Coaching Classrooms With A Modern Teacher Companion

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I’m Kris, your host. Today’s special guest is Gina. She’s an instructional technology coach serving 4K through 12th grade students in Wisconsin. She’s an expert in using Seesaw to seamlessly bridge the gap between students, teachers, and families. During our talk today, we’ll discuss how Gina leverages Seesaw to enhance communication and engagement throughout her learning experience. Gina, welcome to the show.

Gina (00:35)

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Kris (00:37)

We’re super excited to kick things off with a really, really basic question here. Longtime educator, what brought you to the career of education and then what brought you now into this role of instructional technology coach?

Gina (00:51)

Well, I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher from little on. I had a wonderful elementary experience. I was even fortunate enough to teach for 20 years in the school that I went to. But it was just a magical experience. And I just love school. I love all things school. And now, transitioning to this role, I was ready to help other teachers.

So it took me a long time to want to leave the classroom because I love everything about it. But I’m having a lot of fun visiting other teachers and supporting them and listening to them and asking how I can support.

Kris (01:38)

I it, love it, love it. I always thought when I transitioned out of the classroom too of like you’re gonna miss your kids, you’re gonna miss those connections you make, but you make different connections, right? You make connections with the teachers, you make connections with the administrators, you make connections still that are there and so your classroom just grows a little bit differently as you think of coaching outside of the classroom.

Gina (01:48)

Okay.

Gina (01:59)

It does. I used to call my classroom the wolf pack and I just feel like I have a bigger wolf pack. Like I just have more of a pack.

Kris (02:02)

Sure.

Kris (02:07)

Yeah, for sure. And you get to know more kids and more families as you continue to grow. I absolutely love it. I want to kind of start off too with another basic question of hearing a little bit about how you discovered seesaw. I know a lot of teachers come across it in different ways. Maybe they found it through Facebook. Maybe they went through Twitter. Maybe they were at a conference. I’d to know how you discovered seesaw and why you really found that as having power for yourself and for your schools.

Gina (02:10)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (02:35)

Well, I’ve always been kind of an ed tech addict. And I remember it was probably 2017 that I started using it. And I’m going to say probably I discovered it on Twitter because I loved being on Twitter and having a professional learning network to connect with. And then I was fortunate enough to go to ISTE. And I think that was 2018.

Kris (02:39)

Yeah.

Gina (03:02)

or 2019 and I got to go to the seesaw table and then I met people that were from Wisconsin that were at the seesaw table and shared a lesson with me, a breakout box that connected to seesaw and I just have enjoyed being part of seesaw as it grows. My favorite thing about using seesaw is that when teachers give feedback, people listen and adjustments are made and I enjoyed

learning about how to app smash. So I love using seesaw with other platforms and just getting the most out of platforms that you can by focusing on the positives of the platforms and how they amplify and complement each other.

Kris (03:48)

I love it. I want to lean into what you were talking there about the positives and how seesaw can really make an impact. What ways or what examples do you have of how seesaw has really just have an impact either on teachers or students or families in your experience? How has it really just kind of created a movement for yourself in a memory that you can hang on to?

Gina (04:11)

My favorite thing is building relationships daily. So I love it when we could connect a grandma, a grandpa, or like a family mentor, because every child needs a champion. And it was just so powerful to see how kids’ eyes would light up when they would get a message from somebody. And just in the times that we live in, how important it is that

If a child or a caregiver needs to talk to their student or their caregiver, you can do that all day long. You can take that pause, have them communicate with each other, and it can be academic. It doesn’t have to be social-emotional. It can be. But just being able to connect throughout the day, I think, really is healthy on all parts for all people, all stakeholders in the learning loop.

Kris (05:05)

Absolutely, for sure. I love it. I’ve seen that moment too. So many times when a student lights up because a family member likes something or they comment on something. And I know that there’s also continued conversations that happen outside of school. Maybe it’s you’re in the car, maybe you’re at home sitting on the couch. And those are the moments that really…

Gina (05:19)

Mm-hmm.

Kris (05:26)

are much more powerful than what you can put into the journal. It’s about the conversations, it’s about the excitement that surrounds that, that seesaw really unlocks for you. So, I love to hear.

