Mel's Teaching Corner

What should you use for your class? Should you choose Zoom, Microsoft Teams and/or Google Meet? To begin this conversation, you first need to understand how to use these tools. Check out the following videos: How to use Microsoft Teams How to use Google Meet How to use Zoom Now that you know a little bit more about these three platforms, how do you choose? To begin, Zoom is great for meetings with your staff, or a meeting with students, but it is not as interactive as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. How do you choose between Google Meet and Microsoft Teams? To answer this question, you need to ask yourself the following two questions: Do I use Microsoft or Google for creating my materials? Does my school have a preference? Overall, if your school uses Microsoft and you create most of your materials using Microsoft, choose Microsoft Teams. If your school uses Google and you create most of your materials using Google, choose Google. Yes there is a price tag depending on what you are loo...

I started Twitter back in 2015 because my boss told me I needed to join a Twitter chat. Shortly after, I stopped using Twitter because I had so many things on my plate. I was at a new school, the state standards for science just changed, I needed to get to know my students, I needed to get to know my colleagues, and I needed to develop my curriculum. Needless to say, I had a lot going on, and I didn't need Twitter on my plate. Although this was the case 5 years ago, I have recently started using Twitter again, and I love it now. Through using Twitter, I have found some awesome resources and ideas for my class. Twitter offers a world of great ideas if you have the time to find information that is useful for you. So... Is it worth the time? Yes and No. Twitter can be a great tool for you to use to find resources and ideas, but you need to make sure to follow the right people. You will want to choose people that post quality material, such as @melshep34, @MrsParkShine, @GTeacherPodcas...

When teaching online, you will have students that will not show up, who will show up to a live class, but not participate and/or who will not do school work. It will happen, but there are ways to draw them in. Check out the following video for ideas of how to contact your students: There are several ways that you can contact your students, but what will the situation look like when you reach out to the student and/or parents? How will the call home go? Scenario 1: There is no answer, so you will leave a message. Then you will call again, send texts, and email the student and guardians, but you will have no luck. Make sure to document ALL of your attempts. After 5 attempts (in 2 weeks), get the administration involved. It may become a truancy problem that the administration needs to be aware of. Scenario 2: The parent will answer (or call back). They will insist that their son or daughter is online all day doing work. They have seen it. What now? Ask the student the following: "Are...

Google Sheets has a variety of uses, but I love using Google Sheets for data. When you are collecting data on students, you can keep a variety of information in Google Sheets. Also, this data can be shared with the administration and/or other teachers. For example, imagine having a school wide Google Sheet for every student at the school. You could use Google Sheets to report plagiarism issues (See "School Plagiarism Policy" below). If a student is plagiarizing in one class, they are probably plagiarizing in another class as well. You could share a Google Sheet with every teacher, so each attempt of plagiarism is accounted for and can be followed-up with the schools plagiarism policy. note the number of times you attempt to call a student and/or guardian and the outcome of each attempt. Also, if six teachers call 2 times a week, the family may get very annoyed, but, if you could look at a Google Sheet to see if any other teacher has tried to contact that student, you could av...

When teaching virtually, it is important to find ways to connect with your students. Music is a great way to build connections. Students love to listen to music, and they always have an opinion about a song. When teaching virtually, you can play music at the beginning of the class while students are logging into your class. For example, if their last class ended at 10:30 AM and your class begins at 10:35 AM, you could play music for those five minutes. When the music goes off, it means class has started. During this time, students will talk about the songs, and you can engage them in a conversation. Also, this is a great mind break for students between classes, and students will log in early to engage in the music and conversation.  When choosing the music you will play, it is important to find kid friendly music. For example, you don't want swearing in the music because you are teaching at a school. Kid friendly music is key. You can find kid friendly music on YouTube and/or Pando...

There is an ongoing discussion about how face to face teaching is the only way to teach, but it is not true. When you go to school to become a teacher, you learn that every student is different and students learn differently. Some students need hands on activities, others learn better with an auditory approach, and some need to see pictures, graphs and data tables. Students are different, and they learn differently. That is OK. So...how does this relate to face to face schools or online schools? Well, what works best for one student may not work best for a different student. I have taught face to face, synchronously (online), and asynchronously (online). Each type of teaching/learning has its pros and cons. Here are some pros and cons to each type: Face to Face Teaching/Learning: You get to see each other in person, and you can read a students body language which can help drastically when determining what the student needs. Also, you get that in person connection, but there are cons as...

Do you ever want students to get immediate feedback as to whether an answer is right or wrong? You can use Google Sheets to do this for number and short answer questions. Example 1: In this example, if a student gets the term correct, the cell will turn green, but, if the student gets the term wrong, the cell will turn red. The student knows they need to go back and re-look at the terms and definitions if the cell turns red. Example 2: This shows a students work for a math problem. If a student gets the work correct, the cell will turn green, but, if the student does not have the correct information in the cell, the cell will stay red. How Do You Set This Up? Watch the video below to see how you can use conditional formatting in Google Sheets to set this up. Quick feedback can really help guide your students regarding right and wrong answers. You may not be able to give detailed feedback in Google Sheets, but the students will know right away what is wrong and what is right, and they ...