Opinion - Education For Live

January 17, 2022

17 Favorite Classroom-Learning Games (Opinion)

(This is the first post in a two-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What are your favorite classroom games?

I’m taking a break from finishing the series on teacher observations and, instead, sharing this series on classroom-learning games.

In the midst of the pandemic, I’m finding games an essential part of classroom instruction. They serve two (and many more) purposes: engagement in learning and distraction from COVID.

Today, Shannon Jones, Jennifer Bay-Williams, Molly Ness, and Sheniqua Johnson share their favorites.

You might also be interested in several game collections I’ve created. You can find all the updated lists here, and here are a few key ones:

The Best Online Learning Games t o Play During Distance Learning

The Best Ideas f or Using Games i n the ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom

The Best Websites f or Creating Online Learning Games

Now, to today’s guests:

Math Games

Shannon Jones is a 15-year educator working in Wheaton, Md. She is a focus teacher for students in kindergarten through 5th grades. She can be reached at [email protected] or @MsJonesLuvsMath:

Learning games are an effective way for students to review current and previously taught content. Zaretta Hammond states that: “The very act of playing the game encourages the brain to strengthen the new neural pathways by making the learner continuously search his memory for information.” I typically use learning games during my small-group time. I also may use them at the beginning of a lesson to spark engagement and raise the energy level in my classroom.

The text Mini-lessons for Math Practice by Rusty Bresser and Caren Holtzman is full of quick and engaging math games that are great for brain breaks in the classroom and time fillers for the very end of the school day. Several of my favorites from this text include: Digit Place, Estimation Jar, Whole-Class Pig, and Guess My Rule.

Mall Math from The Great Big Book of Super-Fun Math Activities’ Jean Liccione is year after year one of my students’ favorite games. Students are provided with a menu of items from different stores at the mall that they can buy. Students use the spinner to choose a store from which to buy or return items. The game reinforces adding and subtracting decimals, but the students love the shopping and choosing aspect.

Battleship can be played with either the coordinate grid system or place value. In the place-value version, each player builds a secret nine-digit number, and students take turns guessing the place value of their partner’s digits. This is a great way to fortify knowledge of place value because students are required to use place-value language on each of their turns.

Rio, from A Month-to-Month Guide: Fourth-Grade Math by Lainie Schuster or the game Knock It Off are games that focus on the most challenging of the multiplication facts. Typically, I choose the 6s, 7s, 8s, or 9s to set up the board due to the challenging nature of these facts. Focusing on just one set of facts at a time, students roll a 12-sided dice or find the sum of two six-sided dice, then they multiply their number by 6, 7, 8, or 9 depending on the game board they’ve chosen. They win by using all of their 10 “chips.”

Fraction War is played with the same rules as the popular card game War. Students have a deck of like or unlike fractions. They take turns flipping over a card, then they compare the size of their fractions to determine a winner for each round.

Minecraft and Fortnite are currently very popular with my students, and it is always great when you can take a current trend that is in demand with your students and turn it into a game that meets one of your grade-level standards. The figures from Minecraft can be printed in color on 10 by 10 or 5 by 10 grids. Students can then work in learning centers to determine the fraction, decimal, and percent that is shaded. With Fortnite, print the map in either one or four quadrants, and students can work to find the coordinates of given places and their reflections, etc.

Some of my favorite online games include: Nearpod’s Time to Climb, Kahoot, Quizziz, and Blooket. My students enjoyed each of these games during virtual learning. All of these games can easily be played in the classroom, with some even offering a self-paced version that is ideal for independent learning in the classroom.

Game Criteria

Jennifer Bay-Williams works with preservice and practicing teachers as a professor at the University of Louisville and with teachers all over the world through conferences and workshops. She is the author of over a dozen books, including two books with Corwin Press Figuring O ut Fluency in Mathematics Teaching and Learning, K-8 and Everything Y ou Need for Mathematics:

I love games. My favorite games involve mathematical reasoning. Over the years, I have found and created hundreds of games. Today, as I select or create games, here is what I consider.

Is there a speed component? If yes, it is a “no” for me. When students are in a hurry, they can’t think straight. You can probably relate.
Are students solving the same problem? Well, this goes back to the last bullet. If two or more people are solving the same problem, the faster thinker dominates the thinking in the game. This is a “no” for me.
How is winning determined? If it is based on who knows more, or is faster, or any other personal attribute, then this is a “no” for me. No student should feel less “smart” than the person they are partnered with, even if they are competing to win a game.

With a scan for these three pitfalls, here is short list of what I hope to find, or that I build in, to games that make the cut:

Student reasoning is embedded. Many games have strategies to win the games, but what I want in a game is reasoning strategies related to the mathematics.
Students can learn from their opponent or partner as they play.
I (and other teachers) can see and hear student reasoning as they play.
It is adaptable and reusable (so we don’t get bogged down in a new game taking time to learn the directions).

A few favorites. It is really hard to pick, but here are two that I hold up for different reasons.

Rectangle Fit. Students have grid paper (e.g., 25 by 15). The teacher rolls two die, which are the sides of a rectangle. Students fit that rectangle on their grid paper and record the product inside that rectangle. Teacher rolls again. Eventually, the teacher rolls something like 5 and 6, and some students cannot fit that rectangle on their grid. These students are out of the game. Winners are the last ones still playing.

