Posted by Atsumori. Category:
There are many advantages to using online skill programs such as Lexia, Symphony Math, and others to boost students' skill and fluency with essential reading and math skills. These programs offer students the chance to learn and practice discrete skills with quick feedback. These programs also offer educators reports that document students' growth, struggles, and needs--reports that can be used to inform classroom instruction, student-teacher discussions, and individual response. As my colleague, Mike O'Connor says, these programs offer students the "mental push-ups" that strengthen their academic foundation.
There are many ways that educators can integrate these programs into school life with strength.
Know the Programs
To implement these programs best, educators should take the time to play the games and interact with the program as a student. Knowing these programs well means that you experience them as a child would.
Observe Students
While students are using these programs, make the time to observe their efforts. Sit down next to them, plug in your headphones (use a rockstar or other multi-headphone device), and watch a child play the game.
Talk to Students
As a whole class or with individuals, discuss the efforts with the students. Ask about what's working and what's not working. Solidify goals and rationale for using these programs. Help students to focus on the "learning to learn" mindsets and actions that support optimal learning in this venue.
Take Notes
As you observe and watch, take notes about students' strengths, needs, and efforts. Share those notes with the students' teaching team, family members, and if appropriate, students. Use the notes to inform later study. Organize the notes in a spreadsheet or document that is easily shared and updated with and by the teaching team.
Analyze Reports
Make the time to understand and analyze the reports these programs produce. Use the reports to inform later work and efforts.
Assistive Technology
If a child resists a program, first observe and find out why. Use the easy assistive tools first such as enlarging text, adjusting sound/headphones, brightening the screen, and text reading features. If the initial changes don't work, seek out a similar program that offers a different approach. For example my colleague, Susan Cherwinski, often finds more tactile, tablet programs to engage some of her learners rather than a keyboard driven program. No one skills' program is a fit for all students, particularly students who fall far from the mean in specific skills or content.
Enrichment
In some cases, students will exceed the expectations of a grade-level skills program. In that case, the teaching team and the student should work together to identify other tools that those students can be working on at the same time. There are many, many engaging, enriching "grow-at-your-own-pace" online programs available for these students. Programs such as SCRATCH offer limitless learning and creativity.
24-7 Access
Whenever possible choose programs that have 24-7 access. Many children who have an achievement goal in mind will work on these programs at home to reach goals.
Family Engagement
Invite family members in to help out with the lab, and to work with individual students. Have a family night so that you and the students can teach family members how to use these online tools for skill building. Give family members who are interested passwords so they can use the software. In one case, a parent who was just learning English asked for a Lexia password so she could use the program to boost her English skills. Then she volunteered to help students in the class with the software. That was a very positive event in so many ways.
Celebrate Success
Think of collective ways to note and celebrate success--ways that contribute to the learning and the collective efforts of the group, not ways that take away from learners' self esteem, effort, and enthusiasm for the work.
I'm sure that educators can add to this list of positive integration efforts that help us use online skills' programs to help students' learn well. Please let me know what you have to add since our collective efforts will help us all to use these new tools for student benefit.
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment