Finding a reading strategy that works for your classroom can be extremely difficult. There are so many strategies out there and even if you find something that works for you, it might not work for your students. The first part of your year might be some trial and error seeing what steps are effective and what steps your students don’t benefit from. The nice part about reading strategies is you can usually personalize them and maybe take a step out or add a step in. If you see your students are almost there but might need a little more reflection, you might be able to add another step to the end to clarify what they read.

The strategy that I found today that seems to be pretty popular in several of my online teaching groups is the UNWRAP strategy. This strategy is made up of 6 different parts including underline, number, walk, read, answer, and prove. Through this blog I will walk you through the 6 steps and discuss the importance of each step individually.

The first step is to underline the title and predict the text. This step will help children pick out main ideas and key information before they even read. They will know what to expect when they start reading and understand what to pay more attention to going through the text. The second step is number the paragraphs. This can help your student keep track of where they are. It can also help them look back and find the key information they might need to reread. This leads them to the third step which is walking through questions. These questions are typically created by skimming through the captions and paragraphs and finding anything they don’t know or are curious about. This can help further understanding on any misunderstanding happen.

Out of all of the steps, I think the fourth is the most important because it is actually reading the text. What I like the best about the UNWRAP strategy is that it suggests the students read the passage two times. The first time just for fun, and the second time to take notes. It makes it nice because that gives the students another time to sort out all the information given. The last two steps include answering the questions and proving the answers are correct. These steps are important because the questions they come up with are usually things they don’t understand and need to know. Lastly, validating these answers are also important because you don’t want to mislead the students by letting them answer the questions incorrectly.

Overall, I think the UNWRAP strategy is a great one to use in 2^nd and 3^rd grade classrooms. It gets the student thinking complex about the text and asking critical questions. There are many great reading strategies, this is just one I could see working effectively.

After searching on Pinterest for hours on end, I finally found a couple solid ideas to add to my classroom management ILP I’ve been working on. This week, we are talking about tactics to keep your classrooms’ noise level down. There are many approaches to this and it really just depends on A.) your teaching style and B.) the students in your class.

https://www.pinterest.com/paigeybear98/miss-cross-classroom/classroom-management/

The first idea I came across that I really enjoyed were called “quiet critters”. They are simple to make and even easier to get the students interested. You take some fuzzy balls that you can find at Walmart or Hobby Lobby and glue eyeballs and other crazy features you would like. You put them in a glass jar that is “sound proof” because they have very sensitive ears. In order for your class to have a quiet critter come to their desk they must be quietly working at their desk. What I really like about this idea is students could personalize their own quiet critter and give them names. I feel having them would really motivate your students to be quieter because they technically get a prize that everyone sees they get. This idea is included on my Pinterest board as well!

Another idea I found is voice lights. This one could be set up in many ways, but what is nice about this is you change them as your activities change. The example had four lights all next to each other. They were labeled as 0 being silent, 1 being whisper, 2 being partner, and 3 being group. Having this set of lights would help students see that there is an expectation of their voice level and who they should be talking to. A lot of extra chatter causes an increase in volume that makes it difficult to teach over and I feel like these would help eliminate some of them. It also helps students know that they don’t have to be completely silent all the time to be at the right level. Sometimes we need multiple conversations going on and as long as they are on topic that is perfectly fine! I have also seen some teachers use a stoplight system the same way with red being silence/limited talking to yourself, yellow being partners/groups, and green being free discussion. The link below is to buy the pictured voice level lights!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/616127670/voice-level-lights?ref=shop_home_active_3&crt=1

No matter how long you’ve been teaching I feel like someone can always benefit of evolving with new ideas that come out. Even in the 3 years I have been at CSC, I have constantly been evolving my beliefs and ideas. Classroom management is no different because students are constantly getting motivated by different things and have different expectations!

Personalized learning networks, also known as PLN, are connection one makes to better themselves at their profession. Connections in the workforce are extremely important and can be crucial in your drive to a successful career. There are many reasons PLNs help you, but we will only focus on three of the main ones.

