Using Nearpod to Deliver CI and Higher-Order Technology Use

If you are like me, you are teaching hybrid classrooms - a group of students who are physically in your classrom and those who are in a digital Zoom environment all SIMULTANEOUSLY! Recently, I have begun to implement Nearpod again in my curriculum, and it is really making a difference. I had used it before many years ago and had even demonstrated its use at conferences. Once PearDeck came around, I began to use that (in my opinion, PearDeck is the next generation of Nearpod), but for some reason, i stopped using either of these web app tool in my classroom. Fast forward to this new normal (and the fact that my district has a Nearpod account), I am now using Nearpod again. And I am wondering, "Why did I ever stop using this tool (or PearDeck)?!" 

If you are not familiar with Nearpod or PearDeck, they both are web app tools which allow participants to engage in live interaction with a presentation in real time (you can also have it set for "student-paced" mode). As the presenter, you can pause throughout your presentation and take "time-outs" for comprehension checks through shorts quizzes, ask participants to predict what they think will happen next, take opinion polls, ask participants for comments, ask participants to draw something in particular, etc. And the best part is that you as the presenter control what participants see on their device screens!  

Recently I used Nearpod as an introduction to an expanded, embedded Latin reading, where the base version I had introduced earlier the week before. Although this was an embedded, expanded reading, I still treated as if it were a sight passage, so my goal for students was comprehension. Below is the Nearpod which I created - it is a passage on Augustus which I wrote, and it is patterned after the sentence structures found in Emma Vanderpool's novella Kandake Amanirenas: Regina Nubia, which I will be introducing later, as well as influenced by my district's mandated vocabulary list. You can view it below in the Student-Pace mode, but I played it as live mode in class digitally via Zoom. NOTE - because this Nearpod was the first day of viewing this fuller reading, my goal was comprehension, therefore, my questions and answers were in English.

1) Go to join.nearpod.com

2) Join Code: 5FYZ9

The last page of this particular Nearpod is a Collaboration Board, which I have turned off in Student Pace. I posited the statement: According to Augustus in the passage, he brought peace to many lands. Do you agree/disagree? Why/why not?

Obervations

1. When used with a live audience (whether it be live or digital), Nearpod rates on the highest level of the SAMR technology model, which evaluates the level of critical and higher-order thinking involved in a particular implementation of technology. It ranks at the Redefinition level, because it is allowing for an outcome which is INCONCEIVABLE without the use of technology, so in this instance, live real-time interaction and feedback from participants during a presentation which can immediately inform the presenter how to proceed.
2. Students were quite engaged in this activity, and the many breaks in-between passages with different types of questions and activities broke up the monotony and contributed to the novelty of Nearpod. We actually went for a whole period doing this in a hybrid class, and a number of students commented afterwards "Wow, that was fun!"
3. I liked the Collaboration Board at the end as a discussion board. I hid student names to keep the comments anonymous, but it gave students an opportunity to voice an opinion in a safe environment and for them to read others' opinions. 
4. I showed all of the drawings which students did during the "Draw This" portion of the Nearpod, and this is where students were the most engaged.
5. Because this was an embedded, fuller reading of an earlier version of the story, students were still receiving understandable messages, along with a recycling of the former vocabulary now used in new sentences. With 2/3 of my classes doing digital, I erred on the side of caution by overdoing the amount of limiting vocabulary and getting in vocabulary repetitions, since I really have no idea what students are acquiring when they are not in-person.

How Do The Characters Respond?

If you have a reading which has a lot of dialogue in it, here is a post-reading activity which can be used. I have no idea from whom I got this idea (or if I even got this idea from someone), but it is definitely a good quick activity which can be used to reinforce the reading. Plus, it does involve a degree of higher-order thinking.

Currently, Bob Patrick and I are reading Brando Brown Canem Vult in our classes. As it is the first time going through this novel, I have been going rather slow (maybe too slow), taking my time to preview vocabulary through various means. When we began Chapter 2, as the chapter is a dialogue between Brandon and his mother, we started with an 8-sentence dictation. From there, we did a number of different activities based on that dictation dialogue. 

