UA-59956679-1

BIG TIME TIP #1 – Daily Dashboard Review

Published by SraSpanglish on

You go to all the trouble to spell out exactly what you expect, make it attractive, work in a few bells and whistles including a YouTube timer and an Álvaro Soler video to welcome them into the room. It tells them exactly what they’re doing today: I can statement, agenda, upcoming calendar, materials list. But does ANYONE have their notebook out when the bell rings?

Well, one does. And she found your typo.

But everyone else is still chatting, scrolling through snaps, and blasting music through the headphones you even told them to put up in the SYLLABUS.

I have found two things to combat this.

One: include a Kahoot code. When the prepared kid is patiently waiting with her Kahoot screen ready, it is a useful cue.

And two, since we can’t start with Kahoot every day (I don’t have it in me), follow up the starter with a review. I include three open-ended overview questions, which I then break down into 5-10 yes/no questions each. Every morning after about five minutes (or however much is left when I start the 10-minute YouTube timer) to finish the starter and let me take attendance, we run through these questions:

¿Qué día es hoy?

¿Qué materiales necesitas hoy?

¿Qué actividades tiene la clase hoy?

It’s taken about 3 weeks (since the hurrication), but the routine is finally setting in and, well, WORKING. It’s to the point that I don’t really have to go through thirty yes/no questions in every class to make sure everyone has their materials and knows what’s due!

But there are phases to this process, lasting at least week each.

PHASE 1: PARTICIPAR O BAILAR


In this phase, we establish that EVERYONE needs to engage with EVERY question. If I don’t hear a chorus if SÍÍÍ or NOOO every time I finish a question and say “¿Sí o no, CLASE?” then we are putting on the David Bisbal, they’re standing up in that sweaty room at 7:15 AM with 36 other people, and doing “Te mueves tú” at LEAST once.This phase lasts about a week (unless you’re on an A day/B day schedule like some of us…)

During this phase, you go through these questions, one by one by one, with frequent backtracking and affirmation:

These are in part because I know district benchmarks include stuff like days of the week, but also because the A day/B day thing gets ME confused. Especially after Florence.


This is my opportunity to make sure everyone brought their notebooks, give them a chance to get Chromebooks charged before we need ’em, pass out glue sticks, and also stare down people with their phones out and gesture to “La Caja” where I’ll collect them if they stay out.


This reinforces some important skills vocabulary, but more importantly reinforces when graded work is coming up.



PHASE 2: OPEN END IT


I have hit this phase with at least half of my classes. With this phase, after each slide, I click back to the first slide of questions and ask individual students for the answer to the general questions

(Notice I put a little back arrow to go back to the main questions. With my new clicker it’s much easier just to click back.)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnbnF5UHydO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

PHASE 3: SUPER SPEED

I am eagerly anticipating this phase. This phase will mean I can call on (almost) any kid to answer the questions without reviewing the yes/nos and then just get down to business. In this phase, almost all students will take care of extracting/storing/charging materials and anticipating activities before the musical starter is over.

Note: the existence of this phase is thus far unconfirmed and may, in fact, be mythical.


SraSpanglish

Laura Sexton is a passion-driven, project-based language educator in Gastonia, North Carolina. She loves sharing Ideas for integrating Project-Based Learning in the world language classroom, including example projects, lessons, assessment tips, driving questions, and reflection.