1. PLN’s allow you to share your ideas with people in the same career field anywhere in the world. This means a teacher in India who found a really helpful way to teach addition problems to 1^st graders can share this method with teachers in the United States. This makes it so nice because having a network allows the teacher to share their new method in seconds on a digital platform and others to have access just as fast. This is how I find a lot of information I use to create lesson plans or figure out activities. There are a lot of websites designed just to share your findings/experiences like teachers pay teachers or even Pinterest.
3. PLN’s keep you up to date with news in your field. For example, I followed a lot of very successful teachers on twitter this past week. By following them I have kept up to date on all of the big teacher strikes going on across the country. There is even a strike that just started a couple days ago in Denver, CO. Without my newly found PLN I wouldn’t be informed especially since I don’t look at the news on a regular basis. Staying informed on major events can help you in many cases including job interviews. It shows that you are an active, informed professional. It also helps you see something that might effect you before it actually hits you. For example, if there was talk about a new nation wide test you would be prepared for the transition period instead of getting blind sided.

Denver teachers to strike for first time in 25 years. The truth is that one job should be enough. Teachers shouldn't have to work side gigs, get roommates, or worry about living in a camper van. #DCTAStrong #UTLAStrong #RedforEd #Solidarity pic.twitter.com/p0RP6Cj82f

— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) February 11, 2019

• 3. PLN’s are adaptive to what you need and when you need it. This means that if your personal/professional goals change, you can change you PLN too! There is nothing holding you in a square box because there is no limits to PLN. If you’re like me, I do not like having my creativity reigned in so PLN’s are nice because I can follow whoever I think will benefit me and not someone who a professor or boss is forcing me to follow. Everyone is different and has different teaching styles so it makes sense that everyone will have a different PLN.

Overall, I think PLN’s are an extremely useful tool. There are many reasons why people create them and why you should. It is as simple as jumping on twitter and following a couple people in your profession who inspire you and who have great ideas they want to share. If you go on Pinterest it is an easy way to find blogs that come from professionals as well. I will definitely be focusing on building my PLN as the year goes on and evolve it as my needs change.

A huge part of classroom management is the ability to successfully motivate your students. Motivation can come from many places, so narrowing it down to what works best for you and your students can be hard. Throughout my three years at Chadron State College, I have learned many techniques in several of my classes, but I am still constantly finding more ideas on Pinterest. Below this article I will put a link to my personal board!

https://www.pinterest.com/paigeybear98/miss-cross-classroom/

Getting to know your students

One of the best ways to get ideas of what might work for your classroom is to take a survey the first day of class. This questionnaire can include things like their interests, favorite subjects, hobbies, family, etc. The possibilities are endless. Here is an example of what I would put on my students’ survey:

What is your favorite candy bar?

What is your favorite kind of pizza?

Do you like to go outside? If so, where?

Favorite classroom game?

Taking answers from this survey could give you some ideas for different levels of motivation. For instance, you could take the students’ favorite pizza and throw a pizza party if they all hit their AR reading goals. You could also take each student’s favorite candy bar and give it to whoever hit their goal on a math test. This is nice because it is a big motivation in their eyes, but reasonably inexpensive for you as a teacher. Some motivations you could use for students to work hard on their daily work would be going outside for class or allowing them to play a fun classroom game during break.

Online Points

Another effective method of motivation I have seen is an online app called classroom dojo. This app pretty much allows a teacher to give individual students points on their mobile device or computer. Students typically get points when they do something good like volunteer to help the teacher or answer a really difficult question. What you do with the points your students accumulate differs from teacher to teacher. You could reward students as a group or as individuals. The teacher that I observed during one of my classes last year had a candy drawer and the student with the highest points at the end of the class could pick anything they wanted out of the drawer. There are a couple apps that work the same way as classroom dojo, I just happen to be most familiar with this one.

https://www.classdojo.com

Bandersnatch: A Netflix Interactive Movie

When looking at non-traditional narratives so many things caught my interest. At first I really wanted to do virtual reality, but I didn’t want to have to purchase anything that I won’t use in the future. So, I went to the next thing that caught my eye which was Bandersnatch. Even after I started the film, I was still pretty confused what all would be expected of me, but it became relevant soon after that I needed to answer questions. One thing that was interesting to me was that there wasn’t necessarily that many “wrong” answers, but rather answers that took you on different paths in the movie.

