Center for Teaching

Personal devices in the classroom.

teaching devices assignment

The topic of developing policies around the usage of personal electronic devices in college classrooms has been hotly debated. Some have come out in favor of laptop bans (see Dynarski), citing studies that indicate that some students who use laptops in class retain less information and distract their peers more than students who do not use laptops (see Carter, Greenberg, and Walker). Others have defended the usage of personal electronic devices in the classroom in order to protect the privacy of students who must use them for accessibility reasons and to allow for easier integration of online tools in classes (see Pryal). Still others have called into question whether the debate around banning laptops and other electronic devices distracts from the larger mission of enhancing the learning experience for students (see Lieberman).

For a variety of reasons, banning electronic devices such as laptops can lead to negative outcomes. However, many faculty will want to establish clear, compassionate policies that guide students in using technology well in face-to-face classrooms.

Set clear guidelines upfront by including a statement in your syllabus about the use of personal electronic devices. Here are a few questions to guide you when thinking about what role students’ personal electronic devices will play in your classroom.

Will electronic devices be integrated into your classroom activities?

Electronic devices may make sense in some classes more than others. If your class is largely discussion based, then it may be appropriate to adopt a policy that limits the use of electronic devices in class.

Are course assignments posted electronically for students to access?

If your students will be accessing content and resources for your class via Brightspace or if the class involves using a particular piece of software like Excel or Photoshop, then a stronger case might be made for the inclusion of laptops and other electronic devices in class so that students can access these resources.

Is the class structure consistent from one meeting to the next?

An electronic devices policy does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. It may be that such devices are more useful or acceptable during some class meetings than others. In these instances, a hybrid policy might be beneficial.

In what ways will students themselves help to shape a technology policy in my class?

Students have a vested interest in the structure and effectiveness of classroom activities. Involving students in a discussion or even a development of a technology policy reinforces their role as co-creators of the classroom experience. How do students want to engage in class discussions? How do they see technology as necessary for their own learning? What kinds of policies will help them do their best work?

Considering these questions will also help you communicate to students why a policy is in place, potentially resulting in better acceptance of the guidelines.

Developing A Policy

Once you have determined the extent to which you and your students will use electronic devices in class, you will want to develop a supporting policy statement for your syllabus. This could take many forms, and may depend on the nature of your course.

Explain why you have implemented a policy.  It could be that the format of your class relies heavily on discussion or other activities from which electronic devices would distract. This is a great opportunity to explain your teaching philosophy and expectations for student engagement during class.

Definitions

State clearly what devices your policy includes: laptops, cell phones, tablets, etc.

If laptops and other personal electronic devices are allowed in class, how will the use be managed? Some policies simply require students to be conscientious of others in the classroom. Will students be able to connect the laptop to a power outlet or only use battery power? Should students put the lid down on the laptop during class discussion time? What behaviors will you expect from students?  Will students who want simply to take notes be permitted to use the laptop, but not an Internet connection? How about students who benefit from accessibility features on their devices?

Consequences

Clearly state the consequences students will face when they do not adhere to the policy. Make sure the penalties are enforceable and that you are willing to follow through with them. If you have involved students in this policy from the beginning and they have bought into the principles behind the policy, just reminding students of the agreement the class made as a group will help get folks back on track.

Keep in mind any accessibility related reasons a student might have that require a laptop or other electronic device for class. The policy should not be so restrictive that it impedes the rights of those students with special needs or does not make allowance for ADA compliance. For instance, it may be worthwhile to consider if your policy for a certain class would inadvertently single out students with disabilities and/or accessibility needs.

Syllabus Design

It may be useful to keep in mind general best practices for good syllabus design, including co-creating rubrics with students (when applicable), as you define and communicate your policy around the usage of personal electronic devices in the classroom.

Past Vanderbilt University Senior Graduate Teaching Fellows and Graduate Teaching Fellows Jessica Riviere, Danielle Picard, and Richard Coble produced a guide on Syllabus Design . The guide considers what components can be incorporated into a syllabus and how a syllabus is related to course design.

The University of Colorado Boulder developed a teaching resource that explores the process of co-creating rubrics with students. The resource offers some approaches and best practices for this rubric co-creation process, such as focusing on learning outcomes and continuing to draft the rubric as the course progresses.

The Center for Education Innovation & Learning in the Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles has gathered several resources on inclusive syllabus design in a teaching guide here . It highlights how a syllabus can welcome students and promote student growth. Additionally, Professors Tracie Marcella Addy, Derek Dube and Khadijah A. Mitchell wrote about steps that instructors can take to foster an inclusive classroom in an Inside Higher Ed feature. Their suggestions include but are not limited to regularly communicating with students and highlighting diverse practitioners in the field.

Instructional Strategies

In addition to a written policy, there are also techniques you can incorporate into your teaching that will help you manage students’ use of electronic devices in the classroom. One simple technique is to have a screen-up and screen-down time in order to focus student attention. This strategy, as well as others can be found by exploring the links below.

Ellen Granberg and James Witte, assistant professors of sociology at Clemson University, published this book chapter about their experiences with laptops in the classroom. They found that laptops had a great potential to increase student engagement and learning when clear directions and instructions on when to use laptops were given.

The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group has developed a collection of instructional strategies for teaching with technology based on Chickering and Gamson’s “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” This rich resource contains an assortment of practical ideas you can incorporate into your teaching. This includes using digital tools to publicize your availability and to virtually meet with students when the need arises.

Student Considerations

The decision to allow or restrict use of electronic devices in class can be a complex one. Policies will likely differ among your colleagues and may even differ for yourself among the courses you teach. Don’t hesitate to contact the CFT if you are part of the Vanderbilt instructional community and would like to talk further with one of our consultants about this topic.

  • Addy, Tracie Marcella, Derek Dube, and Khadijah A Mitchell. “Fostering an Inclusive Classroom.” Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed, August 5, 2020. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/08/05/small-steps-instructors-can-take-build-more-inclusive-classrooms-opinion .
  • Carter, Susan Payne, Kyle Greenberg, and Michael S Walker. “The Impact of Computer Usage on Academic Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Trial at the United States Military Academy.” Economics of Education Review 56 (February 2017): 118–32. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.12.005 .
  • “Co-Creating Rubrics with Students.” Center for Teaching & Learning. University of Colorado Boulder, March 18, 2021. https://www.colorado.edu/center/teaching-learning/teaching-resources/assessment/assessing-student-learning/rubrics/co-creating-rubrics-students .
  • Dynarski, Susan. “Laptops Are Great. But Not during a Lecture or a Meeting.” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 22, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/business/laptops-not-during-lecture-or-meeting.html .
  • “Inclusive Syllabus Design.” Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences. University of California, Los Angeles. Accessed October 11, 2021. https://ceils.ucla.edu/resources/teaching-guides/syllabus-design/ .
  • Lieberman, Mark. “Enough With the Laptop Ban Debate!” Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed, November 29, 2017. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/11/29/debate-over-banning-laptops-resurfaces-academics-seek-more .
  • Pryal, Katie Rose Guest. “When You Talk about Banning Laptops, You Throw Disabled Students under the Bus.” HuffPost. HuffPost, November 28, 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-you-talk-about-banning-laptops-you-throw-disabled_b_5a1ccb4ee4b07bcab2c6997d .
  • Riviere, J., Picard, D., & Coble, R. (2014). Syllabus Design. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved 11 October, 2021. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/syllabus-design .

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8 Strategies to Manage the 21st Century Classroom

We’ve all seen the black and white images of the one-room schoolhouse. Students sit in perfect rows that face a teacher who’s writing on a chalkboard. Up until the last decade, our classrooms haven’t drastically differed from those 100-year-old images. We are so fortunate to be living and teaching in a time of rapid educational change. Instead of personal student chalkboards, a number of students now have access to electronic tablets. Many teachers can now use Smartboards instead of dry-erase boards. The limits of the central textbook have transcended the limitless information gathered online.

Although these changes are exciting, using technology in the classroom can seem overwhelming when you have multiple objectives to achieve each day and 30 – 35 students to engage simultaneously. So how do we manage the advancing 21st-century classroom environment? Here are eight real-world strategies to slay the daunting, technology classroom dragon.

1. Start with your classroom set up

Just as any well-managed classroom, set up is essential. First, configure the desks in such a way that you can see all or most screens. For example, student desks can face the outer walls of the classroom in a circular fashion. Or, if rows or pairs work best for your class, consider setting up your desk at the back of the classroom. You’ll be able to view all screens and students without being front and center.

Establish, display, teach and repeat your classroom rules and procedures when using devices. Students should be clear on their expected behavior and how to handle arising technology use issues. To help create this structure, number each device. Students will have a sense of ownership, and the numbering assists with technology support communications.

Lastly, have a system for student logins. Any teacher with computer use experience knows the student login headache. Help students become more independent by creating login cards. Each personalized login card should include the device login, then a couple of the main websites or apps used. Be sure to keep a master list of logins. For the most part, logging in should be the responsibility of the student — though that does depend on age and whether or not your students have any special needs.

2. Make digital citizenship a priority

Now that you have the devices in the hands of each of your students, they’re ready to engage in this type of learning. This is your chance to teach one of the most essential skills needed in a 21st-century classroom: responsible use of technology, also known as digital citizenship. Students can’t automatically navigate the internet safely, communicate effectively and respectfully, and handle other digital dilemmas. These are all skills that have to be taught.

No matter what grade you are teaching, take the opportunity to guide students so they become responsible digital citizens. While this can be a daunting task, there’s a vast depository of lessons, materials, and entire free curriculums online. One of my favorite resources when teaching digital citizenship is  Common Sense Education, which provides curriculum for each grade level and includes teacher tutorials, materials, and truly engaging lessons for every classroom.

3. Teach mini-lessons before  using devices

The number one mistake I’ve seen in classrooms using devices is the order of process. Imagine a student-filled room start to vibrate with excitement as the teacher rolls the C.O.W. (computers on wheels) into the classroom. The teacher hands out the numbered devices to his students and their fingers punch in their personal logins the moment they get their hands on them. Relieved that all the devices are in functioning condition, the teacher begins his directions for today’s lesson and the goal in using the devices. What is wrong with this picture? What percentage of students do you think are actually listening to the directions or the lesson’s concepts?

Teaching mini-lessons prior to student access is the key. Students won’t be distracted and are likely to fully participate because they know that paying attention and demonstrating their understanding of rules, procedures, and tasks means they will get the privilege of using devices. Mini-lessons also give you time to make sure students fully understand your expectations and the assignment involving technology. Even if the lesson is inquiry-based , students should still know what is expected of them before logging in.

4. Use the power of choice

Traditionally, the teacher is the center of instruction. In a 21st century classroom, instructional technology provides the opportunity for each student to make choices over their own learning. Making a choice provides student ownership over what is learned. In each of the three categories of instructional technology activities (practice, creativity, and discovery), there are opportunities for students to make choices.

Applications that allow students to practice and advance their skills, such as Khan Academy , usually allow them to choose what to work on or which game to play when practicing. A creativity assignment is full of choices for students to show their ability to apply the concept, to evaluate their own work, and take full ownership of the finished product. A discovery assignment allows for students to use their natural curiosity as a navigation tool.

When designing a lesson involving instructional technology, remember to include the chance for your students to make a choice that appeals to them. To learn more about the importance of providing choice, check out the research done by  Universal Design for Learning .

5. Remember that sharing is caring

Allow time for students to share something they have created or discovered. Knowing they will have this opportunity encourages focus. In addition to focus, other students will be inspired by their peers and find value in their own work. Sharing doesn’t have to be done at the end of a project.

As you are circulating around the room, catch a student who’s doing something well and point out that student to the rest of the class. Often times students who don’t excel in traditional class settings don’t have a chance for a lot of praise. Technology changes that environment, providing opportunities for all students to shine, including English learners, introverts, and those who may lack proficiency in certain subjects.

6. Conduct teacher check-ins

One of my favorite strategies for managing a complex classroom is conducting ongoing teacher check-ins. Instructional technologies give our students the chance to have a more individualized learning experience: working at their own pace, using tools that work with their learning styles, and learning about topics that interest them.

Although this can create an optimal learning environment, how can a single teacher manage each student’s learning? Build in time for teacher check-ins to confer with each student once a week. Or, conduct these check-ins using an online poll such as Google Forms . Your online survey can include guiding questions related to challenges and achievements. Feedback is quick and you can use it to create a plan to support and intervene as needed.

7. Build in breaks from devices

Technology can be motivating for students in and of itself. Still, like adults, students’ focus can wander when working online. To have students re-engage with the task at hand, give them a couple minutes off their devices and have them turn to engage with a classmate face-to-face. If possible, have students sit away from their devices or use management software such as Veyon to view and lock their devices for three to five minutes.

8. Software tools are your friend

About five years ago, when the one-to-one (one device for each student) initiative started to take off, educational technology took a huge turn from teacher-centered tools to student-centered tools. Many students are now in the driver’s seat learning on their own, thanks to these educational technology tools. Different types of software were developed to assist in managing this new landscape. Classroom management software tools have been created to assist with behavioral management such as Class Dojo and Class Craft . Open-source learning management systems such as Canvas , Moodle , and Schoology have been designed to assist with course design, assignment submissions, file organization, and digital grade books.

More recently, software tools have been developed to be the “all-seeing eye” on students’ devices in use. Device management software such as GoGuardian allows teachers to view, take control, and freeze student devices from one single teacher control panel.

Our classrooms are finally starting to evolve with the surrounding world and, by implementing these eight strategies, you’ll create an innovative and successful learning environment for your technology-hungry students. If you’re interested in taking your “EdTech” skills to the next level, check out our MEd in Educational Technology Leadership for a comprehensive program that will help you lead the way as a 21st-century teacher.

