I am not sure what your year has been like, but mine has been crazy. Our administration has told us that we need to ‘pivot’ to adjust to the changes that seem to happen daily. I begin to feel like I am on the Tilt a Wheel at the fair. One way that I personally have coped is that I have been using more digital resources.
We have been in-person since September but we have needed to go distance-learning as cases began to occur in the school. There have also been individual students that have needed to quarantined and then we are teaching in-person AND someone at home. Some families have chosen to only do distance learning.
When I began to think digitally I found I had resources for both my in-person. Often I find myself teaching with the digital resource and then having it in the student’s Google classroom for them to practice at a different time. I must admit that my favorite tool has been BOOM cards.
Boom cards allow me to keep data on student’s performance. The students have immediate feedback and earn points or coins that they can use to change their Avatar. I can’t tell you how something as simple as that has motivated the students.
I am a speech and language pathologist at an early elementary school and a middle school. I have been using the Boom cards with my elementary students since March when we went distance learning. I have recently tried them with my middle school students and asked them for a critique and I was surprised with the results. I had been teaching context clues using all the tricks ( scavenger hunts, Kahoot games, crossword puzzles, videos) but I was not feeling secure in their understanding, and frankly, some of their efforts left a little to be desired. Boom cards gave me the data as to where they were having the roadblock. As they took them individually I was able to see each student’s strengths and needs. I had students persist through the decks several times to earn their points or coins. I am sold! I find myself creating decks that are specific to the particular struggles that my students are experiencing. Now that I know that my middle schoolers love them I hope to create some for this level too! STAY TUNED.
My Boom resources can be found HERE. BOOM Cards
The other thing that I did was allow TPT to make my resources digital. At first, I thought but I made them be printed how will it work if they are digital? In fact, I gave a person a refund because she explained that she needed to only send a part of a resource to a student and my pdf protection was not allowing her. Now I am also using my resource in this way. In my book companions if a student is absent or I want them to complete a part of the lesson I can just assign that section. For my adapted books I can send just the pages that correlate what that child’s level.
I know that I have never bought so many resources from TPT this year as I try to adjust to the changing times. That is why I know that I am excited that there is A TPT SALE! I know my cart will be full!
