While these topics are teaching and influencing our generations to come, the conversations and lesson plans surrounding Black history education should be seamlessly integrated into our regular curriculum and highlighted all year long. There is no need to wait for a designated month to educate our youth on powerful African American figures because they are not just Black heroes; they’re American heroes.

Interactive activities and lessons for Black History Month

Nearpod has free lessons that spotlight Black heroes and historical figures. They’re perfect to use to celebrate Black History Month or year-round. Check out our hundreds of free lessons, and read on for more resources and how to use them!

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free to access standards-aligned Black History Month resources from this blog post and create their own interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Teaching Black History Month activities in February & year-round

While Black history should be integrated throughout the curriculum all year long, it is beneficial to use the month of February to emphasize Black history. We have a dedicated month to acknowledge it. Let’s use this month to build connections and dig deeper into historical events and significant people.

With each of the following points, Nearpod offers a wide variety of classroom resources to help you teach Black history in the most effective, engaging, and unique ways.

1. Teach about important historical figures

Black history is American history and should be taught as that. This history is not limited to the abolition of Slavery or the Civil Rights Movement – there is so much more. We should be teaching students about Black activists, musicians, scientists, and doctors who have shaped the course of history. For example, students should know about Katherine Johnson, a trailblazing NASA mathematician. Johnson was an African American woman who played a vital part in calculating orbital mechanics to launch the success of the first and subsequent U.S. spaceflight.

Here are some lessons we recommend checking out:

• Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, & 9-12: In this Social Studies VR lesson, students will explore the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the impact that his life had on the world.

• Grades 5-12: In this 25-30 minute Nearpod featuring Flocabulary Topic Spark, students are introduced to Katherine Johnson through a hip-hop video and Nearpod’s signature interactive features. This lesson features the Flocabulary video Katherine Johnson & the Human Computers.

• Grades 6-8: In this ELA VR lesson, students will read Langston Hughes’ poem Dreams and explore how context can enrich the meaning of a poem.

• Grades 6-12: In this 25-30 minute Nearpod featuring Flocabulary Topic Spark, students are introduced to John Lewis through a hip-hop video and Nearpod’s signature interactive features. This lesson features the Flocabulary video John Lewis & Nonviolent Action.

• Grades 6-Higher Ed: In this current events lesson, students learn about Supreme Court confirmations and the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. (Sensitive)

2. Have meaningful conversations and discussions

In any lesson, it is important to sometimes avoid lectures or passage reading and provide students the chance to discuss related topics. This is especially important when we want to honor often underrepresented history when teaching Black history in school. Share stories that make room for student discussion, elevating all students’ voices. You can use Nearpod features like Collaborate Board to create a safe and open space for students to discuss. Take it a step further by reading our Racial Justice Resource Guide, which shares implementation strategies to build community and a safe space for students to discuss these topics.

3. Make connections to the present day

In order to make history resonate with students, there needs to be a valiant effort to make it relevant. Using history to learn, grow, and change perspective. We can make connections with great Black leaders and provide them with an outlet to explore historical challenges as they pertain to us today. Explore our Perspective Analysis Lessons to deepen students’ critical thinking skills by unpacking their own perspectives presented in text and other media.

4. Infuse social and emotional learning

Aside from educating our students about Black history, events, and people – what about molding culturally empathetic students through social and emotional learning (SEL) skills? As teachers, we know that our responsibilities span far beyond academics. We are shaping future generations. With that, we can teach empathy, compassion, tolerance, and respect. What better way to teach these characteristics than through historical events and perspectives using Black History Month classroom activities?

Here are some lessons we recommend checking out:

• Grades K-5: In this 25-30 minute Nearpod featuring Flocabulary Topic Spark, students are introduced to race through a hip-hop video and Nearpod’s signature interactive features. This lesson features the Flocabulary video “What is Race?”

• Grades 3-5: In this Teaching Tolerance lesson, students learn about empathy and identify ways to be more understanding toward others. Students explore how empathy can help them connect with other people and create a better community.

