Author: hickstro
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Two Views of the Fall Semester, New Hopes for the Spring
This week and next, many students head back to college here in Michigan (though, for at least the first week, those classes will be virtual due to an order from the state department of health). Even without a consistent, real time video class session, inviting students to connect at least a few times in the…
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Cameras On… or Off? Engaging Students through Conversation, Writing-to- Learn, and Relationship-Building in Remote Learning
What does it mean to engage students in real time, video class sessions? During the hour-long webinar, we will model active learning strategies that can be implemented in middle school, high school, and higher ed remote learning contexts.
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Examining Instructional Models for Online Instruction
Depending on the course that I was teaching, I was flexing the kinds of time I was spending (and asking students to spend) in Zoom rooms, with online discussion forums, and in various forms of partner and group projects. How many hours of video class sessions are you hosting, each week, for a typical three-credit…
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Designing Breakout Rooms for Maximum Engagement
Despite (or perhaps because of) the pandemic summer, I was provided with numerous opportunities to facilitate online courses and professional development, as well as one chance to work with a digital writing summer camp for middle school students. There were many models for these sessions, from a one-day event where we hosted about 60 participants…
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Appreciating Writing Assistance Technologies… Finally?
This post originally appeared on the National Writing Project’s “Ahead of the Code” blog on Medium on August 22, 2020. Appreciating Writing Assistance Technologies… Finally? You would think that, as English teachers, we would have been more appreciative. Even from the founding of our major professional organization, the National Council of Teachers of English, we…
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Pandemic Pedagogy: Some Questions About Being “Successful” and Getting it “Right”
Introduction With the midpoint of the summer and the July 4th Holiday weekend in the rear view, and states (like our own home of Michigan) now releasing plans for a “safe return to school” in August, we feel it is worth taking time to pause. As parents and teacher educators, as well as long-time colleagues…
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(Digitally) Writing New Histories: TPS Grant Project
(Digitally) Writing New Histories A TPS Grant for Michigan Social Studies Educators With a shift towards disciplinary, digital, and critical literacies, we find that historical documents and artifacts — as well as images, social media posts, and videos created with contemporary technologies — all serve as primary sources. We invite Michigan social studies educators, grades…
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Pledge to Support #EducatorEquity
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So much has been said in the past few weeks since the death of George Floyd that any additional words would be wasted. So, let me get to the point. As we see protests in America and around the world, I feel the need to act. To that end, I am personally committing to three…
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Book Review: Learning First Technology Second in Practice by Liz Kolb
In my work with undergraduate pre-service teachers, graduate students in master’s and doctoral educational technology programs, and with teachers through webinars and workshops, a consistent question resonates — “I know I am supposed to use technology in my teaching, but I don’t exactly know how. What can I do?” And, for well over a decade,…
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Resources for ETA NSW
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in Academic Life, Argument in the Real World, Assessing Students’ Digital Writing, Assessment, Because Digital Writing Matters, Best Practice, Books, Collaboration, Composition, Connected Reading, Crafting Digital Writing, Create Compose Connect, Digital Writing Workshop, English Education, From Texting to Teaching, Hybrid Learning, Literacy, Mobile Learning, New Literacies, News and Notes, Online Learning, Open Content, Professional Development, Reflections, Research Writing Rewired, Teaching, Virtual Learning, WritingThis list of curated resources represents work that I have produced from March to May of 2020, all aimed at helping educators as they transitioned to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The full article. “Critical, creative, and compassionate: Resources for teaching English in an era of COVID-19” appears in Australia’s English Teachers Association NSW’s…