The InterACTIVE Class

Looking for strategies and ways to engage your students and create an interactive classroom? Look no further than Joe and Kristin Merrill’s book The InterACTIVE Class: Using Technology to Make Learning More Relevant and Engaging in the Elementary Classroom. 

Technology has become more and more important through the past decade for student engagement in the classroom. Technology continues to advance and educators are finding new ways to integrate technology to accommodate our students’ learning needs in the 21st century. Merrill et al. (2020) explain “Innovative learning never stops, and educators need to ensure that their teaching practices keep up, because this next generation’s innovative spirit is already being felt. Educators need to adjust” (p. 7). Technology is not going away and teachers should use it to our advantage to motivate and engage our students. In the book, The InterACTIVE Class, husband and wife, Joe and Kristin Merrill share many engaging and powerful strategies to create an interactive classroom where learning becomes more authentic and fun! 

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn”. I believe that this quote is not only true for our students, but for ourselves as adults, too. Students and adults both learn and retain information better when we are actively engaged and involved in the learning.

In Chapter 3 of The InterACTIVE Class, Joe and Kristin Merrill describe the interACTIVE teaching method as having 5 components using the acronym PIVOT. 

Prepare > Innovate > Visualize > Observe > Troubleshoot 

To prepare, teachers will need to take time to plan and prepare the interACTIVE learning space. This may involve getting rid of things that are typically used in the traditional classroom. “You need to prepare your classroom for collaborative and cooperative work and create specific spaces designed for student-centered learning” (Merrill et al., 2020, p. 23). Teachers should consider the needs of their students when preparing their interACTIVE classroom. 

Next, teachers should build innovative experiences for their students by incorporating more than a textbook or traditional materials in a classroom. “Your goal is to give students responsibility and choice in their learning environment and lessons, while also guiding them through the implementation and monitoring of the structure” (Merrill et al., 2020, p. 24). 

When planning a new and innovative lesson for your students, it is important to visualize every aspect of the lesson to be sure it will go the way you envision. Lessons turn out better when they are carefully thought out, including thinking about if students will be sitting or moving around during the lesson, how you will incorporate students’ interests into the lesson, and how long each activity in the lesson might take. 

The role of the teacher during the interACTIVE lesson is to observe then reflect on the observations. “Reflecting naturally leads you back to preparing a new lesson based on what you observed” (Merrill et al., 2020, p. 24). Reflecting on successes, struggles, what students are saying, doing, and maybe feeling as they work is an integral part of the interACTIVE learning process. For growth to occur, teachers much reflect on their practices and student behaviors. 

The final part of the PIVOT acronym includes troubleshooting, because anytime you allow students to be leaders of their own learning, comes struggle. I attended a professional development one time where we learned about the importance of productive struggle. Students need to learn how to overcome obstacles and how to persevere through problems they may encounter. 

Merrill et al. (2020) describe “The cycle of preparing, innovating, visualizing, observing, and troubleshooting will continue to revolve--and evolve--as you acquire new skills, more modern learning tools, and improved ways to teach this new generation of learners” (p.26). 

Joe and Kristin Merrill give many amazing ideas and ways to make your classroom interACTIVE in their book and also on their blog, @TheMerrillsEDU. In Chapter 5, they discuss ways to empower students through the interACTIVE class by creating meaningful relationships with students by incorporating “birthday books”, teacher postcards, team building activities, positive referrals, and more. In Chapter 6, they talk about including parents in the interACTIVE class. Parents want to be involved in their child’s education. Ideas that are mentioned include “teacher magnets” with contact information, weekly newsletters, and video updates. These ideas open the communication between the parents and teacher and build a positive relationship. (Merrill et al., 2020, pgs. 43-60)

In the second half of the book, the husband and wife duo share many engaging apps and lessons to use in the classroom. Some of the apps I have never heard of and can’t wait to explore and try with my students. Flipgrid, Seesaw, Buncee, and Thinglink were among the abundance of apps and resources that were shared.

