Every teacher knows that one of the busiest weeks of the school year is the week of parent-teacher conferences. These meetings of the minds are vital in establishing open communication between the teacher and a student’s home. In many cases, the fall conferences may be the first time a teacher meets parents and guardians, providing a dedicated time slot for them to get to know each other beyond a quick wave at the classroom door.

Parent-teacher communication, also referred to as home-to-school communication, is instrumental in helping each student be the most engaged, successful, supported, and accountable they can be! Many teachers use a variety of methods to connect with homes—from daily behavior charts, informal notes, and weekly newsletters, to classroom websites, progress reports, and detailed report cards. Today’s technology, with LMS platforms and student information systems, also helps bridge the communication gap by providing seamless messaging options as well as insights into real-time student data (attendance, test scores, etc.). Yet nothing really beats the benefits of face-to-face time to discuss how best to champion a child.

Parent-teacher conferences are usually held once in the fall and once in the spring. These meetings help teachers build positive relationships with parents and guardians. That sense of familiarity and trust is key because kids spend over 1,000 hours a year in school (180 days x 6 hours per day). Teachers are often thought of as one of the most influential factors in a child’s life, especially when it comes to academic achievement.

The students’ beliefs about themselves as learners are shaped by the teacher’s communication of expectations for students, so that when the teacher conveys a belief that the student can succeed at school, the student believes it too and acts accordingly.

(Johnston & Shand, 2021)

Maximize your tech tools: Nearpod

When you begin to look ahead and plan for your parent-teacher conferences, consider which materials and tools might help illustrate your points best. Nearpod provides real-time insights into student understanding through interactive lessons, interactive videos, gamification, and activities. Thus, Nearpod can aid your conversation through the individual Student Reports, which provide insight into patterns and trends around participation and progress in any of Nearpod’s nine formative assessment activities. With an authentic student portfolio or a handful of student work samples, you can begin to provide concrete examples of a student’s strengths and/or weaknesses and provide personalized recommendations for actionable next steps. Here are some other tips to make the most of your time with family members.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

6 Best practices for parent-teacher conference communication

1. Start with small talk

Time is precious, but dedicate about 20% of your time together to getting to know each other better. Prepare some ready-made questions to facilitate this:

• How long have you lived in the area?
• How many kids do you have?
• Where did you grow up and go to school?

Similarly, share a bit about yourself to help establish open communication. You may have started off the school year with a brief student questionnaire or a school climate survey; follow up on an answer to show how invested you are in getting to know the child and their family. Family attitudes and beliefs often influence a child, so use your inquiry skills to learn more about your student’s background and home environment during this conference for effective parent-teacher communication.

Nearpod has a perfect lesson that many teachers use with students at the beginning of the year to help develop a strong student-teacher relationship and foundation.

• Grades K-2 All About Me: In this life skills Draw It template, students can use a graphic organizer to share information about themselves.
• Grades 4-12 Find Something: All About You: In this Collaborate Board activity, students share pictures, videos, or gifs to answer their chosen topic. Then, students “like” and comment on other posts.

When exploring how to communicate with parents as a teacher, consider those questions and prompts for yourself, as a way to share a bit about yourself with families. Many teachers use Nearpod to create a few slides to share at Back-to-School Night that help underscore their personal and professional passions.

2. Let the family ask questions first

You aren’t the only one who feels the pressure of parent-teacher communication at conferences! Many parents “stress” over conferences, not knowing what a teacher might share about their child. Ease their anxiety by asking what their questions are first; this will help foster a positive setting for open communication. Their parent-teacher conference questions may raise a concern or identify an issue that is top of mind  It is good to let them share their thoughts and experiences, allowing you to redirect the conversation as needed. Whether their worries are big or small, their answers will give you insight into how they are approaching the conversation. Conversely, it may prompt you to share your observations from the school year so far. Too often, conferences run out of time, and the last thing you want is to miss giving parents and caregivers a chance to share their thoughts.

3. Have a cheat sheet

Winston Churchill once said, “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” Gather and compile notes and student artifacts that will help you convey how a child is doing not only academically, but also socially and emotionally. With every “negative,” try to bolster it with a positive. While we teachers don’t want to sugarcoat what a child needs to work on, we do want to make sure to invite parents in to be of help, versus inadvertently putting them on the defensive. Finding this balance is essential for effective parent-teacher communication.

With Nearpod, you can give the families some concrete next steps on how best to support their child at home. Maybe a child could benefit from revisiting a lesson on decoding or spending some time practicing how to collaborate and cooperate.

Nearpod makes it easy to share a Student-Paced Lesson with a simple code. Consider trying out one of these activities: 

• Grades 3-5 Decoding Words: Consonant Blends: In this English Language Arts (ELA) Drag & Drop activity, students will sort pictures by their consonant digraph.
• Grades K-2 Let’s Work Together: In this social emotional learning (SEL) lesson, students practice relationship skills by examining teamwork responsibilities. Students will receive explicit instruction on SEL skills and authentic group practice opportunities.

*This activity is only available to educators with access to Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program, which has over 400 lessons, videos, and activities to integrate SEL practices into daily learning.

4. Focus on goals

Remember, goals can be short-term and long-term. By asking the parents and caregivers about their goals and by sharing yours, you’ll gather insight into the family’s priorities for their child. You can make sure you are all on the same page while discussing ways to support reaching these milestones—often, a parent is at a loss about where to turn when it comes to resources and experts, so you can share how to take a whole community approach to encouraging children to be their personal best.

During parent-teacher conferences, you want to model a growth mindset and proactively talk about realistic as well as stretch goals. One effective way to do this is by using student reports to gather and present data on how students are progressing toward these goals. Share these reports to illustrate strengths and areas for growth, encouraging parents to provide their insights from home. This collaborative approach ensures comprehensive understanding and alignment in supporting the student’s development, making data-driven decisions, and setting actionable goals that cater to both academic and personal growth.

In the Nearpod library of 22,000+ standards-aligned lessons, videos, and activities, you can find lessons that support lifelong skills such as setting goals, building persistence, and developing healthy habits. Showcase the types of content and active learning strategies that you use in the classroom by sharing some instructional resources that students and families can explore together at home.

5. Highlight the student’s voice

It’s all well and good to talk as adults about how we want our kids to flourish, but make sure to involve your students as stakeholders in their own success. Encourage students to start taking accountability for their own learning and achievements. By doing so, they become more engaged and invested in their educational journey. Before your conference, find a way for your students to express their hopes and goals for the upcoming school year. Ask kids to write themselves a letter or draw a motivational poster. They could bring in artifacts to represent their goals, which you can photograph for an end-of-year time capsule. However, you capture their thoughts and share them during or at the end of the conference to spark meaningful conversations at home as well.

Consider the ways students can create their own Nearpod presentations as authentic portfolios showcasing the work they are proud of. Nearpod’s suite of flexible features allows students to capture their ideas in various ways: drawings and images with Draw It, brainstorming with Collaborate Boards, and text or audio with Open-Ended Questions. With Nearpod’s new live teacher-to-student feedback feature, teachers can provide in-the-moment support to boost student engagement and achievement.

Nearpod also has ready-to-teach lessons and activities such as grades K-5 *I Can Grow and 6-12 *Grow and Glow. Invite your students to join the parent-teacher communication experience and engage in the conversation about how they can continue to challenge themselves and reflect on their successes throughout the year.

*This activity is only available to educators with access to Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program.

6. Open your classroom door in other ways

While parent-teacher conferences are instrumental, they are just two moments in time during the school year when it comes to home-to-school communication. As a school, consider the ways that you can invite family members to be part of the overall school community, which can further support parent communication for teachers. In doing so, you will have a stronger school climate, and parents will feel more involved in their child’s day-to-day schooling.

You may want to establish a classroom volunteer program, where family members can act as classroom aides. You may want to host other events such as Back-to-School Night or an open house so that families can learn more about the grade’s curriculum or applaud student work. Invite families to come to all-school assemblies or participate in holiday celebrations or fun field days. Even a quick visit to campus can help parents feel that they are a part of the school’s fabric.

You and your school administrators can leverage Nearpod by creating presentations and surveys to showcase school events (you can even convert existing presentations into a Nearpod interactive format). You can share these presentations with students’ homes as weekly newsletters via the Student-Paced Mode; parents can refer back to past newsletters for important details. Even for adults, the multimedia format promises more engagement, whether when sharing a video or sharing a data-rich graph. You can ask for feedback or gather information via a Poll, Collaborate Board, Open-Ended Questions, or even a Draw It response. Nearpod makes it easier and more efficient to reach families on an ongoing basis.

Start using these ideas for your upcoming parent-teacher conferences

Although parent-teacher conferences are two key moments during the school year, it’s important to think about ways to stay in constant communication week over week with families. With today’s 24/7 access, the channels of communication can get overwhelming for all parties. So, try to get a sense of your families’ preferred mode of communication and familiarize them with how you share on a regular basis. Remember that not everyone is tethered to a digital device or has strong wi-fi access all the time. A simple handwritten sticky note with a headline of personalized praise can go a long way when it comes to bolstering parent–teacher relationships and students’ self-confidence!

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post 6 Best practices for parent-teacher conference communication appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is at the core of learning and development. Research suggests teaching social emotional learning activities to develop life skills significantly improves behavior, attitudes, employment, classroom management, and academic achievement. Consistent SEL practice results in productive habits that positively shape academic performance and student’s mental health. From early childhood to middle school to high school, it’s important to make time in the school day to teach students SEL skills such as positive self-talk, active listening, practicing mindfulness, and more.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access activities or social emotional development and create interactive lessons!

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Curriculum Program

The benefits of SEL development can be applied to any grade and subject, but not every teacher is an SEL expert or has time to become one. Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program includes over 400 SEL lessons, activities, and videos built on CASEL’s five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Each resource helps develop knowledge and skills related to one of the CASEL competencies, pushing students to learn, apply, and reflect during the learning experience. This supplemental SEL program includes lifelong learning strategies for goal setting, time management, and growth mindset lessons for persisting, thinking flexibly, and more.

