Thinking About Thinking: Google Forms as a Metacognitive Tool by Tracey Kent

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

One of the most valuable parts of my two-year experience as a TUSD Connect Fellow has been the focus placed on reflection. During each meeting, my digital learning coach and I reflect on just about everything related to my classroom: student learning, lesson objectives, tech tools, instructional practices. All of this reflection has inspired the use of one of the most impactful tech tools in my teaching arsenal: the Google form.

Google forms have made a significant impact on guiding the instructional practices in my classroom. For most new activities, I request that my students fill out a Google form afterward in order to give me feedback on how effective the lesson’s components were, how much the design of the activity influenced their learning, and how much engagement the activity generated. For example, for our study of the The Great Gatsby, I decided to use Desmos (yes, this is still the post of an English teacher) to facilitate a discussion on symbolism. In small groups, students were given elements from Chapter 5 of the novel to discuss. They were asked to determine if the element was a “symbol” or “not a symbol” and to provide textual evidence with the rationale of their classification. Each group had a student recorder who typed responses for the group into Desmos (I wanted to ensure that the focus was on discussion, rather than each student clicking away silently and independently on their own device). After the class discussion activity, students were asked to complete a short Google form for homework, giving me feedback on how the activity went in their opinion. I find this type of feedback to be invaluable when designing activities to facilitate learning. This activity is only one example of the many types of follow-up forms that I ask students to complete. I have found that these forms help to tailor my instruction to my students’ specific needs.

Students also experience the metacognitive benefits of Google forms. They take greater ownership over their thinking by reflecting on the relative success of a learning experience. They consider what aided their learning, what hindered it, and what was negligible in impact. Forms empower students to think about thinking. Students are also able to rate their own performance and the performances of others in collaborative work. For a major group project, my students were scored on their “professional collaboration.” They were asked to fill out a Google form, rating each group member’s preparation, collaboration, and performance for their project. I received these scores on the corresponding response Sheet, and I averaged students’ evaluations of their peers’ contributions in order to determine their grade. Students rated themselves as well so that their self-evaluation was fairly included in the average score. Google forms also allow students to reflect on the writing process. As part of an essay revision workshop, students volunteered to peer tutor for extra credit. After they completed the tutoring session, they were asked to reflect on the challenges and benefits of peer tutoring and to consider how the process affected their own thoughts about writing. Assignments like these make manifest a student’s thoughts and capture a critical part of the learning process.

Teaching and learning alike are stimulated and refined through reflection. Having an awareness and understanding of one’s thought processes is an important component of any educational endeavor. Students and teachers can benefit from metacognition, and the subsequent reflection it engenders, and the use of technology like Google forms helps to elicit and capture these helpful thoughts.

Tracey Kent has been teaching English at Arnold O. Beckman High School for the past ten years. A lover of learning and literature, Tracey received a Bachelor's degree in English, a single-subject teaching credential, a Master's degree in teaching, and a Master's degree in English literature all from the University of California, Irvine. Teaching combines Tracey's passion for literature, writing, and grammar (yes--even grammar) with her love of learning. She delights in helping to nurture her students' sense of curiosity and nourish their intellects. Tracey is enthusiastic about all forms of expression--literature, art, film, music--and it is this appreciation of culture that most informs her teaching. Technology's impact on art and culture fascinates Tracey, and she looks forward to discovering ways in which she can use technology to help enhance students' literacy.

Desmos in ELA...Isn't that a math tool?

In an 11th grade Honors English class this past week, students were discussing Chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby with a focus on the different symbols throughout the chapter.

We designed a Desmos Activity that allowed the students to work through the potential symbols collaboratively in groups of 4.   For each element, they had to decide between "symbol" and "not a symbol".  Once they selected their choice, they were prompted to explain their reasoning with textual evidence.  After they submitted their explanation, they were able to see up to three other group's explanations before moving on.  The activity was student-paced so all groups were working at different paces and were able to take the time they needed to think through their responses without the pressure of being "moved on" with the rest of the class.






As they worked through the activity, the teacher was able to monitor student thinking through the Desmos Teacher Dashboard.



After the groups finished working through the Desmos activity, they were given the link to an individual hyperdoc that had mini-screencasts where the teacher recorded herself explaining whether or not each element was a symbol or not.  Students then were able to listen to the teacher's instruction at their own pace, take any needed notes, and fill out a column that asked them to compare the teacher's explanation to their original choice.

