Saved by the Bell
As I'm nearing the end of my second year, I'm reflecting on the changes I've made that have made a big difference. Two aspects of my class that I wanted to revise were (1) how to get kids started working sooner and (2) how to get conversation time with a kid after an absence. Bell Work has been recommended to me in the past, but this year, I was able to find a system that works for me.
A Low-Tech Blog
Using a Written Conversation with Poetry
Lots of kids are motivated to do something because their friends are watching. I used this to my advantage during my student teaching by incorporating a strategy I learned from my student teaching advisor, Margo Kernen. She called it a Written Conversation, and it's über-useful to get every kid engaged and focussed on the lesson while providing the sort of immediately gratifying feedback students receive while texting. It works especially well with poetry.