The fun little characters can add visual cues to student assignments and help you manage classroom routines.

Do your students love using emojis? While they might seem silly on the surface, emojis can definitely pack a punch. Why not incorporate them into your teaching?

Here are some ideas that go beyond the popular or common ways we use emojis (in text messages, comments, and social media posts) and connect to projects and routines you might already be using in your classroom.

USING EMOJIS IN THE CLASSROOM

Bullets on anchor charts: If you’re making anchor charts in your class, use emojis instead of a traditional bulleted list. For example, as a classroom teacher I used to put lots of reference materials on chart paper for students, including resources to support student writers. Print out emojis (making them larger) or draw emojis on your chart paper.

Sharing feelings: Another way to use emojis is to have students choose an emoji that illustrates their feelings. For example, give students a selection of emojis to choose from each day, and give them an opportunity to record or write about their feelings. Or you can use a tool like Emoji Finder that lets students type in keywords and see different emojis that connect to their feelings.

Rating experiences: Just as we might give a five-star rating to an online shopping experience or a ride service, students can rate experiences using emojis. Whether it’s a star emoji, the fire flame emoji, or another favorite, they can rate how much they enjoyed a class read-aloud, the outcome of a science experiment, a field trip, or any other experience.

Peer feedback: Encourage students to add emojis, just one or two, to any comments or feedback they give to their classmates. They can use an emoji keyboard on their device or an online tool, such as the one above, for finding the perfect emoji to add to their comment before posting their thoughts.

Labeling folders: Emojis can work for you, as well. Add emojis to your folders in Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive, or anyplace you’re adding a new title to a folder or file. Emojis can help you find what you’re looking for faster.

Organizing information: Students can organize their work using emojis, too. For example, they can include emojis as part of the headers for different categories of information as they conduct research, or they can use emojis alongside their comments in the margins of the text they read, for quick access.

Retelling a story: Students can retell stories or short excerpts of text using emojis as part of their retelling. Ask them to choose one emoji that goes with each sequence of a story, “first, next, then, and last.” If they’re creating a retelling with emojis that connect to their own stories, this might even be an opportunity for students to play a guessing game with their classmates.

Giving directions: In the same way that we recognize a logo of a company before we read their corresponding social media post, emojis are visual cues for students. If you’re posting directions for a task like a do-now or exit slip on an interactive board in your classroom or as a post in a learning management system, adding emojis can help break up information and provide a visual cue for directions.

Add to infographics: Have students use emojis as the icons that go along with the information they share on an infographic. This is a great way to connect visuals to any research they do themselves or data they want to represent in an infographic. In my book, EdTech Essentials: The Top 10 Technology Strategies for All Learning Environments, I discuss infographics and other favorite student project ideas.

Indicate patterns: Emojis are a great option for having students represent patterns. This could be part of a coding course or an opportunity for students to annotate the patterns in poetry. For example, if you explore ABABAB patterns, ask students to use emojis to represent the patterns.

Annotating a passage: Your students might be familiar with using color coding to annotate a passage, whether they use physical highlighters or have access to a few colorful digital tools. Introduce the idea of annotating a passage by adding emojis next to the text. You can give students a lot of flexibility for annotating with emojis or model for them how to use just a selection of emojis as part of a regular annotation routine.

There are many creative ways to use emojis—I share a few more on this episode of the Easy EdTech Podcast—and I hope the above list will help you get started.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-use-emojis-teaching?fbclid=IwAR0cJQq3WhaJoyE5BEpZBqfVgTIF-HmX1bzq7KNu1qwG9gEnVffcs1oxUg4

As the year ends, high school teachers and administrators can assess their schools’ traditions, celebrations, and student leadership practices.

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF CELEBRATION

This has been quite a year. Many students have struggled with anxiety and challenges with learning, family, and friends. The successes we have had, large or small, should be recognized and embraced. In the book Professional Learning Communities at Work, former superintendent Rick DuFour shares, “One of the most important and effective strategies for shaping the culture of any organization is celebration.”

For example, before the pandemic we had recognition in a large formal gathering where names were read quickly and impersonally and students received certificates of achievement. Now we have shifted to genuine celebration in small, intimate venues with only the club members present. In our student council, for instance, this meant we were able to exchange small gifts and recognize the efforts of our students in a far more personalized way. We also had the tradition of impersonally rattling off names for our senior awards.

This year, instead of handing out dozens of awards like “Outstanding Chemistry Student” and “Social Studies Scholars,” we all met in the lobby of our auditorium, where students could go to the department chairs and have a conversation with their nominator. Moving away from a large awards assembly has led to a far more meaningful exchange between students and their mentors.