Why I like this game: It connects visual representation to multiplication facts and helps students “see” commutativity. It is easily adaptable—use regular die for smaller products, 10-sided die for larger; you can even adapt to decimals! Change the grid size. Play with a group of six instead of the whole class. Oh, yeah, and kids love it (just today I received such a message from a teacher in summer school):

Photo by Jennifer Bay-Williams

Strategories: This is not a misspelling but an adaptation of a popular game. Students are given a recording card with strategies listed and a blank cell to write in an example problem. For adding fractions, the card looks like this:

To begin, students work individually to create a problem that “fits” that strategy. Then, students find a partner and talk through how to solve their own problem (or alternatively, talk through how to solve their partner’s problem). Students can have a different partner for each strategory. If you want to score it, you can score a correct process and correct answer each at 5 points.

Why I like this game: Real fluency is knowing when a strategy is a good idea—AKA flexibility. Flexibility is a neglected component of fluency! As students create a problem, they are thinking about when they would use it. The pair-exchange is great peer teaching, active movement, built in accountability, and 100 percent participation. As follow-up, I can ask partners to describe how their two examples are alike (comparing is so important in math learning) or focus on nonexamples (What problems don’t “fit” a strategory?)

A word has yet to be used in this response that is almost always used in response to the question, Why use games? “Fun.” Games are fun. I love fun. Math should be fun. But fun is an outcome, not a purpose. My favorite games happen to be fun, but they are my favorites because of the opportunities for students to engage in meaningful practice, show off their good reasoning, and learn with and from each other, realizing along the way that everyone can do math.

Literacy Games

Molly Ness is a teacher educator and author of four books about English/language arts instruction, the most recent titled Every Minute Matters: 40+ Activities for Literacy-Rich Classroom Transitions. She sits on the board of directors for the International Literacy Association. You can reach her at [email protected], www.drmollyness.com, or @drmollyness on Twitter:

Elementary educators know how important it is to infuse fun into your classroom routines—and we know time is precious. Yet there are so many spaces throughout the day when we have transition times: starting the day, lining up for an assembly, waiting for buses, and even small spaces when lessons take less time than we’d planned. Instead of turning to worksheets to fill those spaces, teachers I work with play with language in those transition times throughout the day.

Remember the childhood favorite Battleship, where you would place your plastic ships in pegs without your opponent seeing? The goal was to sink your opponent’s ships using horizontal and vertical coordinates. Sink or Spell is an engaging adaptation. In this version, students use their spelling and/or vocabulary words as their ships. Simply make a 10 x 10 grid, with numbers running horizontally and letters running vertically. Glue two of these sheets inside a file folder and laminate (so it’s reusable and ready to go for many games!). Students play in pairs, so both players get folders. Give students a list of words (this is a great review activity!), and each player secretly chooses five words from the list and writes them on their board—horizontally or vertically (but not backward or diagonal). Players take turns calling out coordinates (for example, C7). If a player’s opponent has a letter in that box, the opponent says, “Hit” and tells the other player what letter is in the box. If the box is empty, the child says, “Miss.” Players may guess the word or continue to guess coordinates. To sink a word, the player must correctly spell the word—and they get bonus points for defining it, using in a sentence, etc.

Use a label maker or printing labels to adapt a Jenga game into a literacy-rich version of Tower Tumble. Write vocabulary words, sight words, or homophones on each block. Students pull a block, read the word, define it and/or use it in a sentence, and then place it on the topmost level. The game ends when the tower tumbles!

I’m all for getting kids up and active, and kids love doing this with Beach Ball Bonanza. Hit up the dollar store and buy inflatable beach balls. Using a permanent marker, write open-ended prompts on each section of the ball. Ideas include the following:

Sight words
Comprehension questions: “What’s your favorite character in the book … and why?”
Prompts for vocabulary: “Use it in a sentence” or “Here’s a synonym”

Model soft throws (this isn’t dodgeball!) and how to read the prompt closest to your right thumb. When kids catch the ball, they read the prompt underneath and share their answer, before gently tossing it to a classmate. To use this as a vocabulary-review activity, call out the word while the ball is in midair. So if the word is furious, a child might catch the ball, see the prompt under their right thumb is “Give an antonym for the word,” and answer happy before tossing the ball to a friend.

Creating a fun, literacy-rich classroom is a win-win, especially when you infuse games into those “found moments” throughout the day.

Kahoot, Jenga, & More

Sheniqua Johnson is a language-acquisition specialist in north Texas:

The classroom-learning games I enjoy the most allow students to be interactive while applying their knowledge or having the opportunity to review academic-vocabulary terms, problem-solving skills, or concepts. These games include Draw Me, Headbands, Kahoot, and Jenga.

Draw Me: Students practice and apply knowledge of academic-vocabulary terms by drawing visuals of the terms and allowing players to guess the term.

Headbands: Students review knowledge of academic-vocabulary terms by placing a term over their heads while players give clues until the person holding the term guesses correctly.

Kahoot: Interactive game through an app. Provides immediate feedback for teacher to plan small-group interventions. This game can be played independently or with small groups.

Jenga: Academic-vocabulary terms are written or placed on game pieces. As students choose pieces to remove from the tower, they must define words or answer questions, such as, word problems.