• Grades 3-5: Listening is more than just hearing! In this Just a Minute Nearpod video, students learn about active listening. A host explains what active listening looks like, and students consider the steps they can take to show speakers they are listening.

• Grades 3-5: In this Teaching Tolerance lesson, students consider identity and culture in stories and evaluate the diversity in characters in a book. Students consider ways to get their school to use books that represent a diversity in characters.

• Grades 9-12: In this Teaching Tolerance lesson, students read an article by Clarence Page discussing the changing demographics of the United States. They consider actions they can take to promote respect and strive for equality for all people living in the U.S.

5. Participate in Flocabulary’s rap contest

Amplify student voice with Flocabulary’s Black History Month Student Rap Contest! Flocabulary’s high-quality video-based lessons captivate students and create an impactful and memorable learning experience by harnessing the power of hip-hop music, visual art, storytelling, humor, drama, and poetry. In honor of Black History Month, they have an annual contest where students submit a rap about an unrecognized or famous Black historical figure, and the winner will have their work turned into a Flocabulary video! If you’re looking for a unique project or assignment to have your class complete, consider entering students in this contest.

Teachers can submit on behalf of students and don’t need a Flocabulary account to enter. The contest opens on February 1st, and submissions close on February 29th. Click below to learn more!

Start teaching Black history with Nearpod

As we enter February, highlight Black History Month activities. Use the resources provided, and have those conversations. My challenge for you is as February blows by, like any other month, continue the discussions, topics, and lessons. Don’t stop because it’s March 1st. We can bridge the gap between academics and humanity, and that will create a generation of great change.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free to access standards-aligned resources from this blog post and create their own interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Katie Micallef

Katie is a Personalized Learning Leader in Volusia County Schools. She helps teachers incorporate educational technology into their curriculum. She believes that students deserve an instructional practice that resonates with their daily lives, and that includes the utilization of technology. She is on a mission to promote the endless benefits that edtech can have on 21st century instructional practices.

The post Teaching Black History Month activities in February & year-round appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Positive school culture is inclusive, student-focused, and open to learning. Both students and teachers like to go beyond themselves, enabling high student engagement.

Imagine walking into a school where you’re greeted by the smiling faces of students and teachers. Teachers are excited to begin their day, and students look forward to learning and developing themselves. Every lecture is engaging and brings a little more joy to everyone participating. Such is a positive school culture.

How to identify your school culture

By observing how students, teachers, and staff members interact, administrators can gain insights into the prevailing culture. Administrators and teachers can analyze the values and attitudes of the school community through surveys or interviews to provide further understanding. Examining physical spaces and symbols within the school and reviewing policies and activities also contribute to identifying the school’s culture. These methods collectively enable administrators to make informed decisions for fostering a positive and inclusive learning environment.

While positive school culture builds growth, toxic school culture can be draining and devoid of motivation. A toxic school culture lacks honest dialogue, accountability, and collaboration and views students as the problem rather than the purpose.

5 essential steps to building a positive school culture

With an investment of time and intentional effort, any culture can be nurtured into a positive school culture. Here are 5 meaningful steps:

1. Build Relationships

I once had an exuberant and positive Area Superintendent whose best advice towards improvement was: “Relationships, relationships, relationships.” With a whole lot more experience now, it’s clear that relationships are indeed the foundation of a school culture that breeds caring. When staff and students feel gratified and valued, they are likely to work harder and enjoy their work.

2. Model positive behavior

Positivity is contagious! Every action creates a ripple effect replicating the nature of the action for all the people observing it– colleagues, leaders, or students. With that level of influence, it is a responsibility to model positive and motivating behavior and thoughts. Disengage with negative mindsets and seek to find the good in people and situations. You’ll notice an almost immediate improvement in your environment!

