Step into Mondays!

In this special bonus episode, Sandrine picks Krista's brain to come up with an engaging way to teach her lit class in an asynchronous way. They bat ideas back and forth wrapping their brains around the difficult format that the pandemic is forcing on us. And eventually succeed. It's definitely an episode with our brains at work, and demonstrating collaboration.

Episode 25! As a celebration, Krista and Sandrine take questions that they received and answer them. Some questions would need a whole episode dedicated to them but the girls still give answers even if in a nutshell.

Special mention to Joe Dale and Noah Geisel and their podcast MFLTwitterati

Do you have other questions you'd like to see addressed in another Q&A session? Email them to [email protected], or send them via Twitter (@intomondays).

In this episode Krista and Sandrine welcome a special guest, Linda Markley. In her years of teaching Linda discovered the power of play and here she graciously discusses her discoveries and methods with us. 

The show is actually mostly the Krista show this week because technology just didn't want to work for Sandrine (you'll quickly understand when you start listening). But we pushed through and present a rich conversation nonetheless. 

Linda also has an inspirational website that you can find by following the link below. Check it out, it's full of invaluable information.

https://www.spiritofteaching.org/home/

A short preview of the upcoming episode titled "How incorporating play in the classroom improves enrollment".

Guest Linda Markley

https://www.spiritofteaching.org/home/

In these uncertain times, teachers everywhere are getting ready and asking themselves what tools their students will need in order to succeed this school term. Therefore Krista and Sandrine discuss a "getting started" module that they have used with their online classes. In addition to presenting the module they discuss changes they will make to it for a higher impact with their students.

And by the sounds of it, Scarlet had a few things to share as she clicked her beak a few times (she was agreeing with Sandrine of course!). While Krista new grand-puppy was disagreeing? It's the only way to interpret the toy squeaks she let out at various moments, or is it?

Big shout-out to Florencia Henshaw for a presentation about conversation boards.

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/cdr/module1/discussion-boards/

Reach out via email ([email protected]) or Twitter (@intomondays).

How do you typically start your school year, or your new semester? Krista and Sandrine discuss best practices, and what they do to establish expectations from day 1. They also compare to what they used to do. 

Don't forget to listen all the way through to hear their AHA moments!

Tech mentioned in this episode: PearDeck, Wheel of name, Whiteboard.fi and TheAnswerPad.

Shout-outs to: Victoria Russell, Isabelle Drewelow.

In this episode, Krista and Sandrine wrap up the three part series about backward design. This episode about the lesson level is concentrated on a unit about the city for a beginner level.

And be ready for a new segment - aha moment!- in which Krista and Sandrine share something that caught their attention and doesn't relate to the episode.

Special shout-outs of the episode go to: Joe Dale, Tom Whitby, the EdTech Chat Podcast, the Diversity Gap Podcast, Dr Darnisa Amante-Jackson, Adobe Spark (not a sponsor unfortunately).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psyched/202006/stop-fixing-your-brain-believing-in-learning-styles

In a previous episode Krista and Sandrine analyzed steps to design your overall language program. In this episode they discuss the next step, designing a specific unit. To obtain their objectives, they demonstrate Backward Design (Wiggins and McTighe).

Special shout-out to Bill VanPatten and Joe Dale, and special mentions of The Answer Pad, Whiteboard.fi and Google Tour Creator.

For a quick reference to Backward Design, refer back to Wiggins and McTighe...

https://educationaltechnology.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/backward-design.pdf

In this episode, despite multiple interruptions, Krista and Sandrine discuss planning for the upcoming term (year/semester/etc.). It all starts with the end in mind! So listen up as they go through the backward planning principles and use their own courses to illustrate how it would go. 

Next episode, they will tackle the same planning but for a specific unit.

If you have any questions or comments, reach out via Twitter (@IntoMondays) or email ([email protected]).

If you want to check out the backward design, look up Wiggins and McTighe

https://educationaltechnology.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/backward-design.pdf

or this website... 

https://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/backward_design/

After chatting with Dawn Samples about proficiency based classes, Krista and Sandrine decided to revisit their proficiency unit to make it more efficient and let bulky. Join them as they brainstorms on the format of the new unit and don't forget to take notes so you can have your own proficiency unit to use with your students!

If you have any questions, reach out via email ([email protected]) or via Twitter (@IntoMondays).