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program provides an easy way to integrate SEL practices like positive interactions, gratitude, and reflective moments into daily learning to help create safe, inclusive, and effective classroom environments.

Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to explore Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program and unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

7 Social Emotional Learning (SEL) activities to use in your classroom

1. Facilitate positive classroom interactions

Collaborate Board activities bring limitless possibilities to instruction. The interactive discussion board facilitates positive interactions among classmates by increasing student engagement, crowdsourcing ideas, and delivering formative feedback. Bringing an interactive discussion board to your Nearpod lessons fosters the development of social emotional learning skills and builds on core competencies such as self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship skills. These are easy SEL activities you can integrate into your daily instruction.

Students truly feel part of the conversation with Collaborate Board, which helps teachers foster classroom culture. A classroom culture of respect, happiness, security, and challenge is foundational to engaging and effective learning. Students need to feel open to honest communication about their progress for improved teaching and learning. As students participate in various SEL activities, such as Collaborate Boards that are focused on fostering open communication, teachers intentionally build effective classroom culture. Students can feel comfortable sharing thoughts and challenges and see hurdles as opportunities to learn.

Check out some of our ready-made Collaborate Board activities developed specifically for building classroom culture:

• Scattergories: Letter S
• If You Could Fly
• Find Something: All About You

You can check in on how students are feeling by creating a Nearpod activity. Check-ins drive opportunities to build routines and create a comfortable learning environment. This can help teachers guide a rich dialogue among classmates. Students build an increased capacity to interact with others in a way that shows compassion and understanding.

2. Encourage self-reflection through drawing

Using drawing activities for self-portraits, scribble art, or providing a journaling opportunity for students to express their feelings supports self-reflection for students. Have students practice responsible decision-making, specifically analyzing situations, by completing a Draw It activity on Nearpod to share a challenge they are facing. Reflective Draw It activities help students understand their strengths and areas for growth.

Creating art is a practice of communication and empathy, a growth mindset, and self-reflection. The SEL Through Art series, part of Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program, explores the connection between art and SEL skills. This powerful medium elicits social and emotional learning experiences by helping students explore more about themselves and their life experiences.

3. Create moments of gratitude

Use Nearpod’s Drag & Drop interactive feature in your lessons to engage and connect students with social emotional learning in the classroom. Match feeling words, descriptions, and corresponding facial expressions to talk about resolving conflict and identifying different emotions. Students can discuss the importance of recognizing the good in their lives and expressing gratitude regularly. For instance, Nearpod’s interactive features, such as Collaborate Board, Open-Ended Question, and Poll, are the perfect way to start or end your day with an expression and acknowledgment of gratitude. Use Drag & Drop to create easy SEL activities for your lesson plans, like this one!

4. Collect meaningful student feedback

Creating opportunities for student voice in the classroom is key to building a positive school culture and gathering meaningful student feedback. To increase student talk, provide ample opportunities for engaging interaction through activities like Think-Pair-Share questions and Open-Ended Questions. When using Nearpod’s Open-Ended Question feature, make sure audio recording is enabled to give students multiple ways to engage in student voice. Nearpod’s formative assessment features, like Polls, empower educators to provide multiple ways for students to share valuable information personally. Include a Poll at the beginning or end of your lesson to gather student feedback, collect a formative assessment of emotions, or provide a reflective moment.

Additionally, utilize the Collaborate Board feature for a quick check-in at the beginning of class, asking simple questions to engage student thinking, build background knowledge, or gauge the overall mood of the classroom. Use what you’ve learned from gathering student feedback to help inform future classroom procedures or learning changes.

5. Brain Breaks!

Exclusive to Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program, Brain Breaks videos regulate the energy and focus of your classroom. Research suggests providing a quick break helps refresh the mind and makes it easier for students to focus on important tasks. Our videos help students break the patterns of fatigue, frustration, and lack of focus, and we made it easy for teachers to launch a video at any time throughout the day.

Choose between Calming or Energizing videos depending on the needs of your classroom at any moment. Use calming Brain Breaks as social and emotional learning activities to help students relax, settle their minds, and become refocused on the task.

Use energizing Brain Breaks to provide needed movement and increase the blood flow to the brain. An energizing activity helps reduce stress and anxiety and improves students’ ability to focus.

6. Choose from Nearpod’s premade activities

Choose from over 100 premade SEL activities using Nearpod’s interactive features like Draw It, Time to Climb, and Drag & Drop to incorporate into lessons, or as a bell ringer, an exit ticket, for extra practice, or homework. Nearpod’s social-emotional learning activities are built on the five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness. Students use information from their own experiences and values to guide their thinking and learn from others. These are easy SEL activities you can integrate into your daily instruction.

7. Collecting real-time insights

Real-time insight into students’ learning is vital for developing SEL. This immediate feedback allows educators to address emotional and social challenges as they arise, helping students to better manage their emotions. By closely monitoring progress and providing timely support, teachers can foster a nurturing environment where students feel understood and supported.

With Nearpod, real-time insights into student thinking allow teachers to adapt their instruction. Add an Open-Ended Question, Draw It, or Collaborate Board to a lesson on the fly with Quick Launch when you see an opportunity to engage in SEL-integrated instruction intentionally.

These engagement tools ensure students have low-stakes ways to share their thinking. As a result, this simple way to gather real-time insight gives students a voice in the moment while providing you with important feedback.

Teach SEL with Nearpod

Nearpod’s social emotional learning curriculum provides instruction, reflection, and practice opportunities around CASEL-aligned social and emotional learning competencies: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness.

By implementing SEL programs, educators can show students how to manage their emotions effectively through social and emotional skills. For young children, developing these skills enhances their abilities to understand and interact with others. It’s essential that schools prioritize SEL to ensure children learn the necessary competencies for overall well-being and success.

When SEL curriculum practices are thoughtfully selected and used authentically, they have greater power to be effective. View your role as an educator through the lens of the five core competencies of SEL to enhance your teaching and enrich your classroom environment. Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program easily incorporates SEL in the classroom, helping educators meet students’ social and emotional learning needs.

New to Nearpod? Make sure you’re signed up to access these lessons and activities!

Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to explore Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program and unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Click here to learn more about Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Curriculum Program

References

CASEL.org. Social Emotional Learning competencies. (2022).

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D. & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1): 405–432.

Immordino-Yang, Mary Helen, et al. “Rest Is Not Idleness: Implications of the Brain’s Default Mode for Human Development and Education.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 7, no. 4, July 2012, pp. 352–64. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612447308.

The post 7 Social Emotional Learning (SEL) activities to use in the classroom appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Teaching math can feel like an uphill battle, with students often coming into the classroom believing that math is dry, hard, or simply not their strong suit. However, math instruction can be a rich experience full of questioning, exploration, and discovery. Despite this potential, math performance across the US remains a growing concern. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported the largest declines in math scores for grades 4 and 8 since 1990. Often, resources are too focused on standards coverage and content, lacking intentionality about the instructional experience.

Lessons and math tools for teachers

With Nearpod, you can use interactive videos, interactive slide-based lessons, and gamified activities for an engaging instructional experience. This guide will show a few ways to capture that energy and bring it into your math classroom using interactive tools.

According to an ESSA Level II study, CAASPP scores for math achievement demonstrated significant improvements among students who utilized Nearpod. These findings highlight Nearpod’s positive impact on math academic outcomes across different student demographics:

• 8th graders exhibited higher scores
• 6th graders also showed improved scores
• 6th graders with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) displayed enhanced scores

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons.

Nearpod Math Program

Nearpod Math, our K-8 supplemental curriculum, helps teachers enhance instruction with intentionally organized content and tools to create engaging math learning experiences for every student. With this program, educators can supplement any math skill or standard and build collaborative, active math classrooms.

Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to explore Nearpod Math and unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Math lesson guide

Nearpod has curated a Math Lesson Guide for Grades K-8 so you can spend less time searching for resources and more time doing what you love: teaching. With ready-to-launch lessons, activities, and videos, these guides can help you remediate key skills, reteach concepts, and even prep for testing time.

Download lesson guide

8 Engaging strategies and lessons for teaching math in any classroom

1. Write about math using Open-Ended Questions

To take math instruction off the page, ask students to explore what their work means. Calculating the solution to a problem is only one aspect of doing math; students also grow as mathematicians by discussing their work. With writing, you can ask your students to access deeper meaning within their work – by analyzing a story question, setting a goal, writing a plan before they solve a problem, discussing the steps they took to solve it, or justifying their answer.

According to McREL, writing can improve students’ grasp of mathematical reasoning and problem-solving, use of evidence and logical processing, and ability to communicate their findings more clearly and effectively. Simply put, writing expands student’s ability to be analytical problem-solvers.

When previewing a challenging question, you can ask students to pause and write a goal or a plan for the question before they begin. You can also use this to bring more dialogue into your classroom. Students need opportunities to share their thinking about math in a safe environment. This strategy allows students who may not want to share out loud to have their voices heard.

After solving a problem, use Nearpod’s interactive Open-Ended Question to prompt students to defend their answer; you may ask them to justify each step or focus on one part of the question to dissect. With the “Share” tool, you can anonymously broadcast any student’s answer and use it to open up a discussion with your students: Do they agree with this student? How was this answer strong, or how could it be improved?

Instead of having to circulate around the room to check each student’s work during math instruction, their plans will arrive on your screen in real time, and you can focus on the students who need you most. You can also attach Reference Media to Nearpod activities such as Draw It, Open-Ended Questions, or Polls to foster independent thinking.