Nicole Mace earned a MEd in Educational Technology from Lesley University and a professional graduate certification in instructional design from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She’s spent nearly a decade in education, teaching multiple grade levels in the U.S. and South Korea and working as a lead instructional designer at the college level. Currently, Nicole serves as an adjunct online instructor and a freelance instructional designer. Her website offers key resources for instructors looking to crack the code on quality online instruction.

You may also like to read

  • 21st-Century Alternatives to the Classroom Blackboard
  • What's in the Well-Equipped 21st Century Classroom?
  • Classroom Management Strategies: How to Keep Your Classroom in Line
  • Middle School Classroom Management Strategies
  • Classroom Management Strategies for High School Teachers
  • Strategies to Improve Classroom Behavior and Academic Outcomes

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

Tagged as: Educational Technology ,  Educational Technology Leadership

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75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

teaching devices assignment

There is no shortage of  formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools  available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning. We didn’t just add any old tool to this list. Here are the criteria we used for those that made the cut:

  • Supports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers
  • Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible)
  • Allows both students and teachers to take the activator role when possible (sometimes teachers need to get things started)

Before you dig into the tools, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about exactly what you want to accomplish with your students.  “How to pick the right digital tool: Start with your learning goal” by Erin Beard can help you wrap your head around goals and guide you in choosing the best tool for the task. “27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning” can help you decide what strategies work best for you and your students.

Record audio and video

  • Animoto  Gives students the ability to make a 30-second video of what they learned in a lesson.
  • AudioNote  A combination of a voice recorder and notepad, it captures both audio and notes for student collaboration.
  • Edpuzzle  Helps you use video (your own, or one from Khan Academy, YouTube, and more) to track student understanding.
  • Flip  Lets students use 15-second to 5-minute videos to respond to prompts. Teachers and peers can provide feedback.
  • QuickVoice Recorder  Allows you to record classes, discussions, or audio for projects. Sync your recordings to your computer easily for use in presentations.
  • Vocaroo  Creates audio recordings without the need for software. Embed the recording into slideshows, presentations, or websites.
  • WeVideo Lets you use video creatively to engage students in learning. Teachers and students alike can make videos.

Create quizzes, polls, and surveys

  • Crowdsignal  Lets you create online polls, quizzes, and questions. Students can use smartphones, tablets, and computers to provide their answers, and information can be culled for reports.
  • Edulastic  Allows you to make standards-aligned assessments and get instant feedback.
  • FreeOnlineSurveys  Helps you create surveys, quizzes, forms, and polls.
  • Gimkit  Lets you write real-time quizzes. And it was designed by a high school student!
  • Kahoot!  A game-based classroom response system that lets you create quizzes using internet content.
  • MicroPoll  Helps you create polls, embed them into websites, and analyze responses.
  • Naiku  Lets you write quizzes students can answer using their mobile devices.
  • Obsurvey  Designed to make surveys, polls, and questionnaires.
  • Poll Everywhere  Lets you create a feedback poll or ask questions and see results in real time. Allows students to respond in various ways. With open-ended questions, you can capture data and spin up tag clouds to aggregate responses.
  • Poll Maker  Offers unique features, like allowing multiple answers to one question.
  • ProProfs  Helps you make quizzes, polls, and surveys.
  • Quia  Lets you create games, quizzes, surveys, and more. Access a database of existing quizzes from other educators.
  • Quizalize  Helps you create quizzes and homework.
  • Quizizz  Guides you through designing quizzes and lets you include students in the quiz-writing process.
  • Quizlet  Lets you make flashcards, tests, quizzes, and study games that are mobile friendly.
  • Survey Hero  Designed to build questionnaires and surveys.
  • SurveyMonkey  Helpful for online polls and surveys.
  • SurveyPlanet  Also helpful for online polls and surveys.
  • Triventy  Lets you create quizzes students take in real time using individual devices.
  • Yacapaca  Helps you write and assign quizzes.
  • Zoho Survey  Allows you to make mobile-friendly surveys and see results in real time.

Brainstorm, mind map, and collaborate

  • AnswerGarden  A tool for online brainstorming and collaboration.
  • Coggle  A mind-mapping tool designed to help you understand student thinking.
  • Conceptboard  Software that facilitates team collaboration in a visual format, similar to mind mapping but using visual and text inputs.
  • Dotstorming  A whiteboard app that allows digital sticky notes to be posted and voted on. This tool is best for generating class discussion and brainstorming on different topics and questions.
  • Educreations Whiteboard  A whiteboard app that lets students share what they know.
  • iBrainstorm  Lets students collaborate on projects using a stylus or their finger.
  • Miro  Allows whole-class collaboration in real time.
  • Padlet  Provides a blank canvas for students to create and design collaborative projects.
  • ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard  Another whiteboard tool to check understanding.
  • XMind  Mind-mapping software for use on desktop computers and laptops.

Present, engage, and inspire

  • BrainPOP Lets you use prerecorded videos on countless topics to shape your lesson plan, then use quizzes to see what stuck.
  • Buncee  Helps students and teachers visualize, communicate, and engage with classroom concepts.
  • Five Card Flickr  Uses the tag feature from photos in Flickr to foster visual thinking.
  • PlayPosit  Allows you to add formative assessment features to a video from a library or popular sites, such as YouTube and Vimeo, to survey what students know about a topic.
  • RabbleBrowser  Allows a leader to facilitate a collaborative browsing experience.
  • Random Name/Word Picker  Facilitates random name picking. You can also add a list of keywords and use the tool to prompt students to guess words by providing definitions.
  • Socrative  Uses exercises and games to engage students with a topic.
  • Adobe Express  Lets you add graphics and visuals to exit tickets.
  • Typeform  Helps you add graphical elements to polls.

Generate word or tag clouds

  • EdWordle Generates word clouds from any entered text to help aggregate responses and facilitate discussion. Word clouds are pictures composed of a cloud of smaller words that form a clue to the topic.
  • Tagxedo Allows you to examine student consensus and facilitate dialogues.
  • Wordables Helps you elicit evidence of learning or determine background knowledge about a topic.
  • WordArt Includes a feature that allows the user to make each word an active link to connect to websites, including YouTube.

Get real-time feedback

  • Formative Lets you assign activities, receive results in real time, and provide immediate feedback.
  • GoSoapBox Works with the bring-your-own-device model and includes an especially intriguing feature: a confusion meter.
  • IXL Breaks down options by grade level and content area.
  • Kaizena Gives students real-time feedback on work they upload. You can use a highlighter or give verbal feedback. You can also attach resources.
  • Mentimeter Allows you to use mobile phones or tablets to vote on any question a teacher asks, increasing student engagement.
  • Pear Deck Lets you plan and build interactive presentations that students can participate in via their smart device. It also offers unique question types.
  • Plickers Allows you to collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices.
  • Quick Key Helps you with accurate marking, instant grading, and immediate feedback.

Foster family communication  

  • Remind Lets you text students and stay in touch with families.
  • Seesaw Helps you improve family communication and makes formative assessment easy, while students can use the platform to document their learning.
  • Voxer Lets you send recordings so families can hear how their students are doing, students can chat about their work, and you can provide feedback.

Strengthen teacher-to-student or student-to-student communication

  • Biblionasium Lets you view books students have read, create reading challenges, and track progress. Students can also review and recommend books to their peers.
  • Classkick Helps you post assignments for students, and both you and your students’ peers can provide feedback. Students can also monitor their progress and work.
  • ForAllRubrics Lets you import, create, and score rubrics on your tablet or smartphone. Collect data offline, compute scores automatically, and print or save the rubrics as a PDF or spreadsheet.
  • Lino A virtual cork board of sticky notes, it lets students ask questions or make comments on their learning.
  • Online Stopwatch Provides dozens of themed digital classroom timers to use during small- and whole-group discussions.
  • Peergrade Helps you create assignments and upload rubrics. You can also anonymously assign peer review work. Students can upload and review work using the corresponding rubric.
  • Spiral Gives you access to formative assessment feedback.
  • Verso Lets you set up learning using a URL. Space is provided for directions. Students can add their assignment, post comments, and respond to comments. You can group responses and check engagement levels.
  • VoiceThread Allows you to create and share conversations on documents, diagrams, videos, pictures, and more.

Keep the conversation going with live chats

  • Yo Teach A backchannel site great for keeping the conversation going with students.
  • Chatzy Supports live, online chats in a private setting.

Create and store documents or assignments

  • Google Forms A Google Drive app that allows you to create documents students can collaborate on in real time using smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
  • Piazza Lets you upload lectures, assignments, and homework; pose and respond to student questions; and poll students about class content. This tool is better suited for older students as it mimics post-secondary class instructional formats.

There are several resources for learning more about formative assessment and responsive instruction strategies. Consider our  formative practices workshops , where school and district teams can gain a better understanding of the role formative practice plays in instruction and the four foundational practices to use in the classroom. Or for a quick start, download our eBook  “Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice.”

Jump in, try new tools and methods, and have fun!

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Teaching Students to Manage Their Digital Assignments

Predictable routines can teach students how to use organizational tools and help them develop their executive function skills.

Photo of high school students with teacher and laptop

You just wrapped up an invigorating conversation with your 10th-grade students. They contributed brilliant ideas, and you’re looking forward to reading the written reflections you assigned for homework. But when you log into Google Classroom the next day to grade their work, you find that nearly half of your students didn’t submit the assignment. Only two-thirds of them even opened the document.

Sound familiar? 

So many students who are engaged in real-world learning activities struggle to complete assignments in the digital world. Digital work is often out of sight and out of mind the moment they leave our classrooms. It can cause teachers and parents to wonder if being organized is even possible in our tech-focused society. 

1-to-1 Devices are Permanent Fixtures in Today’s Classroom 

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic pushed most schools into a virtual teaching model, students spent much of their instructional time on a device. A 2019 study out of Arlington Public Schools found that middle school students spent 47 percent of their time and high school students spent 68 percent of their time on a device. Findings from the study suggest that devices are frequently used for “reference and research, presentations and projects, and feedback and assessment.” 

By the return to in-person learning, 90 percent of students had access to a one-to-one device for school, and it’s evident that technology in the classroom (and workplace) is here to stay.  

Teaching Digital Organization Skills is Key

Although they have access to a myriad of digital organization tools ( myHomework , Evernote , Google Keep , and Coggle , to name a few), students may still struggle to organize their assignments and complete them from start to submission. We often assume that students can transfer organizational skills from the real world to the digital world, and we often ask them to quickly and seamlessly transition from hard-copy work (reading a chapter in a novel, completing a science experiment) to digital work, such as writing a reflection in Google Docs and submitting it to a learning management system (LMS). 

Digital files are perceivable to the human brain, but they aren’t tangible in the same way that binders, notebooks, and folders are. And while an LMS may aid students’ access to information, it doesn’t do the heavy lifting of organizing information and prioritizing tasks. These actions are highly demanding cognitive skills that students can be taught and practice in the digital world—even if students have already perfected them in the analog world. 

Teachers can prioritize strategic, direct instruction of organizational and other executive functioning skills for a tech-focused world. 

Streamline Your Classroom Resources 

The first step in helping students organize digital work is to organize your classroom resources on the back end. In coordination with your department, grade level, or district, choose one LMS and three to four instructional resources, and stick with them for the entire year. For example, you could select Google Classroom as your LMS and use PearDeck, Google Calendar, and EdPuzzle as instructional resources. 

Though it’s tempting to adopt new and exciting technology as it evolves, a revolving door of programs is difficult for students to juggle and can lead to app fatigue. 

Teachers can further streamline their classroom resources by color-coding folders and files in their chosen LMS, posting log-in directions in easily accessible locations, and offering a landing page in their LMS that holds all of the links to digital resources. 

Create Predictable Routines Around Digital Work 

Next, it’s important for teachers to create clear and predictable routines around organizing digital assignments.   

One routine that I’ve developed in my classroom is a living table of contents document. I create and print out a blank table of contents for each unit, and students house them in their binders. I then project the table of contents at the start of each class with the day’s newest assignments, and students fill in these new items on their hard copies when they settle in. Each assignment is numbered, and assignments located online that won’t appear in their binders are labeled with an “S” (for us, that stands for Schoology) to note that the assignment is in our LMS.

Another predictable routine is entering homework assignments into Google Calendar or agenda books together at the end of every class. Prompting students to write down their homework may seem elementary, but even older students appreciate the predictability and consistency of this routine because it reduces anxiety (rushing to write it down before the teacher moves on) and frees up brain space for critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving.

If you’re not sure that your current routine is clear and predictable, consider whether or not students could replicate your system in your absence. If students can’t get through the routine on their own, your routine may need to be articulated more clearly (such as being posted somewhere in the classroom), or it may need to be implemented more consistently.

Model a Variety of Organizational Strategies 

Similar to the process of how academic skills are acquired, teachers can model organizational skills for students. Consider creating opportunities to demonstrate strategies such as how and where to save documents, how to sync information across devices, how to share calendar events with peers and parents, and how to plan for long-term projects. 

You can also help students get more comfortable with organizational strategies by sharing “think-alouds” for task initiation, task prioritization, and time management. Consider using common language for reminding and prompting. For example, at the start of every new assignment, you could say something like, “Now that I’m ready to start, I’m going to open up Schoology, Google, and a Word document and close out of other tabs.”

Because executive functioning skills are not innate, providing language for them allows students to identify them, replicate them, and use tools to do them more quickly. Prioritizing these skills can improve student outcomes and prepare students for an increasingly tech-focused world.

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Engaging Strategies for Teaching Persuasion, Argument, and Debate

Year after year, I love teaching persuasion. I love persuading my students that persuasion is a life skill worth learning. (Because isn’t all teaching just persuading kids to listen and learn?!) Luckily, with the right mix of ethos, pathos, and logos, this is usually an easy sell to my audience of adolescents.