2. DEVELOP GOOD HABITS INSTEAD OF TRADITIONS

Some of our traditions were no longer meeting the needs of the students. Still, we were clinging to them because we have always done things that way. After not being a part of the students’ lives for nearly two years, many of these traditions were only traditions for the faculty and not the students. Viewing our activities as habits allowed us to determine if they were good habits we wanted to further develop or bad habits that no longer reflected who we were. As an example, viewing the tradition of our senior awards (mentioned above) as a bad habit, we were willing to experiment with change in order to improve the experience. We needed to not take for granted what students wanted and to remain fluid in our approach to adjusting the school culture.

This year, I felt my science students had an experience in my class that no other class before them had. My students struggled with transitioning from the expectations associated with remote learning to in-person learning. Many struggled with receiving feedback and taking action to address deficiencies in their learning. By the end of the year, students were hitting their stride again, but I could tell that students had regrets over how they addressed learning. As a result, we ended the year by writing letters to the next year’s students. We created an advice time capsule that next year’s students will open to find advice for success from this year’s students.

My students asked why they didn’t get a card at the beginning of the year, and I told them it was because no one had to work through a pandemic for in-school learning as they had. These students were in a unique position to share an experience with future students. If this activity were a tradition, and every year we completed it as a class, it would lose the authenticity of sharing their genuine experience and improving the lives of their peers. End-of-the-year reflection was a good habit to begin forming, and these letters to next year’s students were the manifestation of that habit.

3. FOSTER INCLUSIVE STUDENT LEADERSHIP

This year we had to ask if our actions led to the change we wanted to see in our school culture. Half of our students hadn’t set foot in our building prior to the beginning of this year, since most of our sophomores attended remote school their freshmen year. Because of this, little institutional memory was built between upper-class and lower-class students. Our current juniors and seniors hadn’t learned from older students how to behave or what to expect from typical high school life, and yet suddenly they were the older students.

We took this situation as an opportunity to align our organizational actions with the mission and vision of our school. For example, our student government structure was very linear, and the only way to express an active student voice was to be a part of our student government since freshman year. Unfortunately, this led to only a small segment of our student population advocating for all of our students, which was not aligned with our school’s vision with respect to equity and inclusivity.

As a result, we changed how a student could be a part of the student government by opening the application to any student in the school. We are starting to build a more diverse set of voices that truly reflect our student population and their interests. We recognized the alignment between our school’s commitment to creating a more inclusive culture and the need to change how our school operated.

I have been a teacher for nearly 20 years, and by far, this year has been my most challenging. I believe that change is difficult, and this year has required us to change more than any other year in teaching. No matter how difficult it is for us to change, we need to do it. The process of recognizing the needs of our students and adjusting to those needs is how we fully serve our kids.

The end of the school year and early summer is a fantastic time to reflect and recognize what you want to keep and what you want to change from the past year. This upcoming year, I plan on regularly celebrating throughout the year instead of jamming it all into the end. I imagine this will offer some time to build relationships, and it will be an investment that will pay dividends in student learning, collaboration, and belonging.

I will also look at what I do in the classroom as a teacher and out of the classroom as a school leader and not be afraid to challenge tradition as long as the change is intentional, aligning with our mission and vision for our school, and it leads to the development of good educational habits.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-key-areas-reflect-summer?fbclid=IwAR2XEm14scosauEpenr3KtkyFDWyV6G11xO3WF7I79Z5TVxWpCPMNLZbX6U

I am pissed off now. I need to know how to process my emotion and calm down!

In order to be calm and at ease with ourselves, we need regular periods where we do something rather strange-sounding: process our emotions. The School of Life provides a guide to this essential psychological move.

Strategies like choral reading and ear reading improve students’ reading fluency, expand their vocabulary, and increase their confidence. 

TRY CHORAL READING OR PARTNER READING

There are better alternatives to round-robin and popcorn reading: “Of the 30-odd studies and articles I’ve consumed on the subject,” says Todd Finley, a professor of English education, “only one graduate research paper claimed a benefit to round-robin reading or its variations.” It simply doesn’t benefit students to have poor fluency skills and pronunciation modeled, and asking students to take turns reading aloud in front of the whole class can stigmatize struggling readers.

Choral reading—when the teacher and class read a text aloud together—takes the spotlight off of struggling readers while encouraging them to participate. Research suggests that it improves reading fluency, expands vocabulary, and increases students’ confidence.