2. Do a warm-up activity using a number talk

Number talks are perfect warm-ups and can be tailored to any grade level. It’s a great strategy to build numeracy and number sense with your students when teaching math. Number talks are short (10-ish minutes) question-based discussions that complement your regular instruction. They can become high-leverage learning moments in your classroom because you ask students to generate solutions and evaluate strategies. You may ask students to find a rule, solve a problem, or analyze a pattern in a number talk. The key is that students independently design and describe their pathways to solve the problem and then collaboratively share and critique their ideas.

To do a number talk with your students, present the class with a problem and ask them to solve the problem mentally, but don’t share their answer. When students have found a solution, they’ll signal to you that they’ve solved it, and if they can find more than one way to solve the problem, they signal that, too.

The “talk” portion of a Number Talk is the most essential: this is where students share out their solutions and evaluate them. It can feel energizing to hear active minds at work, but recording your students’ ideas as they share them aloud can be overwhelming. Nearpod can lean in on numerous ways during Number Talks.

How to conduct Number Talks

Nearpod allows students to share their strategy, whereas, in a traditional number talk, only a handful of students can share their thinking. Also, students can try the problem with low risk while giving the teacher formative data about the strategies. For example, a teacher might use 5 x 25 as the number talk. Then, students can share their strategy to solve the problem using Draw It slides or an Open-Ended activity. The teacher can then showcase strategies and have students explain their thinking orally to the class.

When students want to signal that they’ve found a solution, using a public signal, like raising their hand, can be overwhelming or discouraging to surrounding students. Try giving your students a Poll question on Nearpod asking: “How many solutions can you find to this problem?” You’ll receive instant data about which students have solutions and can pull ideas from across your classroom, even if they have put their hand down.

For the “talk” portion, ask your students to explain their ideas on a Collaborate Board. Collaborate Boards create a public space for all your students to respond to a question, and each student’s response shows up as a virtual post-it note. As the teacher, you can see who wrote which response, but the responses can be set as anonymous for student view. Your students can practice explaining their ideas in writing, have a clean and organized view of everyone’s ideas, and vote for their favorite responses by clicking the heart icon on the post-its they agree with most.

3. Use interactive drawing assessments to teach graphs

Analyzing data is one of the most powerful and important elements of teaching math. Graphs and tables are common in everyday life, and teaching your students to become “fluent” in graphs and tables empowers them to excel in class and make more sense of the world around them. Taking data and turning it into a graph is no small feat, though — and interpreting data from a graph can be even more challenging for students. You can use technology to breathe life into graphing and graph analysis in your classroom using Nearpod’s interactive drawing assessment tool, Draw It.

There are many steps to constructing a graph, and more likely than not, your students come into class with different levels of mastery: some of your students may be ready to plot, while others are still grappling to discern the x-axis from the y-axis. Using the Nearpod Draw It tool, you can quickly monitor each student’s progress. Each student’s work is displayed in your teacher view, and it updates in real-time to show you their work as they progress through a problem. With this data, you can narrate common misconceptions for the whole class and visit individual students for targeted support. With the “share” feature, you can also show-call student work — Nearpod will broadcast an individual student’s graph anonymously to every student’s screen, and your class can discuss (or admire!) their work.

The Draw It tool can also help you deepen how your students analyze data. You can upload any graph as a “background” that students can then draw upon. Ask students to annotate a graph to find the peak, individual data points, or outliers. You may want to show your students a graph missing certain data, like axis labels or a scale, and ask them to fill in the missing information. If your students are learning to construct their own graphs, a popular student activity is to “grade the graph,” create a graph riddled with errors, then ask your students to mark (and correct) as many mistakes as they can find!

4. Model the steps for problem-solving

If you have ever given students a problem to solve on a specific template, it’s important to model the steps to solve the problem. This will help support your students when it’s their turn to problem-solve.

One way to model for students is through Nearpod’s Draw It tool. Make the template or equation into a Draw It slide and have them use the drawing and writing tools to solve the question. You’ll get insight into their responses in real time. Teachers can review the responses on their screens and share them anonymously on students’ devices to discuss the strategies they used. To model examples, use the Live Teacher Annotation* and draw on the slide. Your drawings will show up on students’ screens immediately so they can see and discuss a strategy that might have been missing from your students’ examples.

*Live Teacher Annotation feature is only available for School & District licenses.

5. Teach math vocabulary with Matching Pairs

It’s no secret that math has its own language. Whether your students are learning to find partial products and how many quarts fit inside a gallon or to calculate continuous functions and find derivatives, students are engaging in decoding and internalizing new vocabulary. It can be challenging for students, especially our students who read below grade level or are learning English, and these challenges can compound over time, leaving struggling students behind.

It might feel tedious to dedicate a whole lesson to vocabulary or to ask your students to devote class time to making flashcards when teaching math. The good news is, you don’t have to. Integrate a Matching Paris activity into your lessons instead. Nearpod’s Matching Pairs tool is an interactive and attention-grabbing way to practice math terms. In a Matching Pairs moment, students’ screens fill with tiles that disappear as they correctly match each term with its definition. Students have as many chances as they need until they match each term with its correct definition.

This activity can be meaningful in your classroom in many ways because it’s flexible. You curate the terms and definitions that fit your content. You can cover many terms during a review lesson or only a few keywords for a quick check for understanding. With instant data, you can create targeted support groups and tier your instruction to match your students’ diverse needs.

6. Start (or end) a lesson unit with an educational game

Start the lesson by gathering data about what students remember about the concept to differentiate the instruction for the day. Starting the lesson with an engaging activity will help keep the energy level high throughout the lesson. Using educational games for math instruction helps students learn what’s being taught, builds problem-solving skills, and builds community while learning the lesson’s material.

Students love Nearpod’s educational game, Time to Climb, where students race to see which character gets to the top of a mountain first by answering a series of questions both correctly and quickly to increase their own points to become one of the top three winners of the game. You can also use an educational game to end a lesson unit to see what students have learned.

Drag & Drop is another Nearpod gamification tool teachers can add at the beginning or end of a lesson. Students can categorize, label, and sequence items or images with this activity.

7. Collect data in real-time to assess students throughout the entire lesson

Formative assessment is a valuable tool for teachers. It allows teachers to see what students know and what misconceptions they may have about addressing them immediately. Nearpod collects real-time data efficiently through various activities where the teacher can view all the student responses on one screen. For example, suppose students are creating a multiplication model on a Draw It slide. In that case, the teacher can see what strategies students are using and address any errors a student or group of students might have before moving on. You can also use the Collaborate Board to share student work, which allows students to review, discuss, and critique their peers’ responses.

8. Find premade content that is standards-aligned, engaging, and interactive

Finding reliable and quality resources to use for teaching math can be challenging. It’s important to use standards-aligned resources created by experts while engaging and flexible for students (and teachers!). Nearpod’s Lesson Library has the perfect blend of lesson resources you need. You can explore quality interactive lessons, activities, and videos made by content experts and partners. Teachers can explore the library, download lessons, and modify them, all for free! Use the search bar or filters to find resources that fit your classroom’s needs.

Traditionally, you might think about using Nearpod as a presentation tool. However, you can assign these lessons as student-paced for independent work to provide additional practice opportunities and games and gather formative assessment data. With Live to Student-Paced mode, teachers can toggle between Live and Student-Paced mode for flexible instruction to support differentiating for student needs. This engaging independent activity can allow students to get immediate feedback on activities.

Start teaching math with Nearpod

Digital interactives are a fun way to make your math instruction more dynamic. With these strategies, you can bring energy to your classroom and enhance your student’s mastery of mathematics while gathering meaningful, real-time data. Nearpod is a great tool to increase engagement, discourse, and achievement in your math class. It is easy to take your existing presentations, upload them to Nearpod, and make minor tweaks that allow instant access to your students’ mathematical thinking.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Click here to learn more about Nearpod Math!

The post 8 Engaging strategies for teaching math in any classroom appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Why do some students lack motivation?

Students may lack motivation due to various factors such as external hardships in their home life, a disconnect between learning and real-world applications, disinterest in the subject matter, potential undiagnosed learning challenges, and the developmental stage affecting their ability to foresee the consequences of disengagement.

Perhaps there are extenuating circumstances in their home, whether it be familial strife or lack of food, that can cause them to lack presence and connection to the classroom or instruction. Too often, we’re unaware of the many layers of a child’s life and the stressors they encounter daily. Lack of motivation can come from not understanding the real-world applicability of skills. Students need to learn the skills alongside the use cases – and that use case can’t just be for a test this coming Friday. Perhaps a student lacks motivation because the subject just doesn’t interest them.

Passion is a critical driver in learning, so many teachers aim to help students make personal connections so that the content sparks interest. Or, a child may be facing an undiagnosed learning disability that is constantly keeping them from feeling successful. Furthermore, developmentally, younger students live more in the moment. They don’t fully comprehend the longer-term ramifications if they don’t engage, since their prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed – meaning they may lack the foresight for reasoning, judgment, and planning.

What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the classroom?

In the classroom, teachers strive to personalize and individualize lessons to reach every child, and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is crucial. There are two types of motivation: Intrinsic motivation originates from within, driven by personal satisfaction, leading to increased persistence and enjoyment; extrinsic motivation relies on external rewards or pressures.

Intrinsic motivation speaks internally. In an ideal world, all motivation would be intrinsic. One’s drive and sense of purpose toward accomplishing a task or goal is done for one’s own satisfaction. Research shows that intrinsic motivation can lead to more persistence and more enjoyment. In a classroom, intrinsic motivation can be seen when a child chooses a title on their own because they want to dive into a book or when they keep their head down to solve a problem because they’re up for the challenge. A child who is intrinsically motivated tends to be more attentive, more participatory, and more engaged, and thus can perform better and realize higher achievement (Ryan & Deci, 2020).