After all, teens love to argue…with their peers, their parents, and *gasp* their teachers. They have plenty of practice with real-life persuasion, whether it’s convincing their parents to stay out past their curfew or proposing just one extra day to work on that project. And they’re always dying to debate: which sports team is superior, why they deserve more freedom, and what’s wrong with school, society, and this world! If you’ve ever taught teenagers, you know that they have no shortage of opinions. So suffice it to say: your students are already arguers.

The challenge, of course, is helping students channel their opinions and energy into structured, academic argumentation. To do this, you’ll need high-engagement activities that match your students’ energy… not the ancient 5-paragraph persuasive essay over a subject on that random list of 100 debatable topics you found online. If we want to move students to a more sophisticated level of debate, we need to offer them student-centered, authentic, and relevant tasks to practice their persuasion.

Ready to ditch the 5-paragraph persuasive essay and engage your students in meaningful persuasion? Here are dozen different strategies for your ELA classroom.

MOCK TRIALS

Want to teach students how important it is to support your argument with evidence (and what happens when you don’t)? Ready to watch your class eagerly annotate a text and cite said evidence *without* complaints?

teaching devices assignment

I wasn’t sure my students would ever see citing evidence as more than a chore until I dressed up as “Judge G,” borrowed a gavel, and facilitated my first mock trial!

A mock trial is the perfect way to practice persuasion and argumentation because it’s student-centered, inherently engaging, and 100% authentic. You’ll watch students become intrigued, take ownership, and get competitive real quick! Because students know they’ll be arguing in front of a jury of their peers, the standards become strategy. Citing textual evidence is no longer a chore, but a competition! The stakes are higher than a grade from the teacher because the real prize is bragging rights. 

To structure a mock trial in your ELA classroom, you’ll need a murder, crime, ethical dilemma, or essential question. In other words: literature! From there, you’ll want to divide students into teams of prosecution, defense, and jury. After that, students will get to work within their groups. In my classroom, this is what it looks like:

The prosecution and defense teams prepare evidence-based claims and rebuttals. Each student is responsible for a section, whether that’s the opening, a claim, a rebuttal, or the closing. Meanwhile, the jury works together to create a rubric and anticipate the arguments they may hear during the trial.

You can read more about mock trials HERE or find everything you need to facilitate a virtual or in-person trial HERE.

RHETORICAL BAR GRAPHS

Bar graphs in ELA? Oh yes you can! Getting a gold star from her math cohorts, Ashley Bible at Building Book Love has her students create rhetorical bar graphs to analyze persuasion.

Rhetorical Bar Graphs

This digital or tactile strategy is simple yet highly effective!  All you do is assign each appeal a color before taking students on a color-coded text hunt.  (In her rhetoric lesson plan , Ashley uses: Pink Pathos, Light Blue Logos, and Emerald Green Ethos). 

Once students have each appeal coded, they arrange the rhetorical devices into a bar graph and analyze which appeal the speaker relies most heavily on and how they could make their argument stronger. This visualization technique always generates important insights about the topic at hand!

From analyzing speeches in Julius Caesar , to recognizing propaganda in Animal Farm , to tackling social justice in Dolly Parton’s America , this strategy is a gift that keeps on giving! Tag her @BuildingBookLove if you give it a try! 

ANALYZING COMMERCIALS & ADVERTISEMENTS

To help students identify persuasive appeals and techniques in action, Shana Ramin from Hello, Teacher Lady suggests deconstructing commercials and advertisements.

Commercials & advertisements

When teaching in person, Shana enjoys facilitating this type of analysis with the tried-and-true “chalk talk” approach. After gathering a series of printed advertisements, Shana glues each one in the center of large chart paper and places them at various points around the room. Students rotate through each station with a small group, annotating each ad silently with an eye for purpose, audience, tone, etc. At the end of the activity, students return to their original stations and share out their final observations with the class. 

To mimic this activity in a hybrid or digital environment, Shana recommends using Jamboard, an easy-to-use, digital whiteboard app by Google. The setup process is pretty much the same, but replace the printed ads with image screenshots and the white chart paper with a digital Jamboard slide. Students can then use the sticky note and marker features on Jamboard to annotate the images in breakout rooms. 

Click here to learn more about the collaborative features of Google Jamboard .

ARGUMENT OLYMPICS

The Argument Olympics are Emily Aierstok’s favorite way to teach middle and high school students evidence based writing. Emily, from Read it. Write it. Learn it. , uses an Olympic theme to deconstruct arguments, write outlines, and compete in the “strongest evidence” game complete with gold medals! Kids LOVE it and quickly understand the qualities of strong evidence in their writing. 

Argument Olympics

To really create an Olympic games feel, Emily creates a very simple (and free!) classroom transformation. She strings red, yellow, and blue streamers around the room, plays the Olympic theme song from YouTube, and prints gold medals to hand out for gold-medal-level deconstructed essays, strongest outlines, and strongest evidence. 

Next, Emily introduces the “Olympic events.” For example, the first Olympic Event she introduces to students is The Strongest Evidence Competition. Students are given two sides of an argument topic and asked to find three pieces of evidence to support each argument. After finding their evidence, students are tasked with identifying the evidence that’s the strongest. Students become so motivated to find the strongest evidence, and they’re practicing essential analysis skills. The quality of evidence students find is amazing. 

You can read more about implementing the Argument Olympics in your classroom here . 

SILENT DISCUSSIONS

Jenna, @DrJennaCopper , loves using silent discussions for students to debate the impact of articles and artifacts. The rules are simple: students are only allowed to write. This type of stipulation helps students really think about their responses since they can’t talk.

Silent discussions

Here’s how it works:

  • Choose an artifact or article.
  • Get a big piece of poster board or a big paper and paste the article or artifact in the center.
  • Tell students to read the article and then, discuss with the stipulation that they are only allowed to write. No talking! It helps if students color-code their writing.
  • As students “discuss,” walk around the room and comment (in writing, of course!) to generate more debate.
  • When the discussion is over, place the posters on the walls and give students a chance to walk around and view.
  • Facilitate a talking classroom discussion to discuss insights and observations.

That’s it! Not only will your students be highly engaged, but you’ll also enjoy the few short minutes of precious silence!

As a bonus, this activity works great for a remote lesson as well. Just paste your article or artifact in a Google Doc and share it so they all have editing access. They can complete their silent discussions right in the document. 

STUDYING FAMOUS SPEECHES

Lauralee from the Language Arts Classroom frequently uses famous speeches and commercials to teach persuasion. By bringing in authentic examples to the classroom, this strategy offers history and media lessons, too.

Famous speeches

When students realize that they see strategies every day in social media, on their phones, and within stores, they engage and are excited to apply those concepts to their public speaking endeavors.

For instance, students can study the techniques in a Susan B. Anthony speech and then apply those techniques to their own speeches. Teachers can even pair her speech with a narrative speech assignment. Students can then employ sentence structure, tone, and logos into their speeches. Although ELA teachers often use persuasive techniques during public speaking lessons, many of the same activities work well with argumentative writing.

NAILED IT! & SHARK TANK

Staci Lamb from The Engaging Station loves switching up her creative lessons on ethos, logos, and pathos every year. She has had students watch Shark Tank and sell their own products, but last year, she was inspired to try something new by making a connection to the Netflix show Nailed It .

Nailed It! Challenge

Right before winter break, she went to Walmart to buy graham crackers, icing, candies, and more. Dollar Tree also had a great selection of inexpensive candy. Students had to create a gingerbread masterpiece and then use ethos, logos, and pathos to justify why their house was the best. The kids had a lot of fun, and it was an engaging activity to end the calendar year.

You can see this idea and more with free resources on her blog post Creative Ways to Teach Persuasive Appeals .

REAL WORLD TOPICS + CHOICE

Today, students have access to more information than ever at their fingertips. Tanesha from Tanesha B. Forman leverages real world topics – that students want to debate in the classroom – with argu mentative writing lessons. Choice is the bedrock of Tanesha’s approach to lit eracy and she offers students a choice on a topic (e.g. should college athletes be paid?), and tells them the format (e.g. speech, letter). 

Real World Topics + Choice

Next, students research their topic. Tanesha always warns students to think about their position, but be open to changing based on what the research from credible sources reveals. Students spend a day or two gathering information for their writing assignment. For students who need support with this, Tanesha has 3-4 sources readily available. Once students have their evidence, they enter the writing process that Tanesha creates mini-lessons aligned to their needs and they present their work. Throughout the year, Tanesha encourages students to share topics they want to “argue” and she repeats the cycle.

THE ELEVATOR PITCH

No matter what you’re reading or learning about, adding a persuasive pitch to “sell” an idea, is a great way to include elements of persuasion beyond a persuasive unit.

Elevator Pitches

For example, if students are creating something to aid a character , rather than just explain it, challenge your students to create a short elevator pitch! It can even be used with literary analysis by asking a question such as: Which character is the most (insert character trait here)?  Staci from Donut Lovin’ Teacher finds that when students have to pitch their ideas, they really begin to reflect on their work and what makes it great, and also where it can grow. 

Staci likes starting with a graphic organizer to get students thinking and then begins layering in mini-lessons that consider the audience, point of view, tone, and rhetorical appeals, depending on how much time you have. Students can then begin crafting their pitch on a guided template and practice saying it aloud. If you’re able to incorporate this multiple times throughout the year, your students will really grow confidence in their speaking skills, too!

MUSICAL DEBATES

Middle and high school students can at times feel intimidated by debate and persuasion. That’s why Melissa from Reading and Writing Haven recommends a mini debate activity that engages all students and makes debate relaxed and approachable.

Musical debates

Musical debates amplify the energy, creativity, and social interaction in the physical classroom and online. By adding a simple twist of music, it lightens the mood and provides natural brain breaks so students have time to collect their thoughts. 

Here are Melissa’s simple steps for using this debate-style discussion strategy in your classroom:

  • Give students a thought-provoking or humorous prompt.
  • Play music as students think, research, jot notes, and (if possible) walk around the room. 
  • Stop the music and have students get into groups of two or three.
  • Students quickly choose roles. Two of the students need to take one of the sides (pro / con or for / against). The third person is a neutral judge who can build on what the speakers say, offer a different perspective, or make connections between ideas.
  • After a set amount of time, follow up with a question that digs deeper into the topic or provides another angle. Play music, and allow students to brainstorm again, or take some notes.
  • Students then pair up again with different peers. 
  • After as many rounds as you would like to run, bring the whole class together and use a Jamboard, Mentimeter, or Padlet as a common visual location to share ideas as a whole group.

To make this strategy work online, you can use breakout rooms to group students together randomly. 

Of course, you can run the same type of mini debates without the music. And, that’s fun, too! But, for students, the music adds energy and connectedness. Plus, it reduces the anxiety for students who are more reluctant to engage in debates. 

Musical debates create a warm, relaxed environment conducive to critical thinking and dialogue. And, students have multiple short opportunities to hone their skills and hear a variety of perspectives. Melissa wrote about engaging variations, prompts for musical discussions, and how to prepare students on her blog. Click here to read the post .

PSA PASSION PROJECTS

One way that Christina, The Daring English Teacher , likes to incorporate persuasion, argument, and debate into the classroom is by assigning a PSA Passion Project to students.

PSA Passion Projects

After learning about rhetorical appeals and argument writing , Christina assigns her students a PSA Passion Project. Her students select an important social issue and create a public service announcement campaign to raise awareness for their chosen issue.

The public service campaign usually includes a variety of items. To place students in charge of their learning, they choose several products to produce from a list of items: a speech, a persuasive letter, a graphic essay , a poster, an infographic, an informational video, a narrative video, a social media campaign, and more. It is important to make sure that students choose at least two items, and that their combination includes a writing component and a media literacy component.

To make the class project more fun, no two students can choose the same topic. To share their projects with the class, Christina likes to use Padlet.

ANALYZING MUSIC

Amanda from Mud and Ink Teaching likes to head the Disney direction when it comes to learning the ins and outs of argumentation. 

teaching devices assignment

So many great Disney songs offer an argumentative core, and their popularity and familiarity help build engagement with students.  Take “Under the Sea” for example:  Sebastian has quite the task in front of him.  Somehow, he must convince an uninterested Ariel to curb her curiosity about the human world and appreciate her home under ‘de water.  Reversely, Moana sings of the importance of heeding the call to the ocean in “How Far I’ll Go” as she debates within herself how far she is actually willing to go.  Each of these speakers has an important message to impart, and these are things that students are comfortable wrestling with.

Amanda’s favorite song to teach, however, is the well-loved classic “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast .  In this lesson that she outlines in her blog post and provides a free Google Slide lesson download , Amanda teaches students the importance of understanding the rhetorical situation (the rhetorical triangle) as well as the devices and techniques that the speaker uses to communicate his message.  Through practice and discussion with familiar texts and characters, students begin to embrace the fundamental ideas of argumentation.

I hope this post helps you make persuasion more engaging, authentic, and student-centered! What are your other favorite activities to teach persuasion? Let me know in the comments!

If you like any of these ideas, don’t forget to pin them! 🙂

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Designing Assignments for Learning

The rapid shift to remote teaching and learning meant that many instructors reimagined their assessment practices. Whether adapting existing assignments or creatively designing new opportunities for their students to learn, instructors focused on helping students make meaning and demonstrate their learning outside of the traditional, face-to-face classroom setting. This resource distills the elements of assignment design that are important to carry forward as we continue to seek better ways of assessing learning and build on our innovative assignment designs.

On this page:

Rethinking traditional tests, quizzes, and exams.

  • Examples from the Columbia University Classroom
  • Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

Reflect On Your Assignment Design

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Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2021). Designing Assignments for Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/designing-assignments/

teaching devices assignment

Traditional assessments tend to reveal whether students can recognize, recall, or replicate what was learned out of context, and tend to focus on students providing correct responses (Wiggins, 1990). In contrast, authentic assignments, which are course assessments, engage students in higher order thinking, as they grapple with real or simulated challenges that help them prepare for their professional lives, and draw on the course knowledge learned and the skills acquired to create justifiable answers, performances or products (Wiggins, 1990). An authentic assessment provides opportunities for students to practice, consult resources, learn from feedback, and refine their performances and products accordingly (Wiggins 1990, 1998, 2014). 