Thanks to Shannon, Jennifer, Molly, and Sheniqua for contributing their thoughts!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected]. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign—new ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 10 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.

January 11, 2022

Opinion: Online education can be a great way for children to learn if we do it right

Nora and Willa Stief in the course of on the internet faculty although their mom and dad function from dwelling and consider care of a toddler amid surging COVID-19 instances triggered by the coronavirus Omicron variant, in Hamilton, Ontario, on Jan. 7, 2022.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters

Suzanne Chisholm is vice-principal at SIDES, a general public online school in Victoria. She has taught elementary pupils in both school rooms and online. She holds a doctorate in schooling.

On the internet mastering has been a lot-maligned due to the fact the pandemic started. In some new headlines it has been known as cruel, ridiculous and damaging. In Ontario, the place a lot of of the youngest learners don’t know what it is like to be inside a actual physical classroom and have only noticed their trainer on a online video simply call, some annoyed and angry moms and dads are boycotting on the web mastering completely. This can make it sound like we might as well toss our youngsters overboard because online understanding is so terrible.

As an administrator in a community online K-12 college in British Columbia, I have a distinct point of view. Online understanding can be an outstanding possibility for many students, and for some learners it is the best solution. Nevertheless, it need to be completed correctly, and it commonly functions greater when it is a option.

It is accurate that kids reward from in-class mastering amid their friends. It is also true that bodily school rooms are excellent areas for most children, my own 10-year-outdated son bundled. It is tragically correct that there are psychological-well being struggles for several young children who can not be in a classroom now since of COVID-19, and that is a crisis.

But picture these scenarios. What if your little one experienced nervousness about likely into a classroom? What if your little one or another loved ones member was seriously immune-compromised? What if your baby was an elite athlete whose education plan manufactured it impossible to go to a neighbourhood university? What if you lived in a distant community in which you could not obtain certain substantial-college courses? You would want – and are worthy of – the identical entry to excellent K-12 public schooling that children in other places in Canada have.

Purposefully developed on line instruction delivered by skilled and qualified academics performs a essential function in our present day instruction system, and provides a very important choice for a lot of pupils and families, pandemic or not. The applications we provide at our university serve a diversity of learners, lots of of them among the most vulnerable in modern society. People notify us how happy they are that we exist. Some parents say our college has been a lifeline for their baby. On line understanding is anything but cruel and hazardous for these college students.

It is not, then, that on-line learning itself is so terrible. Why, then, are so many households struggling with it?

The most important issue is most classroom instructors who have been pressured to deliver their courses on the web have been skilled to teach in lecture rooms, not on platforms these types of as Zoom. Academics across Canada have labored difficult and have tailored, but items have not usually been smooth. When I hear about elementary college students who are anticipated to be online synchronously for hrs every day, I realize why people are annoyed. That is a recipe for boredom, restlessness and failure. It is typically not even achievable. For instance, what is a guardian to do with a single laptop and two small children at residence who are meant to show up at course at the exact time?

Academics at our K-12 college do not need learners to be online each working day at a distinct time. As a substitute, academics offer significant-top quality curriculum-based products that residence facilitators (generally mother and father) work through with their college students at their have rate. In some cases, there are weekly digital courses in which pupils link as a course on Zoom. For instance, students in kindergarten could do a virtual “show and share” at the time a week. Our Grade 5 students might chat about their art or do a property-based scavenger hunt. Some others may well connect to our a great deal-beloved weekly library examining session. Not long ago, we experienced a uniformed law enforcement officer browse a story on a movie call to an engaged group of kids. Our Grade 12 chemistry learners may attend a digital tutorial. But for the most element, there is no obligation to be on-line every day at a certain time. This versatility is one of the key good reasons for our school’s success.

In evaluating online understanding, it is important to separate the troubles and stresses of the pandemic from the method of shipping. The serious trouble with most online learning these days is the pandemic has produced the circumstances for it to be the only solution at periods. Juggling parenting, performing and schooling at house is difficult, specially all through a pandemic.

I empathize greatly with people who are battling with balancing daily life complexities that include on the web mastering. But we must also have an understanding of that on the web studying in alone can be beneficial – and crucial – in some contexts. It can be superb. We should really all inquire ourselves how we can strengthen instructional ordeals for everyone, no matter whether they are in classrooms or on-line. Battling with online understanding is not an inescapable consequence.

These are amazing occasions in which we all want lifelines. The pandemic continues to pack impressive and distressing punches. With many planning for online mastering in the Omicron era, we require to look at what this can be, instead of permitting ourselves sink in collective despair.

On the internet finding out can proficiently fill gaps when in-particular person schooling is not doable, each now and soon after the pandemic. I see on the internet faculty operating efficiently just about every day, so I am guaranteed that all of us – mothers and fathers, plan makers, principals and pedagogical execs this sort of as lecturers and education and learning assistants – can perform with each other to help pupils, irrespective of the shipping mode of training.

Preserve your Thoughts sharp and educated. Get the Belief publication. Indicator up right now.

December 13, 2021

Faculty should study video games to improve their teaching (opinion)

The pandemic forced many of us to move into hybrid, technology-mediated teaching, and as we continue our voyage into such spaces, one thing that we in higher ed should remember is that many students have long been quite good at navigating hybrid environments. Really, it’s about time formal education finally catches up.

In his landmark 2003 book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy James Paul Gee detailed the ways video games do a better job of facilitating literacy learning than education institutions. Almost 20 years later, his analysis has become incredibly relevant. It would seem that the move toward more hybrid learning environments should have captivated a student demographic primed by video games. But instead, students—many of whom are video-game players—have often hated the virtual learning environments of their universities. Somewhat ironically, the video-game industry is experiencing a resurgence. Prophetically, Gee wrote, “The theories of learning one would infer from looking at schools today comport very poorly with the theory of learning in good video games.”

Now is the perfect time to revisit the principles of why video games are so good at teaching and learning in ways most virtual classes don’t seem to be. Below is a summary of some of those principles.

Storying content. Gee discussed meaning as being situated in specific contexts. Knowledge, in other words, only becomes meaningful in certain situations. For instance, I might know the nutritional content of eggs, but that doesn’t mean I know how to scramble them or even prepare a nutritious breakfast. In video games, the concepts and skills a player learns have specific uses in particular moments. Those situated meanings require players to recognize the patterns that indicate how to best apply their newly acquired knowledge. Typically, situated meanings are created via stories. Within those stories, players assume an identity that motivates them to make use of whatever the video game is teaching them.
Applying newly learned skills and knowledge. Video games make frequent use of interest-based interaction with knowledge, promoting self-directed mastery. Very rarely do video games ask players to passively listen to and absorb information—instead, they deliver information in usable chunks. At each stage, players practice applying their new learning, first to familiar situations and progressively to novel situations, facilitating transfer.
Providing just-in-time feedback. Players typically receive information at the time they need it. Say a player in a particular game is threatened by an oncoming storm. Right at that moment, the game teaches the player how to construct shelter. Other video games might rely on social interactions, often facilitated through popular apps like Discord or GameFAQs. This approach encourages collaboration, allowing players to actively seek information from others when they require it most.
Encouraging risk. Of course, the consequences of failing in a video game are much lower than failing an expensive college class that could perhaps even influence one’s career. The low-stakes challenges of video games empower players to try new strategies and discover novel approaches to problem solving.
Rewarding failure. When players take risks and fail, they still learn. On a metacognitive level, players realize a gap in ability or knowledge that might motivate them to persist. On a pragmatic level, they learn not only what doesn’t work but also what might work with modification, the foundation of self-regulation.

These principles remind educators that the virtual wheel does not need to be reinvented. We don’t have to be tech savants to understand what grabs students’ attention and inspires them. We don’t even have to use video games or gamify classrooms. Below are some practical translations of the above principles that can work in our classrooms right now, even without Zoom wizardry.

Frame content with culturally relevant themes. If meaning is situated in specific contexts, then one way we can engage students is to consider the stories that matter to them. We can do this by activating prior knowledge, such as personal experience, or asking students to share stories of their potential relationships with the course content. For example, an economics professor introducing the topic of monopolies might ask students to consider how they would shop for items if they wanted to boycott Amazon. Good video games invite the players to also shape the story. Zoom can encourage collaborative story shaping (i.e., learning) through hybrid or online groups. The economics professor could set the narrative stage: let’s boycott Amazon. In groups, students could design a plan for only consuming from markets not influenced by Amazon. As they realize the difficulty of effectively doing so, the professor can explicitly illustrate the principles of monopolies.
Create moments for students to use newly learned skills and knowledge. Active learning has long been a trend, but it isn’t always understood. To be clear, active learning should not replace direct instruction, which, of course, is effective. Certainly, video games have moments when the action pauses and information is directly communicated to the player. But it’s combining the two types of learning together—explicit instruction alongside opportunities for application—that create the strongest learning environments. Experience does not need to be taken literally. Fiction, a simulation of reality, can also be an experience. By broadening the concept of “experience,” virtual environments can expand notions of active learning. For instance, students might role-play imagined experiences. Simulating or role-playing experiences immerse students in the task by motivating them to learn the means to succeed at the task.
Provide brief checkpoints. Students usually have to complete an entire assignment before receiving any kind of formal feedback. If assignments are broken down into tasks, the way they are in video games’ War and Peace–length epic quests, then instructors can make quick observations of what students are doing, such as through polls. Based on what the instructor sees, they can adapt subsequent class activities. This not only helps educate the students, but it also saves time for the instructor, who then doesn’t have to provide detailed feedback on each student’s final major assignment. Assessment checkpoints can also be social, potentially enhancing student agency. Just as players flock to Discord for help, students could engage each other in some social space. These spaces can be structured—a Padlet with guidelines and examples for students—or open-ended hangouts. Peer review can both save time and be more dynamic in virtual environments.
Require reflection. When students begin to take social control over assessment, they become more reflective about their own learning. Reflection doesn’t always happen on its own, however. It must be structured as part of the experience. The low-stakes and learn-from-failure approach to video games is one way to encourage such reflection by offering multiple attempts accompanied by instructor or peer feedback. One suggestion for translating that approach to classrooms comes from the Stanford Life Design Lab. In it, students generate hypotheses about newly encountered knowledge, and then they test their hypotheses in the attempt to rethink problems and solutions.
Stay active. There are many ways to incorporate active discovery, but these strategies must again be guided by explicit instruction about how to reflect on and learn from the risks and failures. The flipped classroom is a good model for pairing explicit instruction with virtual experience. Instructors can deliver much of the direct instruction via video or the college’s LMS. Then students can spend the freed-up time in hybrid breakout groups trying to solve a relevant problem.