3. Set goals that elevate school expectations

Collectively, if everyone believes they can achieve more, they will do just that. Setting meaningful goals that elevate expectations for everyone–staff, students, and parents–is a great way to do that. It aligns everyone’s mindsets, increases accountability, and has them working as a team towards the same goals.

4. Share your school’s vision

Bring everyone together to create a vision. Involve everyone in the decision-making process of the vision to carry the vision through. Therefore, it’s important to invest in both the shared vision and an individual’s personal vision. This way, you ensure you make your staff and students feel like they are treated in the same manner as everyone else.

5. Appreciate people

Because recognition is powerful, it can dramatically impact both teacher and student behavior. Small tokens of appreciation go a long way. Hand-written notes, certificates, a bulletin board, a phone call at home, or a school or class newsletter are all avenues that can recognize students and/or staff and make them feel appreciated.

Positive school culture in action through curriculum

A positive school culture impacts the entire learning experience for everyone involved, especially new teachers and students. But one doesn’t build this culture overnight. With the right intentions and actions every day, however, you get a whole lot closer to it than you were before. So next time you find yourself thinking about how you can increase your happiness at your school, you’ll know what to do.

Nearpod’s Supplemental Curriculum and Trainings

Nearpod’s Learning Labs provide teachers with expert-derived, tech-enhanced teacher professional development. Our collection combines workshops on academic strategies, classroom management, lesson planning, restorative practices, using tech, and more.

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program for students includes a social-emotional learning curriculum that provides instruction, reflection, and practice opportunities around CASEL-aligned social and emotional learning competencies: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness.

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Katie Micallef

Katie is a Personalized Learning Leader in Volusia County Schools. She helps teachers incorporate educational technology into their curriculum. She believes that students deserve an instructional practice that resonates with their daily lives, and that includes the utilization of technology. She is on a mission to promote the endless benefits that edtech can have on 21st century instructional practices.

The post 5 Essential steps to building a positive school culture appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Don’t have a Nearpod account? Sign up below for free to start using these tips!

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

How to use Student-Paced mode on Nearpod

1. 1. Choose an interactive lesson from the Nearpod lesson library or create your own. They’ll all be saved under “My Lessons.”
2. 2. Hover your mouse over the lesson cover. Click on “Student-Paced.” This will launch the lesson and create a code. (TIP: Once you create a code, you can no longer edit the lesson, so make sure your lesson is ready. If edits need to be made afterward, you will lose the first code and must create a new one.)
3. 3. Add an expiration date for the new code generated if needed.
4. 4. Click on the new code and select “Share” to view sharing options.
5. 5. If you don’t want students to skip ahead through the lesson without completing the activities, toggle on “Require student responses and prevent skipping.”
6. 6. Share the code with students, and have them type it on Nearpod. You can also share the link, embed the lesson, or use your learning management system (LMS) to give them access.
7. 7. Follow students along in real-time by clicking on “View Progress.”

6 Genius ways to use Student-Paced Nearpod lessons

Duplicate to differentiate

Differentiation can be intimidating, but the hard part shouldn’t be delivering differentiated content to your students. To easily administer differentiated instruction or practice, you can leverage Nearpod’s Student-Paced mode to enhance your classroom differentiation.

Offering several adaptions of a lesson is #TeacherGoals, for example, baseline, remediation, and enrichment lessons. Nearpod has 22,000+ pre-made standards-aligned customizable lessons. Use the filter in the lesson library to search lessons by subject, resource, grade, and standards. The best part is: once you download your Nearpod lesson, you can edit it!

Nearpod offers the option to ‘Duplicate’ each lesson. Consider duplicating and adapting your lessons to meet the remediation and enrichment needs of your students.

Launch multiple versions of your lesson with different Student-Paced codes, and allow each student to independently work on their Nearpod lesson while you facilitate, host student conferences, or work in small groups.

Reports to identify prior knowledge

A difficult concept of differentiation is identifying the variety of student levels based on prior knowledge. An added layer of difficulty is completing this on time. Consider giving a Student-Paced pre-assessment lesson at the start of your lesson, then access reports immediately to identify areas where students need remediation or enriched content.