One of the activities which we did was "How Do the Characters Respond?" where I started with Brandon's first statement and then gave students a choice of responses from the dictation dialogue. Here is what I did:



Observations

1. We did this activity two days after the dictation. This was the 5th time in which students had reviewed this story (but 5th different way). By this point, students were very familiar with the dialogue and what each sentence was communicating. Students told me that it was not very difficult to pick the correct response.
2. Even if students did not remember how each character exactly responded, many students told me that they were able to pick the correct answer based on context and what "made sense."
3. This was another quick way for students to receive understandable messages and repetitions in a meaningful context. Students were also getting a review of all of the sentences from the dialogue.
4. It is important to go over a reading multiple times in multiple ways, as students need to receive these messages in different ways (think differentiated learning). As Carol Gaab says, "The brain craves novelty."

HOT (Higher Order Thinking) in a CI Classroom

At NTPRS this summer, I attended Carol Gaab's session Inspiring Higher-Level Thinking Using Level Appropriate Language. I could listen to Carol all day, because she really does know her stuff, is incredibly quick-witted, and is always full of energy. Her session was on how to raise students' level of critical thinking, especially at levels 1 and 2 when students have a limited knowledge of language. 

Below is a link to Bess Hayles' blog where she has written up a post about Carol's session. I met Bess last summer at NTPRS in Chicago, and she knows her CI/TPRS stuff very well! Carol covered a lot in her 2.5 hour session, and I was in such awe as I drank everything in which she was saying that I forgot to take notes. I'm grateful for Bess's post here

http://mmehayles.blogspot.com/2015/08/higher-order-thinking-carol-gaab.html

In addition, here is a link to Carol's handout for the session:

http://schd.ws/hosted_files/ntprs2015/9f/NTPRS-HOT-Gaab.pdf

So far in the first two weeks of school, I have already incoporated a few HOT activities, and I can tell you that they work, even in Latin 1 with limited language! With my Latin 1's, I did a "Who Would Say This in the Story?" and "Is This Relevant to the Story?" It really did get students to think, while at the same time get in more repetitions of the language. And honestly, it was a lot of fun! In most situations, since students would respond in English, and I would restate their answer in very comprehensible Latin. My goal now is to do at least two HOT activities with every story which I tell.

Consider being HOT in your classes!

Possible/Probable

This is a quick 10 minute post-reading activity which I learned from the great Carol Gaab this summer at NTPRS. It is a wonderful way to review a reading as a group discussion, and it brings in a degree of critical thinking.

The premise is simple: 

1. Following a short reading which you have just read with students, show a series of statements about which students will have to make inferences as either possible or probable from the story.
2. For each statement, ask students "estne possibile? estne probabile?"
3. Ask students for justification from the story. Depending on their level and speaking ability, they may respond in English.

Latin 1 example:

Bill dicit, “mater, ego canem volo.” mater respondet, “cur tu canem vis?” Bill respondet, “quod ego amicum non habeo. mater dicit, “cur tu amicum non habes?” Bill dicit, “quod nemo me amat! Publix canes vendit.” mater dicit, “ego pecuniam non habeo, sed ego mensam habeo! visne mensam?” Bill clamat, “mensa non est amicus! canis est amicus!” mater dicit, “sed ego pecuniam non habeo!” Bill est tristis, quod amicum non habet, et mater pecuniam non habet.  TO BE CONTINUED...

estne possibile? probabile?

• Bill est discipulus
• Bill patrem non habet
• Bill est popularis
• mater Billem non amat
• mater pecuniam habet sed est mendax 
• mater est robotica

Observations

1. This is a great critical thinking activity, because it forces students to base their response on what happened in the story and to make inferences on what was stated and on what was not stated.
2. You may have to explain the difference between possible and probable to students.
3. It is a great comprehension check, because students need to have understood what they read in order to respond
4. In my Latin 1 classes, while students do not have the ability yet to respond easily in full sentences, when they offer their justification in English, I will restate it in Latin.
5. It is fun to see students respond in this activity. I have found that the quietest students often are the ones who vocally respond the most.
6. In many ways, this activity helps students think outside the box. For example, for the statement, "Bill patrem non habet," there is nothing in the story which explicity states that Bill does or does not have a father. Since a father is not mentioned, many inferred that Bill's mother is a single parent (since she says that she does not have money), but other inferred it to mean that Bill is asking his mother first before asking his father. Others inferred that Bill has a father but this is the type of question one would ask a mother, not a father. There is no correct answer for this particular statement, but it is fun to see what students infer and for them to hear each other.   
7. Carol Gaab adds in another level by asking "is it logical?"
8. This is another way to review a story in a different way. As Carol Gaab always says, "The brain CRAVES novelty."