When there is a carrot at the end of a stick or a brass ring, so to speak, the motivation becomes extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation comes from the desire for a reward or to avoid negative consequences. So, if a child is trying to earn a goodie from the prize box or please a parent with a good grade, that drive isn’t from within. Now, extrinsic motivation does have its place in the classroom: There are good forms of it when it can provide feedback, encouragement for something outside one’s comfort zone, or reinforcement for completing a task well. Grades are a form of extrinsic motivation, and most teachers use them to applaud students’ work or frame how they can do better. How they do or do not internalize such feedback is up to the students. Often, it can be helpful to look at the Motivation Matrix (internal-positive; external-positive; internal-negative; external-negative). While all the quadrants can lead to change, only internal-positive motivators tend to be associated with personal happiness.

How teachers can boost student motivation for academic excellence

According to Dr. Anders Ericsson, motivation is the most significant predictor of success. Those with motivation can make and manage change, prepare, take action, and persevere toward goals. There are several ways teachers can help encourage student motivation throughout the school year, day in and day out.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Interactive technology tools like Nearpod can support educators in boosting student motivation.

Teachers can sign up for free below to access the lessons in this post and create their own interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

1. Spark their interest

At the beginning of each school year, take the time through surveys, interviews, and good old conversations to get to know each child. What do they like? What do they shy away from? Use the trick of asking five “whys” to drill down to the root cause of a child’s nascent opinion. Then, lead them to high-interest content to help them dive deeper into a topic or broaden their horizons on another. Such motivational activities for students can yield great results.

Nearpod offers a robust library of standards-aligned content, and you can let students pick their own paths and take an active learning approach when it comes to exploring subjects and working through levels of proficiency.

Additionally, Nearpod gives you the option to integrate high-interest multimedia content, catering to students’ diverse passions and backgrounds. Incorporate dynamic media such as Virtual Reality (VR) Field Trips and Interactive Videos into their lessons. Teachers can tap into students’ interests and connect classroom content to their real-world experiences. This not only captivates their attention but also fosters a deeper connection to the subject matter, ultimately fueling their motivation for academic success.

2. Let them drive

Another way to motivate students in the classroom is to empower them with a sense of agency through student voice and have them make choices based on their own personal interests. Research-based evidence from Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan in the 1970s and 1980s put motivation on a continuum. The self-development theory (SDT) ranges from amotivation, the lack of any motivation to engage students in tasks or activities, through layers of extrinsic motivation, to intrinsic motivation. Their early work highlighted the need for individuals to feel self-determined, self-directed, and autonomous, and to have a sense of control over their lives and destiny.

Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

Sir Ken Robinson

Nearpod supports student choice and voice through interactive features like Collaborate Boards and Open-Ended Questions, enabling students to share their perspectives, collaborate with peers, and engage in meaningful discussions. This fosters a sense of ownership and autonomy in their learning journey, as they can contribute their unique insights and learn from others.

By providing a platform for student voice and choice, Nearpod helps create a student-centered learning environment that values their opinions, promotes active engagement, and encourages student ownership in their learning experiences.

3. Encourage the “pleasantly frustrating” paths

Professor James Paul Gee has written seminal research on learning and video games. He’s known as the godfather of game-based learning (GBL). He touts several good “learning principles” that video game design has exemplified in terms of hooking and incentivizing students. By challenging kids with levels of achievement, you can help motivate students to find an inner drive to keep moving ahead, one step at a time.

Check out Nearpod’s educational game Time to Climb for student motivation by having them push themselves a bit more under gamified conditions. Digital platforms like Nearpod allow for in-the-moment interactivity that is designed to push the child to try and try again.

Nearpod’s Time to Climb and other educational games contribute significantly to the promotion of active learning and student motivation. The competitive element, sense of achievement, and enjoyable experience provided by these games enhance student engagement and encourage active participation in the process of learning the material.

For example, in a science class, a teacher can use Time to Climb to reinforce concepts related to the water cycle. The game can present questions with visuals and scenarios related to the topic, challenging students to apply their knowledge. Students can compete against their peers to climb the leaderboard by answering correctly and quickly. This not only encourages active participation but also creates a sense of achievement and enjoyment as students progress through the game.

4. Show the long-tail effect

Developmentally, many students struggle to think about the long-term future. Jim Taylor, Ph.D., writes that motivation to change often begins with the 3 D’s: direction, decisions, and dedication. So, teachers often become masterful storytellers who weave tales of the real world, future careers, and passions to encourage student motivation. They showcase subjects like math outside of drill-and-kill worksheets and word problems by sharing everyday practices or career-advancing (and enhancing) skill sets that rely on math proficiency. Students need to understand that they are not learning for learning’s sake alone; they are learning to whet their appetite to expand and hone their skills.

Learning isn’t confined to specific subjects; it’s about acquiring a toolkit of skills that empower individuals to analyze problems, make informed decisions, iterate on ideas, and share their insights effectively. By integrating crucial skills known as the 5Cs – critical thinking, computational thinking, collaboration, creativity, and effective communication – educators can show students the real-world relevance of their studies in their lessons. Nearpod’s interactive platform allows teachers to seamlessly weave these essential skills into their lessons, illustrating their long-term value in preparing students for success in any field they choose to pursue.

5. Provide feedback

Everyone likes a gold star once in a while. Extrinsic motivation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as it’s not excessive to the point of having an overjustification effect, where the extrinsic cancels out any intrinsic motivation. Consider ways to give feedback that builds their confidence, encourages them to reach just a bit higher, and rewards them for taking chances. Remember that asking questions and modeling active listening is a way to provide authentic feedback.

Nearpod’s formative assessment tools provide you with real-time data on student responses so that you can plan your instruction not only for the whole group but for individuals as needed, just in time. The best feedback is given immediately.

The true power of feedback lies in its immediacy – addressing questions and misconceptions while they are fresh in students’ minds. Nearpod’s feedback features, such as stickers and writing options for teachers in Draw It and Drag & Drop learning activities, enable educators to respond instantly to each student, tailoring guidance to their specific needs and ensuring that the learning experience remains personalized. By harnessing Nearpod’s capabilities for real-time feedback, teachers can motivate students to thrive and excel academically, creating a supportive learning environment.

6. Talk about procrastination

Procrastination for many is not merely a time management issue, postponing a more important task in favor of a less important one. Often, procrastination is an emotional management conundrum when fear, frustration, anxiety, insecurity, or self-doubt thwart the best of plans. Students and adults alike battle with procrastination. Procrastination can cycle and build into negative thought patterns called procrastinatory cognitions (the Procrastinatory Cognitions Inventory (PCI) has 18 such items). Social and emotional learning (SEL) supports students’ development of self-awareness and self-regulation skills, which can help in such emotional management. SEL promotes a growth mindset and grit, too.

Nearpod offers over 400 SEL lessons, activities, and videos built on CASEL’s five core competencies in the 21st-Century Readiness Program. This program offers a simple method for incorporating SEL practices, such as fostering positive interactions, promoting gratitude, facilitating reflective moments into daily learning routines, and contributing to the establishment of safe, inclusive, and effective classroom environments.

Nearpod also offers free social and emotional learning (SEL) lessons and activities. Features such as Collaborate Board, Draw It, Drag & Drop, Time to Climb, and Interactive Video can be used for emotional check-ins and practices. Here are some examples of motivational activities for students:

• Time to Climb: Social Emotional Learning (Grades 3-5)
• Collaborate Board: Share Your Mood (Grades 6-12)
• Collaborate Board Check-In (Grades 2-12)
• Interactive Video: Mantras (Grades 3-8)
• Interactive Video: What Is Empathy? (Grades 6-8)

7. Show that you’re human, too

So much of what teachers do well is model. And modeling means showing the messy side of life, too. When motivating students to learn, share how you’ve failed forward and pushed through tough times or daunting tasks to inspire them. Talk about lofty goals you had and how you modified or broke them down into smaller goals that build upon one another. Illustrate how strong goals are reframed as SMART goals. Share future goals that you have and the power of “yet” – that you have yet to achieve it all.

Share some of Nearpod’s lessons and activities on goal setting to motivate them forward:

• Time to Climb: Goal Setting (Available for grades 3-6)
• Time to Climb: Time Management (Grades 6-8)
• Interactive Video: Growth Mindset (Grades 4-12)
• Lesson: Goal Planning (Grades 3-5)
• Lesson: Setting Goals (Grades 6-8)

Boost student motivation with Nearpod’s support

Staying motivated is a key goal not only for our students but for teachers, too. We are facing high teacher attrition rates due to factors that are overriding teachers’ intrinsic sense of pride and purpose in their careers. Teachers are lifelong learners who look to inspire the next generation. As Samuel Johnson wrote, “Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.” Seek to motivate the curiosity in yourself and those around you! And just remember: “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could!”

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Interactive technology tools like Nearpod can support educators in boosting student motivation.

Teachers can sign up for free below to access the lessons in this post and create their own interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post How to boost student motivation in the classroom for academic excellence appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Why are classroom procedures and routines important?

Establishing classroom routines lets students know what is expected, allowing them to complete daily tasks quickly and efficiently. Also, classroom routines create a comfortable and predictable learning environment for students. This can help build students’ confidence and reduce their anxiety.

Routines and procedures for classroom management are important for all students in any grade level. Although it’s helpful to establish basic classroom rules for instructional time to run smoothly, it’s also significant when teaching a unit and providing assignments throughout the school day.

Here are a few ways to incorporate fun and academic classroom routines into your daily teaching with Nearpod’s interactive activities.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Easy classroom routines and procedures to engage students

1. Start off with an engaging bell ringer

When students enter the classroom or begin a new unit, have a bell ringer or bell work ready for them to complete. The bell ringer should be a fun activity that’ll excite students for what’s to come, such as a gamified learning activity. This way, you can focus on getting all your students where they need to be, and the rest of the class gets a little game-based reward for punctuality.

Place a Matching Pairs activity at the very beginning of your lesson to establish a classroom routine. It’ll be the first thing your students see when they join the lesson, giving them something to work on immediately. Nearpod has hundreds of free Matching Pairs lessons perfect for any classroom! Search by subjects, standards, and grade level to find an activity fit for your classroom.