Nearpod’s Post-Session Reports allow you to access student data from the lesson. You can also use the Teacher Dashboard during the lesson to see responses in real time. Now, you’ve eliminated the need to take papers home to grade that night and assign differentiated lessons the next day. With Nearpod’s easy-to-read reports, you can immediately group students into the appropriate Student-Paced lesson & centers.

Skill and Drill Centers

Create a Nearpod Student-Paced lesson built off Skill and Drill practices. Skill and Drill is very similar to memorization, but it involves repetition of specific skills, such as addition and subtraction or spelling. To be meaningful to learners, the skills should become the building blocks for more meaningful learning.

Set up Student-Paced Nearpod centers. Create a competition with your students, engage them, and reward them. If your student can learn, master skills, and have fun. You’re off to a great start!

Nearpod has premade interactive activities for Matching Pairs, Draw It, Time to Climb, and more! Reduce lesson planning time and use these activities in your centers.

Student choice boards

Choice boards have become extremely popular with students because students choose how they will learn a concept. Teachers love this technique because choice boards keep students more engaged.

Inside each choice on the choice board, provide a Student-Paced code for a unique lesson.

How to set up a student choice board:

1. 1. Select a topic to focus on and decide what element of choice you want to provide (Rigor? Depth of knowledge? Type of practice?).
2. 2. Create multiple lessons, tasks, or activities aligned with these choices.
3. 3. Arrange the activities on the board (You can write or link the Nearpod code directly on your choice board!).
4. 4. Have students choose tasks to complete (I like to have them choose either adjacent or diagonal tasks, like a tic-tac-toe board).

Classroom or school newsletter

Communicate with your parents by leveraging a Nearpod Student-Paced newsletter. Fill your newsletter with information and a variety of activities. Gather data from your audience along the way.

Here are some ways to use Nearpod for your Parent Newsletter:

• Poll: Identify parent volunteers for special events
• Open-Ended Question: Ask for feedback for improvement
• Collaborate Board: Open the door for parents to collaborate with one another and share ideas

By utilizing a Nearpod Newsletter, parents also have the opportunity to see what their child’s classroom experience is like. This is a very powerful and transparent approach. You can also empower your students to help their parents use Nearpod, too!

Flipped Classroom / Flipped Faculty Meeting

Share codes with your students to complete the lesson either in or outside of the classroom. Students can access these lessons at any time for content review or find resources. As an administrator, coach, or in a leadership role, consider using this approach when presenting content to your teachers. Provide a Student-Paced code to view before a faculty meeting. Now, you can spend more time collaboratively working together and having rich discussions instead of spending the majority of the time teaching content.

Start using Nearpod for free!

Nearpod’s Student-Paced feature opens up so many possibilities for using Nearpod in your classroom. Utilizing both Student-Paced and live lessons, your students’ engagement and achievement will soar. So, are you looking to give Student-Paced lessons a try yet? Test drive one of these suggestions and see the benefits for yourself!

Foster a love of learning in every student with Nearpod. Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Katie Micallef

Katie is a Personalized Learning Leader in Volusia County Schools. She helps teachers incorporate educational technology into their curriculum. She believes that students deserve an instructional practice that resonates with their daily lives, and that includes the utilization of technology. She is on a mission to promote the endless benefits that edtech can have on 21st century instructional practices.

The post 6 Genius ways to use Student-Paced Nearpod lessons appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Why does the teacher student relationship affect education?

As the teacher in your classroom, you have the capability to set the precedence with expectations. If you form a positive teacher student relationship and have high expectations, your classroom will follow suit and become a positive and supportive space with motivational learners. Teachers who support their students in their learning environment can positively impact their social and academic outcomes, which is important for the long-term trajectory of school and eventually employment.

The association between academic improvement and a positive teacher student relationship is students’ motivation and desire to learn. Students who perceive their relationship with their teacher as positive, warm, and close are motivated to be more engaged in school and to improve their academic achievement.