The final activity of this lesson was for students to look at the book so far (Chapters 1-5) and find one additional symbol that wasn't in the activity and explain why it was a symbol by using textual evidence.

We chose Desmos because it allowed the activity to be self-paced and also allowed groups to view other group's thinking after they submitted their thoughts.  Both of these features seemed to be essential to the success of the activity


In addition, we chose to put the teacher's explanation on screencasts so students were able to access them at their own pace when they were ready for it (i.e. after they had worked through the activity fully themselves).  In the past, class time was used for this explanation, which decreased the amount of student discussion time that could occur.  With the redesign of this lesson, students had an entire class period to discuss symbolism.

Overall, the activity was highly successful.  The students were engaged in the small group discussion, and the tools we chose (especially the self-pacing and ability to still collaborate cross-group by seeing others' responses) allowed for ample processing and discussion time to ensure students met the learning objectives for the day.  Desmos is definitely a tool that will be used again!

Here is some more student feedback on the activity:

• I thought the desmos activity was very effective and helpful in recognizing the differences in symbols and figurative language or archetypes.
• I think desmos is a great way to work in groups and think about different topics. It was a different way of doing things, so it definitely made it more interesting. :)
• I enjoyed the peer-feedback in order for better understanding of the symbol as students can see the perspectives of their peers. I also thought the process from question to question flowed smoothly and I believed it worked out really well.
• Having a student-paced activity like this made discussion effective in keeping time and staying on task.
• It was a nice change of pace in order for the discussion to be more interactive online and for it to be student paced because sometimes i don't understand things in discussions and in this types of discussion we can talk about it more and come to a conclusion
• I think Desmos was the most effective technology resource introduced this year. The fact that we were allowed to see peer responses helped facilitate peer-to-peer interaction and collaboration among students. Considering that the activity was student paced, I think Desmos allowed me and my peers to fully contemplate our responses before submitting them.
• It ran smoothly and the transition between desmos and screencast was easy. However, in the future I would do our groups thoughts for one symbol, then the screencast, then our notes on whether we were correct or not, then the next symbol. This would make it easier to remember our thoughts, and I think it would flow better.
• I liked how Desmos enabled us to move at our own pace, yet would have preferred if everyone wrote for themselves in order to increase engagement in the activity.
• The student pacing and ability to see student responses were the most effective as they allowed more control to be placed in the hands of the student. This helped my group better understand the content as we were allowed to spend as long as we needed on a question, but could also reflect and compare our thoughts with other groups.
• I liked this activity because instead of having it on a written activity it is a memorable thing as we were able to work in groups, agree and disagree, as well as see your face and be able to play it multiple times. The group recorder in my group kinda just wrote without telling us what he was writing which was the only issue. A suggestion is that maybe we could rotate around the laptop and have us all write.

Going Forward with GoFormative and Desmos (Hanalee Chung)

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2015-2016 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

Technology has streamlined the teaching process and has made it easier to demonstrate concepts that were once too abstract to explain in the traditional manner (verbally and visually on a PPT or whiteboard). Technology has put the learning into the hands of the students as manipulatives, examples, and exploratory tools (GoFormative, Desmos, Socrative, and Quizalize) -- providing students of different learning styles and preferences the opportunity to see mathematics in a different manner.

In GoFormative, students are able to move at their own pace, and many of them enjoy receiving instant feedback; however, what was traditionally done on paper and needed time to grade and return, we can do it instantaneously on GoFormative. For instance, I uploaded a graph onto GF and had students graph their lines on the program. From there, I would grade their work using the colorful bar on the bottom of the screen. This can all be done simultaneously as the students are working.  You can check out the assignment shown below with the Teacher Share Code: KDXH246

  In Desmos, students were allowed to go at their own pace, and many students who were able to finish independently were given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge/skill in a creative task that applied their new knowledge/skill. (student names have been changed to be anonymous)
  In this activity, students were taken through a series of slides that helped students “discover” the equation of a circle by guiding them and allowing them to experience the functions of the different parts of the equation -- facilitating their understanding of the different parts as well as the equation as a whole. Activity can be found here: https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/571e81a46c2f4c2e0be6f40f

Next year, I want to start incorporating more resources on Haiku (OfficeMix PPTs, videos from Sphere, which is our document camera recording software) that students can access before, during, and after the unit -- in a way, it would be great to start gradually flipping my classroom so that the instructional time can be used for in-depth, creative, and higher-order-thinking activities (rather than the distribution of information).

