STEAM Activities

  
     STEAM education has become an important part of success in classrooms. Integrating science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics into as many activities as possible can be an important way for students to learn and grow. The idea behind STEAM education is that students will grow and foster an appreciation for critical and creative thinking. The most beneficial way to integrate STEAM in a classroom is to incorporate STEAM activities into core subjects. By allowing students to think creatively and critically through assignments that otherwise may have been simply reading or writing, there is a greater chance that students will learn more, which is ultimately the goal.

     There has been an increase in “makerspaces” across the county. The book STEAM Makers: Fostering Creativity and Innovation in the Elementary Classroom by Jackie Maslyk talks a lot about creating these spaces for students to learn and grow. These are use for students to become engineers, think through problems, and find creative solutions. The book talks about how to find funds for these spaces to be built, where to find people to help with the space, and the materials that need to be provided within the space for it to be the most successful possible.

     Many educators do not see the explicit need to integrate the arts, the A in the acronym STEAM, but it is incredibly important. Language arts is one of the arts that can be included in STEAM. So many other subjects have ELA components that should be addressed. Any time a standard requires for students to explain, justify, or respond, this will allow an easy way to incorporate language arts. Outside of language arts, it is also important for students to express themselves through a more traditional type of art. When they are able to be creative, they may have an easier time conveying important ideas.

     In my future classrooms, I plan to do many different kinds of STEAM activities and challenges. I want my students to have ample opportunity to think creatively and critically, and incorporating STEAM is the perfect way to do this. Students may really enjoy different ways that STEAM can be incorporated in the classroom, and they can even be fun for the teacher!

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Sensory Integration, Orton-Gillingham, Montessori

     Sensory integration is an important way to teach students of all ages, but it is especially helpful for early childhood education. This is how students learn to experience senses and use them in the learning process. One especially important of students that it is vital to emerge into the senses are students with autism. They often have sensory issues, and need to slowly be introduced to textures, sounds, and even visuals that may be overwhelming to them. By introducing these at an early age, students may not have as hard of a time adapting to things that overwhelm them later in life. Integrating senses into lessons can also be helpful to all students. This is because certain senses can trigger emotions and may be beneficial to students as they learn and retain information. 

     Orton-Gillingham is an approach to learning that is based on action. There is constant interaction between students and the teacher. Sensory integration is important to the Orton-Gillingham model because it helps with multi-sensory learning. The two theorists behind this approach to learning helped bring listening, speaking, reading, and writing together to help students get a fully developed way of learning information. Some great resources for Orton-Gillingham ways of learning are the Orton-Gillingham Online Academy, Making Teaching Reading Fun, and ABC Magic Phonics. 

     Maria Montessori was a researcher and theorist behind what is now known as Montessori Education. She believed that using senses was an excellent way to explore the world and learn. She believed that allowing students to explore things on their own was the best way for them to learn, especially at a young age. She knew that the teacher’s most crucial role was being a facilitator. In her approach, she wanted the students to be able to explore and learn at their own pace, and the teacher should act as a facilitator only so that students could construct their own ways for learning that best fit them.

     In my future classroom, I will use elements from all of these approaches to learning to ensure that my students are getting the most beneficial education possible. I would like to use senses in lessons as often as possible and et students explore as they learn.

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Differentiation

    
 Differentiation is arguably the most important part of instruction. Success in a classroom is based on the ability to reach ALL students. By accommodating the needs for all students in the classroom, there is a much higher chance that each student will reach their full potential. Students have various reasons that they may need to be accommodated for; these include, but are not limited to, learning disabilities and learning styles. Differentiation can look like many different things. It can be placing students in small groups, doing whole-group activities, representing work orally rather than a written response, or even additional time on an assignment. Tailoring instruction to all students individually will give them the best learning conditions, and, therefore, a greater chance of learning to the best of their ability.

     For a low-performing student, it may look like additional hands-on activities. They need to be places in an environment where they feel valued and like they are able to show their understanding outside of traditional forms. Middle-performing students need reinforcement of strategies. It is important to address and misconceptions or concerns that they are experiencing to show that they are a priority too. Strategies traditionally used for low-performing students will always be beneficial to middle-performing students as well. High-performing students need to be challenged far beyond the curriculum. They often show their understanding in ways outside of what they were taught, and that needs to be encouraged and accepted. These students need to be challenged to think critically and creatively in order to reduce 

the chance or boredom.

     English Language Learners need to see and hear everything possible in their native language in addition to English. They need to have visuals whenever possible and should be paired with students that can build them up. Teachers should pre-teach whenever possible to make students familiar with academic vocabulary. By focusing on learning the vocabulary beforehand, students will be able to focus on content during the actual lesson.

     In my future classroom, I will provide differentiation in multiple forms during every activity or assessment. Students will be able to learn best when they are able to access multiple ways to learn and represent their understandings. I will learn as much about how my students learn at the beginning of the year and use this information to cater activities to assist students as they reach their full potentials. 

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Student-led Conferences and Digital Portfolios

    
    Student-led conferences are a wonderful way to allow students to showcase their work to parents or guardians. Much like a typical parent-teacher conferences, this is how students’ guardians get to see what their child is doing at school. Both types of conferences allow guardians to see progress that their child has made based off of work samples and data. The great difference about student-led conferences is that the students get to showcase the work that they deem important. They get to showcase the things that they are most proud of and activities that they enjoyed the most. When students show the work that they have done, whether it was good or bad, they are held accountable and are able to take charge of their own learning.

     Students may be provided with guidelines as to what they showcase for the conference, but ultimately, they are the one that dictates work showcased during the conference. Guidelines that may be set up for the conference are in the number of work samples that must be provided to the parent or guardian, the subjects that are represented by the work samples, and that they must reflect on each piece of work showcased. The teacher’s main job is to facilitate and to provide the expectations for the assignments that were given.