Nearpod Tip: Consider surveying your students to see their long-term goals. Provide students with a self-paced Nearpod activity designed for their unique career interests. Conference with them individually to assess their needs and support their ideas.

7 Ways to build a positive student teacher relationship

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all when it comes to building relationships with our students. Every student has a unique story. Therefore, every student deserves a unique relationship with you. Let’s look at how you can begin to build those unique relationships.

1. Say hello and goodbye every single day

This may seem like common sense, but it’s easy to forget how far a simple greeting can go for students. Make this a special part of the day. Consider making this unique for each student or class period with handshakes, dances, and gestures.

2. Call home for good behavior more often than bad

Set a goal aside every week to pick a handful of students, record their names in a notebook or digitally with a kind memo, and call home on Fridays to tell their parents It will take 10 minutes, but the impact is everlasting. Those students will come to school on Monday filled with contagious giddiness and gratitude!

3. Student letters and questionnaires

Allow students to complete a first day of class questionnaire to get to know them better. Read through the responses and save them to reference later. Surprise them with a sweet treat or spark a conversation about their interests! This will also help teachers better understand their students’ interests outside of academics, which is key to building meaningful relationships with them.

Build your own survey on Nearpod by including different types of activities and assessments into a lesson and assigning it to students. Use a Collaborate Board to have all students participate in a discussion together. You can also use Open-Ended Questions and Polls to dive deeper into questions. Additionally, Nearpod has premade icebreaker activities and surveys you can share to boost student teacher relationships.

4. Let students inside your world

Take students on a Virtual Reality (VR) Field Trip to anywhere in the world. One idea is to visit places you’ve been or where you’re from. Provide them with content about your culture and your interests. Who knows!? Maybe you have a few things in common!

5. Believe they will do great things

Give them content with high academic engagement and rigor and when they need your support, be there – genuinely and wholeheartedly believe they can do it. Use Nearpod Post-Session Reports to keep track of student progress. This is essential to maintaining a strong relationship with your students.

6. Be authentic and have fun!

Students will LOVE to see the fun side of you and laugh with you. Make time for fun learning moments in your classroom that you and your students will truly enjoy.

You can teach with a Flocabulary lesson. Want to sing along? Dance? Do it! Also, Nearpod’s Time to Climb gamified learning activity is a student favorite. I’m sure it will be a lesson they won’t forget!

7. Listen and validate their feelings

Take moments to discuss their issues and emotions, which helps students feel safe in your classroom. Check in with their social and emotional wellness, frequently – who knows, you may be the only one that has. Prioritize social emotional learning activities and discussions when planning for class time. Share Nearpod’s SEL premade lessons and activities with students or use it as inspiration to create your own.

Positive teacher student relationship matter

Each of these suggestions can be small actions that create a tremendously large and effective bridge to bond your student relationships. Consider creating goals for yourself quarterly or weekly to ensure you are making a conscious effort to reach all your students.

When students feel their teacher is a caring person, then the classroom becomes a supportive and happier place for everyone. Maintaining strong teacher student relationships is an all-around winning plan that creates an environment where real learning can take place. Challenge yourself to be authentic with your students and genuinely create meaningful relationships with them. I guarantee you won’t regret it!

Interested in reading more about this topic? Check out this blog post: 7 Social Emotional Learning (SEL) activities to use in your classroom

Katie Micallef

Katie is a Personalized Learning Leader in Volusia County Schools. She helps teachers incorporate educational technology into their curriculum. She believes that students deserve an instructional practice that resonates with their daily lives, and that includes the utilization of technology. She is on a mission to promote the endless benefits that edtech can have on 21st century instructional practices.

The post 7 Ways to build a positive student teacher relationship appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness K-12 Program offers resources to embed 21st century skills like SEL, digital citizenship, and college and career readiness into every classroom. The Social and Emotional Learning collection includes lessons and activities that teach students core competencies, critical thinking, lifelong learning strategies, and growth mindset practices.