The Tech Fellowship provided me with the safety and confidence to try various technological tools and devices that I would not have normally explored on my own. In addition, because the fellowship was based on collaboration, it was great to receive input and learn about new tools online that I would have never come across. For instance, I would have not known about Quizizz, GoFormative, Quizalize, and OfficeMix if it had not been for the Tech Fellowship.

My name is Hanalee Chung.

I was born and raised in Guam for 14 years before moving to Rancho Cucamonga, California before my freshman year in high school.

I obtained my undergraduate degree at University of California, San Diego in Psychology.

I became interested in becoming a teacher when I volunteered as a math tutor for a research study that mapped brain waves of young learners. In order to explore my interest further, I interned as a Teaching Assistant at The Preuss School, a charter school located inside UCSD's campus.

I then went on to get my Secondary Teaching Credential in Math at University of California, Irvine.  I love coming to work everyday, and I have enjoyed improving my practice by being a fellow this year!

Using Technology to Develop a Student-Centered Math Classroom (Erin Mead)

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2015-2016 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

As I look back on my teaching from last school year to this school year, it has been a whirlwind!  I didn’t realize how much I have changed in how I teach, how I want students to learn, and the amount of technology I have in my toolbelt.  There has been a dramatic change in the way I “teach” and the goal I have for my students, which is to be more active learners.  I have tried to create a learning environment of more self-directed, collaborative learning and less directed instruction.  

GoFormative is an online tool that gives me instant feedback on whether my students are learning and understanding the content.  I can upload a worksheet, or create my own formative assessment.  I can also set whether or not students can see if answers are correct or not.  For CP students, I set GoFormative for students to see immediate results, and they can try to figure out where their mistakes are.  For lower level classes, I do not let them see if answers are correct, and instead watch the results myself and go to students directly that are not getting it, and I also let students know on an individual basis which ones they miss.  The biggest benefit I have seen when using GoFormative is that students will tell me that they understand a concept they didn’t before because they are completing the problems during class where they can work with peers, and I can give individual help when needed, increasing their understanding.

Another tool I have expanded upon in my daily teaching is Haiku. I started using Haiku loosely last year as an additional support of resources for students but I didn’t go a good job of keeping up on it.  I now use Haiku to upload homework and homework answers,so now the daily routine for students is for them to check their answers, which also allows them to check with their peers, then ask questions about problems they miss, saving valuable class time for other learning activities.  I also upload resources that can help students with their learning, such as video tutorials and PowerPoints.  A new way I have used Haiku is for administering assessments (concept checks, quizzes, unit tests).  I can mix up the questions and multiple choice answers so students that seat near each other are not working on the same questions in the same order, and the instant scoring feature saves time in grading.  

For next year, I want to continue to incorporate technology to enhance student centered learning, and continue to add to my toolbelt to support my goals and the environment I have tried to create.  I want to try new tools, like Pear Deck and Desmos, for how I present and engage students in lessons other than PowerPoints, encouraging students to explore and investigate rather than note taking, which will increase their understanding.  I have tried a couple of Desmos activities and I would like to incorporate those more as an alternative to direct instruction.  I feel these tools provide more opportunities for students to discuss the content and work together.

You can see the Desmos Activities I have tried this year here:

Intro: Equations of Circles

Equations of Circles Day 2

Systems of Equations: Graphing

The Tech Fellowship positively impacted me indirectly by supporting what I have been striving for in my teaching practices.  It also provided me the opportunity to learn and incorporate technology practices that I would not have taken the time to figure out on my own.  The coaching aspect gave me direction and focus toward my goals of not only learning technology, but also shifting my teaching practices.

Erin Mead teaches Geometry and Algebra at Arnold O. Beckman High School in Irvine, CA.  Her main math love is Geometry and she is constantly searching for meaningful and fun ways for students to learn.  Erin serves as a mentor teacher to beginning teachers in her department, and she is a member of the district’s unit writing team for Geometry.  This year, to improve her teaching practices and use of technology in the classroom, Erin became a tech fellow and has finally caught up to, and maybe even surpassed her students and colleagues with her tech knowledge.