Issue 18 • Date October 23, 2024

Last week, I had the incredible opportunity to meet one of my education heroes, Jennifer Gonzalez. We were both speakers at the Tempe Elementary School District’s annual GAP Conference. Jennifer, who runs the website, blog, and podcast Cult of Pedagogy, is passionate about the art and science of teaching. I’ve learned so much from her over the years, and it was a true pleasure to finally chat with her. And yes, I couldn’t resist asking for a selfie! 😊

Rubric Revelation 📝

Years ago Jennifer Gonzalez wrote on her Cult of Pedagogy blog about different kinds of assessment rubrics. Reading about single-point rubrics was a big ah-ha moment for me.

A single-point rubric breaks down an assignment into specific success criteria. Unlike analytic rubrics, which list levels for each criterion, a single-point rubric only outlines what success looks like. It leaves space for the assessor to add comments, noting areas for improvement and places where the student exceeded expectations.

Creating single-point rubrics is much quicker than building analytic ones. While they don’t let you simply circle pre-set levels, their open-ended structure allows for more creativity and personalized feedback.

As a fifth-grade teacher, I used single-point rubrics often. When it made sense, I’d have the class help define the criteria for a project. I usually included two versions of the rubric table in an assignment document—one for student self-assessment and one for me to fill out.

As a substitute teacher, I use a single-point rubric with the class in the morning to outline behavior expectations. Throughout the day, we reflect together, adding to the concerns and highlights. At the end of the day, I share the rubric with the regular teacher to give a detailed report on the class's overall behavior.

Drawing-Driven Dumps ✏️

Cult of Pedagogy’s post, “Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You’re Not Using,” highlights the effectiveness of retrieval practice—repeatedly recalling information from memory. This active recall helps students strengthen their understanding and improve long-term retention.

One popular retrieval practice is the Brain Dump, where students write down everything they remember about a topic without looking at notes. To mix things up, I sometimes have students draw instead of write, using pictures to retrieve and communicate their knowledge. After drawing, students pair up to explain their drawings to each other.

Quizizz can be used to collect these visual brain dumps. The steps below show how to set up a Quizizz lesson where students can join and use a digital whiteboard to draw. As the teacher, I can view everyone’s drawings and highlight certain ones for the whole class. And yes, when students use a laptop trackpad, the drawings can be... charmingly rough—but deciphering those scribbles adds to the fun!

Picture in Picture 🎬

Canva’s video editor is useful, but it has its quirks. For example, you can have up to 50 audio tracks, but only one video track. I’m used to layering video tracks in other apps to show things like B-roll or videos over my shoulder, so this is a bit limiting.

You can still layer videos in Canva, but instead of each video having its own track, you add the additional videos directly onto the same track as the base video. You can resize and move the added videos, but here’s the catch: Canva loops those extra videos to match the length of the base video.

To control when picture-in-picture videos appear or disappear, you can tweak the timing. Right-click the added video and select Show timing. This temporarily puts the video on its own track, allowing you to drag the handles to adjust when the added video appears and disappears over the base video.

Custom Coloring Creations 🖍️

AI image generators can create stunning artwork in a variety of styles, from photorealistic to watercolor, cartoon, and even 3D.

For primary teachers, here’s something especially fun: you can prompt an AI generator to make a custom coloring page! Start your prompt with something like, “Create a black-and-white coloring sheet with simple, clear outlines that kids can color in.” Then, specify what you want the picture to be.

There are many AI image generators to choose from, including Ideogram, Canva, and Adobe Express. This handout includes steps for generating images for each of these websites.

Custom coloring possibilities…

Color-Coded Keys 🌈

A key concept in touch typing is that each key is assigned to a specific finger. To help students grasp this, it can be useful to have them color in a keyboarding diagram, matching the keys to the fingers that press them.

I’ve created a diagram just for this purpose, and you’re welcome to share it with students learning to touch type. It’s in Google Slides, allowing students to customize the fill colors so the keys match the corresponding finger tips.

The diagram is part of the Keyboarding Diagram Shapegrams Lesson where I show students how to draw the entire diagram from scratch in Google Slides. This lesson is the most challenging skill level: Outstanding Orange.

But, don’t worry, you and your students can use the template to simply change fill colors—there’s no need to draw it from scratch or to be a Shapegrams member. Though, a $35/year membership gets you an all-access pass to every single Shapegram.

Rad Ratings 👍

Google Forms has a brand-new question type—ratings! You can now ask respondents to rate things using a customizable scale, ranging from 3 to 10. You can also choose an icon for the rating, such as stars, hearts, or thumbs up.

When respondents submit their ratings, the icons fill with color, making it more visually engaging than other question types.

As you analyze responses, you'll see the average rating and a bar graph that shows the distribution of responses, giving you a clear picture of how people rated.

Here are a few ways you might use this new rating feature:

• Ask students to rate how confident they feel about their answers.

• Have students rate their understanding of a lesson.

• Let students self-assess their class participation.

• Track book popularity by asking students to rate books based on specific criteria.

• Ask students to rate characters from a book or historical figures on qualities like likability, leadership, resilience, and vision.

• Gather student and parent feedback on the difficulty of homework assignments.

• Check the pulse of your class by having students rate how they’re feeling about class that day.

The rating question type is rolling out gradually, so if you don’t see it yet, you should within a week or two.

It’s spooky season, and if you missed last week’s newsletter, click here to read it online. It’s full of Halloween ideas and resources. 🎃

Smiles from Iowa,

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