Customized Learning for Every Student with Seesaw

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop podcast where we provide powerful insights and trends into education. I’m Kris, your host. Today’s special guest is Jennifer, a first grade teacher in California and a newly published author. Today we’ll be talking about how Seesaw enables deeper learning and facilitates strong teacher practices in the classroom.

You’re going to want to listen in because this is a can’t miss episode. Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Jenn Dean (00:33)

Thank you so much for having me, Kris.

Kris (00:36)

we are so excited. We just know that your expertise in this field is so powerful and I’m so excited to hear all of your amazing answers. We’ll start off with kind of a generic one, one that just kind of sets the stage around technology in classrooms. What role does technology play in your instructional approach and how do you really think about effectively integrating it in your classroom?

Jenn Dean (00:59)

Great question. So, you know, as a primary grades teacher, we’re all about technology, balancing how much we’re on technology. However, it’s really essential to include technology. A lot of times I’ll think about like how I use it and I wanna use it in a way that is really focusing on the pedagogy and meeting the needs of my students while also giving them a voice. I don’t want them just like doing busy work on technology. That’s the same thing as a worksheet to me. So when I think of technology, I really am trying to think of, okay,

going to make learning better? How is it going to give my students more voice in showing what they learn? And how is it going to be making things more accessible for them?

Kris (01:39)

amazing. That’s really, you’re speaking to like passing the baton to students, letting them really just own a lot of that learning and I’m sure even your first grade students are recognizing that and starting to feel that empowerment in your classroom.

Jenn Dean (01:52)

It’s amazing, especially using Seesaw obviously, because it’s so easy to just embed more student choice in the activities, which automatically increases their engagement and learning, so.

Kris (02:04)

Yeah, so good, so good. Well, you led right into my next question here. Speaking more about Seesaw, how has Seesaw specifically made an impact in your classroom or in your teaching practices?

Jenn Dean (02:17)

This could be an episode all on its own. I feel like that question. Just even thinking about, I’ve been using Seesaw since almost the beginning, about eight years I’ve been on Seesaw. Pretty much it was my second year teaching that I started using it. And…

Kris (02:19)

Yeah

Jenn Dean (02:31)

It has changed so much. First of all, just with honestly even just connecting families and really bringing them into the classroom. That alone, just having that ability to be able to do everything in one place, letting students share. In fact, today we were doing an activity that talked about like, how are we communicators? Because that’s one of our learner profiles being in an IB school. And the kids, a lot of the kids said, oh, we use SeesawT to communicate to our families to show them what we’re learning. And it was just amazing because it’s true. Before using that,

It was a lot harder to show families really truly what we were learning without having them physically in school So right there that family connection and really showing that we’re a team and working together the other just amazing things are

I love Seesaw’s microphone tool. Ben, Cogswell and I, we’re always talking when we present together that the most magical button on Seesaw is the microphone. Because anytime we can get our students to add their voice to what they’re doing, it’s just magical. Especially when we’re thinking about just like English language learners too, and meeting those speaking and listening standards and just making learning so much more accessible for them. But it has changed everything. Like how I do things. First grade, I know a lot of students

Kris (03:24)

Sure.

Jenn Dean (03:44)

a lot of teachers do calendar time and pretty much have eliminated calendar time because I do a whole morning message thing on Seesaw or I get students doing different things on that. I don’t do homework anymore just because they can do so much with Seesaw in class. And so it has completely changed everything. Honestly, I could do a whole episode on this. We could talk all about the changes in all the different areas.

Kris (04:07)

So amazing, so amazing. If you had to potentially ask your students this question, like what would be their favorite thing that they would say about Seesaw?

Jenn Dean (04:16)

one of the favorite things that they would say is how much choice they get and how they show their learning. So it’s really interesting to me like even just with simple like if we’re gonna draw something they can choose if they want to use the tools and see so to draw or if they want to draw on paper and take a picture of it. No matter what activity we’re doing whether it’s something super simple or something that’s more intense and more of a project they have choice throughout the whole thing and I think they love that. That’s probably their number one thing.

Kris (04:46)

For sure, for sure. And it speaks to the way that you’re really emphasizing your classroom within Seesaw and how you really are empowering them to choose the tools they want and allow them to just use all of the Seesaw multimodal tools to express what they’re starting to understand and learn through that. So I think you’re speaking to that powerful play between you understand what the platform can provide and balancing that with what your students are craving and really what’s best for student learning in that.

So that’s an awesome balance and an awesome testimonial to hear how you’re really striking that.

Jenn Dean (05:22)

They also just, another thing they love, they love recording and moving things at the same time. So if we’re doing anything in math, especially where they have to manipulate, like use manipulatives, they love getting to record and do that. Even doing phonics things, recording and sounding at words. They love seeing how something like that then becomes a movie that they created. So that’s also something that they just love doing. They ask me to do that all the time.