Use a Matching Pairs bell ringer to review prior knowledge, preview new content, or just as a fun reward for transitioning quickly. You can customize the cards to match text with text, text with pictures, or pictures with pictures. This is perfect for teaching classroom routines!

2. Check in on students’ social and emotional well-being

To cultivate a positive classroom community, it’s important to put students’ social and emotional health first. Collaborative classroom discussions should be at the forefront of learning. Embed moments into your instruction to check in on how students are feeling emotionally.

Collaborate Board is the perfect tool to use to jumpstart the discussion. This feature gives all students a voice to share how they’re feeling. Collaborate Board is a digital bulletin board where students can respond to a prompt or question using images, text, GIFs, or audio. All students can see the responses from the class and can ‘like’ their favorites. Teachers can decide whether they want to make the board anonymous or public by turning off or on student names.

Collaborating on @nearpod. Students share their favorite places in nature to practice #mindfulness! #sayvillestrides #sayvillestrong #SEL #mschat pic.twitter.com/JxVcIHw7P7

— Kimberly Pacia (@MsPaciaEDU) June 1, 2020

Host a Collaborate Board during any moment to ask students how they’re feeling, spread gratitude, or simply share their ideas. Turn off names to have anonymous responses, so students feel more comfortable being open.

3. Do a competitive review mid-lesson

Up the competition in your classroom procedures and routines by adding a timer for an activity mid-lesson. Students can race against themselves to beat their best time, but they also love to challenge each other! A little friendly competition motivates them to practice and keeps them focused for the rest of the lesson. It’s a great way to help students review content mid-lesson, mid-unit, or even on their own before a big test.

Use a Draw It or Drag & Drop activity as a review. Add these activities to the middle of your Nearpod lesson and enable the timer for friendly competition! Up the stakes by giving the winner a small reward such as a night off homework. Additionally, encourage them to use Student Reactions to increase participation and engagement while gauging their understanding. This is a classroom routine students will appreciate!

Draw It is a teacher favorite! Students can use this activity to demonstrate what they know by responding to a question or prompt by drawing and using text and images on top of whatever background the teacher uploads. The possibilities are endless when using this as a competitive review!

Drag & Drop activities have the power to add interest and excitement to everyday classroom learning. Use this activity to have students sort, order, sequence, or label using categories, charts, diagrams, and images. Customize your own activity or choose from our premade Drag & Drop lessons.

4. Get students excited with a gamified ticket

Exit Tickets and formative assessments provide valuable info on student learning, but too often, my sticky note supply runs low; and printing/cutting out paper slips can be a pain. With a digital formative assessment tool, little prep is required from you to check in students before they’re out the door.

Time to Climb is the perfect solution to reinvigorating this routine, and it takes just a few minutes to set up. To play the game, each student chooses a character to be their climber. They then race against the clock to answer each question as it pops up on the screen. The faster they pick a correct answer, the more points they get and the higher they climb. You can also pick different themes with cool settings, music, and characters.

The gamified environment is so engaging that your students won’t even realize they’re being assessed! Here’s a time-saving tip: Convert your Nearpod Quizzes to Time to Climb activities! No need to recreate anything you already made. Nearpod also has premade Time to Climb assessments for different subjects and grade levels for you to choose from.

5. Incorporate current events in your lessons

To help students become informed adults, they must have the opportunity to learn about community affairs and the steps they can take to become more civically engaged. Using current events in the classroom creates opportunities for students to be engaged and aware. Use The Week in Rap and follow it up with Nearpod’s Current Events lesson collection to dive deeper into discussions.

The Week in Rap is a weekly lesson video that’s released every Friday, covering the week’s news through rap! The Week in Rap is for grades 6 to 12, and the Week in Rap Junior is for grades 3 to 5.

Start implementing these classroom routines

With this collection of engaging, pertinent, and innovative procedures for the classroom, there’s no way both you and your students won’t love them! We’re so excited to see you put these routines into action.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Engaging routines are at the of every successful classroom. Check out these easy & creative classroom routines to engage your students!Click To Tweet

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What are the benefits of effective feedback for students?

Effective student feedback has far-reaching effects. From personalizing individuals’ learning to informing teachers’ methodology to fostering a positive school culture, a consistent and proactive feedback cycle can support the overall school community to reach its education goals. This feedback loop is most effective when it is grounded in authenticity and trust to promote students’ progress when it comes to their performance and behavior. MIT’s Teaching + Learning Lab states: “Effective feedback: 1) is targeted, 2) communicates progress, 3) is timely, and 4) gives students the opportunity to practice and implement the feedback received.”

What are the different types of feedback for students?

When providing feedback to students, you may find yourself doing so informally—by providing suggestions, recommendations, or course corrections in the moment. This informal feedback can become a meaningful exchange and provides the student with an opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Conversely, you may want to give more formal feedback at times in writing, through grades, or verbally. There are many video platforms that enable you to capture video or audio feedback to share a personalized message. This form of feedback tends to be more scheduled and tied to evidence of student progress against learning objectives and goals. 

Additionally, feedback may be formative and provides guidance throughout the learning journey. This feedback may be more granular and helps students pivot, prevent missteps, and build confidence. Feedback may be summative and reflective of a task or the learning at the end of a unit. Summative feedback is benchmarked against learning objectives and usually looks back, as well as provides steps for moving forward and continuing to improve. As part of authentic assessments, many educators now use rubrics to help students provide feedback to one another or for themselves. Remember, the goal is for all types of feedback to be constructive.

Why use Nearpod to provide effective feedback?

Nearpod facilitates this seamless and continuous student feedback loop through high-quality instructional moments, engaging students in active learning experiences and guiding instruction decisions via real-time insights. Nearpod offers features to help provide support and scaffolding to students through instant visual and written feedback, helping to create a roadmap for both students and teachers to reach their learning objectives. With such feedback, Nearpod provides a solution that increases students’ participation, performance, and engagement by building their confidence, self-awareness, and enthusiasm for learning. Plus, the individual and collective data provides valuable insights to better inform your teaching methods and enhance classroom dynamics.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

6 Strategies to provide meaningful student feedback

1. Provide timely feedback

Why is feedback important to students? Nowadays, we don’t wait until the end of a unit to gather feedback. We recognize that the most meaningful feedback is immediate, just in time. A delay in feedback can result in the learner not connecting the feedback to the learning moment, thus deprioritizing the need for additional practice or learning; hence, there is no priority put on relearning or practicing the skill or concept. You want to help your students avoid cementing “bad habits” or misconceptions by intervening in the moment. Data-driven instruction relies on continuous formative assessment strategies; consider how these checks for understanding can be conveyed back to the student so that they can have agency in their own learning journeys.

With Nearpod’s real-time insights, you can see student responses in the moment and provide them immediate feedback verbally or with Live Teacher Feedback. Live Teacher Feedback is available in Draw It, Drag & Drop, and Math Manipulatives. Simply click on the “Give Feedback” button to expand the drawable toolbar. You can use Drawables to create stickers or annotations to praise, encourage, or provide support for students’ work. You can provide constructive feedback examples for students by pointing out real-world connections, providing contextualization, reteaching, or reemphasizing a key learning objective all within the student’s individual experience. Think of these types of student feedback as micro-interventions! Students will see your feedback in real time, and screenshots of all feedback will be saved into the related student post-session reports.

2. Consider words of motivation

While there are many types of student feedback, it needs to be authentic, inspiring, and empowering to motivate students to reach high and dream big. As you provide feedback for students, choose your words carefully to provide support that personalizes learning to individuals’ learning goals, whether that be a modification or a further challenge. Too often, ill-worded feedback can put a damper on students’ motivation, so seek out opportunities to praise student effort, work, and behavior (versus just course correcting) when it comes to the best way to provide feedback to students. How can your feedback be construed as constructive and not critical?

Within the Nearpod platform, you can share student work as exemplars. You can choose to do so anonymously and include or hide your feedback when you present student feedback examples. Showcasing student work is one way to bolster both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, from garnering peer respect to building confidence. Provide positive feedback for students’ examples by sharing a “feedback sandwich” of COMPLIMENT, CORRECT, and COMPLIMENT.

3. Be action-oriented

In providing feedback for students, use data-informed practices to provide specifics about the next steps, rather than giving empty accolades. “Almost there!” or even “Well done!” doesn’t provide details on what the student achieved or what they may need to address. Targeted feedback includes actionable steps about what has been mastered or what needs to be improved upon. Lean on quantitative scores as well as qualitative responses to construct a robust profile of a student’s strengths and weaknesses. A continuous feedback cycle is not only beneficial to the student, but it also provides you the opportunity to make in-the-moment instructional decisions to better support your students’ needs.

Whether addressing the whole group, a small group, or individual students, such formal and informal checks for understanding can lead to best practices for data-driven schools. 86% of Nearpod’s customers say Nearpod helps evaluate student performance. Such data will encourage you to refine, redesign, and react in the most supportive manner. And this is where differentiation and personalization comes into play.

Nearpod offers nine types of formative assessment that teachers can weave into lesson plans to personalize students’ instruction and provide differentiation, which only increases student agency and ownership. Through your instructional design, you can provide micro-interventions by modifying existing lessons or assigning a variety of lessons, thereby tailoring instruction and making all learning experiences inclusive. You can choose interactive activities that promote gamification to help incentivize and motivate your students. Within your Teacher Dashboard, you can find individual and collective data about your classes’ interaction with Nearpod lessons and activities, whether teaching with Live or Student-Paced Lessons. Download and share these comprehensive reports as CSV or PDF files to guide your classroom’s next steps.

