Student engagement is on the minds of all educators!
Our ambassadors, Erin Glover and Brenna McPherren, are not just committed educators, they are also Technology Integration Facilitators (TIFs) in the Lake Washington School District in Washington State, USA. In their roles as TIFs, they have worked to identify the challenges educators are facing in their classrooms, especially in light of the pandemic. They found that “increasing student engagement” was a recurring theme among educators.
In this post, Erin and Brenna dive into three easy-to-use Lumio features that can save teachers time Y Maximize student participation in the classroom.
Let’s meet our Ambassadors first!
erin glovera 10 year old educator, is a mom of three and chicken keeper of many. Erin is dedicated to project-based learning and supports student learning through engagement and ownership. She also enjoys helping her colleagues and encouraging them to try teaching strategies that increase participation in her classroom communities..
Brenna McPherren He has been an educator for 23 years. He loves helping young students stay curious and become independent thinkers and learners. She believes in integrating technology and computing into her teaching in a meaningful way and she greatly enjoys teaching other educators how to do the same in her classroom.
1. The power of graphic organizers
of lumium Graphic organizers are an effective tool to help students organize their thinking and communicate their learning effectively. As noted by Ambrose 2010, “The way students organize their knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.” of lumio Ready-to-use, customizable graphic organizers encourage students to demonstrate understanding and allow educators to check prior knowledge, scaffold learning, and gain insight into student progress.
Erin and Brenna have found that ready-to-use graphic organizers are a fun way to increase student engagement and require very little teacher preparation.
Brenna uses graphic organizers in his second grade vocabulary lesson. Brenna uses them as a whole class activity as well as individual student handouts. And once created, these graphic organizers can be slightly modified to create new activities, adding flexibility and saving preparation time.
from erin the use of graphic organizers further demonstrates its flexibility. He used a graphic organizer as part of his Book Tasting lesson plan, starting with a blank graphic organizer and incorporating prompts that stimulate metacognitive thinking.
Explore Lumio’s ready-to-use graphic organizers here.
2. The power of a blank page
Lumio’s blank page feature is a blank canvas where teachers can guide and stimulate students’ creativity while engaging them in fun ways. Promoting creativity in the classroom has been shown to improve student engagement. Plus, it’s easy to turn blank pages into collaborative workspaces that stimulate whole-class discussions, leading to more engagement, more choice for students, and opportunities for students to be creative in demonstrating their learning.
In your example, Brenna It begins by placing an image on a blank page and using it to stimulate classroom discussions and inquiry-based thinking. She has found that using this type of simple collaborative activity leads to whole class participation and requires little or no prep work.
Ireland has used blank pages to design activities that give students a space for creative demonstration of their learning. In her assignment on “Women in History,” Erin added some simple instructions on a blank page, then asked students to use text and images to express themselves creatively and work on a project they could be proud of.
Try this free Lumio lesson using a collaborative whiteboard.
3. Student power of choice
Giving students choice in their learning has a number of benefits, ranging from increasing student engagement to enabling differentiation by providing appropriate challenges. ((Toshalis and Nakkula, 2012).. Erin and Brenna love using the Lumio Shout it out! feature followed by giving students scaffolded options to demonstrate their learning.
Shout it out! is a powerful tool that enables students to share ideas, background knowledge, and opinions synchronously from their devices across all learning environments. When used to promote student choice in an activity, Shout it out! it can be very effective in increasing student engagement as it makes the learning process more relevant.
Brenna recently used Shout it out! as a brainstorming activity with your second graders to get them excited about a solar system project. she settled Shout it out! for students to reflect on “What do I already know about the solar system” and “What do I want to know about the solar system?” This generated genuine interest and motivated students to pursue their topics of interest for their research project. Students also had the opportunity to choose how to display their learning, which ranged from blank Lumio pages to posters, fact sheets, etc.
Find out how to personalize your Shout it Out! lesson
The examples from Brenna and Erin show how teachers can use these Lumio presented in more ways than one to foster an environment of active, collaborative, and engaged learners. Brenna and Erin noted that integrating technology to increase student engagement does not necessarily require extensive preparation on the part of the educator.
To hear Erin and Brenna talk in detail about designing and using their classroom activities, watch her webinar here. Do you want to integrate their engaging activities into your lessons? find your Lumio lesson here and save it to your own Lumio library!
References:
Ambrose, SA, Bridges, MW, Lovett, MC, DiPietro, M., & Norman, MK (2010). How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass.
Toshalis E. and Nakkula, MJ (2012). Motivation, Commitment and voice of the student. The series Students in the Center. A Jobs for the Future project.