Learn more about the program

Positive, Safe Learning Environment:

As a Florida teacher, there is one day that I think about in particular when I ask myself, “Do students feel safe in my class?” On February 14th, 2018, seventeen people were taken at the hands of a school-shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Focusing on our Social and Emotional Wellness can ensure school is a positive place for all students. In order to achieve this, it is crucial to provide teachers with resources to address social emotional learning in schools.

Flexible Curriculum:

It is important to note that social and emotional learning should be taught in all grade levels, all settings, every single year. The whole child approach prepares students for long term success beyond school. There are over 320 lessons available to embed into any setting for all children in Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program. The skills students learn in these lessons are applicable from kindergarten to 12th grade and developed age-appropriately. Each lesson has a range of modalities to reach a variety of students that are accompanied by dynamic media, including virtual reality to enhance learning experiences. The lessons are also created based on the CASEL framework. These are learning skills proven by research to support their social and emotional growth.

Get free SEL lessons

Whole Child Development:

Nearpod’s Social and Emotional Learning content provides explicit instruction for the skills students need for life and beyond school. We aren’t only teaching students math and reading – we are teaching them to be positive and contributing members of society. By integrating Social and Emotional activities, educators are helping children to develop:

• Self-Awareness – See their connection between current tasks and their personal goals and interests.

• Self-Management – Skills about focusing attention, managing stress and anxiety and accomplishing goals.

• Social Awareness – Develop skills in perspective-taking, empathy, appreciation for diversity.

• Teamwork and Collaboration –  Considering the perspectives and thought process of their peers

• Responsible Decision Making – Reflect on the values of different literary characters or even classmates to motivate others.

• Persistence – How to apply persistence to their growth mindset and reflect on their own personal experiences with challenging tasks.

• Tolerance, Acceptance, Understanding – Students explore the differences among tolerance, acceptance, and understanding, then apply this difference to real-life situations.

Consider highlighting these learning experiences that perhaps characters in literature are experiencing – can your students identify with literary characters and help them through difficult situations? Nearpod can help!

Empower Teachers:

Nearpod understands the needs of our teachers and the resources they need in order to be successful. With Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program, teachers get all the resources they need, from full lessons to quick practice activities, to embed SEL skills into any class. Everything is neatly organized by grade and topic with all the available resources in one spot. In a few clicks, I could plan an entire class lesson on SEL that includes slides, interactive videos, and activities. Not only does this save time, but it helps keep the students engaged and feel a part of their learning.

Social and Emotional Learning Develops the Whole Child:

Focusing on students’ and teachers’ mental wellness is a step in the right direction. With this in mind, we can ensure that schools are safe, positive, and empowering places for all students. Social and emotional learning is a classroom solution to developing the whole child. With activism and education, we can start to move that needle of change together. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” But don’t forget; as educators, we have the honor of teaching and influencing the change we wish to see in the world.

Learn more about the program

Katie Micallef

Katie is a Personalized Learning Leader in Volusia County Schools. She helps teachers incorporate educational technology into their curriculum. She believes that students deserve an instructional practice that resonates with their daily lives, and that includes the utilization of technology. She is on a mission to promote the endless benefits that edtech can have on 21st century instructional practices.

The post Social and Emotional Learning – The Key for Developing the Whole Child appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

At Nearpod, we have recognized that it is critical to move towards an equitable classroom environment, one that ensures that all students can be successful and celebrates students’ unique qualities. We also recognize that with all the requirements teachers are faced with, this can be a daunting task.  With the help of technology, we will begin to produce 21st century-classrooms that are inclusive to everyone by bringing in social and emotional learning in schools. These will help in elevating student voice, closing the opportunity gap, and providing equal access to opportunities.

Get FREE SEL Moments Lessons

7 steps towards equity:

1. Lay a Foundation

The first step towards equity is creating the environment for which it lives in and in this case, it’s your classroom. Establish a foundation of inclusion and respect for diversity that shapes your interactions with others.