4. Take a co-constructed approach

True feedback should solicit a two-way conversation, a dialogue between student and teacher. Avoid just delivering (or, worse yet, lecturing), and instead seek out ways to involve your learners in evaluating progress. You can hold a mini-conference to analyze the results and consider the next steps. Take the opportunity to model how to assess and evaluate one’s own performance by asking questions. Scaffold examples of teacher feedback to students so that they will be active listeners. This approach will promote student agency and empowerment. It will highlight how learning is a partnership and collaboration between student and teacher. An ongoing feedback loop is a tried-and-true way to build rapport and foster trust within the classroom community.

Nearpod facilitates this type of co-constructed feedback experience. You can permit your students to access and assess their own reports to promote the creation of personal learning goals. By promoting accountability, you will encourage them to design a learning path aligned to their individual learning style(s). Imagine building this level of collaboration. You could even take it one step further and have students build metacognitive thinking skills by making Student Notes or creating a reflection via Audio Record on their progress, thus building an authentic portfolio of student work. No longer do teachers aspire to be “a sage on the stage” or conduct “a chalk and talk.” Instead, students are viewed as co-pilots. This simple shift in mindset makes for improved hands-on, minds-on engagement and simplifies classroom management.

Students need endless feedback more than they need endless teaching.

Grant Wiggins

5. Ask for continuous student feedback

Incorporating continuous student feedback into the classroom creates a more inclusive and responsive learning environment. By actively seeking student input, teachers can adapt their instructional strategies to better meet the needs of all learners. This process identifies areas where students may be struggling while also highlighting what is working well. Regular feedback loops encourage students to reflect on their own learning and communicate their needs, fostering a sense of agency and ownership over their educational journey. Implementing simple methods, such as exit tickets, quick surveys, or digital tools that allow for real time responses, ensures that student voices are heard consistently.

The Student Reactions feature was designed to empower students to actively participate in the feedback cycle. At any time during a Live Lesson, students can ask for help or respond to quick checks for understanding through a bank of visual icons. They might give a thumbs up to emphasize that they’re moving in the right direction, or they might choose a question mark to indicate that further clarification is needed. Student Reactions make it easier for educators to gauge student comprehension in real time. By encouraging this dynamic interaction, Nearpod ensures that every student has a voice, enhancing the overall learning experience while supporting more effective teaching strategies.

Additionally, Student Reactions boosts student accountability, driving them to take ownership of their learning progress. As students become more engaged and responsible for their own understanding, they are more likely to connect with the material and retain instructional content, leading to improved outcomes and a more enriching educational journey.

6. Let feedback guide your professional development

Encourage your administrator to analyze student data alongside you. Feedback patterns and trends should help structure what your school’s professional development could look like. In which areas are students struggling? Which instructional strategies could be improved? Too often, schools are data rich but insight poor. Schools need to adopt a data-driven mindset so that they are well informed, thorough, and strategic. Data-driven schools hold the promise of taking a more collaborative and community-based approach to school improvement. So, as a staff member, consider how you can help paint a more complete picture of your students wrapping the data in the empathy you bring into the classroom daily. 

Nearpod’s platform offers content and interactive activities not just for students but for teachers as well. Your school can use the dynamic presentation tools to share professional development that teachers can tackle in person through a Group Presentation, or reference the content when needed within a school’s Library. Teaching teams can use Nearpod’s multimedia presentations to share data insights in a visually rich and digestive manner with one another. A school leader can introduce new resources or programs while providing interactive activities as instances of practice or quick checks for understanding with staff members as well. Additionally, a school leader can adopt these best practices when it comes to feedback in order to better support teachers’ needs as well.

Start using Nearpod for student feedback

In 21st-century learning, the 4Cs are critical: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. These 4Cs are hallmarks of good feedback as well. The student feedback loop underscores the need for clear communication and meaningful collaboration. Students and teachers can use critical thinking to decipher what is working well in the classroom and which steps toward improvement may be needed. A feedback-rich classroom can ideate creatively to build a strong classroom culture that fosters positive, trusting, and respectful relationships. For more than a decade, Nearpod has been dedicated to embracing a similar mindset when it comes to receiving feedback from teachers and school leaders in its community. Designed by and for educators, Nearpod actively listens to product feedback to iterate on delivering standards-aligned content and innovative features that help teachers teach and students learn year after year. It’s really that simple!

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post 6 Strategies to provide meaningful student feedback appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

In the Structured Literacy model, both content and instruction are systematic and intentional, and there is a clear focus on phonemic awareness as the foundation for written language comprehension. While Structured Literacy is an approach to reading originally designed for students with dyslexia, the growing body of research in the Science of Reading suggests that it is highly effective for the general student body.

Structured Literacy vs. Balanced Literacy

Balanced Literacy promises to foster a love of reading through read-alouds, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, and word study. While word study includes phonics instruction, it is often approached without explicit or systematic instruction. In contrast, Structured Literacy is explicit, systematic, and sequential. It focuses on phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, and spelling, providing a clear, step-by-step method to build foundational reading skills.

As a young teacher of English Learners in Brooklyn in 2007, I faced a daunting task: My 10th grade students, reading at a 2nd–4th grade level, were expected to tackle 8th grade texts. I was incredibly frustrated but was advised to use shared reading, leveled texts, and compensatory strategies, essentially implementing Balanced Literacy.

In desperation, I pleaded with our department head, “But how do we teach them how to reeeeaaaaad the book?” Unknowingly, I emphasized the need for phonemic awareness and Structured Literacy methods.

This experience underscored a critical gap in our teaching approach. While Balanced Literacy has its merits, it became clear that for our students to truly succeed, they needed explicit instruction in the sounds of language and their letter correspondences. Structured Literacy ensures that every student has the foundational skills necessary to become proficient readers.

Is structured literacy part of the Science of Reading?

The Structured Literacy approach fits perfectly with the growing body of evidence supporting the Science of Reading, as it provides a clear, methodical framework for teaching essential reading components. The Science of Reading is a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to reading instruction emphasizing the importance of explicit, systematic teaching of phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Structured Literacy instruction strives for all students, especially those with learning differences, to become proficient readers. There is no debate for Structured Literacy vs. Science of Reading given the overwhelming evidence supporting the effectiveness of both in improving literacy outcomes for diverse learners.

Implement Structured Literacy in schools with Nearpod’s support

When implementing a theoretical approach to learning, teachers must receive the resources to make that approach a reality. Without the tools to support Structured Literacy instruction in the classroom, implementing the Science of Reading remains a fantasy. Nearpod can be one of the tools that teachers use when it’s time to put plans into action. With Nearpod’s instructional features and supporting content, teachers can confidently provide research-based instruction and move towards a more Structured Literacy approach.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

5 Ways to implement Structured Literacy instructional methods

1. Choose a scope and sequence backed by the research in the Science of Reading

A scope and sequence outlines the specific skills and knowledge that students need to learn, as well as the order in which they should be taught. Choose a scope and sequence that is systematic and sequential. This ensures instruction follows a logical progression, from basic to complex concepts. 

Look for scope and sequence-explicit instruction where skills are clearly modeled and explained. Ensure the learning is cumulative, building on previous knowledge with continuous reinforcement. The program should be diagnostic and adaptive, allowing for ongoing assessment and adjustments based on student progress. 

A scope and sequence should comprehensively cover all essential reading components, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. By following a structured roadmap, educators can provide targeted instruction that builds on prior knowledge, ensuring there are no gaps in learning. 

If your district isn’t providing a scope and sequence, advocate! Then search for the Nearpod lessons and activities that correspond with the content. Any Nearpod resource can be customized to fit the specific needs of the classroom and allow for plenty of creativity. You can get started with our English Language Arts (ELA) Lesson Guide.

2. Provide explicit instruction in phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. Instruction can include rhyming games where children match words that sound alike. Sound scavenger hunts are a fantastic strategy for engagement—kids find objects that start with a specific sound. Clap and tap activities help them break down words into individual sounds. Read-alouds should be rich in alliteration and rhyme. Singing songs and playing with tongue twisters create a fun and joyful classroom dynamic. These activities foster a love for language along with phonemic skills to use for Structured Literacy examples. 

On Nearpod, you can create your own interactive lessons using your existing material and classroom ideas (like the ones listed above!). Also, Nearpod offers a variety of interactive lessons and activities for learning and practice. Teachers can use these pre-made activities to engage students and reinforce skills in identifying rhyming words, counting syllables, and practicing recitation of a variety of texts.

3. Focus on decoding and sound-symbol recognition

Decoding involves translating written words into their spoken equivalents by recognizing the relationship between letters and sounds. It might sound dry, but it can be so much fun in the classroom! Start with letter-sound matching games in puzzles or flashcards. Flashcards with pictures and words help reinforce recognition. Interactive storybooks where children can click on words to hear them read aloud makes learning dynamic. Phonics songs and chants turn decoding practice into a musical adventure, stimulating multiple areas of the brain. These activities not only enhance decoding skills but also make reading a positive experience.  

Nearpod activities such as Matching Pairs, Drag and Drop, and Draw It provide opportunities for students to match letters to sounds, blend sounds to form words, and segment words into individual sounds. Enable Immersive Reader to make all texts interactive. Nearpod resources help kids crack the code of letters and sounds, making it easier for them to read new words like pros! The activities, videos, and full lessons all support the decoding instruction and practice required in the Structured Literacy methodology.

4. Give students time to play with root words, prefixes, and suffixes

Incorporate word sorts, scavenger hunts, and color coding into your classroom to make learning about root words, prefixes, and suffixes hands-on and meaningful. Start with word sorts, where students categorize words based on their components. Then, organize a scavenger hunt, encouraging students to find words with prefixes and suffixes in their books or around the classroom. Use color coding to highlight prefixes, root words, and suffixes in different colors within a text. These activities not only make learning fun but also help students visually and contextually understand word structures.

A hands-on approach helps deepen students’ morphological awareness, meaning students build their understanding of the structure of words and how their parts contribute to their meanings. Nearpod has plenty of ready-to-go activities for independent practice. Teachers can create or use pre-made Nearpod activities that encourage students to build new words and understand how word parts change meanings.