Gina (05:36)

And I also feel like parents really trusted me. The communication that I had with parents was meaningful. So it didn’t take away from my teaching, it actually added to my teaching. It was very proactive and not reactive. I knew I was doing a good job if it was quiet. You know, and then conferences were just a joy.

Kris (05:56)

Sure.

Kris (06:00)

Yeah.

Gina (06:00)

So they would see what their child was already doing in real time. And then I actually had time to sit and talk with them and just as humans, as parents, and not just only focus on the academic part, but really that school and family relationship.

Kris (06:18)

Absolutely. And getting to the best parts of the conference that you want to. There’s no surprises, there’s no guessing, and we can all surround ourselves and celebrate growth as they continue to go through the year.

Gina (06:20)

Mm-hmm.

Kris (06:30)

I want to lean into kind of your role and how it’s now 4K through 12th grade and just kind of hear how Seesaw is a fit in your schools. I would love to hear maybe some examples of how your youngest learners use it, but also some examples of how your oldest learners use Seesaw. What are the most powerful ways you’re seeing in those two use cases in your schools?

Gina (06:53)

What I’m noticing now is we are in, we’re using Seesaw in alignment with our district goal. So our goal right now is to increase family engagement. And I think the second year of helping teachers use Seesaw, it’s been really beneficial to focus just on Seesaw messages the first 11 weeks of the school year. And to make sure that everybody’s connected.

What I’m noticing with our youngest learners is we’re making sure that all stakeholders have accounts in seesaw. So our nurses, our counselors, we’re kind of like wrap around care, wrap around communication, making sure that the art teachers, our music teachers, everybody knows how to use seesaw messages and can quickly just send a picture. Or even we have an art teacher who’s taking pictures of the students artwork and sharing that out in real time.

At the younger levels, what I’m noticing is when I’ve been in classrooms using it, we’ve used it to kind of launch digital citizenship. And so how do you post in Seesaw? And we use it right in alignment with our curriculum. So we use bridges, mathematics. And right now, this is the time of year where we teach kids, this is how you post to Seesaw. And then in those younger grades, showing the kids

Kris (07:58)

sure.

Kris (08:08)

Yeah.

Gina (08:18)

see this poster, your teacher doesn’t need to use the poster. We can put this right here at your workplace and you can be a tech expert and coach your peers. So kind of like training the kids to be the boss of their learning and own their math and then report back to their teacher in Seesaw. It’s kind of about like cloning yourself. You can actually hear from every kid once they’re done with that workplace. So that’s kind of how we’re using it at the younger levels.

Kris (08:32)

Yeah.

Kris (08:46)

Yeah.

Gina (08:47)

And then at the older levels, a lot of times we’re using it as our LMS. So some of our teachers, we have a handful of teachers that are starting to use Cami and teach annotation and making that leap from getting them ready to go to middle school. So yes, you knew how to annotate in in seesaw. We can connect those annotations to what you’re going to be doing when you leave us and you go to the middle school. So it’s been really good that way.

Kris (09:13)

you

Gina (09:16)

with preparing kids for that next step in their tech journey.

Kris (09:20)

That’s awesome. I love the term techspert. I’ve heard it a few times, but I love how you just seamlessly weaved it right in there and allowed your students to have and grow that independence even at those young ages. I think sometimes technology can be scary for teachers to use, especially at young ages.

But what I love is that you’re finding that power in Seesaw. You’re finding the right way to use it so that students can become those tech experts even at a young age and then see how far they can grow up into middle and high school too. They’re just gonna be that much further ahead as digital citizens and contributors into their learning too.

Gina (09:44)

Okay.

Gina (09:57)

Mm-hmm, an empowered learner.

Kris (10:00.118)

and an empowered learner, absolutely, I love it. I wanna lean into one more coaching conversation, one more coaching question here, I guess. Can you describe a time when you worked closely with a teacher to integrate Seesaw? What was one of your favorite times that you did that and what did you do with that teacher to just make it your favorite?

Gina (10:20)

Well, one of my favorite times was working with an entire grade level and they wanted to do a project as a grade level for social studies and make it interactive. And so, I worked with them and I did a lot. When you think about how you can use Seesaw, I listened to them and we made an inventor card because they were studying famous inventors and they use the multimodal tools to teach people about

Kris (10:29)

Yeah.

