Directions You Can Do

One of the biggest frustrations I experienced as a teacher was when students did not follow directions. I'd invest time creating and organizing activities and lessons only to become frustrated with the "What do I do?" or "I didn't know I was supposed to ..." or "How do I ... " questions.

Do you share my frustration? 

I recently encountered this again and I spent some time reflecting. I really put some thought into it. I've come up with something that feels huge. And I fear you may not like it. But hear me out.

We are doing it to ourselves.

We give our students activities and worksheets and scripted lessons. We have "directions" in bold print. We tell our students to read the directions. Then ...

We read the directions to them. We dissect the directions for them. We clarify the directions. We ask if they have questions. Then we answer each question as they work through the activity.

And then we are surprised. Why can't our students follow directions? 

We are doing it to ourselves.

At the beginning of this school year, I made a pledge to myself to be more intentional. Directions are an easy area to be more intentional. Here's the recent scenario I experienced ... the one that inspired today's post. And I saw that I have a choice in how I behave.

I regularly work with small groups of students and recently, we were working on the "Thankful Thoughts" activity. I found the students were struggling. They didn't know what to do or how to do it. Then I found myself explaining the directions (that I wrote on brightly colored speech bubbles so they couldn't be missed). After all, they are "only 4th graders". And, we didn't have a lot of time. 

And then, I stopped myself ... if I explained this - and allowed myself to make the excuses-  what were they really learning? It was in that moment that rather than explaining the directions, I went back to a routine I had when I was still in the classroom full-time. I told students to read the directions to me. This changes things. It puts the ownership back on them. Forcing them to read it out loud also allows me to gauge if they truly don't know what to do, or if they haven't read it.

This leads me to ask, "Do we give our students a chance to read and follow directions independently or are we doing them a disservice when we spoon feed the directions?" 

With a new calendar quickly approaching, let's be intentional and work toward creating less frustration for ourselves and at the same time, students who can follow directions. When we include directions, let's give our students - no matter how young - the opportunity to read and follow the directions. Independently. Not on everything, but we have to start somewhere. Try it with a lesson or two. Let your students show you what they can do. And then let's work toward letting them fly!

And kudos to those of you who have already learned this lesson and are already on the road to giving your students the space and time to read the directions. Thank you.

Have a question or comment? Feel free to comment below, reach out to me on Twitter @kiefersj, or email me at sarah@techyoucando.com.

4 Troubleshooting Tips You Can Do

If you use Chromebooks &/or GSuite, you may have noticed a few odd glitches this past week. This has inspired today's post where I want to share a few very easy troubleshooting tips. Teachers CAN do these ... students can do some, too ... and knowing how can empower you to solve a vast majority of your tech glitches. 

In my district, we are 1:1 with Chromebooks in grades 1 -12. I split my time between our two elementaries, grades preK-4. I frequently have students sent to me because something isn't working right on their Chromebook. The most common irritant is that the trackpad isn't working "right". Another common issue is the students' password isn't working. And finally, another common issue is the student can't access the program their teacher is directing them to use.

How do you handle this? What can you do? 

Here are 4 tips that you CAN do ↬

1 ↬ Sign out, then sign back in

This is the very first thing I suggest ... and it will solve about 90% of the troubles. Chrome is a browser that can and will update itself, if you completely close it down and restart it. I know it's far easier to just close your chromebook (or laptop) so you can pick up where you left off, and that's ok for a day or two. 

*** BEST TIP: sign out at the end of the day so that you start fresh tomorrow.

2 ↬ Delete the profile(s) and sign back in

Deleting the student's profile (along with any others on the device) can help solve quite a few problems. Recently, we've had a number of students who are being told their is an issue with their password. There's no rhyme or reason, but we've found deleting their profile and adding it back does the trick! I would try doing this before going through the extra steps of contacting the correct people to do a password reset - that may ultimately need to happen, but if you can troubleshoot and fix it, that is a huge timesaver! Plus, it doesn't hurt anything. All of the student's bookmarks, files, and passwords are in the cloud, so log back in & you are in business.

*** BEST TIP: if you are 1:1, keep to this - assign one device to each student - build ownership. Don't let the students randomly use the devices. It's very difficult to make sense of what is actually going on with a device the more students who use it. If you are NOT 1:1, I still recommend assigning the devices. 

3 ↬ Check your wifi network