References

Merrill, J., Merrill, K., & Miller, C. (2020). The interactive class: using technology to make learning more relevant and engaging in the elementary class. Elevatebooksedu.

@TheMerrillsEDU Resources. (2020). @TheMerrillsEDU. https://www.themerrillsedu.com/resources-1

Argument in Social Media

 Social media has become very popular in the world today. According to Ortiz-Ospina (2019), Facebook is the largest social media platform with about 2.4 billion users. It is probably the most common social media platform on the internet, but other social networks such as Twitter and Instagram are popular as well. Many people spend a lot of time scrolling through various social media. It has become an important part of how we connect and communicate. In their book Argument in the Real World, Turner and Hicks (2017) explain that students did not view reading a text message or Facebook posts as reading and they reported that they did not view writing in online platforms as “real writing”. Turner and Hicks (2017) pose the question, “But what if we could help students make the pivot to recognize that it is, indeed, reading (or writing)?” (p. 107).
    As a teacher of third grade, my students usually do not have their own accounts for these social media networks, but they are exposed to them and know what they are. By incorporating ideas from these popular social media sites into our classrooms, our students will be more engaged and learn how to communicate appropriately through social media. Turner and Hicks (2017) mention, “By engaging students in analyzing their language and the moves they made in their commenting, [the teacher] could help students to see themselves as critical readers and writers of social media, a stance we feel is vital in today’s society” (p. 103). Teaching and modeling digital citizenship has become very important in today’s world when young students are communicating with one another outside of the school day. It is essential to teach students how to act responsibly online. Even though my students do not have accounts for Facebook, Twitter, etc., they are able to communicate with one another through Google Classroom and other online platforms that we may use in the classroom such as Flipgrid or Padlet, and need to know how to do so appropriately. Holland (2013) discusses the topic of social media on Edutopia and explains that while young students need to play outside and engage with hands-on materials and activities, “it has become imperative for us as educators -- and parents -- to model appropriate digital citizenship to even our youngest learners.”
    There are many controversial topics in the world of education. One of these topics includes whether homework is beneficial or not. I found this visual on Twitter that includes three questions to consider if you are thinking about giving homework to your students or not.

Here are 3 questions to consider if you are re-evaulating your stance on homework. This from #DitchHW by @alicekeeler & @jmattmiller https://t.co/3Xuu3AeES9 #tlap #DitchBook pic.twitter.com/IuOyRnF9JB

— Dave Burgess (@burgessdave) July 6, 2018

    Using the MINDFUL acronym by Turner and Hicks (2017) to explore this interaction on Twitter, the writer of this argument is Dave Burgess, who is a well-known educator, PD leader, keynote speaker, and author of the book Teach Like a Pirate. Burgess speaks to educators about how to increase student engagement and help teachers be more creative. The intended audience would be educators to get them thinking about whether giving homework is beneficial for students or not. The argument is presented as a visual which includes three key questions. If a teacher’s answer is “no” to any of the questions that are presented that means homework is probably not benefiting the students in that classroom. The evidence connects clearly to the claim by having teachers think about the reason they are giving homework. Are they simply giving homework to give students something to work on or does it serve a purpose? This information seems to be accurate at a quick glance, and there is even a book dedicated to the topic of getting homework that this post stemmed from, Ditch that Homework. As I continued to look into this argument on Twitter, many people shared their viewpoints on this topic through comments and retweets. One commented sharing, “By assigning independent work during class I am available to help and correct in the moment.” Another person commented that we should think about the students who may not have anyone at home to help them. There was also a retweet with a comment that stated, “It really helps put in perspective the amount of homework we give.” Sharing this information will allow educators to evaluate their purpose for giving students homework. Where do you stand on giving students homework?