5. Support language comprehension

Going beyond word recognition in the classroom is essential when understanding, as an educator what is Structured Literacy. Instruction in language comprehension helps students understand context, infer meaning, and engage deeply with texts.

Vocabulary and background knowledge are key components of comprehension. Enhance vocabulary with word maps, where students define words, use them in sentences, and draw representations. Category sorting helps students understand word relationships by grouping similar words. Analogies and comparisons connect new vocabulary to known concepts, deepening understanding. These activities foster a richer vocabulary and stronger comprehension skills. Build background knowledge with multimedia resources to provide context for new words.

Nearpod offers multimedia features to create a context for learning language and content. Virtual Reality (VR) field trips, 3D Models, and PhET simulations build schema. Students can engage in interactive word work with Matching Pairs, Drag and Drop, and Draw It activities.

Start implementing Structured Literacy in your classroom

Structured Literacy, grounded in the principles of the Science of Reading, provides a systematic and effective approach to teaching reading that benefits all students. By incorporating the principles of Structured Literacy, educators can ensure that their instruction is explicit, systematic, and evidence-based. With Nearpod’s interactive tools and resources, teachers can bring these principles to life in the classroom, making reading instruction engaging and effective. With Nearpod’s support, Structured Literacy will help every student become a confident and proficient reader.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post 5 Ways to implement Structured Literacy instructional methods appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

What are the benefits of small group instruction?

Small group instruction supports classroom management, builds community, and, most importantly, supports individual students’ needs. With small groups in the classroom, teachers can better tailor their instruction to students’ learning goals and provide meaningful feedback in the moment. The targeted skill development provides students with more instances of practice in an environment that encourages higher levels of participation and engagement. As a result, students are more likely to stay focused, ask questions, and share their ideas.

What is small group teaching?

Small group instruction is a student-centered teaching method in which the teacher still provides the instruction but to a smaller cohort of students. The group size can range from two to many; most teachers appreciate the valuable interaction time and keep the group size to under five or six students. Often, while small group instruction is happening, the other students are engaging in similar small group work.

Small group teaching with Nearpod’s support

Nearpod embraces more innovative teaching strategies by turning what may be passive learning experiences into more active learning experiences. Nearpod’s platform can transform student engagement with content that is visually rich, activities that promote active learning, and data-rich reporting to better inform instruction. And the beauty of Nearpod’s design is the flexibility it offers and that educators require.

Teachers can assign the whole group one lesson, activity, or task via Nearpod Student-Paced mode, and then work directly with a smaller group of students using a Live Participation lesson targeting a particular skill or topic. In both instances, the teacher can leverage real-time data via the Teacher Dashboard to inform small group instruction and also monitor the rest of the class’s focus and progress.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

7 Tips for successful small group instruction

1. Target your instruction

It’s a given that students have varied and individual needs. Yet, teachers often lament that there is not enough time in the day to address each student as much as they’d like (required instructional time varies from state to state). Whether you teach elementary, middle, or high school, small groups can be particularly effective when grouped based on students’ individual needs and abilities. With small group instruction, you will have the opportunity to rotate around the classroom and differentiate instruction as needed. Small group instruction examples meet Tier II of the MTSS framework. You may want to move between clusters of desks or pull students to an area of the classroom where you can host mini-conferences to review work or further support skill development in a more targeted manner.

You can rely on Nearpod’s Teacher Dashboard during a Live Participation Lesson to provide real-time formative assessment data to help inform your next steps and differentiate instruction. In the Post-Session Reports, you can look for patterns across your classroom of students to help you design small groups to optimize instructional time. Also, for a data-informed approach to instruction during a lesson, use Nearpod’s real-time insights to keep a finger on the pulse of the classroom at all times. With Nearpod’s formative assessment activities, you can make data-informed decisions when it comes to individualizing and personalizing instruction. Even with Student-Paced lessons, educators can monitor students’ learning while they complete their assignments.

2. Add your secret sauce

You know your students best. You are with them day in and out and are constantly observing behaviors and evaluating student progress. With small group instruction, you can intervene in the moment or through planned activities in many different ways as suggested by RTI (Response to Intervention). But even within group work, you can tailor content to address different learning styles or accessibility needs. Consider the ways you can differentiate and enhance the content and the pedagogy to make sure you reach all kids.

Nearpod acknowledges the artists that teachers are. With a simple click, you can duplicate any Nearpod lesson planning and then make edits to adjust the content and flow to meet your entire class’s or a small group’s needs. You can add multimedia content to enrich the presentation of new material through videos, audio files, images, articles, or PDFs. You can turn on Immersive Reader to make the content more accessible, especially for small group reading instruction. You can merge, delete, or reorder slides with content and activities as necessary. Nearpod capitalizes on the best of technology to drive student achievement through high-quality instructional experiences.

3. Build student confidence

With the varied student learning styles you are bound to have in one classroom, small group instruction can help to build student confidence. Many students may be reticent to ask questions or ask for clarification during a whole-group lesson. Small group teaching can give students the extra boost of confidence and motivation to speak up and participate more readily. They can bolster their communication skills by expressing their thoughts and taking risks. For instance, when a student reads a complex text, the teacher can facilitate discussions in smaller groups to ensure that all students understand the material thoroughly.

Nearpod’s suite of nine interactive activities speaks to students’ diverse learning styles, encouraging them to express their ideas in a variety of ways. Within a small group, you may want to leverage the activities depending on learning objectives or learning styles. One student might grasp onto the visual cues of Matching Pairs, while another may enjoy the creative expression of Draw It.

4. Gradually release responsibility

Many of you may already rely on the Gradual Release of Responsibility model, often referred to as “I do, we do, you do.” In this model, the teacher begins with direction instruction and modeling, before shifting to a small group setting and then to independent practice. Whether you are working with 30 students or three, you can still apply this same strategy to provide students with optimal support and allow them to take ownership of (and risks in) their own learning journeys.

Within Nearpod, you may want to start small group activities in Live Participation mode. You can tee up the lesson, set clear expectations, and begin some guided exploration. Yet, small group instruction time can be all too brief—in which case you can switch from Live Participation to Student Paced mode to enable the students to complete the rest of the lesson on their own. You won’t have to launch another code or have them start over. Instead, you can optimize the instructional time by streamlining instruction with Nearpod.

5. Promote peer-to-peer learning

While you are working with small groups in the classroom, you can promote peer-to-peer learning with the rest of the class. Peer-to-peer learning is a collaborative learning activity where students teach and learn from one another—they support and challenge one another to hone critical thinking skills. Peer-to-peer learning promotes effective communication skills, from providing constructive feedback to asking thoughtful questions to resolving conflicts. One of the strongest undercurrents of a successful classroom is a strong sense of community. This classroom culture can make or break a student’s experience. By creating a safe and comfortable learning environment, peer-to-peer learning promotes the sharing of opinions, the diversity of ideas, and respect for one another.

Within Nearpod, the Collaborate Board celebrates such an exchange of ideas. Students’ thoughts can be visualized, shared, heard, and further developed. With the Collaborate Board, students have more methods and means to share their thinking and participate in the conversation without feeling like they’re in the spotlight. They learn how to respectfully disagree or even how to change opinions based on someone else’s contributions. One popular design thinking method is for kids to build off of one another’s ideas by stating, “Yes, and …” first. “Yes, and …” is a way to brainstorm, positively acknowledge, support, and collaborate; no one’s contributions are shot down! 

6. Build positive teacher-student relationships

Part of a teacher’s skill set is building and nurturing relationships with students. One of the great benefits of small group instruction is that you can get to know your students even better by diving into their individual passions and interests. You can peel back the layers of their personality and find authentic connections to develop greater trust and understanding. Such positive relationships result in an increased desire to learn, which can lead to overall academic improvement. Plus, students will feel a deeper sense of belonging and community with such teacher-student bonding.

Nearpod offers more than 22,000 quality lessons, so you can easily find content and activities that not only meet your classroom learning goals but also speak to individual students’ interests. Lean on the standards-aligned library of content to find activities that spark engagement and speak to kids’ innate curiosity. And remember that you can take Nearpod lessons and duplicate them, in order to edit and make modifications with specific students in mind.

Start using Nearpod today

Small group instruction has countless benefits that empower students to achieve all they can. Small group teaching also enables you to wield your teaching skills to best meet your students where they are, all while encouraging confidence and community within your classroom walls. Nearpod not only showcases but also facilitates ways to stay innovative when it comes to teaching and learning. By listening to the needs of teachers and leaning on the research behind how students learn best, Nearpod is able to encourage best practices when it comes to crafting optimal learning experiences for all ages across all subjects.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post 6 Tips for successful small group instruction appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access the resources on this blog post and create their own interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Why is classroom management important?

Effective classroom management is important for both students and teachers throughout the school year, significantly impacting student outcomes and their overall learning experience. A permissive or indulgent classroom management style can hinder the development of a positive relationship between students and educators, potentially disrupting the classroom culture. Conversely, good classroom management involves finding the right balance between levels of control and student involvement, keeping students engaged while accommodating diverse learning needs. It’s essential for teachers to adapt their teaching style to maintain an effective classroom learning environment where students feel supported, respected, and motivated to excel.

What are the 4 classroom management styles and their benefits?

Classroom management typically involves four main styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful. The authoritarian classroom management style focuses on strict rules, high control, and clear expectations, but it might stifle creativity and discourage independent thinking. In contrast, the authoritative classroom management style approach combines firm guidelines with a supportive environment, fostering discipline while allowing for student autonomy and creativity. On the other hand, the permissive classroom management style offers flexibility and encourages self-expression, yet it may lead to challenges in maintaining order and structure. Finally, the neglectful style lacks involvement and direction, resulting in a chaotic learning atmosphere that hinders both discipline and academic progress. The various weaknesses and benefits of classroom management styles highlight to educators the importance of striking a balance tailored to their students’ needs and classroom dynamics.

