Tag: tip

Presentations 2.0

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Presentations are a very common task in education, either as a summary/review or as assessment (or both). However, student presentations tend to fall short of teacher expectations for the very simple reason that the students don’t do enough research and they tend to end up copy-pasting usually too much text onto slides and reading out whatever they first bumped into after a quick Google search. The introduction of ChatGPT might elevate the experience a bit, but not necessarily much. The end result is a boring presentation where the students didn’t learn much and the audience feel their time has been wasted.

Students need to be taught how to run a meaningful and interesting presentation. They also need to be given the success criteria in advance so that they know what successful completion of the task looks like. This blog post doesn’t deal with the key features of an effective presentation, neither does it explain how success criteria need to be written, especially because ChatGPT is quite good at writing rubrics. This blog posts presents four alternative ideas to the traditional and mainly boring read-out-the-slides kind of student presentation.

  1. Shark Tank. Organise a Shark Tank like experience for the students. Invite teachers to judge the students’ presentation in a true cross-curricular manner. Try to incorporate as much of the show’s spectacular elements as possible. The students need to be equipped with some business knowledge so that they know how to convince the sharks. As such, use this format if you want to bring together several elements of the curriculum, such as business, subject knowledge (the pitch can be related to any subject from social studies to chemistry), and English/mother tongue (presentation skills). It also tests how well students think on their feet as they need to answer the sharks’ questions in a convincible manner.
  2. TED talk. Organise a TED talk event if you want the students to dig deeper into a topic and/or present an interesting, well built-up and though-provoking presentation. It is not as fast-paced as the Shark Tank format, so it’s better suited to introverted students. The students need to be familiar with the structure of a well-built up presentation, they need to know how to grab and keep the audience’s attention, which takes some preparation. If the students manage to get prepared with something truly interesting, this can be a rewarding experience for all participants. If you want to go above and beyond, apply for the TEDx licence to organise the real deal.
  3. CEO introducing a new idea. Think of Steve Jobs or more recently Mark Zuckerberg. Use this format if you want the students to think outside of the box or innovate in one way or another. These CEOs usually present new products or innovative ideas they think will change how consumers think of the experience of communication (iPhone) or interacting with others (metaverse). Not all these presentations have been successful, but they usually attract a lot of viewers because people are hungry for innovative new ideas. So use this format in case you encourage your students to experiment and push boundaries. Students need to be taught how to build up such presentations and how to engage with their audience to sell them a new idea.
  4. Elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a very short presentation that can be presented to someone during an elevator ride, so it needs to be super focused and it needs to raise interest within moments. Use this format if you have a lot of students, a very short amount of time, or if you want to assess if the students have understood the main ideas of a concept.

Do you like any of the above ideas? Do you have a similar idea? Have tried out any of them? Let us know how it went and if the students liked it in the comments section below.

Create a gif!

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Have you ever wanted to create a gif of your own but you don’t know how to start? Look no further! Gifs can be created from individual frames (slides, drawings, photos), by editing videos or by overlaying existing elements. Here are the steps to create a gif from frames (slides):

  1. Create each frame you want to include in the gif. You can use slides or draw pictures as in a flipbook or take a series of photos.
  2. Upload the frames into a gif maker, for example ezgif. Copy or delete frames, adjust the time for each frame, etc.
  3. Export your gif.

And what can you use such gifs for? Here are some ideas:

  • Microtutorials
  • Messages of encouragement
  • Hook
  • Strategies and tips
  • Clues for treasure hunts or research projects

Check out this collection for more detail and ideas on how to create a gif from individual frames.

🔧 Resources. Some uses for gifs and videos can be found in this blog post.

Do you have questions or ideas? Share with us in the comments section.

Cornucopia of teaching ideas

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🔎 How do you continue learning as an educator? Do you attend internal trainings? Do you pop into webinars? Do you run a local PLN? Do you sign up for online courses? Something else? I hear a lot of teachers mention that “official” training and PD sessions are a waste of time and they don’t get hands-on ideas that they can try in their classroom the next day. #edutwitter to the rescue! Try Twitter to collect inspiration and connect with like-minded educators.

🔗 One of the best decisions I made about my professional learning was to start a Twitter account. I did this in the hope of finding great ideas, awesome resources and useful websites. And so I did! You can also engage in conversations, find awesome courses and tutorials, share ideas and so on.

🎊 I’ve learnt a lot since joining and I’ve decided to store these great ideas in one place. So I’ve started a Wakelet collection because there’s an abundance of ideas and tips! Some are pretty straightforward, some give inspiration, some offer instant solutions, and so on. Have a look at the collection here.