Partner reading is another low-stakes, research-backed strategy. A pair of students alternate reading a text aloud, then taking the role of the listener. The listener asks probing questions to check that the reader comprehends the text. Having the stronger reader go first benefits struggling readers because they hear the difficult words before reading them aloud themselves. This form of peer monitoring and questioning improves reading fluency, according to a 2007 study.

ASSIGN CROSS-GRADE READING BUDDIES

Pairing students from upper and lower grades to read together has academic and social and emotional benefits that flow both ways. The little kids see greater reading fluency modeled and profit from the one-to-one attention of a mentoring relationship; the upper elementary kids learn by answering questions and develop crucial skills like empathy and patience. Additionally, for older kids who struggle with grade-level reading, the experience allows them to access simpler texts without shame—all the while increasing their confidence by taking on a leadership role.

Student pairs can meet at least once a month for 30 minutes. At first, let the younger students choose the books to increase their engagement; later, have older students share their favorite reads. As the younger kids’ skills develop, they can start reading too, instead of just listening.

MAKE EAR READING AVAILABLE TO YOUR CLASS

Ear reading, listening to an audiobook while reading, is a great approach—at least periodically—for all students, but it has particular benefits for struggling readers and students with dyslexia. In a 2010 study, students with dyslexia who listened to audiobooks showed significant gains in reading accuracy, improved behavior and school performance, and greater motivation and school involvement. You can get human-read audiobooks and textbooks from Learning Ally, a nonprofit focused on supporting K–12 struggling readers. OverDrive, Bookshare, and Audible also provide audiobooks.

Although ear reading is an effective strategy for supporting students with dyslexia, it doesn’t replace explicit, step-by-step phonics-based instruction, also known as structured literacy, which remains one of the most effective reading strategies for students with the condition. Structured literacy focuses on teaching phonemic and phonological awareness, among other skills like encoding and comprehension.

TEACH ACADEMIC ENGLISH

A 2014 report from the Institute of Education Sciences looks at how teaching academic English—general and domain-specific vocabulary for a subject area or a unit, for example—empowers students, particularly English language learners (ELLs), to understand the content better. Acting out the words in a skit, creating physical gestures for challenging words, and coupling challenging language with images are some useful strategies for teaching vocabulary.

But students need more than vocabulary to become successful readers. Regular formative assessment is important, especially in supporting ELLs, who now make up almost 10 percent of K–12 students in the United States. In kindergarten and first grade, check in regularly to assess students’ understanding of the alphabet and ability to sound out words. For second through fifth graders, look for their ability to read accurately, with expression, and on pace. Walking around the room while students read in pairs can be an easy way to assess students; you can ask pairs to discuss what they read to assess their comprehension in real time.

GIVE STUDENTS CHOICE IN THE BOOKS THEY READ

Allowing students to choose what they read and offering choices that reflect their experiences increases their engagement. A kid may have no desire to read The Boxcar Children but be eager to get her hands on Hansel & Gretel & Zombies: A Graphic Novel once she gets home. Giving students choice doesn’t mean lowering your expectations. Yes, kids may choose books that don’t challenge them, but you can manage that. Bring in options that are rigorous and also meet their interests, or rotate between choice books and whole-class reading.

When it comes to ensuring that your bookshelves are stocked with stories that will interest your students, having a diverse classroom library matters. Asking your students what books they want to read and what categories they are interested in is a good place to start, suggests Meredith Kimi Lewis, a K–5 program specialist for Seattle Public Schools.

HAVE STUDENTS READ THE SAME TEXT MULTIPLE TIMES, IN MULTIPLE MODALITIES

Fluency-oriented reading instruction (FORI)—when students read the same text multiple times over the course of a week as a class, in pairs, and alone, for example—significantly improved word pronunciation and reading comprehension for a diverse group of second graders, according to a 2010 study.

And at New York–based Concourse Village Elementary School, composed of a predominantly Latinx and black student population in the poorest congressional district in the nation, a schoolwide, cross-discipline reading approach that emphasizes repeated exposure to the same text has the school outscoring the citywide average by as many as 40 points for the English state exam. Their five-step reading strategy—one of several approaches in the school—also emphasizes repeated access to the same text in different modalities. Students echo and choral read the same text every day over the span of a week, and each day they focus on honing a different skill: identifying the main point, annotating, identifying key details, analyzing the author’s craft, and drawing conclusions. 