Technology itself cannot improve or damage learning. It’s our use of it that matters. There are indeed bad video games, and by bad, I mean games that people did not play. There are also many good ones, and what we need are good course designs so that people want to play and learn from them, too.

November 30, 2021

Want Students to ‘Build a Better World?’ Try Culturally Responsive Social-Emotional Learning (Opinion)

(This is the final post in a two-part series. You can see Part One here.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What are the best ways you are incorporating social-emotional learning in your classroom and what are you doing to ensure that it is culturally responsive?

In Part One, Tairen McCollister, Mike Kaechele, and Libby Woodfin shared their responses to the question.

Today, Jennifer Mitchell, Meg Riordan, Ph.D., Amber Chandler, and Bill Adair wrap up this series.

Don’t Use SEL to ‘Increase Compliance’

Jennifer Mitchell teaches English-learners in Dublin, Ohio. Connect with her on Twitter: @readwritetech or on her blog:

Any student or teacher can give countless examples of how our educational system has not only ignored but exacerbated and even directly contributed to mental-health issues for ourselves or our friends, colleagues, and students. Social-emotional learning can literally save lives.

But too often, SEL is sold to teachers as a system to manage students’ behavior and increase their compliance, rather than an essential classroom lifestyle infused with tools they can use to be happier, healthier, and fuller versions of themselves. We must ask ourselves: Do we want our students to tone down who they are to perpetuate the status quo or do we want them to embrace their unique selves and harness their power to build a better world? Do we want them to prioritize work over health and joy or do we want them to build the self- and situational awareness to recognize who they are, what they want, and how to respond to the obstacles they encounter?

Initially, I felt that SEL flowed naturally in my English classroom through literacy and discussions that affirm and explore identity, culture, and empathy. And while that is still a cornerstone of our work together, I realized that my students needed more. After seeing the destructive impact of mental illness, trauma, and racism in so many of my students’ lives, I dug passionately into a variety of SEL approaches. Now, a variety of essential strategies permeate our class culture, pushing us to slow down amidst the pervasive urgency that is so common in schools, to remember that honoring and connecting with each other is essential:

A calming box for students to access fidgets, visual timers, coloring/brain puzzle books, and a small binder of grounding exercises and mental-health tips
Frequent goal-setting and reflection, including WOOP-style goal-setting for which we brainstorm how to overcome obstacles that might prevent us from reaching our goals
Identifying and reflecting on self-talk and how it affects us
Tim Kight’s R-Factor system (E+R=O framework): can help students reflect on what they can and can’t control, the power of their thoughts and emotions, how their responses can influence the outcomes of situations, and how individual actions shape the larger culture of a community. (Caution: infused with grind culture! Supplement with discussions of the importance of rest and recovery to keep going in a healthy way.)
Marc Brackett’s RULER framework for identifying, articulating, and managing feelings with robust, specific vocabulary; very helpful to my ELs. (Caution: Its packaged curriculum and the Yale organization have decided to eschew cultural responsiveness in favor of an imagined ideal of neutrality, disregarding the systemic issues that impact so many students. As scholars such as Duane et. al (2021) point out, SEL practices (and school in general) can directly harm the students they purport to help, especially when they are not implemented in an environment of social justice that affirms students’ identities and lived experiences.)
Exploring the science of the brain and emotions (I was inspired by Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain!), and how that affects us
Weekly restorative circles are a powerful space for community-building, processing and sharing emotions, and collective problem-solving.
Periodic Story Exchanges build empathy, connection, and perspective-taking
A daily organizer routine where we begin and end class by recognizing our feelings, pausing for gratitude, grounding ourselves in affirmations and shared goals, and reflecting on our learning
Weekly reflections; quick and powerful!
A student-led squad structure that has greatly increased the sense of belonging and community in our class.
Frequent opportunities for students to give me feedback

No matter which tools and opportunities educators provide, it’s essential that we constantly reflect and continue learning, just as we ask our students to do. We must listen to the brilliant educators of color who are sharing their expertise and their voices about how white supremacy impacts all aspects of education, particularly SEL work. We must constantly ask ourselves if what we are doing embraces or constrains our students’ identities, emotions, and experiences. Above all, we must listen to our students and make it undoubtedly clear to them that their voices matter, that we are their partners, and that we care enough to keep doing better.

‘A Powerful Approach’

Meg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at The Possible Project, an out-of-school program that collaborates with youth to build entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and provides pathways to careers and long-term economic prosperity. She has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a middle and high school teacher, school coach, college professor, regional director of NYC Outward Bound Schools, and director of external research with EL Education:

Social-emotional learning is a difference-maker. Decades of research show benefits beyond increased academic performance, including: positive self-concept, improved capacity to manage stress, and greater economic mobility. But what does it look like to effectively incorporate social-emotional learning (SEL) into the classroom? And how does SEL work with culturally responsive teaching to support all learners?

First, let’s lay a shared foundation: The Collaborative for Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning (CASEL) defines SEL as the process through which people acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. Culturally responsive SEL must offer opportunities for students to reflect on identity, use relevant topics to foster social awareness, develop decisionmaking through authentic projects, build relationships, and explore society’s varied expectations for self-management—and how to navigate those.