A short over view of a very complicated movie

This movie starts with explaining the choices thing and quickly moves into Stephen (the main character) having you choose what he eats for breakfast. I really don’t understand if this also changes the course of the movie or if it is just practice for you to choose. Not too many choices later we had to choose if he would accept or deny a deal to work in office at the video game company. The first time I chose accept and it was quickly shot down and said this is the wrong path. This is when the movie kicked me back out and pretty much made me choose to say no so I’m not sure why they even give you a choice.

While playing I ended up going to 4 different endings and in 3 of those Bandersnatch only got a 2.5 out of 5. One of the endings Stephen killed his father and was sent to prison so someone else finished the game. Next, Stephen jumped off the roof and they released the game pretty much half finished. Then, Stephen pretty much drugged himself to finish the game but risked his creativity and still ended with a 2.5 out of 5. Lastly and definitely the most interesting to me, Stephen got into a Kung Fu fight with his therapist and it was never revealed if Bandersnatch was released or not.

There was a lot of messed up stuff in this interactive film, but I don’t want to ruin it for you guys. If you do happen to explore it, comment what ending you got!

Why go nontraditional?

I can’t speak for all nontraditional narratives, but this one was far more interesting than a regular movie you would watch. It was captivating, frustrating, and invigorating all at once. This is what made it so special. I spent 2.5 hours playing with this and trying to figure out how to get the video game released with 5 stars, and still never got it! I can’t tell you how many times I screamed at my TV because I had fallen into the tunnel of “wrong” choices. Overall, I would highly recommend for anyone to look into this Netflix original.  

First off, digital storytelling wouldn’t be possible without some sort of creation. That is why it is called digital STORY telling. There are so many versions of media that you can use while creating a story digitally. You can use anything from creating a video, photos, or even animations. As for advantages and disadvantages, there are far more advantages in my opinion.

Advantages of creation

Creation really does open so many doors for people. It can add so much to your online experience. For example, we work on using different forms of creation every week in our blogs whether it be pictures, videos, or music. They all add something to the point we are attempting to get across.

Pictures can add a lot to a blog. Not only can it help your readers visualize what you are talking about, but it could also help provide data. This could be in the form of charts, graphs, or even just supplemental pictures of what you are focusing on.

Videos can also be extremely helpful because it can show your audience a story. This can just be multiple visuals playing to match what you are talking about or even an instructional how-to video. Honestly, the possibilities are endless.

There are also several different things that I personally have never used with digital storytelling such as drawings, animations, and coding. These three aren’t quite my cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t for you! If you’re interested in including any of these into your next blog or tweet, a simple google/YouTube search can help you find how to add them in an effective way.

Disadvantages of creation

One major thing I can see being a problem when using creation techniques while digital storytelling is the overuse. You want to find a balance where your media is used as a supplemental resource and not overpowering your story or topic. For instance, if you were a vlogger or YouTuber you wouldn’t want your whole video to be full of pictures that are completely irrelevant and make your video over two hours long. Not too many people will stick around and watch that. The key is to still use creation but be to the point and not go off on random threads of side notes. Same thing goes for blogging. You want your words to still have substance and be the main focus of work and kept to a reasonable amount so people will read it. Anything over 1,000 words and I probably wouldn’t take the time to read it unless I needed to or it was an extremely important message.  

Overall

I think it is safe to say that most people will agree how important creation is to society now a days. It helps us express our feelings/thoughts in an effective way and there’s no reason we shouldn’t use whatever form of media makes us feel the most comfortable in our work. Here is a great link to further explain the benefits of creation in digital storytelling and how to properly control the amount you add.

https://edtechteacher.org/8-steps-to-great-digital-storytelling-from-samantha-on-edudemic/

As you all probably know by now, my ILP is on classroom management. Classroom management is a very broad term that can be taken in multiple ways which is what I love about it. However, this week I was struggling to come up when an idea. Right when I was about to give up for the night, I remembered one method of classroom management a teacher loved when I was a freshman: BRAIN BREAKS! I found it ironic that a brain break is exactly what I needed at the time! A simple 3 to 5-minute break can make a world of difference in quality of work.