Authentic assignments ask students to “do” the subject with an audience in mind and apply their learning in a new situation. Examples of authentic assignments include asking students to: 

  • Write for a real audience (e.g., a memo, a policy brief, letter to the editor, a grant proposal, reports, building a website) and/or publication;
  • Solve problem sets that have real world application; 
  • Design projects that address a real world problem; 
  • Engage in a community-partnered research project;
  • Create an exhibit, performance, or conference presentation ;
  • Compile and reflect on their work through a portfolio/e-portfolio.

Noteworthy elements of authentic designs are that instructors scaffold the assignment, and play an active role in preparing students for the tasks assigned, while students are intentionally asked to reflect on the process and product of their work thus building their metacognitive skills (Herrington and Oliver, 2000; Ashford-Rowe, Herrington and Brown, 2013; Frey, Schmitt, and Allen, 2012). 

It’s worth noting here that authentic assessments can initially be time consuming to design, implement, and grade. They are critiqued for being challenging to use across course contexts and for grading reliability issues (Maclellan, 2004). Despite these challenges, authentic assessments are recognized as beneficial to student learning (Svinicki, 2004) as they are learner-centered (Weimer, 2013), promote academic integrity (McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, 2021; Sotiriadou et al., 2019; Schroeder, 2021) and motivate students to learn (Ambrose et al., 2010). The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning is always available to consult with faculty who are considering authentic assessment designs and to discuss challenges and affordances.   

Examples from the Columbia University Classroom 

Columbia instructors have experimented with alternative ways of assessing student learning from oral exams to technology-enhanced assignments. Below are a few examples of authentic assignments in various teaching contexts across Columbia University. 

  • E-portfolios: Statia Cook shares her experiences with an ePorfolio assignment in her co-taught Frontiers of Science course (a submission to the Voices of Hybrid and Online Teaching and Learning initiative); CUIMC use of ePortfolios ;
  • Case studies: Columbia instructors have engaged their students in authentic ways through case studies drawing on the Case Consortium at Columbia University. Read and watch a faculty spotlight to learn how Professor Mary Ann Price uses the case method to place pre-med students in real-life scenarios;
  • Simulations: students at CUIMC engage in simulations to develop their professional skills in The Mary & Michael Jaharis Simulation Center in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center in the Columbia School of Nursing; 
  • Experiential learning: instructors have drawn on New York City as a learning laboratory such as Barnard’s NYC as Lab webpage which highlights courses that engage students in NYC;
  • Design projects that address real world problems: Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy on the Engineering design projects completed using lab kits during remote learning. Watch Dr. Yesilevskiy talk about his teaching and read the Columbia News article . 
  • Writing assignments: Lia Marshall and her teaching associate Aparna Balasundaram reflect on their “non-disposable or renewable assignments” to prepare social work students for their professional lives as they write for a real audience; and Hannah Weaver spoke about a sandbox assignment used in her Core Literature Humanities course at the 2021 Celebration of Teaching and Learning Symposium . Watch Dr. Weaver share her experiences.  

​Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

While designing an effective authentic assignment may seem like a daunting task, the following tips can be used as a starting point. See the Resources section for frameworks and tools that may be useful in this effort.  

Align the assignment with your course learning objectives 

Identify the kind of thinking that is important in your course, the knowledge students will apply, and the skills they will practice using through the assignment. What kind of thinking will students be asked to do for the assignment? What will students learn by completing this assignment? How will the assignment help students achieve the desired course learning outcomes? For more information on course learning objectives, see the CTL’s Course Design Essentials self-paced course and watch the video on Articulating Learning Objectives .  

Identify an authentic meaning-making task

For meaning-making to occur, students need to understand the relevance of the assignment to the course and beyond (Ambrose et al., 2010). To Bean (2011) a “meaning-making” or “meaning-constructing” task has two dimensions: 1) it presents students with an authentic disciplinary problem or asks students to formulate their own problems, both of which engage them in active critical thinking, and 2) the problem is placed in “a context that gives students a role or purpose, a targeted audience, and a genre.” (Bean, 2011: 97-98). 

An authentic task gives students a realistic challenge to grapple with, a role to take on that allows them to “rehearse for the complex ambiguities” of life, provides resources and supports to draw on, and requires students to justify their work and the process they used to inform their solution (Wiggins, 1990). Note that if students find an assignment interesting or relevant, they will see value in completing it. 

Consider the kind of activities in the real world that use the knowledge and skills that are the focus of your course. How is this knowledge and these skills applied to answer real-world questions to solve real-world problems? (Herrington et al., 2010: 22). What do professionals or academics in your discipline do on a regular basis? What does it mean to think like a biologist, statistician, historian, social scientist? How might your assignment ask students to draw on current events, issues, or problems that relate to the course and are of interest to them? How might your assignment tap into student motivation and engage them in the kinds of thinking they can apply to better understand the world around them? (Ambrose et al., 2010). 

Determine the evaluation criteria and create a rubric

To ensure equitable and consistent grading of assignments across students, make transparent the criteria you will use to evaluate student work. The criteria should focus on the knowledge and skills that are central to the assignment. Build on the criteria identified, create a rubric that makes explicit the expectations of deliverables and share this rubric with your students so they can use it as they work on the assignment. For more information on rubrics, see the CTL’s resource Incorporating Rubrics into Your Grading and Feedback Practices , and explore the Association of American Colleges & Universities VALUE Rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). 

Build in metacognition

Ask students to reflect on what and how they learned from the assignment. Help students uncover personal relevance of the assignment, find intrinsic value in their work, and deepen their motivation by asking them to reflect on their process and their assignment deliverable. Sample prompts might include: what did you learn from this assignment? How might you draw on the knowledge and skills you used on this assignment in the future? See Ambrose et al., 2010 for more strategies that support motivation and the CTL’s resource on Metacognition ). 

Provide students with opportunities to practice

Design your assignment to be a learning experience and prepare students for success on the assignment. If students can reasonably expect to be successful on an assignment when they put in the required effort ,with the support and guidance of the instructor, they are more likely to engage in the behaviors necessary for learning (Ambrose et al., 2010). Ensure student success by actively teaching the knowledge and skills of the course (e.g., how to problem solve, how to write for a particular audience), modeling the desired thinking, and creating learning activities that build up to a graded assignment. Provide opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills they will need for the assignment, whether through low-stakes in-class activities or homework activities that include opportunities to receive and incorporate formative feedback. For more information on providing feedback, see the CTL resource Feedback for Learning . 

Communicate about the assignment 

Share the purpose, task, audience, expectations, and criteria for the assignment. Students may have expectations about assessments and how they will be graded that is informed by their prior experiences completing high-stakes assessments, so be transparent. Tell your students why you are asking them to do this assignment, what skills they will be using, how it aligns with the course learning outcomes, and why it is relevant to their learning and their professional lives (i.e., how practitioners / professionals use the knowledge and skills in your course in real world contexts and for what purposes). Finally, verify that students understand what they need to do to complete the assignment. This can be done by asking students to respond to poll questions about different parts of the assignment, a “scavenger hunt” of the assignment instructions–giving students questions to answer about the assignment and having them work in small groups to answer the questions, or by having students share back what they think is expected of them.

Plan to iterate and to keep the focus on learning 

Draw on multiple sources of data to help make decisions about what changes are needed to the assignment, the assignment instructions, and/or rubric to ensure that it contributes to student learning. Explore assignment performance data. As Deandra Little reminds us: “a really good assignment, which is a really good assessment, also teaches you something or tells the instructor something. As much as it tells you what students are learning, it’s also telling you what they aren’t learning.” ( Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode 337 ). Assignment bottlenecks–where students get stuck or struggle–can be good indicators that students need further support or opportunities to practice prior to completing an assignment. This awareness can inform teaching decisions. 

Triangulate the performance data by collecting student feedback, and noting your own reflections about what worked well and what did not. Revise the assignment instructions, rubric, and teaching practices accordingly. Consider how you might better align your assignment with your course objectives and/or provide more opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills that they will rely on for the assignment. Additionally, keep in mind societal, disciplinary, and technological changes as you tweak your assignments for future use. 

Now is a great time to reflect on your practices and experiences with assignment design and think critically about your approach. Take a closer look at an existing assignment. Questions to consider include: What is this assignment meant to do? What purpose does it serve? Why do you ask students to do this assignment? How are they prepared to complete the assignment? Does the assignment assess the kind of learning that you really want? What would help students learn from this assignment? 

Using the tips in the previous section: How can the assignment be tweaked to be more authentic and meaningful to students? 

As you plan forward for post-pandemic teaching and reflect on your practices and reimagine your course design, you may find the following CTL resources helpful: Reflecting On Your Experiences with Remote Teaching , Transition to In-Person Teaching , and Course Design Support .

The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is here to help!

For assistance with assignment design, rubric design, or any other teaching and learning need, please request a consultation by emailing [email protected]

Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework for assignments. The TILT Examples and Resources page ( https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources ) includes example assignments from across disciplines, as well as a transparent assignment template and a checklist for designing transparent assignments . Each emphasizes the importance of articulating to students the purpose of the assignment or activity, the what and how of the task, and specifying the criteria that will be used to assess students. 

Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) offers VALUE ADD (Assignment Design and Diagnostic) tools ( https://www.aacu.org/value-add-tools ) to help with the creation of clear and effective assignments that align with the desired learning outcomes and associated VALUE rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). VALUE ADD encourages instructors to explicitly state assignment information such as the purpose of the assignment, what skills students will be using, how it aligns with course learning outcomes, the assignment type, the audience and context for the assignment, clear evaluation criteria, desired formatting, and expectations for completion whether individual or in a group.

Villarroel et al. (2017) propose a blueprint for building authentic assessments which includes four steps: 1) consider the workplace context, 2) design the authentic assessment; 3) learn and apply standards for judgement; and 4) give feedback. 

References 

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., & DiPietro, M. (2010). Chapter 3: What Factors Motivate Students to Learn? In How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching . Jossey-Bass. 

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J., and Brown, C. (2013). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(2), 205-222, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.819566 .  

Bean, J.C. (2011). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom . Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. 

Frey, B. B, Schmitt, V. L., and Allen, J. P. (2012). Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. 17(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/sxbs-0829  

Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., and Oliver, R. (2010). A Guide to Authentic e-Learning . Routledge. 

Herrington, J. and Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23-48. 

Litchfield, B. C. and Dempsey, J. V. (2015). Authentic Assessment of Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 142 (Summer 2015), 65-80. 

Maclellan, E. (2004). How convincing is alternative assessment for use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 29(3), June 2004. DOI: 10.1080/0260293042000188267

McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, J. (2021). Assessments in a Virtual Environment: You Won’t Need that Lockdown Browser! Faculty Focus. June 2, 2021. 

Mueller, J. (2005). The Authentic Assessment Toolbox: Enhancing Student Learning through Online Faculty Development . MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 1(1). July 2005. Mueller’s Authentic Assessment Toolbox is available online. 

Schroeder, R. (2021). Vaccinate Against Cheating With Authentic Assessment . Inside Higher Ed. (February 26, 2021).  

Sotiriadou, P., Logan, D., Daly, A., and Guest, R. (2019). The role of authentic assessment to preserve academic integrity and promote skills development and employability. Studies in Higher Education. 45(111), 2132-2148. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1582015    

Stachowiak, B. (Host). (November 25, 2020). Authentic Assignments with Deandra Little. (Episode 337). In Teaching in Higher Ed . https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/authentic-assignments/  

Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Authentic Assessment: Testing in Reality. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 100 (Winter 2004): 23-29. 

Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S, Bruna, D., Bruna, C., and Herrera-Seda, C. (2017). Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 43(5), 840-854. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1412396    

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice . Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Wiggins, G. (2014). Authenticity in assessment, (re-)defined and explained. Retrieved from https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/authenticity-in-assessment-re-defined-and-explained/

Wiggins, G. (1998). Teaching to the (Authentic) Test. Educational Leadership . April 1989. 41-47. 

Wiggins, Grant (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment . Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 2(2). 

Wondering how AI tools might play a role in your course assignments?

See the CTL’s resource “Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom.”

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The Complete List of Teaching Methods

teaching devices assignment

Teaching Methods: Not as Simple as ABC

Teaching methods [teacher-centered], teaching methods [student-centered], what about blended learning and udl, teaching methods: a to z, for the love of teaching.

Whether you’re a longtime educator, preparing to start your first teaching job or mapping out your dream of a career in the classroom, the topic of teaching methods is one that means many different things to different people.

Your individual approaches and strategies to imparting knowledge to your students and inspiring them to learn are probably built on your academic education as well as your instincts and intuition.

Whether you come by your preferred teaching methods organically or by actively studying educational theory and pedagogy, it can be helpful to have a comprehensive working knowledge of the various teaching methods at your disposal.

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The teacher-centered approach vs. the student-centered approach. High-tech vs. low-tech approaches to learning. Flipped classrooms, differentiated instruction, inquiry-based learning, personalized learning and more.

Not only are there dozens of teaching methods to explore, it is also important to have a sense for how they often overlap or interrelate. One extremely helpful look at this question is offered by the teacher-focused education website Teach.com.

“Teaching theories can be organized into four categories based on two major parameters: a teacher-centered approach versus a student-centered approach, and high-tech material use versus low-tech material use,” according to the informative Teach.com article , which breaks down a variety of influential teaching methods as follows:

Teacher-Centered Approach to Learning Teachers serve as instructor/authority figures who deliver knowledge to their students through lectures and direct instruction, and aim to measure the results through testing and assessment. This method is sometimes referred to as “sage on the stage.”