    
  A great thing to build for use during the meeting is a digital portfolio. A digital portfolio is an environmentally friendly way to keep track of all of the student’s work samples. They provide easy access to all of the documents and save paper and space. The student will need to be familiar with the work that is saved in their portfolio so that they are able to talk about it. The best thing about a digital portfolio is that it can be used across many subjects, classes, and even grades. This portfolio can easily travel with students throughout their entire education experience. It can be a comprehensive view of student learning and growth.

     In my future classroom, I will make the most of both student-led conferences digital portfolios. I want my students to be able to keep track of what they are learning with assistance rather than me doing it all for them. This allows them to pick what they think is important and what they enjoyed doing the most. During student-led conferences, students will easily be able to talk about these work samples that they chose because they are important to them.

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Assessment

     

Assessment is one of the most vital parts of successful instruction. By assessing your students in some way for everything that you teach, you are able to see what they do and do not understand. You are able to tell where they are in their understanding, where they are likely headed in their understanding, and ways that they could likely close the gap between what they do not know yet and where they need to be.

     Grades can never be confused for assessment. Grades are simply the number or letter given to an assessment of some kind, but it is not the assessment, itself. Assessment is something that is conducted in order to utilize in order to build upon what is already known. It also requires great communication between students and teachers in order to provide and make proper use of feedback given. Assessment will provide teachers and students with a way to identify how to move forward with instruction in order to close the gap between what is already known and what needs to be known by the end of a designated segment. Assessment should be used directly, indirectly, formatively, and in a summative form. By providing multiple forms of assessment throughout everything that is being taught, students are more likely to take charge of their own learning and assist you in closing the gap. 
     Formative assessment is a form of informal assessment that is made up of different types of observation done during learning. It is used to motivate learning, and it may help teachers reevaluate how they are teaching and how they can better suit the needs of their students if what they are doing is not working like it should. It improves future performance and is often data-driven.
     Formal assessment, also known as standardized testing, is very structured and provides information on how students are doing at the end of a lesson or learning segment. Summative assessment is an evaluation of performance. 
     In my future classroom, I will make sure that my assessments are intentional, are based of just standards and expectations, are offered in multiple forms, and are utilized for data and feedback purposes. By providing my students with all of these aspects of a proper assessment, they will be much more likely to succeed. 

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Nearpod

    

     Nearpod is a wonderful resource for students and teachers of all ages. A study found that using Nearpod enables 100% student participation and allows students to collaborate, build creativity, and communication skills. It can also improve focus, engagement and reading comprehension skills.

     Nearpod allows teachers to build lesson plans and create activities for all subjects. There are also thousands of lesson plans that are already on the platform for teachers to access and use from the lesson library, some free and some for a small price. You can access these lesson plans that are categorized by subject, grade-level, and price.

     The best Nearpod lessons begin with an essential question and learning objective. These lessons will then give students an open-ended question in order to access prior knowledge. Lessons will have activities, stories, and sometimes even games to promote their learning even further. There are options to self-assess in order to allow students to know where they are at with the content.

     Nearpod has teamed up with Flocabulary to offer over 100 pre-made lessons with Flocabulary videos to enhance engagement. By occasionally using these lessons, you can spend so much more time accommodating and editing these lessons to be more adaptive to the needs of your students. With all of the lessons being editable, it is easy to alter pieces of the lessons to be very mindful of your students’ needs. Editing pre-made lessons allows the teacher to spend more time teaching and assisting students when needed instead of focusing all of their time and attention on the planning part of the lesson.

    Nearpod allows teachers to create a Google Slide presentation to work seamlessly with the application. You can embed any Nearpod activity directly into the Google Slide presentation. This presentation can, of course, be uploaded directly into Google Classroom for students to access.

     In my future classroom, I will use Nearpod as often as possible. With the plethora of lessons that are available to access and customize, I would love to use Nearpod to avoid spending too much time creating lessons. It is great to use these on occasion to save time and allow yourself more time to accommodate for and work directly with your students. There is a free version that has many of the same options that the paid version has. Many districts or individual schools purchase it for their teachers, so that is something worth inquiring about!

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English Language Learners

     English Language Learners (ELL) are unable to communicate fluently or effectively in English. We must cultivate relationships and be culturally responsible because these students are having to work twice as hard. Everything that they hear in English, they have to process those words and translate each word to their native language before they can ever understand what you said. Processing different languages takes more time than when you are only familiar with one language. When you are able to speak slowly and increase wait times, students are much more likely to participate. The students must know that their needs are understood, are appreciated, and feel comfortable.

     It is very important to teach language skills across the curriculum. When they are learning math or science, they should still be learning vocabulary words frequently so that they can learn to translate these words as they are learning rather than being bombarded with a lot of vocabulary later on. Students should be taught by emphasizing productive language. Oral language is something that should be prioritized when learning an additional lesson.

    

Incorporating culture and native language into everything that students do is imperative. This will help them connect to things that they know. Using translate apps, videos, books, and photographs that they may have seen before can be really beneficial. Giving your students multiple ways to learn will also increase understanding and participation. Like all students, ELLs also need a plethora of ways to obtain information because all students learn in different ways. All information provided to students, especially ELLs, needs to be able to be seen and heard in order for it to be processed to its fullest potential. The more learning styles that you tap into, the better it is for your students.

     In my future classroom, I will make sure that my students are learning to the fullest extent that I can provide for them. I will present my information in many ways and allow students to show their understanding across multiple platforms. I will make the information accessible to these students by providing them various tools such as translators, books, and visual aids across all subjects to promote further learning. 

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