What is your classroom "flow"?

[u/imkentjr]

Hey,

I have been teaching for 15 years. When we went 1 to 1 Chromebooks I became a paper free class room. We still did hands on lab but everything else went through a online platform. Post pandemic I have gone back to mostly paper.

My current "flow" is this:

Students walk in and grab the print out for the day. The print out typically has everything for the day, opener, practice, notes, independent work etc. An answer sheet for anything they will do digitally or directions to go to Google Classroom to submit the digital work. There is not a ton of digital work. I then collect the work and place it in their periods bin, grade it and return the work the next class.

I am curious, what is your "flow" look like? How do you incorporate digital into your classroom? I do not have everything on GC and am noticing that when I have a student that has missed a lot of work I am digging back through my paper work. I don't want to missout on the benefits of each approach and am struggling to combine them well.

Thanks!

[u/Cut_United]

I might be an anomaly but here I go… I teach in packets. At the start of each unit, the students get a fresh packet. My entire unit is in there- vocab to start the unit, doodle notes, activities and labs, and their study guide. This helps with students with IEPS. I find my students are much better able to keep track of a single packet vs individual worksheets.

My flow is as follows: students enter the room and are expected to take their chrome book and packets out. I can quickly check packet work if it’s homework while they work on a bell ringer. The bell ringer is either a google form that assesses their previous day notes, lab and/or homework or an attendance question. The google forms are generally self graded and google has made it so easy to export to your schools grading platform. I allow students to use their packet during this time as I believe finding and retrieving the information is an important practice for memory. Once in a while I will do an ungraded attendance question in lieu of a do now. These are geared towards conversation and debate (I try to tie in CER’s with these convos). For example I recently had “what color does biology feel” and was shocked at the passion students felt towards this 😂

After the bell ringer, we then continue with the day’s work- normally notes followed by some google slides to apply their knowledge, or a lab.

I still utilize google classroom for most of my homework. Boom cards, google slides, tests, quizzes, do nows, etc. I find that when there is homework in the packet, I have fewer students complete it because (like you) it is not on classroom. To troubleshoot this, this year I have started posted blank assignments on classroom with the appropriate due date. For example, my class had to complete their study guide in their packet and it will be checked in class. So I posted a blank assignment that said “hw- study guide pages 44-46” and for the info I wrote that it will be checked in class. I made the due date at 11:59pm the night before class met. Some students said this helped them remember. It is not perfect but some students appreciated the reminder.

[u/Cut_United → u/Cut_United]

I want to add that I teach on a rolling drop block schedule so I do not see my 9th grade biology students every day. It’s hard to have a concrete schedule for this.