What is a brain break?

            Brain breaks are self-explanatory. They are breaks that help you get refocused and reenergized. They can be taken in many ways and it is totally up to the teacher with what method they use. In the several classrooms I have observed/helped in they have all used brain breaks in one way or another whether they realized it or not. It is important to realize that most student’s attention span is only 5-15 minutes long. That’s not a lot of time before they begin to lose interest in your lesson.

Types of brain breaks

            The first type of brain break I am going to go over is song/dance. This is an extremely popular tool in grades K-2^nd. There are a couple different sites that you could use depending on what you are more into as a teacher. A couple popular ones are Kidz bop and GoNoodle. GoNoodle has some helpful songs that are also educational for students as well. This is nice because you can have the students subconsciously learn or check for comprehension during their brain break. This also gets them moving with choreographed dances. Kidz bop is nice because it is current music that most of your students probably know already. The downfall to using this is that there isn’t dance moves shown so your students who are more reserved might not want to participate as freely as they would with GoNoodle.

            Next is pure physical activity. This one can be done with things such as jumping jacks, running in place, or even pushups. We even do these kind of brain breaks in college classes. These brain breaks are even more helpful with some students who need accommodations for ADHD or other attention deficits. Allowing them to get their fidgets out in a structured way helps them refocus on what they’re working on!

Now find what works for you

            Brain breaks are something that is completely up to you as a teacher. Some people may not see them as effective as I do, but this at least gives you a couple options of what you could do with your students. If you do a simple google search you can find hundreds of ideas and there will probably be some that work for you!

Thesis: Social media has a negative effect on teens’ mental health.

            Social media is today’s big thing. Everywhere you go you hear people talking about a funny video they saw on Facebook, a viral tweet, or a youtuber’s latest upload. I’m guilty of this myself. Social media has become an everyday thing. There are people who post every single day. Heck, I even know of people who tween 20 things a day and aren’t required to like our class! To me, it seems like social media is almost an addiction. Once you start it is impossible to stop. This isn’t just in teens either though, this is people of all ages. My 52-year-old dad will spend at least an hour scrolling through Facebook every night! On one specific platform, there have been a lot of influencers who even admit the amount of social media they are dealing with is bad for their mental health. These are people who literally make money off of uploading pictures/videos for a living!

            Not all uses of social media are bad, but we are headed down a horrible road that’s setting up our future children for a life full of toxic expectations. Social media is the main platform for bullying in today’s society. There are more teens who complain about online bullying than in person anymore. Teen girls are twice as likely to be bullied online (https://www.psycom.net/social-media-teen-mental-health). I think it is so sad that we live in a society where girls think it is okay to tear each other down instead of building each other up.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shame-nation/201803/how-humor-and-irony-are-shedding-light-cyberbullying

Another issue with social media in relation to teen’s mental health is the infatuation with the amount of likes their pictures and posts are getting (https://www.psycom.net/social-media-teen-mental-health). A lot of people would like to argue that mainly girls are the ones who obsess over this, but I know for a fact that many boys age 15-18 check their likes every thirty minutes to see where their social standing is.

http://news.indiaonline.in/out-of-box/10-negative-effects-of-social-media-on-youth-157

My last, but maybe most important argument is the delay in brain development that social media can cause. The environmental change that social media has on teens can cause social media to shift from a hobby to an addiction. Once that change happens, there might be lower grey matter in their brain (https://familyinsights.net/advice/negative-effects-of-social-media-on-teens/). Also, social media tends to make teens multitask a little too often. This may affect the quality of their education and can cause them to fall behind academically. Even I can admit that I have checked my phone 2-3 times while writing this blog post!

https://marketingmelodie.com/small-business-owners-pick-my-brain-about-marketing-social-media-79-in-june/

Overall, I believe social media has a negative effect on teens’ mental health. Not only is it the main platform for bullying, but it can also cause a delay in brain development. If we want to get ahead of these issues, we need to make sure to monitor social media and simply make sure all is going okay. Even taking your teen’s phone away while they are doing homework can help the adverse effects social media may cause.