8 Effective classroom management strategies using Nearpod

1. Visibility to on and off-task behavior

At any point during a Nearpod lesson, teachers have insight into which students are on-task. If a student navigates away from the lesson, the dot next to their name will turn red. Teachers are empowered to choose the classroom management strategy that works best for them to address this.

2. Ensure 100% student participation

In order to ensure 100% participation, every student needs to feel empowered to contribute. Often, some students are quick to participate while others need more time to generate ideas (or courage!) to share.

Nearpod’s formative assessment features, like Polls, Time to Climb, Matching Pairs, and so many more, empower educators to provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate what they know. Since students respond on their own devices, EVERY student can answer every question, and teachers can see in real-time which students have submitted answers and which need more time.

TIP: Don’t have a class with 1:1 devices? Need students to shift their attention to the front of the class? Nearpod’s Front of Class mode allows you to share your video on a screen so students can watch together and prompt discussions with formative assessments woven throughout the lesson. New to Nearpod? Our Interactive Videos are the best way to get started teaching in Front of Class mode!

3. Receive immediate feedback and post-session reports

Teachers can view student responses in real-time, which means they can respond quickly to misconceptions (or situations where students have already mastered the topic!) to create an environment of providing feedback and prevent common classroom management issues that arise from these situations. This empowers teachers to foster classrooms where students feel heard and know that their individual learning is important. Since the teacher can easily see which students are struggling with a certain concept, they can intervene with targeted coaching and small groups immediately.

Teachers can share individual student responses with the whole class anonymously. This allows for a safer space for error analysis or an easy way to celebrate exemplar responses!

After the lesson, student responses and performance data are found in the Nearpod reports section. 

4. Benefit from synchronous devices

Ensuring all students are on the same page can be time-consuming with many print or digital resources. With Nearpod’s device synchronization, you can feel certain that all of your students are on the same screen (remember: check for the red dot to know if a student has navigated away!).

5. Boost accountability for independent work 

Student-paced Nearpod lessons are as impactful as Live lessons, allowing for the same level of engagement when students are working independently. This is especially helpful when in distance learning environments. Just like Live lessons, these lessons collect session reports, so you can review student work during or after the session. Student-Paced mode can also be used to provide make-up work for students who are absent, making it easier to catch up after a day out.

6. Promote ownership of learning with Student Notes

The Student Notes feature on Nearpod empowers students to take ownership of their learning. They can take notes during class and receive their notes, along with all media and the answers they’ve submitted during class, by email, OneDrive, or Google Drive. This allows students to organize their notes and come prepared for assessments or projects.

7. Never sweat a sub day again 

It’s no secret that one of the most stressful classroom management moments is when you’re not there. That’s why Nearpod has made it easy to communicate substitute teacher plans and drive 100% student participation on sub days. Explore tips for using Nearpod’s Sub Plans by clicking below!

8. Weave SEL into every lesson 

Often, the best way to prevent common classroom management issues is by pre-teaching the social and emotional learning skills that support positive student behavior. Nearpod’s social and emotional learning (SEL) lessons make it easy for educators to incorporate SEL into their classroom routines and increase student investment in contributing to a positive, empowering learning environment.

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness K-12 Program offers resources to embed 21st-century skills like SEL, digital citizenship, and college and career readiness into every classroom. The Social and Emotional Learning collection includes lessons and activities that teach students core competencies, critical thinking, lifelong learning strategies, and growth mindset practices.

Start using these classroom management skills

Mastering effective classroom management skills is imperative for educators to create an optimal learning environment that encourages student engagement and success. Classroom management plans examples with Nearpod’s interactive lessons and formative assessment tools offer educators practical ways to maintain control while promoting student involvement. Embracing these methodologies not only ensures better student outcomes but also fosters an atmosphere where students feel supported, respected, and motivated.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access the resources on this blog post and create their own interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post 8 Effective classroom management strategies using Nearpod appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Nearpod’s interactive activities in the classroom have the power to add interest and excitement to everyday learning. Using digital activities such as gamification, drag and drop, drawing, matching, and collaborative discussion enhances classroom learning for all students.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for a free Nearpod account below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

What interactive activities keep learners engaged during a lesson?

Interactive activities keep students engaged by providing a creative and collaborative learning experience. With our growing options of Drag & Drop, Draw It, Time to Climb, Matching Pairs, Collaborate Board, Quiz, Poll, and Open-Ended Questions, teachers have multiple options to meet the specific needs of the diverse learners in their classrooms.

Activity Banks offer an ever-growing collection of ready-to-use engaging activities. With 2,000+ activities available, and hundreds more being added, there’s something to meet the needs of every classroom.

Our standards-aligned activities provide comprehensive opportunities for:

• Recalling prior knowledge 
• Supporting a student’s learning progression 
• Building an understanding of essential skills 
• Collecting essential assessment data 

6 quick ways to use interactive classroom activities

1. Use gamified interactive activities

Gamification keeps students engaged and alert! Not only does friendly competition and fun gameplay lead to increased participation, but it also motivates students to dig deeper into what their learning. When used consistently, educational classroom games can increase students’ social and emotional learning skills, such as problem-solving, collaborating with peers, behavior management, and more. Teachers can also get real-time insight into how students are doing while keeping them focused and smiling.

A student-favorite interactive classroom game on Nearpod is called Time to Climb. With this activity, you can assess understanding with a gamified multiple-choice quiz where students can race to the top of a mountain with their favorite characters.

2. Demonstrate steps, labels, and sorting with interactive diagrams

Captivate learners through problem-solving and critical-thinking activities. With interactive diagrams and models, students can show their understanding of the concepts being taught. Use these classroom activities to have them create timelines, outline steps, pair labels, and sort ideas into buckets to demonstrate what they learned.

Drag & Drop activities teach concepts in a fun and engaging way. Students can sequence events in a timeline and steps in a process, label diagrams, and models, or sort properties, categories, and characteristics. You can also create your own activity by uploading a background and inputting draggable text or images. Drag & Drop activities provide students with gamified learning opportunities and increased engagement and retention. As students physically engage with concepts, learning will be transformed within an interactive classroom environment.

Here are some Drag & Drop activities you can use in your classroom:

• Sort natural and manmade resources (Grades K-2)
• Showcase steps of the life cycle of a bean (Grades 3-5)
• Add, Subtract, Multiply, & Divide Decimals (Grades 6-8)
• Identify euphemism figurative language examples (Grades 9-12)

3. Provide opportunities for creative expression

Let students express themselves creatively through drawing. This could be on a blank sheet of paper, the board, canvas, or their devices. Having students draw on their devices can address common misconceptions as they work in real time, creating a truly adaptive, interactive classroom.

Our Draw It activities provide interactive tools for students to represent problem situations and a working space in which teachers can see in real-time the progression of student thinking as they write, draw, and record their thinking processes. Draw It activities are the perfect fit for when teachers want to see work in progress. It’s one of our most used activities on Nearpod because it is easy for teachers to customize and collect student responses. You can create your own Draw It activity by creating a prompt for students, using a blank background or uploading your own, adding a reference media if you please, and then having them complete the activity on their own devices.

Here are some Draw It activities you can use in your classroom:

• Animals Preparing for Winter: (Grades K-2)
• Drawing Shapes: (Grades K-2)
• Template: Life Skills Cause & Effect (Grade K-2)

4. Prioritize classroom discussions

Encourage classroom discussions to create a rich dialogue, facilitate discussion for all student learners, and give students multiple opportunities to see how their peers solve problems and hear the language they use to describe representations. Not only will this keep your students focused, but it will also help them practice social and emotional learning skills.

How can you ensure all students are participating and can be heard? Through our Collaborate Board, students can share ideas with a larger audience as they begin their discovery on selected topics. With this activity, students can share their thoughts and ideas on an interactive digital board that’s moderated by the teacher. Teachers can support a whole class discussion while ensuring all students’ ideas are heard and considered.

Here are some Collaborate Board activities you can use in your classroom:

• Check-In (Grades 2-12)
• Which Doesn’t Belong: Reptiles & Amphibians: (Grades 1-5)
• Would You Rather: Run or Fly (Grades 3-5)
• All About Fictional Characters (Grades 6-12)

5. Matching activities for students to self-asses

It’s important for students to assess themselves to see how they’re understanding the lesson. Our Matching Pairs activities guide students in thinking through processes, demonstrate student understanding, and provide accessibility for visual learners. With this activity, students can match two cards that pair together. They are given instant feedback to allow for opportunities to self-assess and guide students in refining and revising their thinking. In the end, you’ll be able to see how many tries it took for them to get all pairs correct. Teachers can create their own Matching Pairs with just a few clicks on Nearpod and add a time limit with the timer!

Here are some Matching Pairs classroom activities:

• Match Seasons and Weather (Kindergarten)
• Internet Vocabulary Grades (K-5)
• Narrative Writing: Text Examples (Grade 6)
• Trigonometric Ratios: Matching (Grades 9-10)

6. Keep students focused by launching activities on-the-fly

Through our Quick Launch feature, teachers can add learning activities to drive adaptive teaching and differentiated, personalized instructional decision-making that accelerates learning for all. Teachers can use Quick Launch to launch an Open-Ended Question, Collaborate Board, or Timer!

Use Quick Launch for learning fun moments to create a quick exit ticket, bell ringer, or do-now. You can also consider using this for those in-the-moment sparks of inspiration or when you’re trying to get student’s attention back to a lesson.

Sign up for free to use these interactive classroom activities

Increase transformative learning in your classroom through these tips. As features and tools become more engaging, teachers have the ability to design learning experiences that are more effective, interactive, and personalized. Use Nearpod’s collection of features to create an interactive classroom where student learning comes first truly!

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for a free Nearpod account below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

The post 6 quick ways to use interactive classroom activities appeared first on Nearpod Blog.