mrs. O'Neil

Skills like communication and collaboration may not come to mind when you think of math class, but Mrs. O'Neil certainly recognizes the benefits of student being able to articulate their thought process and work together toward a common goal. In order to collaborate effectively, she knows that her students also need to be able to communicate effectively. To begin working on this, each student received a problem to solve independently. They recorded videos of themselves solving their problems on Flipgrid, utilizing Flipgrid's writing tools to "write" on screen. Then, students who received the same math problems as each other watched and followed along with their classmates' videos. They compared them to their own in terms of the solution and also the process of solving. Students were able to point out what about their friends' videos helped them learn. Keeping these points in mind, students then paired up to work collaboratively on a problem using Jamboard, Google's whiteboarding tool. Students could work together while staying socially distanced. Though it was challenging for many to collaborate nonverbally since they weren't physically next to each other, they still ended up solving together, and felt proud that they could "communicate" and work together even with constraints in place. Mrs. O'Neil continues to find unique ways to use Flipgrid and Jamboard, and her students are experiencing growth while they enjoy learning with her.
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Mrs. O'Neil's student reviewing her partner's Flipgrid
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Need Translation Help? How About Resources for Jamboard?

Use our custom-made Cornell Tech Hub site as a one-stop-shop for tips and updates about our favorite tech tools as well as practical tools that may be new to you. Get started by checking out these translation tips and Jamboard resources!

Nearpod

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Nearpod: One Tool, Many Uses

Different teachers are finding different ways to regularly incorporate Nearpod into their lessons. As with everything featured in this newsletter, Nearpod is a perfect fit for in-person or remote teaching and learning.


Read on to learn how two teachers are using their strengths as teachers to implement Nearpod particularly well.

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Ms. Kramer

Ms. Kramer has always engaged her students in conversations about the problems they solve. With Nearpod, it's no different. She does not simply move from question to question. Instead, after each student gets to think through and solve a problem on Nearpod, she takes a look at the realtime results. She then helps her students describe their thinking, and she can even ask them questions to help them explore the problem more deeply. Ms. Kramer seamlessly integrates short videos into her Nearpod lesson, and she has even had students use their whiteboards mid-lesson. Ms. Kramer's students have experienced her Nearpod lessons both in-person and in a remote context, and they are always looking forward to the next time they get to use it.
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Madame Clements

Incorporating a lot of variety, even within a single class period, is a consistent priority for Madame Clements. The ways in which she uses Nearpod allow her to do just that. She takes full advantage of the question-types offered within Nearpod, from "Draw Its" and Collaborate boards to playing a game of "Time to Climb." She has even embedded a Flipgrid activity right into her Nearpod lesson! Madame Clements looks forward to trying out even more features in the near future, like Nearpod's 3D models and the Field Trip 360 pictures. She keeps her students on their toes and interested by keeping things fresh and fun every time.
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Finding YouTube Videos...

Does it take you forever to find one that's just right? Try finding a channel you like, and subscribing to it so you can build a list of a few channels that you can rely on for high-quality content. Here are some suggestions for channels to check out, K-12.


Tip: Be sure to show YouTube videos in a safe online viewing environment! Embed a YouTube video in Slides to remove the distracting side panel, some ads, and comments. Or, consider using other sites that help make the YouTube video experience a safe one for your students.

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