💡 If you’ve found any great ideas on Twitter or you know of a great Twitter handle to follow, share it with us in the comments section.

A fun and interactive way to summarise the academic year

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The academic year is drawing to a close and you might be wondering what learning has taken place in this turbulent year? Have the students learnt anything? Are there questions still lingering? Did any of the students have a great idea or follow up on any of the concepts you covered? Find it out with the following end-of-year activity.

Tell the students they are going to create a board to show their learning this year. They can use Genially, Jamboard, a simple slide or any tool of their preference. Give them prompts and depending on how structured you want this activity to be, tell them to use two, three or all of your prompts. You can also tell them to explain their choices on the board.

Here are some potential prompts to use:

  1. The most memorable moment in the year
  2. A fun fact I’ve learnt
  3. The best video we watched
  4. My favourite book this year
  5. The most exciting experiment we conducted
  6. The most interesting (virtual) field trip we went on
  7. The most inspiring question I heard/posed
  8. My best idea throughout the year
  9. The nicest comment/feedback I received
  10. The thing I’m most grateful for this year or the person I’m most grateful to this year
  11. Something I’ve created and I’m very proud of
  12. A question I still have (can be combined with Google form)

As Genially (and other tools) allow for interactivity and embedding, you can combine various platforms: for example, create a google form to prompt others to answer the questions you still have; or make a video with Flipgrid and embed it; or create an interactive poster and embed it within the board.

Once the students created their board, you can share them on your LMS or with the whole school and you can learn a lot about your students: what they’ve learnt, what stood out for them, who offered encouragement, what grabbed their attention and so much more. Here’s an example I’ve created with Genially.

Do you have any other great ideas for prompts? Have you tried this activity? Share it with us in the comments section.

Interactive images in class – but what to use them for?

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📸 Those of you who know me won’t be surprised if I say that I love images, photos and infographics. If they are interactive? The icing on the cake! Research shows that combining visuals and text (dual coding) increases retention. The cherry on top!

You can create interactivity with any of the tools that allow for creating infographics, such as Prezi or Visme, but there’s a much easier way: Genially! Here are some ideas on what to do with them in class:

1. Teacher explainer. Use an interactive image to explain things in class or set it as homework for exploration: Emperor penguins. An extended version is a virtual tour: Virtual tour of Zero-G at NASA.

2. Student explainer. The students can do the same: explain things through an image to show off their learning. Don’t accept interactive images, however, that are simply the result of copy-pasting information from the internet or the textbook. Make sure the students know what constitutes success in this task by having rubrics. Students can use their own drawings they take a photo of.

3. Recalling previous knowledge. With templates like “Hidden image quiz” or “What’s behind?“, you can quickly recap on the last lesson in a fun way.

4. Teaser. You can also preview upcoming lessons/topics or raise students’ interest with the above templates.

5. While waiting for late-comers. You can use the above templates while waiting for late students, or you can play “True or false” with popular myths or current events, such as Halloween or a national holiday. Another great template is “Who said the quote?” to spend time while waiting for students.

6. Quiz. You can quickly quiz the students on various issues in a fun way with if you use an image quiz with the template “Where is…?” or placing events along a timeline with “Historic facts.”

7. Storytelling. Students can use a map or a timeline to explain their new understanding, their adventures or an actual story they’ve written.

8. As a worksheet. Create an image, on which you indicate key points or not. Alternatively, you can ask the students to add 3-5 points with mixed media: text, video, link. The students have to fill out the image with their new understanding as the lesson moves ahead. Again, don’t accept simple repetition of what was said/written down in the textbook but an interpretation of it no matter how simple it is. Add reflective questions too.

9. Summary/wrap-up. Use an interactive image to recap on the main ideas. At the same time, you organise the main points in a logical order. List the main concepts or key words the students need to know. Share the image with the students and they can use it as preparation for the next lesson or a test.

10. Clues or treasure hunt. Build the lesson around clues and enlist the students as detectives/researchers/scientists/treasure hunters who need to solve a problem or find something hidden. They follow the interactive elements (questions, tasks, clues) as they search for the solution. The reward? New learning! Search Genially for “Breakout adventure,” “Escape game factory” or “Detectives breakout” for a template.

💡 Tip: Students can create interactive quizzes and explainers for each other, which you can mark or not. In my experience, students like to be the “teacher” for a while and if they have to teach their peers or mark their work, they learn to respect the teacher’s work a bit more as a side effect, while having fun.

