JUNE UPDATE – Issue 2
We made it! The 2020-2021 school year is almost over. For many, the school year is about to end, which means there’s time to rest and recharge during summer. With time to rest and recharge, there may be time to spend learning at your own pace and what you want. As a result, the goal of the next few newsletters is to provide you with many options to learn new practices over the summer at your own pace to then apply to the next school year. These learning opportunities and resources include podcasts to listen to, instructional resources to store in your drive for next year, research articles to read, and voices from other educators that have amplified.
Ultimately, the goal of this newsletter is to be a helpful resource to help you continue your learning. Be sure to ask your professional learning network and colleagues within your educational organization to subscribe to receive this newsletter, which can be done by completing this form. Also, connect with me on Twitter @mattrhoads1990 and check out more content on my website www.matthewrhoads.com
Pre-Orders – Purchase Your Copy for a Great Summer Read Before Next School Year
As we get closer to the summer, we are closing in on the release date of Navigating the Toggled Term: A Guide for K-12 Classroom and School Leaders. Pre-order your copy of this book that will be a great playbook to navigate the present and future of education!
Peter Lang International Academic Publishing
Release Date: July 20th, 2021
HELPFUL RESOURCES FROM MAY 2021 TO HELP YOUR PRACTICE AS A TEACHER AND LEADER
Frayer Vocabulary A-Z Vocabulary – How-to Video by Dr. Rhoads
Template for A-Z Vocabulary
In this video demonstration, Dr. Rhoads outlines how Frayer Vocabulary can be utilized for a collaborative class activity called A-Z vocabulary. This strategy can be employed at the beginning of a unit or at the end for review. Groups of three students are assigned a slide. For each slide, group members must complete their portion of the slide associated with the vocabulary word. Once their Frayer Vocabulary slide is completed, a gallery walk will commence and students will review the slide deck. Then, on an individual basis, the slide deck can be used by students for retrieval practice. Last, a template slide deck has been added. Please make a copy to use for your classroom!
Jigsaw Reading – How-to Video by Dr. Rhoads
Template for Jigsaw Reading & Summarization Using NewsELA Articles
In this video demonstration, Dr. Rhoads takes you through the Jigsaw Reading strategy. In a twist, passages are assigned to groups and students work together on slides as they annotate and paraphrase the slides content. Then, once each group is completed, they write a combined summary on hyperlink to a Doc attached to the end of the slideshow. Each group’s summary along with groups who may have read a higher Lexile reading rendition of the same passage will have their summaries all in the same space.
Linking Technologies to Effective Instructional Strategies – Zach Groshell
In this article, Zach Groshell shows a number of instructional strategy integrations with EdTech tools. These instructional strategy integrations are known to help students learn. Take a moment to review this article as it shows a how mainstream EdTech tools we use everyday can be paired with strategies to help students learning.
EDUCATION RESEARCH ARTICLES TO REVIEW
Daniel Willingham is a famous cognitive scientist that researches and writes about learning. On Twitter, he shares many groundbreaking research articles that can impact our practice in the classroom. For this month’s education research articles to review, we have listed a number of research articles Dr. Whittingham has recommended and posted on social media. You can follow Dr. Willinnghan on Twitter @DTWillingham.
What are the Effects of Screen Time on Emotion regulation and Academic Achievements? – Luca Cerniglia, Silvia Cimino, and Massimo Ammaniti
In this study, researchers found there was a positive association with screen time starting at four years old was significantly associated with dysregulation and negatively associated with mathematics and literacy grades at 8 years of age. Researchers recommend that parental involvement, specifically mothers, is key to regulating device usage.
Language Skills, and Not Executive Functions, Predict the Development of Reading Comprehension of Early Readers: Evidence from an Orthographically Transparent Language – Dacian Dorin Dolean, Arne Lervag, Laura Visu Petra, & Monica Melby-Lervag
In this study, researchers looked at early elementary aged children and looked at the development of reading comprehension. They found that executive functions do not have a significant direct effect on developing recording comprehension beyond fluent decoding and oral language skills. The results also showed that children who learned to decode well, their language skills and not executive functions have a strong effect on developing their reading comprehension. The authors of the study recommend interventions for reading in elementary school should stress the development of oral language skills.
NAVIGATING EDUCATION – THE PODCAST EPISODES TO CHECK OUT
Since last month, five new episodes of Navigating Education – The Podcast have been released. Take a listen to them as they are full of best practice nuggets to help your teaching and leadership practice. Starting in June, episodes of the podcast will feature guests. Dr. Rhoads will interview educators from across the world on a number of topics ranging from assessment, feedback, cognitive load, culturally responsive teaching, fine arts education, and much more!
Episode 10 – Integrating Instructional Strategies with EdTech Tools: The How-to Process
Episode 8 – Special Education Case Management: Harnessing EdTech to Make Case Management Efficient and Effective
Episode 7 – Adaptive Edtech for Personalized Learning and Retrieval Practice
Episode 6 – Online & Distance Learning – What works According to Research and Practice
AMPLIFYING THE VOICES OF EDUCATORS
Here are several articles and a podcast to amplify the voices of several educators. Each article and podcast can provide insight to help amplify your practice as a teacher and leader. From each of these articles, you will have a number of nuggets that you can implement immediately to amplify student learning!
Thanks, But I’ll Keep my Research – Zach Groshell
In this blogpost, Zach Groshell outlines a number of research-based instructional strategies that can help students learn. He does a great job summarizing these strategies by outlining them in a table called “How Much Would Students Learn If,” which provides a list of rhetorical questions asking ourselves as educators what teaching strategies are effective versus the ones that are not effective.
7 Free Teaching Tools You Might Not Have Heard Of – Dr. Matthew Joseph and Shannon Moore
In this article, Dr. Matthew Joseph and Shannon Moore explore a number of free alternative web-based EdTech tools that support learning. While there are many mainstream tools we all enjoy utilizing, there are many other EdTech tools that we should take a look at for next year. When looking for new tools for next school year, this article should be one of the first places you look to see what’s out there.
Armchair Scholars Podcast Episode 10 – Dr. Malik Boykin
In an upcoming Navigating Education – The Podcast, Dr. Rhoads will interview Dr. Malik Boykin aka Malik Starx. Before listening to the podcast that will be released in July, this is a good episode to learn more about this influential educator, scholar, and music article.
Navigating the Present and Future of Education 