Transform Classrooms by Empowering Students

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop podcast where we provide powerful insights and trends into education. I’m Chris, your host. Today’s special guest is Heidi. She’s an instructional technology coach at Bartlett City Schools. In our session today, we will talk about how Seesaw is making a difference in classrooms throughout her district. Heidi is a Seesaw certified educator and has been an advocate for Seesaw for so many years.

Heidi (00:07)

I am.

Kris (00:34)

We are so honored you are here. Welcome to the show.

Heidi (00:38)

Thank you. I appreciate being invited.

Kris (00:40)

Of course, we can’t have a podcast show without Heidi here. We are just going to kick off with a pretty basic question here. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see in classrooms in your school district when it comes to instruction and learning in classrooms?

Heidi (00:52)

Thank you.

Heidi (00:57)

I think the biggest thing that I’m noticing across the grade levels is just how to keep students engaged. How do we keep them motivated? How do we have them stay on task and persevere through whatever the learning task might be?

Kris (01:12)

Absolutely. I think that even in a post-COVID world, I think that might have been an issue before is like, how do we keep students to just love learning and really love being in school and really just hook onto that learning in a much deeper level? Is there anything that you’re finding in your classrooms, any strategies or techniques that are helping to overcome some of these challenges you’re facing?

Heidi (01:18)

Yeah. Always. Yes.

Heidi (01:37)

So I’m finding that having students create while they’re learning helps them share what they’re learning. And I often having the students get up and share their information on the TV and then talk about what they’ve done or a strategy to solve a math task engages the other students to then question and you get this kind of going back and forth, back and forth. So I’m not the sage on the stage, I’m in the background.

directing the guided thinking process, showing different models, and then having them work through different strategies. And it really helps them understand that there’s more than one way to solve a problem too.

Kris (02:21)

Absolutely. Can you elaborate on any specific examples you might share around how you took that Sage on a Stage model and you stepped away from that? You really allowed students to be creative. Do you have any examples of a time that this happened and maybe your favorite time that this happened?

Heidi (02:40)

Well, so I have two just within the last week. So I’m introducing Seesaw to some of the first graders at my one school, and they were working on plant parts. And so they had drawings. So they were able to take a picture of the drawing and then go into Seesaw and start labeling it. And they were so excited about the different ways that they could label and how it could show it. And then putting it up on the TV. Hey, look, I learned how to do this.

watch, you can change this color and you can make this here and look, we can draw with it too. And then adding the microphone in and letting them talk about what their learning is adds that component then for parents to get involved so that when they’re going home, it’s not what you do in school today. It’s like, hey, mom, can we look at our seesaw and I’ll show you what I did. That’s really exciting, especially with the younger group. And then today I got to share.

We’re working on the 24 and the global math task challenges. And I got to share with a third grade class, different ways to use CSO as like a whiteboard where they can add their own and draw and share their thoughts and critique each others. So we had students that were up on the Apple TV board and they were showing how they got the different 24 pieces and other students questioning, how did you get that? What did this look like? And then that, you always have that one student that’s like,

Oh, that’s how it works. And then others build on that. So I love that part of it. When I taught, I used Seesaw daily. It was a morning work, it was stations, it was centers. I would put my Google slides into Seesaw activities. So while I was showing and teaching a math concept, students were actually looking at it on their iPads and underlining and circling. And again, that family component.

not what did you do at school today, but hey, can we go look at your CSEL? Show me how this works. Cause new math is something that isn’t really new. It’s just different ways of solving it. So.

Kris (04:42)

Amazing, amazing. Such great stories to hear, and I love how you really pass that baton to students and said, I’m gonna provide you some structure, some guidance, but you really show me what you know in a way that you want to, in a way that really fits your style and your personality and exactly what you want to convey to me. So the empowerment, I’m sure these students really felt that through this, but it also allows them probably to remember this content for a lot longer.

Heidi (05:14)

It does, yeah, absolutely.

Kris (05:16)

Okay, so good. So I wanna kind of dive in a little bit deeper to what you shared there. When you used Seesaw in your classroom, could you share maybe like the top ways that you found the most power in using it when you were a teacher? Just sharing, you shared a couple examples, you used it as a whiteboard and how to really project that and use it in different use cases, but could you share maybe two or three of your favorite ways that really you felt impacted your teaching in your classroom?

Heidi (05:45)

So one of the biggest things that I’ve learned how to do is when CSOL brought out the formative assessment. I mean, I used it before CSOL graded it for you and I would go in and grade it. But now that those formative assessments, our math program always has like two little problems at the end of the lesson to see if you’ve gotten it. And after using the data from that, I’m able to go ahead and group. Okay.

these didn’t get it. These took three times to get it. These are my ones that are, let’s move them on, let’s move them on. And then develop small groups and stations and centers based on that. That was my favorite way of using it up until I became a coach. And now we’re, we’re sharing that now with more people to help them see the data that’s involved in Seesaw. But another way that I loved connecting was we used to do

the global math task that’s on Twitter and the students would get their different solutions for whatever they were getting. And then I could just save that, see, so I didn’t have to go in and share their work on Twitter like with their pictures and everything. They had it all put together and then I just saved it to Twitter to share out with other students and classes that were participating. And I think that’s…

That’s my favorite two ways. Morning work was always great because I could always differentiate morning work and I could have groups set up in CSO so that my students that were ESL that might’ve needed to work on something a little bit different, different groups coming in during intervention. I could have them in different groups in CSO and they had similar standards, different tasks that went along with those standards. So.