Key to the definition above is that SEL is a process, meaning it must be ongoing and embedded throughout students’ learning experiences. Much like teacher professional learning that should be sustained to be effective, the same holds for SEL. It’s not a one-shot opening circle, occasional workshop, or SEL survey. Building culturally responsive SEL is a process—requiring deliberate design across grade levels and classrooms and inviting collaborative inquiry between youth, educators, and families. It means developing transparent competencies, creating lessons and instructional interactions that spark collaboration and reflection, and educators modeling competencies themselves.

To be implemented effectively, SEL relies on a blueprint at the district, school, and program level. With a blueprint and ongoing professional learning, educators can engage with students to reflect on growth and identify areas of continued opportunity.

Post-blueprint, what does it look like to incorporate SEL that gets to the heart of CASEL’s definition and ensures cultural responsiveness? Below are snapshots that illustrate culturally responsive SEL in action:

Build Relationships and Create Relevance

At The Possible Project (TPP), a youth entrepreneurship and work-based learning program with a mission to advance economic equity, relationships are foundational for SEL and culturally responsive teaching. Building relationships means creating learning experiences that provide opportunities to learn about each other and share our identities. For instance, a virtual learning “opening chat box question” might ask: “What is your favorite comfort food—why?” or “What are you listening to on repeat?” Beginning with inquiry about who we are engages learners, illustrating curiosity and care; it invites a feeling of being seen and valued to bring our whole selves (virtually or otherwise) into a brave and safe space.

But caring about who students are doesn’t stop after an opening question. Learning experiences ignite connections to foster authentic relationships. At TPP, we ground our approach in The Search Institute’s Developmental Relationships Framework, which identifies five elements that promote powerful relationships: Express Care, Challenge Growth, Provide Support, Share Power, and Expand Possibilities. Before students build their businesses individually or collaboratively, they reflect on their passions and interests, practice problem-finding, consider authentic needs, and propose solutions. Our learning process relies on students’ sharing imaginative ideas, showing empathy for others, being willing to take creative risks, and envisioning possibilities that don’t yet exist. Designing real projects that involve students as active drivers signals that we take them seriously, trust them as decisionmakers, and create opportunities to achieve goals and lead their learning. Beyond an opening activity, sustained relationships emerge by doing real work together—helping one another iterate on ideas and giving feedback as draft business plans develop. Rooting learning in topics relevant to students’ lives and identities, such as building their own businesses, creates spaces where culturally responsive SEL helps young people thrive.

Connect to Community and Manage Emotions

While relationships and relevance to students’ lives are essential, other important opportunities to practice culturally responsive SEL include expanding students’ networks and developing awareness of what it feels, looks, and sounds like to manage emotions. We know recognizing, expressing, and managing emotions can be a challenge; we also know that these skills help us interact with others in and out of classrooms and are paramount in the workplace. That’s why at TPP we design learning experiences that bridge our community to the classroom and engage students in reflection to develop awareness of their feelings and behaviors and the connection between the two. An illustration: to promote entrepreneurial mindsets and skills, students interview local entrepreneurs to learn what sparked their business idea, what challenges they’ve overcome, and what they’ve learned running a business. Research indicates that role models motivate us, give us someone to emulate, and teach us how to overcome obstacles. When students see an entrepreneur who looks like them or represents a shared background, they’re better equipped to imagine themselves in that role.

TPP students also connect to community as consultants to local businesses, charged with developing an approach for a social-media campaign or creating materials for an internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion resource site. Community-based experiences offer higher stakes—though supported—-opportunities for students to express themselves in professional settings, listen to others, receive feedback, and manage emotions. Conversations about identity and code-switching in the workplace are particularly salient for students of color as research shows they are likely to experience a range of adversities in professional settings. Learning to effectively navigate spaces and manage varied emotions, while maintaining one’s identity, takes place through guided readings and discussion, skills practice, and written reflections. Connecting to community and bridging to workplaces ignites real-world SEL and culturally responsive experiences and offers applied opportunities to transfer skills.

SEL combined with culturally responsive teaching offers a powerful approach for learners to engage in experiences that provide opportunities to reflect on identity and develop skills that apply to career and life. This potent duo—implemented consistently across schools and programs—can equip young people with a strong compass to navigate and persist in shaping their futures.

‘Google Form Questionnaires’

Amber Chandler is the author of The Flexible SEL Classroom and a contributor to many education blogs. She teaches 8th grade ELA in Hamburg, N.Y. Amber is the president of her union of 400 teachers. Follow her @MsAmberChandler and check out her website:

The best approach to social emotional learning in the classroom community is always to take a wide-lens view to make sure that the practices we are attempting to employ are actually beneficial for all students. Some of the beliefs underpinning SEL can lead to a belief that all success is self-determined, especially when we spend lots of time on the concept of self-management and themes like grit and determination. To be culturally responsive, we must also recognize that institutionalized racism, sexism, poverty, and the like prevent success, despite our students’ best efforts.