            As technology is evolving, so are schools. Slowly but surely, schools around the country are becoming more modern and adding things such as iPads, smartboards, amongst other things. These are all extremely useful tools for teachers. They make our students work more readily available and make our jobs a little easier. It would only make sense with all of these upgrades to make our jobs easier, that at some point we get something for the students as well.

The past: A fun treat for students

            When I was in high school, my school bought a Wii. They used the Wii as a reward for students. During the year students had a chance to earn what they called “wildcat pride points”. At the end of each week they had a small booth in the cafeteria where students could use the points, they collected to redeem a prize. They had small prizes worth one or two points like pencils and small toys, all the way up to big prizes like pizza parties worth up to 100 points. Generally, the Wii was on the higher end around 80 points. What was nice about students at the time is they put all their points together to afford the bigger prizes. Even though the Wii wasn’t directly an educational tool, it was a motivator for students to be active in their learning and polite to others.

Jumping into the future

            Here lately, I have been seeing videos on Facebook where a projection screen is somehow interactive in a P.E. class. They have a game kind of like Fruit Ninja on where you can throw balls to collect points. I thought this was extremely useful because it works on a child’s hand eye coordination and their dexterity. Even though “video games” aren’t a new thing in classrooms, this new innovative kind of game is interesting and fun to children.

            I think that connecting video games and education will be a huge step. Children LOVE playing video games so if we play it right, they could also love doing their homework and learning! There are pre-existing games everywhere but making them look/feel less educational and putting them on popular formats like PS4 and Xbox will coax children to want to play them more.

Overall

            Overall, I think that video games can be used as a good tool in the classroom. The only problems will be keeping them on task and keeping their screen time to an acceptable amount. If we can keep these two things under control, it would be worth considering the experience!

A

            Gaming has never been anything that intrigued me. I have been around it my whole life between my older brother and boyfriend but have never gotten into it myself. This all changed after my boyfriend’s coworker brought over his daughter for a weekend. Little did I know this cute little 8-year-old girl was obsessed, I repeat OBSESSED, with the video game PUBG.

What is PUBG?

            PUBG is a newer video game that came out about the same time as Fortnite. PUBG stands for “PlayerUnknown’s Battleground”. There are a few similarities but a lot of differences. A couple that were pointed out to me by my little friend is that PUBG is realistic. The avatars are actually human, and it contains real life settings and weapons. It might not have the cool dances like its fantasy counterpart but is usually more attractive to an older crowd. For example, I know that my 26-year-old boyfriend has a “squad” that logs on every night to play a couple rounds.

PUBG: The basics

            After having a couple games of observation under my belt, it was my turn to take the controller. The game starts in a lobby where you have thirty seconds to practice your running, fighting, and shooting. Anything picked up/done in the lobby doesn’t carry over to the game. After those thirty seconds are up, all 100 players are loaded in a plane flying across a map. Squads usually decide as a group where they want to land and can mark their destination. I found the actual execution of getting to the mark extremely difficult. I was either free falling or floating too slow with no in between which was frustrating my young coach. Once you land, you have to “loot” for weapons. There are multiple different real-life weapons that include guns, bombs, and ammunition. There is even protection gear that you can pick up such as helmets, vests, and pans.

            After a given amount of time (I’m not sure how long exactly) a circle pops up on the map. This circle is pretty self-explanatory, you need to stay in the circle as it shrinks throughout the game. As for playing, there are two strategies you can play by. The first one would be my kind of style: defensive. With this strategy you mainly hide in houses and bushes and try to avoid people to survive. I made it to the top 5 people with this strategy with minimal anxiety, so I would say it is effective. The other strategy is offense. This is the strategy where you go out and hunt for people to battle with. The last team standing wins.

My experience

            It was soon pretty apparent that I am not built out for this game. Every time someone would shoot at me, I would unconsciously throw the remote and my heart would skip a beat. One time, she had me attempt to shoot someone running by the house I was in. Pretty much, I shot everything but the person. I found the game thrilling, but stressful at the same time. If I have a chance in the future and had a coach still, I might play again.