Oh, The Things I learned… at MACUL!

I may have borrowed my title from Michigan Virtual’s awesome presence at MACUL, but it really describes how I feel about the conference! I learned SO many amazing things there that I am implementing in my classes now. I came out of that experience refreshed and inspired to continue to help all of my students learn! Here are some of the things I am doing post-MACUL/Spring Synergy!

 

Twitter

I went to an awesome session about using twitter in the classroom (thanks @jasonaxelbowman) and I was inspired to start using class hashtags to share additional information with my students. I invited them to follow me on twitter and use the class hashtag to share class related material or exciting (school appropriate) news they would like to share! Here is the info:

  • @Ms_LGraham
  • #MVArchaeology
  • #MVArtApp
  • #MVFilmStudy

Getting to know my students more

I am now sending out at least 5 messages per class a day just asking students how they are doing and asking if they need help with anything. I am hoping this will open up even more conversations between my students and me.

I was also inspired to do a padlet that is personal, fun, and class related! I know, how did I do that all in one thing??? Well for my film studies classes I asked students to share a “Memorable Movie Moment” from their favorite film. Side note – I also discovered that you can set your padlet so that you have to approve all posts before they show up, which was necessary for this one since I had students including video clips. This is a super amazing feature that I did not know before this conference!

Changing the way I give feedback

I was inspired by a presentation at Spring Synergy to prioritize my feedback and make sure that I am spending the most time on vital assignments (papers and formative assignments where I can help before the student strays too far from the learning goals).

Reinforcing lessons with outside material

I was completely inspired by the awesome session of a panel of teachers, Carrie Moeggenberg, Garth Trask, David Theune, Mark Wells, Mark Schlaudt, and Erik Cliff. They presented a great session called “We Thought, We Inspired, We Created” that really made me see that I was only reaching the “middle” students in my courses, I wasn’t providing enough material to challenge high performing students and I wasn’t providing enough material to scaffold learning for struggling students. They spoke a lot about “cloning yourself” as in taking videos of yourself to help reach these other group of students. I am starting to not only take videos of myself like mentioned but also using outside sources that are meant to help with differentiating material for students. The main sources I use and would recommend is Khan academy, Crash Course, and Front Row Ed. Everything in Khan Academy and Front Row Ed is completely geared toward K-12 learning, but Crash Course is not so previewing all Crash Course videos is a must!

1 Comment on Oh, The Things I learned… at MACUL!

  1. Andrea McKay
    March 22, 2018 at 4:51 pm (6 years ago)

    Lauren, sounds like these three days were impactful! I love seeing the changes you are implementing right away, and I can’t wait to hear how these change the student experience in your courses. Rock on!

    Reply

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