Student-Centered Approach to Learning Teachers still serve as an authority figure, but may function more as a facilitator or “guide on the side,” as students assume a much more active role in the learning process. In this method, students learn from and are continually assessed on such activities as group projects, student portfolios and class participation.

High-Tech Approach to Learning From devices like laptops and tablets to using the internet to connect students with information and people from around the world, technology plays an ever-greater role in many of today’s classrooms. In the high-tech approach to learning, teachers utilize many different types of technology to aid students in their classroom learning.

Low-Tech Approach to Learning Technology obviously comes with pros and cons, and many teachers believe that a low-tech approach better enables them to tailor the educational experience to different types of learners. Additionally, while computer skills are undeniably necessary today, this must be balanced against potential downsides; for example, some would argue that over-reliance on spell check and autocorrect features can inhibit rather than strengthen student spelling and writing skills.

[RELATED] Edutainment in the Classroom: How Technology Is Changing the Game >>

Diving further into the overlap between different types of teaching methods, here is a closer look at three teacher-centered methods of instruction and five popular student-centered approaches.

Direct Instruction (Low Tech) Under the direct instruction model — sometimes described as the “traditional” approach to teaching — teachers convey knowledge to their students primarily through lectures and scripted lesson plans, without factoring in student preferences or opportunities for hands-on or other types of learning. This method is also customarily low-tech since it relies on texts and workbooks rather than computers or mobile devices.

Flipped Classrooms (High Tech) What if students did the “classroom” portion of their learning at home and their “homework” in the classroom? That’s an oversimplified description of the flipped classroom approach, in which students watch or read their lessons on computers at home and then complete assignments and do problem-solving exercises in class.

Kinesthetic Learning (Low Tech) In the kinesthetic learning model, students perform hands-on physical activities rather than listening to lectures or watching demonstrations. Kinesthetic learning, which values movement and creativity over technological skills, is most commonly used to augment traditional types of instruction — the theory being that requiring students to do, make or create something exercises different learning muscles.

Differentiated Instruction (Low Tech) Inspired by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), enacted to ensure equal access to public education for all children, differentiated instruction is the practice of developing an understanding of how each student learns best, and then tailoring instruction to meet students’ individual needs.

In some instances, this means Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with special needs, but today teachers use differentiated instruction to connect with all types of learners by offering options on how students access content, the types of activities they do to master a concept, how student learning is assessed and even how the classroom is set up.

Inquiry-Based Learning (High Tech) Rather than function as a sole authority figure, in inquiry-based learning teachers offer support and guidance as students work on projects that depend on them taking on a more active and participatory role in their own learning. Different students might participate in different projects, developing their own questions and then conducting research — often using online resources — and then demonstrate the results of their work through self-made videos, web pages or formal presentations.

Expeditionary Learning (Low Tech) Expeditionary learning is based on the idea that there is considerable educational value in getting students out of the classroom and into the real world. Examples include trips to City Hall or Washington, D.C., to learn about the workings of government, or out into nature to engage in specific study related to the environment. Technology can be used to augment such expeditions, but the primary focus is on getting out into the community for real-world learning experiences.

Personalized Learning (High Tech) In personalized learning, teachers encourage students to follow personalized, self-directed learning plans that are inspired by their specific interests and skills. Since assessment is also tailored to the individual, students can advance at their own pace, moving forward or spending extra time as needed. Teachers offer some traditional instruction as well as online material, while also continually reviewing student progress and meeting with students to make any needed changes to their learning plans.

Game-Based Learning (High Tech) Students love games, and considerable progress has been made in the field of game-based learning, which requires students to be problem solvers as they work on quests to accomplish a specific goal. For students, this approach blends targeted learning objectives with the fun of earning points or badges, much like they would in a video game. For teachers, planning this type of activity requires additional time and effort, so many rely on software like Classcraft or 3DGameLab to help students maximize the educational value they receive from within the gamified learning environment.

Blended Learning Blended learning  is another strategy for teachers looking to introduce flexibility into their classroom. This method relies heavily on technology, with part of the instruction taking place online and part in the classroom via a more traditional approach, often leveraging elements of the flipped classroom approach detailed above. At the heart of blended learning is a philosophy of taking the time to understand each student’s learning style and develop strategies to teach to every learner, by building flexibility and choice into your curriculum.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) UDL incorporates both student-centered learning and the “multiple intelligences theory,” which holds that different learners are wired to learn most effectively in different ways (examples of these “intelligences” include visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, etc.). In practice, this could mean that some students might be working on a writing project while others would be more engaged if they created a play or a movie. UDL emphasizes the idea of teaching to every student, special needs students included, in the general education classroom, creating community and building knowledge through multiple means.

[RELATED] Career Options Expand, Salaries Spike with a Master of Education Degree >>

In addition to the many philosophical and pedagogical approaches to teaching, classroom educators today employ diverse and sometimes highly creative methods involving specific strategies, prompts and tools that require little explanation. These include:

  • Appointments with students
  • Art-based projects
  • Audio tutorials
  • Author’s chair
  • Book reports
  • Bulletin boards
  • Brainstorming
  • Case studies
  • Chalkboard instruction
  • Class projects
  • Classroom discussion
  • Classroom video diary
  • Collaborative learning spaces
  • Creating murals and montages
  • Current events quizzes
  • Designated quiet space
  • Discussion groups
  • DIY activities
  • Dramatization (plays, skits, etc.)
  • Educational games
  • Educational podcasts
  • Essays (Descriptive)
  • Essays (Expository)
  • Essays (Narrative)
  • Essays (Persuasive)
  • Exhibits and displays
  • Explore different cultures
  • Field trips
  • Flash cards
  • Flexible seating
  • Gamified learning plans
  • Genius hour
  • Group discussion
  • Guest speakers
  • Hands-on activities
  • Individual projects
  • Interviewing
  • Laboratory experiments
  • Learning contracts
  • Learning stations
  • Literature circles
  • Making posters
  • Mock conventions
  • Motivational posters
  • Music from other countries/cultures
  • Oral reports
  • Panel discussions
  • Peer partner learning
  • Photography
  • Problem solving activities
  • Reading aloud
  • Readers’ theater
  • Reflective discussion
  • Research projects
  • Rewards & recognition
  • Role playing
  • School newspapers
  • Science fairs
  • Sister city programs
  • Spelling bees
  • Storytelling
  • Student podcasts
  • Student portfolios
  • Student presentations
  • Student-conceived projects
  • Supplemental reading assignments
  • Team-building exercises
  • Term papers
  • Textbook assignments
  • Think-tac-toe
  • Time capsules
  • Use of community or local resources
  • Video creation
  • Video lessons
  • Vocabulary lists

So, is the teacher the center of the educational universe or the student? Does strong reliance on the wonders of technology offer a more productive educational experience or is a more traditional, lower-tech approach the best way to help students thrive?

Questions such as these are food for thought for educators everywhere, in part because they inspire ongoing reflection on how to make a meaningful difference in the lives of one’s students.

[RELATED] University of San Diego Online MEd Program Offers 6 Areas of Specialization >>

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In our free guide, you can learn about a variety of teaching methods to adopt in the classroom.

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Lesson Plan: Identifying Sound Devices Used in Poetry

Teaching sound devices.

It was my first year teaching and Mrs. Boxbreaker sat in the back of the room writing my teacher evaluation. Things were going well until Tammy Shrieker in the second row asked a question. “Mr. Mistake,” she asked, “These are great poems and I kind of like identifying sound devices in poetry and learning about sound devices used in poetry. When will I ever use this?”

I could have said that identifying sound devices used in poetry increases reading comprehension and enables students to develop critical thinking skills. Instead, I became apoplectic, faked a seizure, and blew snot all over the chalk board. Mrs. Boxbreaker fired me on the spot and my Identifying Sound Devices in Poetry lesson plan has remained dormant ever since.

Types of Sound Devices

Discuss the following sound devices :

  • Alliteration - repetition of initial consonant sounds: P orky P ig ate a p latter of p ot roast .
  • Rhyme - repetition of final sounds in two or more words: wild, mild, child
  • Assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds within words: goat, bowl, scold
  • Consonance - the repetition of sounds within or at the end of words: cutler, antler, battler
  • Onomatopoeia - the use of words that sound like what they refer to: clop, bang, thud

Strategies for appreciating sound:

  • Read the poem aloud several times.
  • Identify the sound devices.
  • Determine if the poem has a rhyme scheme.
  • Monitor your reactions to sound devices.
  • Note how the sound devices make you feel.
  • Write the above information on the board. Instruct students to copy it in their notebook.
  • Read a poem aloud several times. The first time, sit back, relax, and enjoy; the second time, mark examples of sound devices.
  • Make a chart with 5 rows. In the left column write down the 5 common sound devices. In the middle column, write down a specific example of a sound device; in the right column, write down the effect the sound device creates.
  • Read the poem aloud again.
  • Add to the chart.
  • Write a paragraph analyzing sound devices and their effect on the poem. The writer should focus on the author’s purpose in using sound. The paragraph should contain a topic sentence, supporting details, and interpretation.
  • It may be necessary to brainstorm ideas together and model the process .
  • An even better writing assignment is to have students write their own poem using at least two examples of each sound device.

This post is part of the series: Teaching Poetic Devices

Teaching poetic devices enhances poetic enjoyment, improves critical thinking ability, and makes you sound really smart.

  • Teacher Tips for Explaining Sound Devices in Poetry
  • Teacher Tips for Sonnets
  • Figurative Language Lesson Plan
  • Poetry Lesson Plans: Speed Poetry Analysis
  • Teaching Walt Whitman: Summary and Lesson Ideas

Arlington Independent School District - Home

Classroom Devices

Breadcrumb navigation, table of contents, prek - grade 1, device care expectations.

  • I will only use the iPad my teacher gives me.
  • I will check my iPad and tell my teacher if it is broken.
  • I will be careful with my iPad at all times.
  • I will give my iPad back to my teacher when asked.

Grades 2 - 12

  • I will only use the device assigned to me- the same numbered device, every day.
  • I will inspect and report any damage every time I use my device. 
  • I will care for my device and protect it from any damage. 
  • I will return my device according to my teacher’s instructions.  
  • I will always log off my device when I am done using it.

Device Use Tips

  • Using the Touchpad on a Chromebook  
  • Open any Link in a New Tab
  • Finding Words on a Web Page
  • Taking Screenshots on Chromebooks
  • Control the Speed of Online Videos
  • 2-Finger Touchpad Actions
  • Re-open a Closed Tab

Device Support Resources

  • Submit a help ticket 
  • Report damage
  • I will use the Student Device Assignment List to assign and track devices.
  • I will regularly review device care expectations with students.
  • I will ensure students are inspecting devices and reporting any damage daily.
  • I will report any damage and submit help tickets for broken or damaged devices as soon as possible.
  • I will charge and secure devices daily.

Read the Full Expectations Document

  • Printing Rapid ID QR Codes
  • iPad Care Guidelines
  • Navigating Apple Classroom
  • Printable PK-1 Device Care Poster - 8.5x11

Rocking Technology with Limited Devices Guide

  • iPad Troubleshooting Tips
  • Considerations for Sub Plans
  • Device Care: Daily Implementation Tips & FAQs
  • Enrolling after an iPad wipe
  • Printable Student Device Agreement
  • Pushed iOS Apps List
  • Student Technology Device: Cart Care Tips
  • iPad Case & Label Norms
  • Student Device Assignment List
  • Student Device Damage Reporting Form
  • Submit a help ticket
  • Report damage to AISD Technology
  • Chromebook Care Guidelines
  • PowerWash a Chromebook
  • Printable 2-12 Device Care Poster - 8.5x11
  • Chromebooks at Second Grade Resources
  • Chromebook Guide for Second Grade Students

Campus Admin

Expectations, what are the expectations for me as the campus leader when it comes to devices.

  • Teachers at my campus have acknowledged receipt of the Employee Handbook which outlines expectations for their care and management of classroom devices.
  • Cart signage has been distributed to teachers and is posted on the device cart assigned to them and/or available for their use.
  • Teachers have been provided student device assignment sheets and instructions and expectations for use.
  • Teachers are aware of and have been provided a document to track device damage, where it should be posted in the classroom, and know how to submit help tickets to report device damages while also reporting the damage to the appropriate campus administrator.
  • The campus administrative team verifies that teachers and students are implementing the device care and management requirements within classrooms.
  • Students are held responsible for willful vandalism of district property - including technology hardware - as specified in the Student Code of Conduct.
  •   Device damage and loss data  available in ServiceNow is reviewed quarterly.

What are the expectations for teachers when it comes to device care & management?

  • Cart Organization: Ensure the carts and devices are labeled according to district standards and affix any district-provided device care reminders signage to the cart. Rely on a designated student helper to ensure that the cart remains organized (including cables) after each use.  
  • Location : Provide a secure location in the classroom for the Chromebook/iPad cart. Ensure the room is locked when leaving the classroom. 
  • Charging : Keep the devices plugged in each night and during long periods of non-use in order to keep them charged. During long holidays or summer break, unplug and store the cart as directed by Technology Support. 
  • Expectations for Use of Device : Review the district’s student expectations for device care with my students. Ensure each student has signed the Student Device Agreement before any devices are used or assigned each school year. Review expectations throughout the year, as needed, and especially after long holiday breaks. 
  • Device Assignment : Maintain a Student Device Assignment List designating student name and assigned device number for all students. Verify that all devices are in place and accounted for before dismissing students. 
  • BOY Damage Assessment : On the date of device assignment, ensure students assess their assigned device for visible damage. Record that information on the Student Device Assignment List. 
  • Monitor and Report Damages: Submit a help desk ticket in ServiceNow for any damaged or non-working devices. In addition, document the damage on the Student Device Damage Reporting Form and notify an administrator. 
  • Willful Vandalism: Remind students that they are responsible for willful vandalism of district property - including technology hardware - as specified in the Student Code of Conduct. Report any willful vandalism to the appropriate administrator. 
  • Stolen or Missing Devices : Check that the devices are in the cart after each use and prior to students leaving the room. If a device is missing, immediately report it to the appropriate administrator and notify the Technology department. 
  • Use by Substitutes: Follow all campus guidelines for substitutes using technology. This includes providing substitutes with the Student Device Damage Reporting Form and the Student Device Assignment List.