Gina (10:49)

their person that they were studying. And then we printed them off with the QR code. And we had an afternoon where the second graders first put their QR codes around the library media center. And they practiced with each other, teaching about their inventor. And then they had their fifth grade buddies come down. I think they were fifth grade. The older kids came down, and then they hosted them. And we did kind of like a gallery walk.

Kris (11:18)

Yeah.

Gina (11:18)

where their buddies went around and listened to everybody’s inventor card. And they got to scan the QR code right within Seesaw and learn from each other. And that was like a favorite day for me. And it was really fun because our technician, our computer technician was in the building at the same time. And he kind of team taught with me. And he taught the kids what QR meant and taught them all about QR codes. And so…

Kris (11:40)

to.

Gina (11:46)

And it was one of my best memories so far in this role.

Kris (11:50)

Absolutely, I love that. I love the empowerment that comes with it and it’s also just a great way to extend Seesaw beyond using it in the app or using it with the device itself. You can extend that to be something that is put on your walls and literally will decorate your classroom or your media center, wherever you want to. You can have that learning be anytime, anywhere for them to be able to access.

Gina (12:00)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (12:14)

It’s all about that authentic audience, knowing that their work matters and that they have the power to teach others.

Kris (12:16)

Yeah. Yep.

Kris (12:2)

Thanks

For sure, I love that. That’s such a powerful way to think about it and to frame it too for those students and for the families as well. I have two more quick questions here before we kind of close up. We talked a lot about teachers. We talked a lot about the classroom environment, but I’d love to lean into the families and the family experience too. I know you spoke a little bit about how everybody is using Seesaw. They’re all wrapping around this one specific tool so that there’s one specific place of communication.

How have your families found power in that? And what kind of things have they kind of said to say, Seesaw is our tool and this is why it’s our favorite tool for our school? Have you heard anything around those?

Gina (13:07)

I have, but I kind of focus more on what I remember my parents saying, you my families. I think they really liked just knowing that it was a text away. And then the other part that I’m hearing, well now what I’m hearing from other families right now is that we did a survey and we asked parents how could we communicate better.

And one of the ideas that came back from them is they wanted kind of a choice. So some still prefer email, some still prefer texting, and SeesawLE lets you do either or or both. And so I think that’s been a win for us this year. The hard part is just making sure parents understand how to set that up on their end, but SeesawLE Help Center is amazing.

So it’s an easy task to work on. So I think it’s that parents have a choice.

Kris (14:09)

And then the options are all there for you. Like you said, the resources are here. The tooling is there to be able to access that. And that’s what really can transform a school district. Like what you’re saying is when everybody is surrounded with it, when everybody’s connected and we can all access the same thing, things are just a whole bunch, a whole lot better as you continue to improve and grow those portfolios with those students.

Gina (14:31)

Mm-hmm.

Kris (14:33)

Last question here as we get to close up and it’s one of my favorite questions here. How has Seesaw impacted you personally? Whether this is your career, your growth as a teacher, your classroom families. I really want to hear how Seesaw has become your growth partner in your educational career.

Gina (14:54)

Well, I think it’s really helped me be innovative. And so when I think about how I want to continuously improve and I believe in can you continue continuous improvement. I love seesaw because it models continuous improvement. It models taking feedback. And I want to be like seesaw. I want to continuously improve and, you know, take feedback and make myself better. I love that.

It’s on the forefront always of innovation and I appreciate beta testing. I just really enjoy the growth mindset of the platform.

Kris (15:37)

I love that you’ve been able to glean that mindset off Seesaw too because we at Seesaw wouldn’t be the same without teachers like yourself who are offering feedback, who are beta testing things, who are challenging what we’re doing to make sure that we’re matching what schools, classrooms need and also families too, I could argue, to make sure that we’re bringing the best to education. So Seesaw wouldn’t be the same way without teachers like yourself, Gina.

Gina (15:48)

Thank you.

Gina (15:59)

Thank you.

Gina (16:05)

Well, thank you, Kris.

Kris (16:07)

You’re very welcome. We are at time. I just so appreciate your testimonials. I appreciate the mindset you have around CSUN, around growth, and how this has really made a home in your school. It’s always so wonderful to hear these stories come into life, regardless of where people are coming from. So I appreciate you taking the time here today.

Gina (16:25)

Thank you so much for having me.

Kris (16:27)

Of course. Thank you. Have a great afternoon. Bye-bye.

Gina (16:30)

Bye bye.