Final Reflection

On Review Games:
Overall, I am pleased that I made more of an effort to use review games in my classroom. I'll know how beneficial they really were when students take the cumulative midterm exam. However, it allowed me to see what content and skills stuck with students and what content I might need to review in the coming weeks. Normally I would have only used review games to prepare for an upcoming test, however, I really liked the idea of using them to review content from earlier in the year as well. This made the game more engaging for students because they were able to determine what they had really learned and kept the game competitive as they tried to remember answers. In the future, I plan to use them more, but also work with colleagues or look online for pre-done questions as it is very time consuming to create all of the questions needed to keep students engaged in even a 25 minute game. I also hope to work with colleagues to learn about more games that I can use. In the past, I've gone on instructional rounds and learned new review games, and my students and colleagues have encouraged me to check out quizlet, so I plan on trying that format out as well.

On Student Engagement and PearDeck:
I believe that any good instructional strategy can be ruined with overuse. However, I really love PearDeck as an analysis tool and my students have positively responded each time when I've asked them if the format of the lesson is working for them. In addition to changing the platform of the lesson to something more interactive, I also changed the layout of the room. I made this decision based off of discussions with my instructional coach. Now students are set up in two semi circles that face toward the front of the room. This allowed me the opportunity to change the seating arrangement while also making it easier for me to use proximity to reengage students who may no longer be tuning in. This structure has improve student learning outcomes when I've used it in class and I look forward to getting more creative with how I use this tool. Ultimately, by continuing to reflect in PLC, with my instructional coach, and with my students, I believe I will be able to continue this upward trajectory of keeping students engaged while they are learning in my classroom.

Last Man Standing Review Game

Yesterday, I had planned on doing my review Kahoot with my Period 3 Honors class, but I realized they were the one class I had forgotten to give permission slips to. So instead, I played a review game I had learned earlier this year from an instructional coach called "Last Man Standing". In this game, I ask questions and students answer on a white board with a marker. If a student gets the wrong answer, they sit down. The "last man standing" is the winner. The goal is to play several rounds so students get multiple chances to play. It is also important to start with easy questions and get increasingly harder as the round continues. As we played, I noticed some students were frustrated that they couldn't make it past the first round, and it seemed to disengage them from the review in a way that I don't notice when I play KaHoot. On the other hand, some students who normally goof off during KaHoot were focused and engaged because it was such a visibly competitive game. Since my students have played both as review, I asked them for feedback after the game. Below are some of the comments I thought were most useful in determining whether to use this game again or not.

Last man standing was pretty good and fun but I think that Kahoot would have been much faster.

I feel as if this game was including and better than kahoot because it created a tangible way to be competitive. You can also understand the question and information better.

I liked it, but Kahoot could be better because it helps by giving multiple choice. 

I feel that Last Man Standing is better than Kahoot, I feel more involved and of a refresher of knowledge through it. It is really fun. I wish the people sitting down could have more interaction with the game, and maybe get back in the game one round, to get the chance to win a prize also.

I think the review game was kind of a little fun activity because it was competitive.The part I didn't like was to stand up.We also should have gotten a little more time to write down our answers.I would have rather played Kahoot.

It was a good way to get everyone participating and this way you could see what everyone is doing unlike on the chromebooks when students can open other tabs. I think that i prefer this game because we dont have multiple choice so it is more challenging

I think that the last man standing game gets the students more involved and lets them learn from their mistakes. It is easier to play as well

Based on student feedback, if I were to play this review game again, I would make it so that students could have a "buy-in round". However, I think I would be more apt to continue to use KaHoot because it is quicker and students can remain competitive while still being inclusive of all students.

Prohibition Day 2 Deck

So today, I created another PearDeck that used a lot of video clips and analysis to keep students engaged with the topic of the consequences of prohibition. Tomorrow we will be analyzing sources to write a DBQ, so I wanted students to be familiar with the failures of prohibition. The content itself is highly engaging for students, but again, students who rarely participate in class were constructing much more sophisticated responses than usual. Today I spent less time on discussion, but the format was still solid and again, students reported that they enjoyed the way the activity functioned. On task behaviors seem to be up when using this tool. Although it is not effective in all situations (particularly when imparting new content) it does seem effective for source analysis which we do regularly in the history classroom.

Brand New Deck, Best Luck Yet

To prefect this new strategy, I created a brand new Pear Deck about Prohibition. Normally, I would teach this by providing students with primary sources and having them analyze them in small groups and holding a class discussion to answer the Essential Question for the day. Instead, because this is a challenging class for me to keep engaged, I used the same resources and skills to create a PearDeck. This allowed me to call on students who had on-task answers and limited the talking that students who always speak did. I was able to call on specific students to keep all students engaged and I felt really good about the engagement level of class today. I am planning on creating a second follow-up deck for tomorrow as students reported at the end of class that they really were able to engage with the lesson for the day. Although a few students were not paying attention, overall the level of engagement was much higher than usual. I was also able to better control the pacing of the class by deciding when to move on to the next activity.

Same Deck, New Day

It worked out really well with my Period 1 today because we had a delay which shortened the class. I still gave students a planned break in the middle, however, I very quickly glossed over the content that was in some of the slides and focused on slides that were interactive for students. For the first time in that class, I was able to call on students who rarely speak to compliment their answers and probe for further discussion points. This technological tool allowed me to engage a large number of students. Also helpful: the few inappropriate responses I received were easy to cancel and allowed me to redirect students back to on task behaviors.

Kahoot

Marzano suggested using educational games to engage all learners in the classroom. I had also, for another reflection paper about assessment learned about the benefits of activating content knowledge from earlier in the year with students. Instead of doing a review game for "Fun Friday" that focused on current learning, I decided to get back to using Kahoot. This is a tool I've used sparingly in the past, but recently decided to reengage with in my classroom. I asked students to recall knowledge from earlier in the year and apply it. After each question we had a short debrief on the content. Students were genuinely excited about this activity in each of my two classes. I am planning on doing it again with my students next Wednesday and would love to get their feedback on how it helped them. I also explicitly linked the information to their midterm, which they are interested in doing well on. I rant out of time in one class period (I had allotted approximately 20 minutes), so I extended the time for the next class. I also shared this Kahoot with members of my PLC after discussing the research with them.

PearDeck Attempt #2

I tried out a new PearDeck today in my two honors level classes to introduce imperialism. This PearDeck was developed by a colleague of mine in PLC and I made some adjustments based on my classroom and goals. However, I really loved that he incorporated a word association activity to help develop the concept of imperialism. I would have never thought to do this myself, however, it was really engaging for my students and they seem to really understand the concept of imperialism better than before. In addition, the activity asked students to preview a new skill goal for the unit: political cartoon analysis. Students were given a variety of imperialism political cartoons and used the circle feature to point out what they thought was the most important portion of the cartoon. This led to a lot of active discussion, and generally high levels of engagement. I think to use it with my CP level class, I'll have to adjust for the length of the deck. In the middle, several students were chatty and off task. I decided to give them a "tech break" so they could stretch, check their phones, and talk to their peers. Then we re-engaged. Again, the few slides that contained content were the biggest flops, and even though there was a follow-up question, students tended to zone out the most in these sections. Perhaps next time I will limit this type of slide even further.