I take a constructivist approach to social and emotional learning in the classroom. Making meaning together is the only way that we can be assured that we are being culturally responsive. In all the classes I teach to future teachers, I ask the question, “What is the most important data?” and after listening to lots of important facts, I let everyone off the hook. The most important piece of data isn’t something that a standardized test can measure, but rather it is who are the people in front of us? Who are the people in the room? What matters to them? Where are their hearts? Where are their minds? Instead of competing with all their distractions, how can we help them with them?

As simplistic as it sounds, simply asking students to share about themselves is the quickest route to gain the information that will allow you to be culturally responsive. Each fall I send a Google Form questionnaire to students that asks them to classify themselves in a variety of ways (shy or outgoing, talkative or quiet, orderly or disorganized, laid back or stressed). The questionnaire also asks, “What do I need to know to be a good teacher for you?” and “Is there anything I need to know that will help me understand you?” I have started to include the following question as well: “Are there any social issues that are especially important to you? If so, why?” These data points are the most important every year, and students enjoy the attention that I am giving them by letting them know that I care about who is in the room more than I do about the curriculum. Of course the curriculum is important, and armed with these crucial details about my students, I can choose to deliver it in a variety of ways that are best for those particular kiddos.

I also give them the link to share with an adult who knows them well—-I don’t qualify who the adult must be. I’ve gotten results back from former teachers, aunts, coaches, grandparents, and, of course, parents. Taken together, I can get a pretty good picture of the students in my room and I can avoid common pitfalls. For example, one year I learned that I had a student who had lost his brother over the summer. Thankfully, I was able to change what I was planning to teach—My Brother Sam is Dead—to still cover the required information but to also respect the individuals in the room.

As simplistic as these surveys are, they have proved to be one of the best ways to meet the social and emotional needs of students while being culturally responsive to their needs. Students learn quickly that you are constructing the class with them, and they are then more likely to fully participate in their own learning.

A View From Canada

Bill Adair is an educational consultant and practicing high school teacher. He also instructs postgrad classes at Douglas College in Canada specializing in the socioemotional/motivational component of physical literacy. He is the author of “The Emotionally Connected Classroom: Wellness and the Learning Experience” (Corwin Press):

As Canadians, we are currently experiencing a particularly shameful exposure of our past. Throughout much of Canadian history, Indigenous children were forcibly ripped from their families and placed in residential schools designed for the specific purpose of cultural genocide of First Nations peoples. The “lie” of assimilation for the greater good has resulted in profound intergenerational trauma. Much work has been done in the name of reconciliation, but the recent discovery of 215 children in a mass grave at one of these schools has retraumatized Indigenous communities and resulted in painful self-reflection for all Canadians. From the pained heart of survivors, the message is clear. “The education system was the cause of the trauma; it must be the beginning for healing”.

First Peoples Principles of Learning

Promoting First Peoples Principles of Learning is one positive step the government has taken. Indigenous learning is grounded in connection to the well-being of the self, community, and land. It is reflective, experiential, embedded in reciprocally rewarding relationships, and requires the exploration of one’s personal identity. For Indigenous students, this instills a sense of cultural pride in a traditionally marginalized community.

For those pursuing the most progressive SEL practices, Indigenous learning principles serve as a practical action plan. The principles transcend cultural boundaries because they are grounded in the universal human need for connectedness. First Peoples Principles of Learning can be used as a foundational piece to help all children pursue a more connected path to self-awareness while bringing us all closer together. For our small part, our physical education department has embraced and celebrated the concepts that parallel our best practice.

For a brief summary: First Peoples Principles of Learning.

Pinetree Secondary Physical Education – Connection Intentions

Physical education, and in fact all learning, is a highly charged emotional experience where children may experience profoundly different outcomes. It is easy is for student attention to drift toward performance expectations that fall short or social interactions buried in emotional pain. However, when we wrap daily curricular objectives in cooperation, purposeful objectives, playful mindsets, self-reflection or healthy perspectives of challenge, the socioemotional brain responds accordingly, and learning feels amazing. Where our emotional attention goes, our destiny will follow. In a world where children struggle to cope with anxiety, one would hope pursuing the tools to own their emotional experience would be the most important lesson at school.

An authentic connection playbook that guides thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a healthier intentional manner becomes a valuable tool. Intentional lesson design and assessment are two ways we elevate the importance of healthy emotions and connections. If is worth teaching, it is worth assessing. If it is worth doing, it is worth owning the outcome.

In our physical education classrooms:

· We teach the simple neuroscience and attachment-theory recipe. “What you put in is what you get out.” Even young children can grasp and own this.

o Happy in, Happy out …

o Challenge and support in … Resiliency out

o Anger, shame, fear, isolation in … Anxiety out

· Daily assessable intentions help students guide their attention toward authentic experiences and emotions. A few examples of “emotionally rewarding” intentions might be

Today I will:

o Be a great peer coach

o Be an amazing cheerleader

o Be passionately playful and fun

o Value challenge, discomfort, and best effort

o Value yourself, value others

o Embrace nature

· Assessments are guided but always self reflective. If we want children to own their emotional experience, the process includes learning to assess in authentic ways.

o If a healthy emotional experience is the most important objective, we allow it to be the most important assessment.

o We never assess skill or performance as a primary objective. Only the commitment and feelings associated with the daily connection intention.

o We target intentions that nurture the capacity of children to freely share and graciously accept healthy emotional energy

· We frequently reference First Peoples Principles of Learning as an inspiration for our learning process.