Kris (07:11)

Yeah.

Heidi (07:33)

so many different ways that you can use Seesaw to help students share what they know.

Kris (07:38)

Absolutely. So amazing. And I love to hear how deep you understand how to use CSUN, how you’re finding that power being connected in with teaching practices, the teaching day and teaching routines. And now you have this tremendous opportunity to take that learning, that understanding and share it as an instructional coach. So I just think, you know, your district is off to such a great start, having you be that person who’s sharing that information, coaching teachers.

Heidi (07:55)

Yes.

Kris (08:07)

and really just helping to push the platform, move forward, in Bartlett City Schools. So I’m excited to see where you guys go in the next couple of years here. I want to kind of zoom out the lens a little bit and think more of a kind of instructional design. We know a lot of districts have a lot of initiatives happening. They have maybe a new curriculum that’s being adopted or other things like that. How are you as a coach finding the balance between instructional design and or instructional asks and technology use. How are you kind of finding that balance within your school district?

Heidi (08:45)

It is a challenge to find, because when you’re given that new, we just got a new math program this year, and a lot of it is learning the new program and how does the online component fit in with the paper and pencil and just trying, as a coach, I don’t want to put more on your plate. I wanna take some off your plate and show you how different platforms help us.

share that information that we’re getting with the students in an easy manner. So I don’t know if that answered your question or not, but just trying to take it off the plate and seeing how I can, for instance, we’re having issues trying to connect with some of the platforms. Well, let’s put it on Seesaw. Right there it is. So, you know, like we can use it right there. So look, let’s not stress. Let’s find a workaround it and then we’ll get back to the other way and we’ll keep trying.

But I don’t know, again, I don’t know if that answered the question.

Kris (09:45)

No, no, I think it definitely did because the core of what you said there is you want to save teachers time and give back instructional minutes and.

I know when I was a technology coach, that was paramount for me. Like if I can save you time that you can pour back into students that you can actually teach with, that’s our number one job is just to make sure that those kids are getting the most instructional minutes. And so even just having that lens is such an important thing to have. And I think it’s when you shared it, you were really sharing how that’s really like your paramount point. That’s the only point that really matters is.

We need to be more efficient, we need to save time, and we need to give that back to the kids. So I think that’s the perfect intersection that you really wanna hit, right? Is the balance between construction and technology, so. Amazing. I wanna jump to our loopy question. This is a question that is just a silly little question that we ask every guest who’s here. So we’re gonna change it and we’re gonna say, it’s time for dessert. We ate our whole meal, it’s time for dessert.

Heidi (10:32)

Mm-hmm. It is. Yeah.

Heidi (10:45)

Yeah.

Kris (10:53)

If you had to choose one dessert that you had to eat after your meal for the rest of your life, what do you think that would be?

Heidi (11:03)

So I would choose Rice Krispie Treats because it’s a blank canvas and you can add in, like you get tired of just the plain Rice Krispie Treats, add some M&Ms onto it. You get tired of the M&Ms, add some sprinkles onto it. So it’s the same, but yet it’s different. Kind of like seesaw, it’s the same, but there’s so many things that you can do with it to make it yours.

Kris (11:24)

Yeah.

Kris (11:29)

I love that. I love the versatility that you’re kind of putting into that question and that answer. It’s such a fun one and I love, I mean everybody loves Rice Krispies treats, right? We love marshmallows and Rice Krispies and so having that be your blank canvas moving forward is such a good idea.

Heidi (11:36)

Thank you.

Heidi (11:42)

I do.

Kris (11:50)

Fantastic. We’re going to close up our episode here. We always end with some advice. People who’ve been listening to this whole episode, they love what you talked about as far as instructional tactics, different techniques that you use CSO through. If I was a teacher and I wanted to start to be like Heidi, what would you tell this teacher to do first with CSO to try to build up to where you are today?

Heidi (12:00)

Thank you.

Heidi (12:16)

So I would definitely say get with somebody who uses Seesaw and have them help you out. Whether that somebody is somebody in your school, next door to you, across the street from you, or even online. The PD opportunities online to learn about Seesaw are amazing, but just know that you can’t take it all in at once. It’s just step by step. And there are wonderful Seesaw lessons

walk you and your students through how do you use this tool? How do you use this tool? What do you do with this tool? And just one little bite at a time, one little bite at a time.

Kris (12:56)

Amazing, amazing. Spoken like a true veteran and someone who really understands how to deeply get to usage in a tool, start small, start with some little piece, lean on a mentor and eventually you’ll get to where you want to go. So, amazing. Heidi, I just wanna say thank you so much for taking time here today. Thank you for sharing your expertise with everybody listening. We gleaned a lot of amazing things from this and I know that your expertise is not only a teacher who you used to stop, but now is an instructional coach.

is truly going to help your schools move forward. So we’re so excited to join you in that with Seesaw and we want to thank you for being here today.

Heidi (13:37)

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Kris (13:39)

Bye!