References

Burgess, D. (2018, July 06). Here are 3 questions to consider if you are re-evaulating your stance on homework. Retrieved November 14, 2020, from https://twitter.com/burgessdave/status/1015296310197383168?s=20

Holland, B. (2013, June 18). Introducing Social Media to Elementary Students. Retrieved November    14, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/introducing-social-media-lower-elementary-beth-holland

Ortiz-Ospina, E. (2019, September 18). The rise of social media. Retrieved November 14, 2020, from https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

Digital Arguments Using Video

In today’s world, we are surrounded by many forms of media at our fingertips. Children have started to learn at a very young age how to navigate smartphones, iPads, and even computers. In his book, Crafting Digital Writing, Hicks (2013) mentions, “Video texts...may be the form of digital writing many of us need to learn to convey information in the twenty-first century” (p. 104).

 Using videos in the classroom is essential now more than ever before! According to Turner and Hicks (2017), there are many different forms of video including full Hollywood productions, documentaries that portray photographs and actual footage, screencast presentations, and short video snippets posted to social media. All these types of videos have different purposes and audiences. There are many different programs to create videos with images or video clips pieced together and allow you to add in background music, including iMovie, Animoto, or WeVideo (Turner & Hicks, 2017). 

Screencastify is also a way to create flipped learning for students in the classroom. It is a tool that records and shares videos of your computer screen, while simultaneously including video or voice. When schools suddenly shut down due to COVID-19 in March, Screencastify became a way for teachers to model and engage students through the computer screen. Not only did I use Screencastify for instructional videos, but also gave feedback to students this way. I sent them the feedback video through Google Classroom as a private comment. I found this very beneficial with my third grade students to explain and clear any misconceptions.

Another tool for teachers and students that works much like Screencastify, but geared more towards students is Flipgrid. Flipgrid is an online video tool that allows teachers to post topics for students to respond to with videos. It can be utilized with any subject, and I especially enjoyed using it during quarantine when schools were shut down for social and emotional learning as a "check in" for students at home. Flipgrid is also a great way for students to practice fluency, share book reviews, and many other ideas! It is also a great way for students to connect with one another through video. There are so many ways to utilize Flipgrid in the classroom! 

As I was thinking about how to improve my introduction video, the first thing I thought of doing was inserting pictures. I decided to use the video I had already created from the beginning of the semester and chunk it, instead of creating one from scratch. As I went through the composing process to improve my introduction video, I began by exploring some of the movie-making programs mentioned in the Chapter 5 of Argument in the Real World. Next, I uploaded my original introduction video and various photographs to insert into my revised video. After importing media into Animoto, I adjusted the transition times to be appropriate for the viewers. Since I chose to use my video that was submitted at the beginning of the course, the most time was spent trying to figure out where to split and chunk the original video. In the Youtube video titled Chunking: Learning Technique for Better Memory and Understanding, it explains, “Cutting large bits of information into smaller pieces helps us to understand. If we put small pieces back together, we can see the big picture and that helps us to remember” (2017). Chunking information into smaller pieces helps students understand and digest the information easier than when they are given a lot at once. The same is true for videos containing information. When giving instructions or information in a video, it is best to keep it short.  I decided to break up the video into shorter clips and add in photographs. Bevan (n.d.) states, “Studies have shown that the use of short video clips allows for more efficient processing and memory recall.” I also added background music to increase engagement. Animoto was an easy program to use to add pictures and chunk the information in the video into small video clips. I will definitely utilize this program more in the future in my classroom!

References:

Chunking: Learning Technique for Better Memory and Understanding. (2017, January 21). Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hydCdGLAh00

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Bevan, M. (n.d.). Why Videos are Important in Education. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.nextthoughtstudios.com/video-production-blog/2017/1/31/why-videos-are-important-in-education 

Nieves, K. (2020, January 27). 9 New Ways to Use Flipgrid in the Classroom. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/9-new-ways-use-flipgrid-classroom 

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.