Talking about SEL objectives is just talk. The human brain is designed to respond to actual emotional experiences. Daily connection intentions support authentic attachment and arm students with their own connection-intention playbook for health, learning, and life.

Thanks to Jennifer, Meg, Amber, and Bill for contributing their thoughts.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.

November 15, 2021

Opinion: Online education is a failure. We can’t go back to it. | Opinion

COVID has wrecked our education and learning technique.

Academic expectations are lessen. Dishonest is at an all-time superior. And, according to the United States Census Bureau, COVID has extra “layers of financial hardship” for learners all over the region,

Even the necessary actions to battle the pandemic, these kinds of as donning masks and social distancing, have experienced major unintended repercussions on classroom dynamics. While it is paramount that we fight the pandemic, at some level the costs of these actions outweigh their advantages, particularly when learners all rip off their masks the moment they depart the school rooms.

Nevertheless, college students are saved in a limbo amongst pandemic and submit-pandemic, and nowhere is this a lot more evident than the persistence of online classes.

This semester, I have some in-human being courses and some on the internet programs. As a final result, I have to lease an apartment—in a metropolis 5 hours absent from my home—and commute to campus for only 1 or two courses. I’m not complaining, as I know other college students have it a great deal even worse than me. But you can see how disheartening it is to transfer away from house just to continue to keep taking Zoom lessons.

Regulate my routine to all on the net classes, and I can help save a few thousand dollars by living with my dad and mom in Houston. Modify my timetable to all in-individual, and at minimum I can get a usual education.

If I am heading to pay back the residing prices connected with in-person classes, then I assume in-person courses. The high quality of an on the net education and learning is just not on par with that of an in-particular person education and learning as I explored in a earlier post, quality inflation in the spring 2020 semester—when classes first transitioned online—caused GPA to bounce .5 details.

Let’s not overlook this info and fake that staying on-line is a good notion.

In some of my on-line classes, it feels as nevertheless we’re not getting course at all. There have been times where the professor literally makes the Zoom assembly from her Apple iphone. A person time, she bought disconnected since her phone experienced operate out of battery.

I have not realized a one point in that class, and I’m sure each individual pupil reading this has related horror tales.

Clearly the college doesn’t treatment, or they would have finished something by now. This is not the type of education we students signed up for when we pledged to LSU.

I adore LSU, but some of the decisions the college has produced in the course of the pandemic have been unwell-advised and ignorant. On-line training was, and continue to is, a catastrophe. Let us not cripple our education and learning any further more.

Samuel Camacho is a 21-12 months-previous economics junior from Maracaibo, Venezuela.

November 10, 2021

Opinion: Growing trend of homeschooling will benefit students long-term | Opinion

From the beginning of lockdowns past March to these days, many parents have made a decision to consider their children’s training into their personal arms. In truth, the Census Bureau studies that the range of impartial homeschoolers has far more than doubled since very last yr.

At the time assumed to be a fringe “alternative learning” movement, homeschooling has come to be a racially, socioeconomically and ideologically diverse group of families, which include my have. As a sophomore in higher education, I assume back on my eighteen many years of dwelling education fondly, and consider the rapidly expanding schooling decision will gain a great number of pupils.

By much, my beloved portion of homeschooling was the adaptability I experienced with my schooling. As a younger pupil, I struggled with math but never with reading or grammar. Simply because I was in a course of my possess, I could commit my time and interest to courses as I required to.

With no definite class timetable or because of dates, my family could program “school days” around a chaotic perform and extracurricular schedule. My times ordinarily consisted of finishing college swiftly to pursue what ever fascination I experienced at the time. A regimen like this allows students to go after no matter what they’re most fascinated in, all whilst doing work by way of the main curriculum at their personal tempo.

Simply because homeschooled college students are not sure by classic test times, thanks dates or homework assignments, detractors usually cite problems with scholar efficiency. This pondering has led officers to need greater specifications of their homeschooled students than their usually educated counterparts.

For instance, a Louisiana homeschooled pupil must have an ACT composite rating two points bigger than a Louisiana substantial university pupil to be qualified for TOPS’ entry-amount Tech Award. This will come at seemingly no consequence to homeschooled students, as they regularly carry out superior than publicly schooled pupils on these standardized assessments. In addition, homeschool learners finish higher school with additional college credit history and a bigger GPA, this means additional scholarships and alternatives await them in submit-secondary training.

As homeschooling’s level of popularity has developed, so have packages to foster a social livelihood for these learners. Homeschool groups all-around the nation usually present weekly meetings, called “co-ops,” where by mother and father offer you academic and leisure classes alike to an intermingled homeschool crew. Sports groups throughout the nation have thrived by competing with other homeschool and some personal college groups.

These groups have expanded and, with them, the means to knowledge common large school encounters. Functions like homecoming video games, promenade and graduation have all migrated to the homeschool planet, offering homeschoolers a social life nearly indistinguishable from that of classic learners.

Homeschooling has given my relatives and other people the freedom go after an schooling tailor-created for specific students, allowing them to prosper exactly where they can and concentrate in which they need to have. As a lot more folks enroll for this academic pajama occasion, I certainly consider there’s lots far more that homeschooled students have in store for the long term of our earth.

Canaan Charrier is a 19-yr-previous finance, spiritual scientific tests and global relations sophomore from Monroe.