What are the expectations for students when it comes to device care & management?

  • I will carefully carry and use my device appropriately at all times.
  • I will return my device according to my teacher’s instructions.

Bond Overview

What’s the minimum classroom device standard for the ‘22-’23 school year, bond year 1 (2020-2021).

  • Chromebooks – 12,575 
  • Desktops – 1,822 
  • Workstations – 302 
  • Laptops – 4,816 
  • iPads – 3,866 
  • Carts – 26  
  • Document Cameras – 4043 
  • iPads – 2,700 
  • Chromebooks – 9,700 
  • Laptops – 1,019 
  • Surface Go’s - 5,000 

Bond Year 2 (2021-2022) 

  • Chromebooks – 18,423 
  • Apple/PC Desktops – 260 
  • Apple/PC Laptops – 1,092 
  • iPads – 4,595 
  • Carts – 246  
  • High Schools are a combination of Chromebooks, Surface Go’s and laptops 

Bond Year 3 2022-2023 

  • Projected to purchase Chromebooks, desktops, Laptops and iPads for various campuses 
  • Added new Project PTech at High Schools providing laptops to students participating in program 

Are devices provided via the Bond for use in the library?

  • All libraries have received circulation computers. As campuses go through the faculty/staff refresh cycle, librarians will also receive a device.  
  • Campuses Year 1 and 2 of refresh have already received their devices for the library. 
  • Year 3 – 5 will be used to provide remaining campuses with carts of iPads and Chromebooks. 

Start of Year

Managing devices at the campus level is challenging. what can make it easier.

  • Clear expectations and accountability for device care and management (for leaders, teachers, and students) mitigates challenges including extensive loss, damage, and theft of devices.
  • Much like how textbooks are assigned to a specific campus administrator to manage and monitor, device management at the campus level will be strengthened and streamlined if one administrator is charged with ensuring all expectations are met.
  • The campus is encouraged to call upon a support network that includes District Technician support for hardware and infrastructure needs and the Technology Integration & Innovation Department (TI2) for support related to the instructional usage of classroom devices.

We don’t yet have a 1:1 student to device ratio. What are ways to ensure all students have daily access to technology usage and integration?

  • Establish an on-going tech station
  • Ask students to share devices in small groups
  • Give students choice in learning
  • Implement a station rotation
  • Pool devices with other teachers
  • Allow Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT)
  • Rocking Technology with Limited Student Devices

Some devices are new, some are older. What’s the best way to distribute those fairly?

  • Strong consideration should be given to distributing the newest devices to those teachers who consistently plan for daily student use of technology for learning. These teachers are likely leveraging Endorsed Apps including Seesaw or Canvas, Pear Deck, Google Workspace, and Adobe Express.
  • Older iPads present a unique set of challenges, especially with login processes and with the functionality of important applications like Amplify and Summit K-12. Therefore, newer iPads should be distributed so they are available at all primary grade levels. (New iPads should not be solely distributed to one grade level).

What are tips for starting a new school year?

  • Designate a campus administrator to be responsible for ensuring device care & management expectations are met.
  • Teacher buy-in and adherence to the custody agreement is in many ways predicated on the idea that the devices they care for and protect during the past school year are the same devices provided to them in the following school year. In other words, it’s advised that carts be allocated to the same teacher(s) year to year whenever possible.
  • Expectations as specified in the Device Care agreements for teachers and students are reviewed and implemented.
  • Engage the Campus Technology Advisory Committee (CTAC) to ensure that device care guidelines and expectations are addressed & reinforced in any beginning of year training and that the latest classroom cart signage, student device assignment sheets, and damage reporting sheets are distributed and posted.
  • Work with your campus’ District Technician to address any device availability or condition concerns.
  • Vandalism is a willful or malicious act intended to damage or destroy property and/or reckless acts that result in damage or destruction of property. 
  • In Arlington ISD, vandalism is deemed a Serious Misbehavior and is subject to criminal penalties.

End of Year

What end of year practices are required or recommended in regard to student devices.

  • Identify any non-functioning or damage devices and create service tickets via ServiceNow to report those devices.
  • Collect all checked out student devices (due to extended absences or other situations), including the power adapter.
  • Create incident/ticket to ensure the device is checked and cleaned by Technology.
  • Campuses hosting summer school need to make carts available and accessible for summer school use.

What should I be looking for in classrooms related to student device usage and device care best practices?

  • Students use only their classroom assigned device 
  • Device checkout sheet is up to date and used daily
  • Devices are properly stored for their protection and charging
  • Teacher reinforces expected student behaviors for device handling and care
  • Device care guidelines is clearly visible on the device cart
  • Damages are tracked on the Damage Reporting sheet

Classroom Look Fors: Device Care and Management

How can I find information in ServiceNow about the device inventory at my campus?

  • CampusOverview.pdf (aisd.net)  

What do I do if I need additional devices?

Requests for additional devices can be entered in ServiceNow along with a justification for the request. Campus devices are provided either by the Bond refresh program, the campus budget, or a grant funds.

What should I do when a device is reported damaged, lost, or stolen?

Create a ServiceNow incident with details of the issue. Stolen devices reports must include a police report number. 

How long does repair of a damaged device take? Am I able to borrow another while waiting?

Device repair times depend on the type of damage and availability of parts. As the Bond refresh program advances, campuses will have the ability to allocate another device from the additional percentage of devices provided.

How should staff be cleaning student devices and how often?

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Substitutes

What are a substitute's responsibilities for protecting student devices.

Substitutes are expected to implement and reinforce the classroom procedures already in place in the classroom. In Arlington ISD, there are expectations for teachers and for students.

Please refer to the Students and Teachers sections above for these expectations.

Who do I contact to borrow a laptop, if necessary?

The availability of extra laptops for staff use varies from campus to campus. Please check with the campus’ substitute coordinator (likely the campus secretary) to determine if there is an available device. Checking with a neighboring teacher may also be helpful.

Who do I contact if the cart of student devices is locked?

Please check with a neighboring teacher to learn the combination to the cart lock.

To whom do I report lost or damaged devices?

Ideally, the substitute will leave a detailed note for the classroom teacher which includes the device PIN, student(s) involved, and description of the damage and circumstances surrounding the incident. Please also make a campus administrator (principal or AP) aware of any missing device(s).

Classroom Technology

How do i turn on the projector.

The Epson projector can be turned on manually via the power button on the projector. However, there should be a white Epson remote control in the classroom that can also be used to power on the projector.

What if I cannot locate the remote to turn on the projector?

If unable to manually power on via the power button on the projector, please check with a neighboring teacher to provide assistance.

How do I use the HoverCam document camera?

The HoverCam document camera uses the software Flex 11. Training videos can be found on the HoverCam Academy website.

How can I become more familiar with Chromebooks?

Students in grades 3-12 use Chromebooks for learning with technology. If you are unfamiliar with Chromebooks, the guide designed by Google and linked below provides an introduction to basic and advanced functions of the device.

  • Access How to Chromebook

Where can I learn more about operating an iPad?

How do i play a dvd for the class.

Classrooms are not equipped with DVD players and staff laptops do not have a disc drive.

Digital Content

How can i get access to digital lesson plans that may have links to videos or other content i need to share with students.

Day to day assignments may allow for a substitute to request the teacher share relevant instructional resources via Google Drive.

Please check with a neighboring teacher for additional support.

How do I access the teacher’s Seesaw class so that I can see what students have been assigned (Grades PreK-2)?

Short-term subs can ask a student to open the Seesaw class on an iPad to see what has been assigned to the students. 

Long-term subs can be added to a teacher’s Seesaw class through having a help ticket submitted by the campus principal. The help ticket should include the sub’s first and last name, the sub’s AISD email address, the current classroom teacher’s name, and the Seesaw class(es) names where the sub needs to be added as a co-teacher.

How do I access the teacher’s courses in Canvas (Grades 3-12)?

Short-term subs can ask a student to log into Canvas and open the relevant course to see what has been assigned to the students.

Substitutes serving in long term assignments can be set up with accounts in the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS), however this requires a request from the campus administrator.

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teaching devices assignment

teaching devices assignment

Teaching Sam and Scout

Teaching, Motherhood, and Life In-Between

12 Ideas for Teaching Rhetoric

May 24, 2021

teaching devices assignment

Confession: Before I started teaching AP Language & Composition ten years ago, I didn’t even know what the term “rhetoric” meant. So, first, just in case, I’ll spare you the Google and tell you what I tell my students at the beginning of every school year: Rhetoric is the art of language – in particular, persuasive language. It’s not just WHAT you say, but HOW you say it — what words you choose, how you structure your sentences, your understanding of the audience/occasion/purpose for writing or speaking, your appeals to logic, trustworthiness, and emotion (logos, ethos, & pathos), your use of figurative language, and even – in the case of public speaking – your delivery. Really, once you grasp the concept, it’s actually FASCINATING; in fact, over the last few years, rhetoric has become one of my very favorite parts of my curriculum!

I love teaching rhetoric because it actually feels SO relevant to the real world. Whether its reading the news online, watching an awards ceremony, following a political election, or scrolling social media, persuasion and language are ALL around us. Understanding the choices a writer/speaker makes in presenting information to us makes us *much* wiser and more careful consumers of that information. Likewise, seeing how others successfully (or unsuccessfully) craft an argument, makes us better at crafting our own; and, if anyone appreciates knowing how to win an argument with skill and strategy, it’s teenagers. Right?

In today’s post, I’m excited to share a lesson I use every year to make rhetoric engaging and accessible for students, plus I’ve invited eleven of my teaching-friends to share their tried and true ideas for rhetoric instruction in this collaborative blog post. I hope you’ll find one (or twelve) great ideas you can implement in your classroom below.

1. Introduce the Rhetorical Situation with YOUR Writing & THEIR Writing

teaching devices assignment

Ask any seasoned AP Language teacher, and they will tell you that the foundation for teaching rhetoric is a good understanding of the rhetorical triangle (speaker/audience/message) or rhetorical situation (SOAPStone – subject/occasion/audience/purpose/speaker/tone). One of my favorite ways to help students grasp this concept is by sharing my own writing* to illustrate how changing just one element of the rhetorical situation can change an entire piece…

I start by printing out copies of an old blog post I wrote called “Napkin Mom” and hand it out without telling them it’s mine. This is a really fun part because the essay is silly and light, but it’s also very obvious that I wrote it based on the style and voice. I love asking students “how do you know I wrote this?” and then using their responses (my specific word choice, use of short sentences, etc.) to discuss/prove that we all have a unique way of speaking and writing (that’s diction and syntax — the other two keys to rhetorical analysis), and good writers are able to adapt to their audience while also staying true to their voice. Then, together, we identify each element of the rhetorical situation and talk about how the writing might have changed if I was writing for teenagers (them) instead of other 30-something moms, etc. (Hint: the subject would need to be totally different.)

After that, I often have them read an excerpt from a second, more serious, post from my blog: “When the Lockdown Isn’t a Drill.” My students connect to this immediately since its about something we experienced at my school a few years ago; but, more importantly, they notice the change in style and tone right away!! Again, we identify SOAPStone together and talk about how this writing is different because the subject and occasion is so different. We also highlight specific words and choices I made to give this piece a more serious and somber tone, and why that’s important in writing.

From there, I set kids free to find two pieces of THEIR own writing to analyze (a journal entry, an email to a grandparent, a long Instagram caption, an article for the school paper, an essay for class, etc.) and task them with labeling the rhetorical situation for each and writing a brief paragraph explaining how differences there lead to differences in style for homework. The next day, they get to share their writing and analysis in small groups, and we move into analyzing texts I’ve chosen on group posters.

*To be honest, it feels a little awkward (maybe even arrogant?) to share my own writing with students at first; but, really, it is so important for them to see that we write too — even if you have to do some digging (or some new writing) for this, I think it’s worth it to share something you have written before we ask them to share theirs. And, as a bonus, its really funny to learn what things about your style stand out to kids — they really know me better than I think!

2. Use High-Interests Texts and Scaffold Analysis

teaching devices assignment

Samantha from Secondary Urban Legends loves to teach the art of persuasion with advertisements and high-interest speeches. Advertisements are a perfect opening hook to show how, in everyday life, we are constantly being persuaded. Samples of advertisements are provided to students to analyze both words, images, and sound if any. Then students go on a hunt to find exemplars of advertisements with persuasive techniques in them. Once students are able to grasp the concept, difficulty then increases to analyzing speeches such as Queen Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury, Obama’s Back to School Remarks, or Hillary Clinton’s speech to the UN.  Students are taught to pay attention to repetition, questions, and other rhetorical devices as they read.

3. Hold an Analysis “Auction” with “Appeal Paddles”

teaching devices assignment

Molly from The Littlest Teacher will use any excuse she can to get crafty in her ELA classroom. Teaching rhetorical analysis is no exception. 

Have students create three fans or paddles (think auction-style): one each for ethos, pathos, and logos. Provide fun materials or let students get creative at home. Have students decorate their paddles with the term, definition, and examples. 

Pick out a couple of important speeches, or a handful of commercials to watch together in class. (Tip: watch with closed captions on, or provide a transcript, for improved comprehension.) While watching, direct students to have their paddles at the ready, and to raise the appropriate paddle when they hear an example of ethos, pathos, or logos. If you want, make it into a competition: the first student to raise the correct paddle earns a point. Points can be for fun, or add up to be a bonus on a quiz or assignment.

