Curation Assignments

When it’s time to plan the learning experiences that would have our students operating on higher levels, some of us come up short. We may not have a huge arsenal of ready-to-use, high-level tasks to give our students. Instead, we often default to having students identify and define terms, label things, or answer basic recall questions. It’s what we know. And we have so much content to cover, many of us might feel that there really isn’t time for the higher-level stuff anyway. If this sounds anything like you, I have a suggestion: Try a curation assignment.

Getting Started with Genius Hour

Do you find yourself searching for that one project that would truly engage your students? That would empower them to explore their passions? Do you sometimes feel that despite the many ways you are trying to creatively engage them, you just can’t reach everyone? Enter, genius hour. 20% time. Passion projects…

Sketchnoting

Sketchnotes are like one-pagers that you create on the fly, making your choices rapidly as you process information and get what really matters down onto your notes through a combination of pictures and words…

One-Pagers for the Art-Phobic

One-pagers are becoming increasingly popular as a way to help students process what they have read in one powerful activity. Like sketchnotes, they combine visuals with text to make ideas come alive in students’ minds and memories…

Is That Higher-Order Task Really Higher-Order?

It’s kind of a given that most teachers want their students to be doing rigorous, challenging work. Ask any teacher, “Is it your goal to simply have students regurgitate facts in your class?” and every time, the answer will probably be no. And yet, that exact thing is happening more often than we realize. It’s not for lack of trying: For years, teachers have consulted their Bloom’s flip charts and DOK wheels to choose the verbs that are meant to represent higher levels of thinking. In a lot of cases, though, while the right verbs are being used, the tasks they represent aren’t actually on the level teachers think they are.

Student-Authored Textbooks

Student-Authored Textbooks What if instead of approaching vocabulary as something they had to learn each week, they approached their words as something they needed to be able to teach others? I’ve been fascinated by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine’s book In Search of Deeper Learning lately. One of the chapters is about a project at one high […]

Vocab Magic Spells

Vocab Magic Spells Like the Tattoo Design activity, I think magic spell vocabulary has the potential to grab the attention of students who are really tapped out when it comes to studying vocab. If your class loves Harry Potter, try having them create magic spells that involve the words they’ve been assigned. Rowling does this with spells like […]

Vocab Post-It Stations

Vocab Post-It Stations Stations are a great way for you to get your kids up and moving around. Try posting words around the room on the walls, then having students move from place to play and put up sentences using the words on post-its. As they circulate, they’ll get to see lots of others’ sentences […]

Vocab Tattoo Design

If you’re really struggling to get kids interested in the power of words, try an activity where you assign each student a word and ask them to create the tattoo image for someone who wanted this word as part of a tattoo.

Vocab Review Games

Online Review Games By now, Kahoot and Quizlet are much loved tools for the teachers of a gamer generation. But have you ever tried Quizziz? I discovered this free tool through Jennifer Gonzalez’s info-rich Teacher’s Guide to Tech for 2019. You create quizzes students can play alone or live in your class. Then Quizziz grades them for you so you can […]

Vocab Word Wall Posters

Vocab Word Wall Posters Have you heard of a word wall? Basically you put vocabulary you’re studying up on your wall, in a visually striking, memorable way (if at all possible). When I’m doing these, I like to assign each student a word and have them create a regular paper-sized poster with their word on […]

Vocab Postcards

Vocab Postcards I’ve got a weakness for buying postcards, but I’ve turned it into a fun classroom tool. It’s easy to pick up cheap and unique postcards in thrift stores, boutiques, and of course, while traveling. If you can build up a small collection, they make a really fun vocabulary tool. You can invite students […]

Vocab Video Journals

Vocab Video Journals You know how you sometimes stumble upon AMAZING Youtube videos and you just wish that somehow, someway they were applicable to your classroom?  Well, vocabulary video journals are the perfect way to work them in. Each week, once your students have their vocabulary list, turn their attention to whatever video you’ve discovered […]

Vocab One-Pagers

Vocab One-Pagers Another great way to get students thinking carefully about their words is to have them create vocabulary one-pagers. If you’ve used one-pagers with novels, podcasts, films, or as a getting-to-know you activity, students already know the concept of connecting key imagery and words to distill concepts into a one-pager. It’s easy to do it […]