🔧 Tutorial: Here’s a video explainer on how to create interactive images:

Do you have other great ideas on how to make use of interactive images in teaching and learning? Share with us in the comments section.

Animations

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My most recent craze is animations. You can easily create such animations with the several services available, just google “animations” or “video maker”. Students are very adept at this, so we might just want to ask for their advice?

What can you do with animations in teaching? Watch this animation for ideas of how teachers and students can make use of animations in teaching and learning.

Do you have more or better ideas? Share with us in the comments section.

Making students think

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Have you ever wondered how you could encourage students to dig deeper or consider various aspects of the same issue? Project Zero’s Thinking Routine Toolbox offers dozens of activities, which you can download.

The following collection on teaching thinking contains some resources as well. As I’ve just started it at the time of writing, expect it to expand in the future.

If you know of other great resources or you have other fantastic ideas to teach students think, share them with us in the comments section.

Higher-order thinking with young learners

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Young learners are curious and ready to go explore any time. They also like to ask questions. These are indispensable characteristics of someone on the way to becoming a critical thinker. Here are three ideas of how to harness thinking skills with young learners.

1. The six thinking hats by de Bono. If you are not familiar with the thinking hats, in brief, de Bono proposes six different hats to put on and think about an issue from a different perspective. These six perspectives are: process (blue hat), facts (white hat), feelings (red hat), creativity (green hat), benefits (yellow hat) and cautions (black hat). More on this here. If you don’t think young learners can do this and think about a problem from different perspectives, watch this video.

2. Sound maps. This is a simple idea that calls for students to sit still in nature for a short while and record all the sounds they hear on a map. It improves their auditory awareness and focuses their attention. You don’t have to wait until we can get back to the classroom, the students can do this on their own (with proper instructions set up). A description of the activity can be found here.

3. Story maps. Students collect information on a topic and put this information together in a story map. Here’s a very simple story map on great trees. It’s simple in the sense that it combines three kinds of information: a picture of the tree, its location on a map, and a short description. It goes beyond linking three things though: it requires thinking about the topic, how to collect the information, what information to present, how to make a map, etc. Here’s a recent blog post on story maps, here’s a collection on maps, and a blog post on mapping tools. Microsoft Sway is a free tool that allows for such a story journal.

If you’ve tried any of these ideas, share with us how it went. If you have more ideas on how to promote higher-order thinking in young learners, post in the comments section.

Students as content-creators

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How can we go past recall type of questions and climb higher up the HOT question ladder? How can we have students focus on concepts and relationships between concepts rather than simply on isolated facts? How can we make the students apply and transfer their knowledge?

One way is to enlist them as teachers or content-creators. Whatever content is being taught, the students can take over and show off their knowledge or even run segments of a lesson – or even a full lesson. Below are four ideas of how to turn students into content-creators from easiest to most complex, which leaves you with more space for differentiation.

1. Collections. Students can research a topic and put together a list of resources, including websites, videos, infographics, maps and the list goes on. They can bookmark the links easily with wakelet. This is a low-risk entry into the world of research as the students are not asked to do anything special with the content (for example run a presentation); however, more complex tasks can follow. Nevertheless, they have to curate the material they include, which means they have to dig a bit deeper and read the sites, watch the videos, etc. Set up very clear criteria on how to assess this activity so that the students don’t lapse into a senseless clicking without understanding the content.

2. Ideaboards. Set up an ideaboard with a straightforward open question on padlet or jamboard (or anything similar). The students have to contribute with ideas, post comments, raise more questions. Depending on how the teacher sets up the activity, it can lead to a lot of thinking.

3. Blogs. Level up with a blog or as a starter with blog posts on the classroom blog. In either case, students will have to put a lot more thinking and hard work to create content for a blog. If keeping a blog for oneself seems to big a step for the students, have them set up groups that examine the topic in question or let them specialize in various aspects of the content you are teaching. Blogs can be shared and other classes can comment on the posts. As most content we teach comes back in a cyclical nature (Bruner’s spiral curriculum), lower grade students can follow higher grade students’ blogs and post and learn.

4. Instructional videos. In my experience, students love videos and quite a few of them love making videos. Have them create short (2-10 min.) videos on a topic of their choice (that is related to the content being taught), display them in a virtual gallery (blogs, google classroom, padlet wall…) and have everyone comment, ask questions, praise…

Do you have any other ideas of how to switch the roles and make students do more thinking about the content? Share them with us in the comments section.

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