4. Use Speed Debating to Practice Logos, Ethos, & Pathos

teaching devices assignment

Teaching rhetoric can seem overwhelming at first, but with the right tools, it can be an enjoyable experience for both you and your students. When teaching rhetoric, Samantha from Samantha in Secondary always starts with an overview of the topic and then focuses on ethos, pathos, and logos. She loves using the “heart (pathos), head (logos), cred (ethos)” saying to help students keep them straight. Beginning this lesson usually involves some level of direct instruction and practice activities to reinforce the learning. Show plenty of commercials as well and analyze ethos, logos, and pathos in each. (Another way to review this topic is with a set of review Boom Cards . If you aren’t using Boom Cards in your classroom this year, click here for an overview. Students love these!)

Speed Debating is an incredibly fun activity to practice ethos, pathos, and logos. Begin by creating a set of argumentative prompts . Fold them up and put them in one basket. Fill another with slips of paper that say ethos, pathos, or logos on them. (Make many so there can be multiple rounds.) Students should pick one argumentative prompt for each pair and then one slip of paper from the ethos, logos, or pathos basket per student. The speed debating pair should decide who is taking the affirmative and the negative before beginning. For each round, students should try to convince each other of their arguments using the strategy chosen. Partners can critique each other to make sure they are using the correct strategy. Sometimes it helps to even use a fishbowl method at first and critique a round or two yourself so students can see exactly how the process should work. Set a timer and start practicing! Switch rounds and partners often. By the end of the activity, students will have a better understanding of how to use ethos, pathos, and logos in a real world setting.

5. Teach Students to Stop and S.M.E.L.L.

teaching devices assignment

Liz Taylor from Teach Between the Lines uses her SMELL-y acronym to help teach Rhetorical Analysis to her students. 

S – Sender/Receiver Relationship

M – Message

E – Emotion Strategies 

L – Logical Fallacies

L – Language

The acronym helps her teach arguments, reasoning, and persuasion with ease. With the S in SMELL, or the sender/receiver relationship, it is important to decipher who or what is speaking. The M/Message helps determine the message; E, or Emotion Strategies, associates with Ethos, Pathos, and Logos or the three pillars of persuasion. The first L (Logical Fallacies)  introduces fallacies in arguments, discussing the different  ways that an argument can go south with the use of a misconception or generalization. The final letter, the second L (Language), helps with guiding word choice; ensuring that students know what words are better to use and why. She discussed this in much further detail in her blog post Rhetorical Analysis – a Fun Acronym and 5 Mini Lessons to Get You Started.

6. Let Students Choose a Song to Analyze and Present

teaching devices assignment

One way Kristina from Level Up ELA gets her students engaged and excited about exploring rhetoric is through a rhetorical analysis project centering around student choice.

After students have a firm understanding about the basics of the rhetorical triangle, Kristina asks students to brainstorm a few songs that hold significant meaning to them. She has seen such a drastic improvement of quality work in allowing students to analyze a song that is special to them in place of a random essay or speech they do not feel connected to. She helps them narrow down their top few choices by asking the students what message the artist or lyricist was trying to convey to the listeners. Through this filtering process, students start to identify which song or songs hold enough content to evaluate. 

Then, students evaluate their top two choices by completing a rhetorical triangle and rhetorical precis . This helps them answer the question, “Which song choice has more usable material in it for what I need to do?” This is a great practice for evaluating sources! 

Kristina usually has her students craft and perform a presentation in which students play a clip of the song, present their thesis, and share their analysis of the song. Other ideas could be student papers, posters, presentations via FlipGrid, etc. Not only are students practicing rhetorical skills, but they are also learning more about their peers, too! Score! 

7. Study Rhetoric in TED Talks

teaching devices assignment

Amanda from Amanda Write Now uses TED Talks to teach rhetoric. There are many short talks out there that are perfect for secondary students to watch and then analyze. Many people think of TED Talks as informational, but they are argumentative too! Speakers must be clear, concise, and convince the audience to believe the ideas they are putting forth. Check out this blog post to learn more about how Amanda utilizes TED Talks and other online videos to teach the art of argumentation: How to Teach Argumentative Writing with Video.   

8. Craft a Campaign Speech for a Fictional Character

teaching devices assignment

Marie from The Caffeinated Classroom reinforces what students have learned about the rhetorical triangle by having them reverse-engineer it. Students first choose a fictional character and create a premise where that character is running for local office within the context of their story (i.e. Spongebob is running for Mayor of Bikini Bottom). Next, it is time to craft a campaign platform for their fictional candidate – students identify an issue that the character will base their campaign around, articulate the arguments they can make surrounding that issue, and use the parts of the rhetorical triangle to flesh out the rest of the argument.

By taking the process of analysis and using it as a tool for creation students apply what they have learned and are able to pinpoint areas where their understanding isn’t as full as it needs to be. As an added twist, students can write out and present campaign speeches to the class for listening and speaking skill practice!

9. Argue about Taylor Swift

teaching devices assignment

Betsy, from Spark Creativity , is always looking for a chance to make a complicated ELA strategy relatable and engaging. I mean, who isn’t? So if you’re looking at ethos, pathos, and logos and wondering how to get students revved up about rhetorical strategies invented thousands of years ago, she’s got two words for you: Taylor Swift. 

Taylor Swift’s music videos are nothing if not conversation starters, and considering it has over THREE BILLION VIEWS (at least thirty of which come from my household and involve family dance parties) most of your students have probably already seen “ Shake it Off ,” her hilarious video about being yourself and following your own path regardless of what others say. 

Now what does this have to do with rhetoric, you ask? Well, once you’ve taught the ethos, pathos, logos triangle, why not have students use these three strategies to craft a short speech that argues either that Taylor’s music video is indeed deserving of its three billion hits because it’s one of the greatest songs of all time, or that xyz video (their own personal favorite) is WAY better than Taylor’s video, and it’s really just the music industry machine driving her success.  

Wish I could be a fly on the wall when your students make their arguments! 

10. Create PSAs using Rhetorical Techniques

teaching devices assignment

“Who can be the helpers in the face of injustice?” is the essential question that guides Krista from @whimsyandrigor in her unit on refugees. Using the excellent middle grade book Refugee by Alan Gratz, she crafts a unit designed to focus on the people who come to the aid of the families fleeing their dangerous homes for a safer place to live so students can begin to see themselves as agents of change with potential to help others.

As a culmination to the unit, the class studies public service announcements (PSAs) and plans their own PSA on refugees (she uses the Scholastic resource found here ). As students work to create a short video on a topic they are knowledgeable and passionate about, Krista introduces the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos as a way to appeal to their audience. Finally, students  show their work to the entire school community to kickoff a fundraising effort. 

By tying together the topic of persuasive techniques and an authentic audience, Krista creates an opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know in a creative and meaningful way. And if that’s not the purpose of teaching and learning, what is?

11. Debate Engaging Topics and Practice with Socratic Seminars

teaching devices assignment

 Jessica Martin from Whimsical Teaching believes that student voice and choice is key in leading students to crafting writing quality rhetoric.  In elementary and middle school, rhetoric techniques need to be carefully organized and even color coded to aid in student understanding. More importantly, the topics for students to dish on must be of high interest to the student and their peers. This can be a challenge when the world of academia subjects clash with high interest multimedia topics that kids enjoy. Practicing with topics of high interest though lays the foundation for the steps needed to create high quality writing. Even adults struggle to debate topics when there is a lack of interest in the topic itself, yet students are expected to write super boring essays about whether the Stamp Act was just in the 1700’s.  In this blog post, Jess explains how she uses the Wit and Wisdom ELA Socratic Seminars to increase student interest in rhetoric and uses them for starting points into argumentative essay writing.  She also offers several launch points for upper elementary and middle school teachers to try this method out in their own classrooms.

12. Analyze Disney Songs

teaching devices assignment

Rhetoric can be one of the most challenging concepts to teach, but it’s one that packs a powerful instructional punch as the layers of skill and complexity can be vertically articulated from the first exposure all the way up to the AP level.  Amanda from Mud and Ink Teaching is a long time teacher of rhetoric at all levels, and if you’re just beginning, she recommends taking a familiar, Disney approach to get things started.

Not only is Disney familiar territory to most students, but there are a huge number of songs that are actually arguments .  Songs provide a way to teach both the rhetorical triangle itself as well as the rhetorical situation .  Think about “Under the Sea”:  it’s Sebastian’s (unsuccessful) plea for Ariel to rethink her satisfaction with life under ‘de water.  Even “Let it Go” is Elsa’s attempt at convincing herself that she’s better off living in an ice castle rather than in town with the regular folks.  Amanda’s  favorite Disney song / argument to teach new rhetoricians is “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast .  For a walk through of Amanda’s lesson and a copy of her materials, check out her blog post here !

Thank you SO much for joining us in this collaborative post. I hope you found some great ideas you can implement in your classroom right away! Until next time,

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May 26, 2021 at 6:47 AM

I also teach my students Kairos (urgency). I’ve found in this digital age of quick, fast, and in a hurry, it’s important to add that one too. Come now! Time is running out! Act now! What are you waiting on? [Insert product/service] is going fast! Don’t let this deal slip away from you! You get it.

May 26, 2021 at 9:54 AM

Oh I love this idea so much!! Thank you for sharing!!!

September 17, 2021 at 2:12 PM

Wow! Thank you for this information! This is my very first year teaching AP Lang!

December 5, 2022 at 1:15 PM

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas!

January 23, 2023 at 12:23 PM

Hey E, I am a principal with GREEN Charter schools in SC. I am very interested in offering a Rhetoric class to my Middle Grade Students. At what grade do you think this would be appropriate? If Middle grades is the place for such a class, would you have any resources for a Middle grades curriculum?

February 5, 2024 at 5:22 AM

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Rhetoric Activities

Main navigation, rhetorical mad libs.

In this activity, student groups experiment with different rhetorical appeals and strategies of argumentation (assigned randomly) to write a fake letter to a specific audience.

Students (in small groups) pick any article from BBC Pidgin (a digital platform in English-based Pidgin for West and Central Africa) and translate it to be most appealing to their target audience. That can be whatever it means at that time in the quarter—e.g., a voice in the conversation (PWR 1) or oral delivery from written text (PWR 2). Then as we discuss students’ work, we also discuss how while we can discuss how to appeal to audiences, we as audiences also need to do better as listeners.

Collaborative Design Analysis Activity

Designed for PWR 2 students, this activity asks them to draw on design principles from Robin Williams and Timothy Samara in a collaborative activity that moves them outside the classroom.

Reading the Stanford Campus

This activity invites students to close read a space on campus by identifying the space's audience and purpose and determining which parts of the space are private/public and welcoming/unwelcoming to visitors. This activity helps students understand the rhetoric of spaces and how people shape interactions within spaces.

Take a Stand Impromptu Presentation

This non-graded presentation activity helps students prep for their proposal presentations by asking them to take a stand on a topic, also providing a rhetoric refresher for students.

Pen, Crayon, Smartphone: Exploring How Materials Shape Content and Writing Practice

This activity invites students to explore how materiality affects content through responding to a writing prompt using different sets of writing materials.

These activities are licensed under  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 . Please remember to attribute all activities to their original authors (even if with an “adapted from”) on any handouts, webtexts, slides, or assignments sheets you generate from them.

If you have any activities of your own that you’d like to share,  please send them here .

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Using Poetic Devices in Songs for Teaching Students Poetry

Poetry , Secondary Literacy

If you are a teacher on the hunt for poetic devices in songs , then it seems as though you’ve discovered one of the best strategies for teaching students poetry!  Song lyrics are one of the most effective ways to engage students in your poetry unit.  They are also a great way to explore examples of poetic devices in popular culture.  In this blog post, you’ll learn how to use poetic devices in songs to teach students poetry .  You’ll also find a few lesson plan ideas and resources with examples of poetic devices in popular song lyrics.

Teaching poetic devices using pop culture

How do you encourage learners to read poetry?

A few years ago, I took over a classroom for a teacher who was on maternity leave.  She was absolutely thrilled at the timing of her leave because she was just about to begin her unit on poetry .  “I hate poetry, and I don’t know how to teach it,” she admitted to me.  I was surprised by this – there are a lot of subjects I’m reluctant to teach, but I always found teaching students poetry to be rewarding.  Poetry is short, it is forgiving with grammar, and it relates to one of my students’ deepest passions: music.  

Of course, not every student enjoys the subjective nature of poetry .  A poem can be read with many different interpretations.  Depending on the student, this is either a dream or a nightmare!  It’s true that teaching poetry analysis can be challenging for students and teachers alike.  This is why it is a great idea to start within your students’ comfort zones .

Not every student feels comfortable with analyzing poetry , but almost all of them have an artist or song that they adore.  If you were to ask them what their favorite song is about, I’m sure they would have a lot to say!  They might even offer a few inferences based on their understanding of the artist’s biography or cultural references.  We can use this excitement to hook them on reading poetry .

Poetic devices in songs to teach poetry

How do you identify a poetic device?

To help learners to read poetry, you will first need to explore the elements of poetry with your students.  You will then need to teach them how to analyze a poem .  This will involve being able to identify a poetic device .   

To identify a poetic device, students will need to understand the terminology involved.  Some terms that can be helpful to know include: alliteration, anaphora, assonance, consonance, double entendre, enjambment, imagery, juxtaposition, metaphor, meter, mood, personification, simile, and tone (to name a few!)

To solidify essential terminology, you can facilitate a vocabulary word wall .  You can create templates for each poetic device and include a prompt to have students define the term and find an example.  You can also use these pre-made poetic device word wall templates , which include a comprehensive answer key to consolidate this activity.

Have each student fill out the vocabulary worksheets independently by creating individual workbooks.  Alternatively, you can turn this into a collaborative activity by having students define different terms in groups.  Students can then present their terms to the class before hanging them up on the word wall.

Once students have completed this activity, they will have a poetic device anchor chart in your classroom.  Students can refer to this anchor chart during the entire unit on poetry.

How do you teach poetry analysis?