Kris (05:27)

So fun, so fun. I remember hearing some testimonials of that where students then would say at the end, don’t forget to like and subscribe, they’re YouTube stars or something like that. But it’s just the students and they just really love that. They feel that publishing and sharing that out, that authentic audience they have with it, such a powerful space inside of Seesaw. They shared, yeah, in the comments, oh yeah.

Jenn Dean (05:59)

100%.

Jenn Dean (06:11)

And Seesaw has the like button and everything ready to go. So the kids can’t wait.

Kris (06:17)

Same thing. I want to keep diving into Seesaw a little bit, but spin it a little bit more into like instructional practices. So if you had a student who might be disengaging from learning or who might just need a little bit of a boost, what kind of things have you found to be helpful that you do inside of Seesaw to really reengage that student?

Jenn Dean (06:38)

You know, I’m thinking right away right now on one of the things that’s often not engaging for students is phonics instruction. A lot of us, a lot of the times we do like the different phony mapping journals and a lot of my students will get completely disengaged during that time. And so I kind of thought to myself, hmm, how can I make this more engaging and honestly also focusing more on critical thinking rather than me just telling the students the sound, how can I really involve some critical thinking? Cause if we spark their curiosity and we don’t just tell them things, they’re gonna be more engaged.

doing actually is like say we’re gonna learn about the long eye with the silent E pattern. I won’t tell them that. I will just show them like a slide in Seesaw for example. I’ll just have a page in Seesaw where I have different emojis or different pictures of things that all have the long eye sound and I just ask the kids like hey when you see this picture what do you think what sound do you think we’re gonna be learning about and so they start to like look at the pictures and think about it and see what they have in common and

The first several times we do this, it’s not as easy, right? Because they’ve never done it before. But all of them are engaged because they all want to solve the puzzle, right? Rather than me just saying, hey, we’re learning about Long Eye this week. We’re five kids, might not be listening to me. If I actually am asking them to tell me the pattern, they’re automatically more engaged. And then after we find the pattern, then on the next page, we have like an emoji that’s hidden.

Kris (07:39)

Yeah.

Jenn Dean (07:58)

and we start to use the eraser and Seesaw because it’s hidden just by using the pen tool. We just cover the emoji with the pen tool and I start to erase it. This is like all during instruction so the kids are sitting on the carpet with me and or they have their phoneme journals because I am required to use those but now I’m doing it in a more engaging way and I start to erase the emoji and I have these kids again start guessing. What do you think it is? What pattern does it have to have? What sound are we looking for? And so they’ll start guessing and then I will erase it and we’ll see who was right

Kris (08:01)

Yeah.

Jenn Dean (08:28)

the word and write it and do this whole animation with it. So I’m still teaching, but I’m using a lot of the Seesaw tools to engage the kids and get them finding the answers and them telling me, rather than me just saying, oh, the word is bike, let’s all sound that out. Instead, they have to be looking for clues and think about what it could be. And anytime we can get students to do actually more of the thinking, they’re going to be more engaged.

Kris (08:45)

Absolutely. And not only more engaged, I would also say they’re going to remember it more and enjoy that experience as they go. Just because they were the ones who came up with the idea more or less. You know, they kind of figured out how to get there. So that’s amazing. I love that testimonial and doing scratching reveals like you were talking about are probably my favorite ways to engage students as well. Super, super fun.

Jenn Dean (09:13)

Especially when you just do little parts and you really make them think, hmm, what could this be? And tying it into that phonics, it just makes it more engaging. And I’ve seen huge changes and just even my students who don’t like writing the letters as much, especially, you know, students with different disabilities, that that’s a kind of a hard thing for them. Knowing like that they’re getting to do this on Seesaw after.

Kris (09:18)

Yeah.

Jenn Dean (09:33)

Because after we do it in our journals, they put their journals away and now they get to go and again animate it They get to move the emoji and sound out the word and all that then they’re more likely to do it because they know they Get to do something really fun with it after they learn so

Kris (09:39)

Yeah.

Kris (09:47)

So fun. I want to ask you another question, just on differentiating instruction there, because we’re on the track of how do we support all of our learners. What are some of your go-to ways you could share two or three strategies that you use Seesaw to differentiate your instruction for those students?

Jenn Dean (10:06)

Probably the number one thing that I do is I do a lot of, what CESA allows you to have so many voice recordings on one page and then you get lots of pages, right? So a lot of times, let’s say I’m doing something that I know some students might be struggling with, especially parts of speech. If we’re doing nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and then they have to use them in a sentence, I just add a little voice box that says, if you need help, click here, basically. And they can click and listen and it will re-say, remember a noun is a person, place, or thing.

Kris (10:14)

Yep. Yeah.