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-elementary-reading-strategies-really-work?fbclid=IwAR1Vo5_QOB05DnPut_eUwfAuB2U84tR4tRV1KWoA5YjbC_QqlKtL4Ij7UCI

“Your name is hard to pronounce.”

“You speak English surprisingly well.”

“You’ve done so well despite your background.”

“You don’t act like a girl.”

“You don’t dress like a boy.”

If you’ve ever heard something like these or similar statements said to someone who is from an underrepresented group (such as Black, Latine, Indigenous or Asian) or as LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual and other gender/sexual minorities), then you may have witnessed a microaggression.

What are microaggressions?

Microaggressions are defined as every day, subtle, intentional or unintentional interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups. These can be comments, interactions, body language or other behaviors that make a person or group of people feel less than another person or group.

Are microaggressions harmful?

Most people don’t mean for microaggressions to be offensive. In fact, many people who make such statements often believe they’re complimenting the person. On the other hand, microaggressions can sometimes be intentionally hurtful.

Microagressions can have a negative impact:

• They can make someone feel bad about themselves and send the message they don’t belong or are less-than. Like other forms of discrimination, microaggressions are based on systems and institutions that have historically privileged certain groups and disadvantaged or oppressed others.
• Repeated exposure to microaggressions in the form of insensitive comments, a backhanded compliment and actions that exclude may increase stress, anxiety or depression among people who identify as immigrants, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ or other marginalized groups.

Microaggressions take place in everyday situations, such as conversations with friends or in the workplace.

How can I as a parent or educator teach about microaggressions?

We know kids learn habits and opinions from the adults in their lives. If you’d like to teach your children to be open-minded and respectful as well as more informed on microaggressions, try these ideas:

If you’re a parent:

• Rethink some of what you were brought up to believe and statements you’ve made in the past. Try viewing situations from the perspective of others, to become an empathetic ally and practice humility.
• Teach your child, in an age-appropriate way, about the racial injustices that have existed throughout American history. Let them know your family may benefit from privileges other families don’t have because of characteristics, such as the color of your skin, or identities. Take a look at these books on race and ethnicity that may help get this conversation started.
• Help your child understand they may not feel good if people assumed things about them because of the way they looked or made jokes about them or their background because they belonged to a certain group. By being aware of this issue, they may be less likely to make comments.
• Model appropriate and inclusive ways of asking questions about the differences of others framed in a genuine interest to learn and do not make others feel like an outsider. Phrase questions in a way that show people you are interested in learning and not making others feel like outsiders. Tell your child you are also open to try to help answer questions about differences and learn more about others.
• If you have committed a microaggression and become aware of it, demonstrate a response for your child that models compassion, humility and respect for the person or group. Avoid jumping to a defensive or emotional response, even if it might feel embarrassing.
• It’s important to recognize and teach your child intent does not negate the fact that microaggressions are hurtful statements or actions.

If you’re an educator:

• Set the expectation that everyone’s personal identity will be respected in the classroom. Recognize the classroom may not feel inclusive for all students, so create clear expectations upfront about mutual respect and tolerance.
• Feature a variety of historical events and figures in lessons that might not always be featured in textbooks.
• Teach your students how powerful words can be. Ask students to mention times others hurt their feelings, gradually crumpling a piece of paper in response to the comments until it’s balled up. Then smooth out the paper while the students share compliments they’ve received – but show the paper now has permanent wrinkles. Explain that microaggressions can make a permanent impression on someone, just liked a balled-up piece of paper.
• Build a classroom culture where both teachers and students model and regularly practice lifting each other up through positive affirmations and statements about one another.
• Read books aloud featuring characters who experience microaggressions (like Don’t Touch My Hair or The Name Jar), for insight from a child’s viewpoint. Explain classmates can stick up for each other when someone says something inappropriate.
• When you identify microaggressions in your classroom, discuss them in a way that is not shameful or embarrassing to individuals or groups. Ask questions to clarify what was meant and figure out strategies to help challenge preconceived notions, so the class can feel more comfortable and respected.
• Provide opportunities for all students to have their voice heard in the classroom through strategies like providing alternative ways for students to comment/share and random selection of students.
• Help students express their feelings in an assertive manner, such as through “I” statements, that include the person’s feelings and impact of the action/statement on the person. Reference: https://www.onoursleeves.org/mental-health-resources/minority-mental-health/how-to-teach-kids-about-microaggressions?fbclid=IwAR1ioxWVkdUehW6ynMCUd5XUXng0x4SldHiwouhwC5lbO0DBxsf2DZd9Omk