Now that students have explored the terminology of poetic devices, they can dive deeper into poetry analysis .  To teach poetry analysis, you will need to show students how to annotate poetry .  You can continue to use students’ favorite song lyrics to hook them with this lesson.

You can use these informational handouts to teach poetry analysis .  These handouts will guide students through a lesson on the relationship between poetry and song lyrics .  It will also show students how to annotate poetry .  You can scaffold annotating poetry by modeling the process using the lyrics to “Therefore I Am” by  Billie Eilish.  This resource includes an annotated example that you can use for reference.  

Students can then select their own song lyrics to analyze.  You can use this free poetry analysis bookmark as an individual anchor chart for this activity.

Teaching poetic devices using song lyrics

Finding Examples of Poetic Devices in Songs

You can find virtually any type of figurative language in songs .  So long as there are lyrics, you will find poetic devices in every genre of music.

There are several resources online that explore poetic devices in songs :

  • I especially like Repeat Replay’s Top Picks : Songs with Figurative Language .  This article highlights poetic devices in classic songs from the last few decades in music, including Simon and Garfunkel, Louis Armstrong, and Queen. 
  • LiteraryDevices.Net also shares modern examples of poetic devices in songs, including Katy Perry and Demi Lovato. 
  • Power Poetry also features a few poetic devices with examples that your students are sure to recognize!  If they are fans of Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift, or Billie Eilish, then they will love exploring these examples.
  • If your students are more mature, Rap Genius has an incredible glossary of literary devices in hip-hop songs .   Hip-hop and rap are rich sources for exploring the artful use of language.  Given the explicit nature of many songs within these genres, you will want to be sure that your classroom environment is a suitable place to share this resource.

Teaching poetic devices using pop culture

Using Poetic Devices in Songs to Teach Poetry

If you’re a fan of teaching poetry, I hope this blog post has inspired a few new lesson plans and activities for your classroom .  If you’re not – I hope studying poetic devices in songs converts you!  It is sure to hook even your most reluctant learners and help make poetry a little more relevant to their lives.

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Paper exams, AI-proof assignments: Wisconsin college professors adjust in a world with ChatGPT

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Something about the student's writing seemed off to Sam Harshner. The snytax was sophisticated. The topic choice was advanced. All this from a student who'd barely spoken in the first few days of Harshner's Writing and Argumentation class last fall.

Harshner, who teaches in Marquette University's political science department, ran the work through an online artificial intelligence detector. It came back all red.

Harshner ran his other students' work through the AI detector. He said eight of the 40 assignments, or 20%, came back with an 85% chance or higher of AI-generated work. The facts hit him like a gut punch.

"Honestly, like, you want to think what you're doing matters," Harshner said. "You want to think that at least in some part all the work you're putting in actually impacts people's lives."

AI is disrupting colleges across the country, offering shortcuts for students and uncomfortable questions for professors. Tools like ChatGPT can, in a matter of seconds, solve math problems, write papers and craft code on command.

"It’s entirely changed the way I teach," Harshner said.

Harshner's writing-intensive course was previously heavy on take-home essays. He now has students write their papers during class. Not only does he outline an AI ban on his syllabi but he also has students sign a contract agreeing not to use it, even for generating ideas or paper outlines.

"You have to take steps to, you know, kind of push back on this," Harshner said, adding he believes AI is a "threat to higher education in real, meaningul ways."

College instructors rethink lesson plans

Not everyone is as alarmed as Harshner. Other instructors admit they've come across ChatGPT-written work students passed off as their own. But they believe the vast majority of students aren't outsourcing their assignments.

Even so, many are tweaking how they teach.

Some run assignments through ChatGPT to see how well the chatbot performs, and then make adjustments. Others incorporate AI into coursework to expose students to the tools of the future — and to highlight their limitations.

Gabriel Velez, a Marquette professor in the department of education policy and leadership, was surprised how few of his students knew about ChatGPT when he demonstrated it in class.

"The freshmen we're getting now, they've gone 12 years of education without using AI," he said. "I don't think just because it's become quickly available that they're going to jump ship and 100% dive into it."

Velez's own research supports this. He anonymously surveyed nearly 500 Marquette students last fall on their use of AI. Preliminary results found 66% of respondents said they don't use AI tools at all. Those who have said they most often turned to it when hitting a writing block or to generate ideas — a start rather than a crutch.

Another Marquette professor, Jacob Riyeff, used to ask students to write short summaries of readings ahead of class discussion. Deemed too tempting for students to turn to AI to complete the work, the English professor now hands out physical copies of readings and asks students to underline and analyze the text by hand.

"If it’s going to be really easy to cut corners, how are we setting students up for success?" Riyeff asked.

AI isn't a two-minute talking point during syllabus week in Riyeff's class. He said he has multiple discussions about his stance on AI with students throughout the semester.

"I want them to understand why I take this approach pedagogically," he said. "It's not 'because Dr. Riyeff says so.' That’s not the way to change hearts and minds, especially when they’re hearing lots of hype about this."

Eric Ely, who teaches in the Information School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has made some of his assignments more personal, asking students to write about topics that connect to their own lives. In a new assignment this semester, he has students engage with an AI chatbot and document the process.

"Part of my job is to prepare students for life after college, right?" he said. "This is the world that we're living in, and so I feel like I would be doing a disservice to students if I would not talk about this or limit or completely prohibit the use."

Ely sets clear expectations for which assignments students can and cannot use AI. For the most part, he believes students abide by the rules and turn in their own work. But he and his teaching assistants have talked about how sometimes it can be hard to tell.

Can professors easily detect AI-generated work?

The more Elena Levy-Navarro played around with ChatGPT, the more her worry about how well it could complete her assignments faded.

The chatbot's essays lacked specifics. Its arguments were vague. And when the UW-Whitewater English professor asked it about neo-Nazism, a topic often discussed in her class on 1930s fascism, the chatbot demurred . There were other tells, too, like when it cites nonexistent sources.

"I feel fairly confident I could tell if they’re using ChatGPT," Levy-Navarro said.

Levy-Navarro hasn't yet come across work she suspected was AI-generated, and that's why she hasn't dramatically changed her teaching approach. Her assignments often require close readings of literary texts.

Another English professor, Chuck Lewis at Beloit College, has come across a few cases of chatbot-produced work. It's important to craft assignments that are meaningful and engaging to students, he said.

Lewis predicted the standard five-paragraph essay to be "doomed." He believes he's created "relatively AI-proof" assignments.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tested it out , asking Lewis and other instructors for one of their class assignments. The newspaper told them some of the homework would be done honestly and some would be handled by ChatGPT. But the professors weren't told who did the work until after giving a grade.

The Journal Sentinel's experiment found ChatGPT earned one A, two B's and two incompletes.

More: Can ChatGPT pass college assignments? We tested it out, with help from Wisconsin professors

For UW-Madison professor Dietram Scheufele, the big question isn't what AI can — or cannot — do for college students.

There's a commercial interest in improving the accuracy of AI, he said. Eventually, the idea of coding from scratch will disappear. Using AI to assist in the writing process will be the new normal.

"What I’m much more concerned about is the fundamental disruption to our social system and how we prepare students for that," said Scheufele, whose research includes technology policy, misinformation and social media. "The question for universities right now is why this degree will be worth something 40 years from now."

Is cheating on the rise?

John Zumbrunnen, the vice provost of teaching and learning at UW-Madison, said the most-asked question he gets about AI is whether the university has or will have a policy on it.

UW-Madison does not, meaning students navigate at least four different class policies per semester. In some cases, individual assignments will have their own AI expectations. That's why it's important, he said, for instructors to offer grace in this new world.

"The answer in the teaching and learning space cannot be one-size-fits-all," he said earlier this month at a UW Board of Regents meeting.

Riyeff, the Marquette English professor, serves as the university's academic integrity director. He said he hasn't seen an overwhelming increase in the number of AI-related plagiarism cases.

Still, some instructors said they have second-guessed their students while grading papers.

"I’m trying not to be suspicious all the time," Riyeff said. "It’s one of the challenges in this moment."

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at  [email protected] or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at  @KellyMeyerhofer .

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Can ChatGPT pass college assignments? We tested it out, with help from Wisconsin professors

In the era of artificial intelligence, cheating is only getting easier for students.

Some instructors say they can easily tell when students turn in AI-generated work. Others find it far trickier and will turn to online AI detectors for confirmation when their suspicions are raised. Educators everywhere are trying to create AI-proof assignments.

"The more conventional prompt and writing you ask students to do, the more likely they can bring in a machine to do that work," said Chuck Lewis, a Beloit College English instructor and director of the writing program.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tested how well AI can complete college-level work — and whether instructors can detect it.

Where did idea come from?

A Harvard student last year asked seven professors and teaching assistants to grade essays written in response to a class assignment. To minimize response bias, the student told instructors the essays might have been written by herself or by AI, but in reality, all of the work was done by GPT-4, a version of the chatbot from OpenAI.

The AI-generated assignments received mostly A’s and B’s, along with one Pass.

"Not only can GPT-4 pass a typical social science and humanities-focused freshman year at Harvard, but it can get pretty good grades," the student wrote in an essay published by the Chronicle of Higher Education .

How did Journal Sentinel's ChatGPT experiment work?

I followed the same methodology as the Harvard student.

Professors emailed me a smaller assignment they would give their students, not an end-of-the-semester research paper. I told them some of the work would be done honestly and other assignments handled by ChatGPT. In fact, AI did all of the work.

I formulated prompts for ChatGPT from the assignments provided. In most cases, I wrote more tailored prompts to ChatGPT based on what it produced on the first try. Often, the additional requests asked the chatbot to provide more specific examples, expand on its ideas or use a less formal tone.

The experiment was far from scientific. Several professors said they approached grading more skeptically than they would have had it been a student's submission, given the circumstances.

ChatGPT earned 1 A, 2 B's and 2 incompletes.

English assignment at UW-Whitewater

Course: Critical Writing in the Field of English

Assignment: Write a three- to five-page paper examining how a poem among a selection provided draws on a specific concept discussed in class. Include analysis of specific passages in the poem and explore the use of at least five literary terms.

Was this hard for ChatGPT: At first, the chatbot analyzed a completely different poem than the title provided. I submitted the full lines of the correct poem, prompting the chatbot to apologize for the "oversight." Additional prompts providing specific literary terms for the chatbot to incorporate into the essay helped refine the work.

Comments: The instructor said the paper "fulfills the assignment admirably, and brings an admirable depth of understanding" of the poet's use of the concept. The thesis statement could have been more specific, resulting in a slight deduction.

Political science assignment at Marquette

Course: Introduction to American Politics

Assignment: Write a short paper describing the three faces of power and explaining how each constrains you in your own life.

Was this hard for ChatGPT: No. The chatbot easily put together an essay. A second prompt asking to connect the faces of power concept to my life as a reporter provided more specificity.

Grade: Incomplete

Comments: "Without question, the submission deserves an A," the instructor said. But ChatGPT made one small mistake, which immediately sparked skepticism. While the essay correctly cited the creator of the theory, the reading associated with the assignment was from a different person.

The instructor ran it through two AI detectors, both of which suggested the work was AI-generated. He said he would confront a student who submitted this work.

Library and information studies assignment at UW-Madison

Course: Information Divides and Differences in a Multicultural Society

Assignment: Daily log of media consumption with analysis of tone, evidence, expertise of each source, roughly 350 words

Was this hard for ChatGPT: No. I submitted a second prompt asking for a less formal tone. While the chatbot cited legitimate news outlets, such as the Wisconsin State Journal and New York Times, in the log, the summaries described general topics, not actual news stories.

Comments: The instructor said there were no "egregious red flags" but one sentence stood as sounding like ChatGPT. Overall, he found the discussion of each media source "thoughtful." The log as a whole was "clear and concise." In general, he tends to give students the benefit of the doubt and wouldn't have suspected this log was AI-generated had it been turned in among a stack of others.

Education assignment at Marquette

Course: Child and Adolescent Development and Learning

Assignment: Find five sources for a research paper on an education topic of your choice, cite the sources in APA formatting and summarize each source in four to six sentences. (This is one part of a longer-term research paper.)

Was this hard for ChatGPT: No. It took just one prompt to produce what was submitted.

Grade: 88 (B+)

Comments: The instructor suspected at least some of the summaries were AI-generated because many were written in general terms. However, some of the sources cited appeared to be names of researchers he recognized, making him less suspicious overall.

"It raises an interesting question to me of if students use AI at a broad level (say putting directly in the prompt) or doing a more targeted approach," the instructor said. "I think if students searched for articles and then asked AI for summaries, I might be less likely to have an alarm bell go off in my head."

English assignment at Beloit College

Course: Introductory Literary Studies

Assignment: Write a 1,000-word essay about a selected novel with your own original analysis that engages with a New Yorker review of the novel. Choose from one of three selected topics as a starting point. Include at least three direction quotations from the novel. Give your paper a thoughtful title and underline your thesis statement.

Was this hard for ChatGPT: This was the most challenging of the assignments received and required several prompts to produce. The first essay was only 600 words and included just two direct quotations from the book. It cited a line from a book review that did not actually appear anywhere in the book review.  Attempts to expand the essay's length were unsuccessful. An instruction to underline the thesis statement was not completed.

Grade: Incomplete.

Comments: "I didn't need to read more than the first sentence to know this was going to be an AI ride," the instructor said. The writing was "bland," filled with "eager-to-please and generic book blurb-speak." It reminded him of what he tells students: Don't write a thesis nobody can disagree with — there's no argument to be made. The paper also made at least one error in describing part of the book.

The instructor said he would ask the student about their process, share his suspicion, have a discussion and decide on next steps. For now, no grade was assigned.

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at  [email protected] or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at  @KellyMeyerhofer .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Can ChatGPT complete college work? Wisconsin professors tested it out

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  24. Paper exams, AI-proof assignments: Wisconsin college professors adjust

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