Jenn Dean (10:36)

an adjective is a word that describes. And so that right there, just having that be there for students who do need it, that’s probably my number one. The second thing is I don’t always assign the same activity to all my students. So…

Especially like you said, I’m a newly published author. One of the things we talk about is math reps a lot. And I don’t always assign the same math reps because some of my students are mastering all those standards earlier than others. So then I might give some of my students a completely different one than another one, but they’re still working on first grade standards, but they’re working on different standards they need help with. So assigning different activities for my different students. And I haven’t figured out the best way to group them,

sign but one thing I do that does help me is I just add like a little emoji or color to the end of their name like a purple or a green square or something so I just know okay all those kids are gonna get this activity all those kids will get this activity so I can kind of do it a little quicker those are probably my two favorite ways to differentiate is

Kris (11:40)

Yeah.

Jenn Dean (11:41)

adding voice for helpful hints, I like to call them, or assigning different activities to meet the different needs of my students. Especially if I’m doing fluency reads, things like that, I’ll assign the fluency passage at that group’s level, rather than just the whole class getting the same thing.

Kris (11:57)

Absolutely. Amazing, amazing. I would also say that as you talked about all those hints and all those tips that come with it, all those are just the intuitive parts of Seesaw as it goes. So I think that you’ve naturally picked up on the design and the purposefulness of Seesaw and how that really has been built to try to marry what teachers are looking for to support all their students as they go into their classrooms.

We have two more questions left, and I’m going to ask you now a question which is our loopy question. This is just a silly question we ask all of our guests here. If you could switch places with any animal for a day, any animal, even if it’s an extinct animal, which animal would it be?

Jenn Dean (12:39)

It would be a shark because you can go and explore the deepest parts of the ocean that no one can see and you’d be safe. So probably, I’d probably be the biggest shark in the world, even if it’s extinct. My students would know the name of it, like a mega something. And I would do that because I would just think it would be so cool to explore something no one’s ever explored before, but knowing that you’re safe to do so.

Kris (12:40)

Yes, sure.

Kris (12:50)

It’s part of the fitting.

Kris (12:54)

There you go. Oh, so fun. That’s such a good answer, and I probably would agree with you because I love to be in the ocean and exploring that. So, super, super great insight there. And like I said, top of the food chain, so nothing’s gonna be taking you out. Do you want some please? Sure. Yeah, I’d love that too. Awesome.

Jenn Dean (13:22)

I would be safe, yeah, because I don’t like to do that because I’m scared of sharks. So if I was one, then I wouldn’t have to be afraid.

Kris (13:30)

But we’re gonna ask just one more question here as we start to close up our episode. If there’s someone listening, they heard all these amazing tips, how does this person who’s like maybe brand new to Seesaw, how do they get to this point when they’re like you? They’re like a Jennifer Dean who’s just killing it, they wanna be a published author someday, maybe, or they’re working on it. What kind of things would you tell them to start with in Seesaw so they can get to that deep implementation like what you have?

Jenn Dean (13:56)

I would say start small and don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Start with the activities that you are already finding in the library that Seesaw provides, whether it’s the community library or if you’re a Seesaw for Schools member and you have access to Seesaw’s library. Just start with some of their stuff and explore. Don’t be afraid to play. That’s another thing, right? I tell my students all the time, like, hey, I have not tried this before. It might not work. If it does though, I’m gonna learn and I’m gonna figure that out. But I would always say like that.

start with what’s already there, and then as you feel like you’re getting comfortable, or as you see your students getting comfortable, then start trying something new. One thing I always tell people is, honestly, just start by taking pictures of what you’re already doing, or having your students take pictures, and just recording, just getting them to add some voice to it, because that’s not that much change for you. And then as you are like, okay, I got that down, the kids got that down, now think about what tool you want to embed next. Maybe you want to try drawing and recording. So start small,

Use the library, it’s amazing, there’s lots of great stuff in there. And then don’t be afraid to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, just like we tell our students, right?

Kris (15:05)

Absolutely, so good. My favorite thing you said there was when you see your students getting comfortable with the platform. I think that’s such a great insight and one that is allowing students to travel on that journey with Seesaw with you and just giving them exactly what they need in your classroom as you start to coach them through technology and through the rest of their years. But love it.

Jenn Dean (15:28)

Chances are the students will pick up on it even quicker than you can, and they will start to be ready for the next thing, which will then make you ready for the next thing. So just go with it, go with the flow, and just keep trying things out.

Kris (15:40)

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, we’re gonna close things down. Jennifer, I just wanna say thank you so much for being here. I know that you’re incredibly busy, not only teaching, but also getting ready to launch this book. We are beyond excited for you and beyond excited that you joined us here today to share your expertise. Thank you, thank you so much.

Jenn Dean (15:57)

Thank you again for having me.

Kris (15:59)

Yeah, of course. Bye!