Valentine's Day is right around the corner.  Take Valentine's Day a notch by having the students create a ligth up Valentine's Day card. We have put together a STEAM kit activity that will domonstrate how to make a paper circuit while adding in the fun of giving a special valentine to someone.  

Students can 

• Create the paper ciricuit
• Write a poem to go along with the paper circuit Valentine. 
• Learn more about circuits and create their own paper circuit template
• Make predictions on how much copper tape will be need to complete the circuit
• Practice write a friendly letter and addressing and envelope to mail the paper circuit 
• Customize the paper circuit with their own art work

Tonight, January 22, 2019, I am hosting a Twitter Chat for Newsela.  The topic of the chat is how to implement blended learning in the classroom setting. Of course, the topics are all going to align with a traditional chat, 

• What does Blended Learning mean to you?
• How can you use Newsela in a Blended Learning Classroom? 
• How can Newsela Data drive your mini-lesson

All of these are great questions.  However, I want to take the Twitter Chat up a notch.  I want to share out how I would design a blended learning writing lesson using Opinion Articles from Newsela.  

If you are new to blended learning or would like to learn more about checklist, take a moment and read the blog post about checklist.  This is an easy read that will help to understand how to get started and the different elements of a checklist.  You can find the blog post here.  If you have any questions about checklist, send me a quick note and I can help you out with getting started.  

You have two options on how you use the below checklist.  
Option One: 

• The students complete the activities in each column on the designated day.
• The students can move through the different items at their own pace.
• I recommend the students use a timer to keep track of how much time they spend at each learning studio (Sample timers can be found below) 

Option Two:

• Students can work through the week-long checklist at their own pace.
• That means they can they can pick and choose different activities from the checklist.  
• They can not, however, complete the activity with a lock until teacher approved. 

Click the checklist below to download a copy of the five day checklist.  Note: the code to get $1.99 off from the store will be posted in the Newsela Chat. 

The Newsela Articles can be found at www.newsela.com
The Oreo Writing Graphic Organizer can be found on Scholastic website.  

Plan to visit and learn more from Marcia and the DSD PD Team at

Level Up in Personalized Learning - January 27th at 8:00-10:00
STEAM BINS in the Blended Learning Classroom -January 27th 1:30-3:30
How to Level Up in Blended Learning - Januaary 28th 8:00-10:00
Three Phases of Blended Learning - January 28th 1:00-3:00
Learner Profile cards in the classroom - January 29th 10:30-12:30 

Nuts and Bolts of Blended Learning - February 5th 8:00-11:00 Room 303A

Blended Learning Workshop February 12th 8:00-10:00
Student Ownership February 13th 8:00-9:00
Global Connections February 14th 2:15-3:15 

The checklist allows the students to move through the daily, weekly, or monthly content at their own pace, place, and path.  A teacher will deploy a checklist at the start of the week, and the students have a given period to complete all the required activities. This provides the students the opportunity for the teacher to meet with students in small group settings while differentiating the content.  The students can then pick an choose what they would like to learn first, second, and third.  

Note that all of the activities related to the learning target for the day — for example, the independent practice, digital content, and the future ready skill all tie back to the mini-lesson. 

Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Connectedness are the future ready skills within the blended learning checklist.  All of these skills are needed to be successful in college, career, and community.  The extra perk is that the students will remember the content longer once they can create, collaborate, communicate, or use critical thinking skills to demonstrate an understanding of the content.  

If you are kicking off the checklist for the week, a suggestion would be to give a quick (I mean less then ten-minute) whole group lesson to showcase the content for the week. I also recommend that teachers use the lock symbol to showcase that the students cannot start to work on the checklist until after the mini-lesson.  Also, read about Ghost Groups from our previous blog post.  Students can start on all of the different tasks except for the independent practice. 

We have complied sample checklist to try out in your classroom setting.  Each checklist is editable through Google Docs. 

This checklist provides the students with what they need to complete each day.  This is a great stepping stone from everyone rotating from one activity to the next to now allowing the students to work at their own pace but they still need to complete the daily activities by the end of class.  Note that for this checklist, I used the idea of Waze to motivate the students to complete the weekly checklist.  If you don't know about Waze, watch the quick video on how Waze works to inform other drivers about road hazards, traffic jams, speed traps, and so on. Click on the image below to purchase your copy of the weekly checklist for only .99

If you are just getting started with checklist and Phase 1 blended learning process, click on the checklist published below on this blog.  This free checklist is a great way to get started on providing stuudent ownership to the students.  

The below checklist works excellent for students in the lower grades.  The teachers that I currently work with enjoy being able to list out the different options for the students in a daily outline.  Tips for this checklist, the teachers tend to use the back side of the checklist a reflection or quick formative assessment that the students can complete throughout the week.  This checklist also showcases the idea of allowing students to work on two different digital content tools within a given amount of time.  Finally, I showcased the lock being used in the Future Ready Skill studio.  The lock means that the students can not start that activity without the key.  What's the key?  A mini-lesson with the teacher.  

A phase two checklist has less teacher control as far as what is completed each day, but the students will need to complete the checklist within a given amount of time.  The students now have the opportunity to complete an activity on the checklist as long as there is not a lock or signal that they have to wait for further instructions.  Click on the below checklist and start moving toward a Phase Two blended learning environment. ​

After working with over 1,200 teachers in 2018, the checklist listed below was by far our most popular.  The teachers enjoyed using the template because it planned out the week for themselves as well as the students.  The students enjoyed being able to see how long they should work on a topic as well as prioritizing the different activities on the checklist.  This template also includes planning pages as well as student accountability spreadsheet.