Just Two

I met my students for the first time in class yesterday.  I had thought of many, many things I wanted to incorporate after being on Twitter for over 6 months and getting lots of useful information, resources, articles, and activities.  There was no way to bring all that in so quickly.  It's like an avalanche.  I do plan to add in some of what I learned here and there during the semester, but I also made the decision to choose just two simple but concrete ideas that I read about on Twitter to follow throughout this semester.

1.  Talk to each student every day.
I'm sorry that I don't remember whose blog I read this on some time last spring, but the person vowed to do this in her/his class and that idea has stuck with me through all the other stuff I've read.  It's a simple idea.  And it seems like common sense - of course, at least greet each student.  But then I thought back to my classes, and it's clear I don't manage this as much as I should.  Sure the active and participatory student gets feedback from me during class discussion, the students who stay after class with a question get a moment of my personal attention, and I will remember something about a student and ask her/him about it when walking around the room, but what about a quieter student who comes and goes without me ever directly saying something to her/him?  She or he is part of the greater class conversation when I talk to all of them, definitely, but gets no attention on her/his own.  This semester I plan to do my best to say something to each and every student.  Not to the class generally, but to individuals.

2.  BYOD Days.
There's been a lot on Twitter about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and I've read countless articles on 1-to-1 classrooms, seen pictures of schools passing out iPads to every student, and heard about students using their iPhones to do research during class.  But I'm still hearing teachers where I work talk about about how irritating it is that their students can't stop texting during class, how they punish students by taking away their cell phones if they ring in class, how this generation just can't write well because of all the technology.  Many classrooms I walk in have signs with phones crossed out right up in the front of the class.  For now, I'm riding the middle on this.  I've decided to institute weekly BYOD Days in my class.   I'm not ready to navigate cell phones and laptops on and in my class all the time.  But I am excited to have a day once a week where students can use their own devices freely in class to support whatever activity we are working on.  And I can tell you for sure there was palpable excitement when I explained to my students what BYOD meant in the course syllabus.

That's it.  Just two main ideas to carry through sixteen weeks.  One, greater face-to-face interaction. Another, increased technology integration.  I think they will go hand in hand, and I think it's going to be a great semester!