For example, when students come back after the Easter weekend, ask if anyone did anything special on their day off; rather than asking if everyone had a nice Easter. With asking these types of generalized questions, we allow for an inclusive, equitable environment to grow. Students who celebrated Easter may detail their holiday events; however, those who did not celebrate, still have an opportunity to participate in conversations.

2. Empower Critical Thinking

As their teacher, we have limited control over the content they are exposed to through their classroom textbook or state-provided resources; however, we do possess the ability to help our students analyze biases and gaps. With critical thinking, we are allowing our students to actively participate in their learning process, rather than be passive, which supports a culturally equitable classroom environment. Students share their deep reasonings and understandings with classmates to bridge cultural horizons and ensure all perspectives are heeded.

3. Highlight Culturally Relevant Teaching

Relevance ties to the emotional part of learning;

          – How much do they care about what they’re learning?
          – How invested are they?

We all work harder and learn deeper when we have a passion and relevance for what we’re learning. Allow students to see themselves in history; through trials, tribulations, and most importantly, the triumphs. Each stage is bridging the gap and creating an equitable and inclusive environment for all students to learn.

4. Provide Community Involvement

Incorporating family and community knowledge enhances the student’s learning experience. With basic knowledge on career paths and clusters, students can start to piece together the purpose behind their learning. Unfortunately, identifying career paths early on is either inaccessible or not a priority for some. Many students only have exposure to careers that exist in their immediate community; this way, increasing inequity. The more we can incorporate the community and family into our classrooms, through; guest speakers, career days, field trips, etc., the more we can provide equal access for all our students.

5. Purposeful Planning

Planning your lessons to promote an equitable classroom can seem like an intimidating task. But with the help of social and emotional learning activities, it doesn’t have to be. Students respond differently to different types of content, whether due to culture, socialization, or learning preference. With intentional planning we can ensure that every students’ needs are valued and objectively met.

Think about delivering different forms of content through learning stations. At each station, provide students with a range of materials to access their learning. For example, students can rotate between stations that involve:

 – Playing a game (Matching Pairs with Timers)
 – Reading an article (PDF viewer)
– Taking a virtual field trip (VR Field Trip)
– Creating artwork (Draw It!)

6. Student Empowerment

We are often in constraints about what we are teaching our students. But we are not as often constrained on how we teach our students. This means we can give students a voice and choice in how they learn. As we know, a students’ sense of belonging matters. It promotes deeper learning and equity among students in your classroom. A key lever for increasing belonging is listening to our students.

Poll your students to see how they want to learn and prove their understanding of the content. By doing this, we are allowing our students to have a voice, highlighting their individualities, and showing them that their thoughts and preferences are important. They are gaining confidence and conviction in their wants. They’re empowered to take ownership of their learning.

7. Positive & Inclusive Language

Children process content more effectively when their cultures and languages have a place in the curriculum. It is important to understand that students don’t always succeed with traditional instruction. It is our job to make sure the needs of these students are met. Allow your students to engage in social conversations. Ensure they are working collaboratively to develop a culture of community in the classroom.

As educators, we can influence personal growth and positively value differences in our classroom. We can create a space where our students come to everyday feeling valued and having access to the same learning resources and support despite their differences. These differences are actually something that should be celebrated. We also have the power to surrender our power and allow our students to have ownership of their learning. Together, we can move further into creating a culturally responsive and equitable classroom.

Download these free K-12 sample lesson bundles to promote equity at your school:

Download FREE bundles

Katie Micallef

Katie is a Personalized Learning Leader in Volusia County Schools. She helps teachers incorporate educational technology into their curriculum. She believes that students deserve an instructional practice that resonates with their daily lives, and that includes the utilization of technology. She is on a mission to promote the endless benefits that edtech can have on 21st century instructional practices.

The post Creating Equitable Classrooms: 7 Steps Towards Equity appeared first on Nearpod Blog.