Are you looking for a simple way to record attendance in your face-to-face or online course? The Laulima Attendance tool might be just the tool for you. Did you know that for every course section you teach (face-to-face or online) a Laulima course shell (with roster) is created?
With the Attendance tool enabled you can:
Quickly print a functional sign-in sheet that you can use to check people in (without technology).
Quickly take attendance on the fly without paper by clicking “Take Attendance Now”.
You may wish to customize the tool to your situation by:
Customizing the criteria (example: Present, Absent, Excused, Late, Left Early, Comment).
Setting up your Attendance Items in advance (vs. on the fly) by clicking on “Attendance Items” and entering a Name, Date & Time (repeat for each planned class meeting).
Grade Attendance and send it to Laulima Gradebook
Lastly once you begin using the tool you can view statistics by Attendance Item (ex. by class meeting) or by Student (ex. student’s record of attendance).
This is a special guest blog post by Lani Uyeno, English instructor at Leeward CC. During the Spring 2016 semester, Lani participated in our SMART Board Basics orientation. In her post, she shares an small group classroom reading and discussion activity that incorporates the SMART Board. We look forward to continue working with Lani to further integrate the SMART Board technology into her instruction.
One of the difficulties my students face as they begin using outside sources for their essays is to accurately state the main and supporting points of the articles they have read. The further the topic is from their own experiences, the harder it is for students to comprehend and use the information from their selected articles. Although my students complete a process analysis essay on the topic of annotation, they needed more practice applying the process. The SMART Board was a perfect vehicle to practice annotating a text.
To begin the process, I had students preview a copy of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, asking them to read the title and make a prediction or ask questions, and then to read the first paragraph, the first sentence of the remaining paragraphs, and the last paragraph to get a sense of the whole. This part of the process was done in four minutes. Students then shared their predictions as I jotted notes on the SMART Board slide.
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In the second part of the process, students were given eight minutes to read and respond to the entire selection. Students marked main ideas, identified key words, and jotted questions in the margins of the reading selection. Students were asked to review their markings and to answer any questions they had posed earlier.
In teams, students shared their responses for specific sections of the selection, and each team came to the SMART Board to jot down their annotations. Here is a sample marked section.
We completed the activity with a summary of the selection — three minutes of writing addressing “What is ‘The Story of an Hour’ about?” One student wrote, “Mrs. Mallard receives the news about her husband’s death and is filled with grief but later feels joy because of the freedom she experiences that she will no longer be controlled by her husband. As she is walking down the stairs with her sister, it is revealed that her husband is alive. She dies from shock, but others think she has died of heart failure from happiness.”
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To complete the process, students assessed their level of comprehension after applying the annotation process. In a three-minute focused freewrite, students responded to the question “How did the annotation process help with your understanding of the story?” Several pointed out the process made “hard to understand parts” clearer, forced them to ask questions about the character and plot, and helped them keep track of terms and sections that were difficult to understand. One student wrote, “The process makes me stay active, so I didn’t get side-tracked. I could look back and compare my first impressions with my later understanding.”
The SMART Board allows teachers to take snapshots of the slides produced in class and to turn the written parts into text. After the activity was complete, I took all of the teams’ comments and “translated” them, and then posted them to Laulima for review. In later classes, students were asked to take turns presenting their annotations for other reading selections.
Over 60% of Leeward Community College instructional spaces are designated “Smart Classrooms.” These rooms contain the necessary audio, visual, computer and network infrastructure to support 21st century teaching and learning.
Register for the Smart Classroom Challenge on Wednesday, August 17 at 3:00-4:00 PM, to learn how to operate Smart Classroom technologies to support classroom instruction by working with a partner to create an engaging learning activity for students that uses Smart Classroom technologies.
We also wanted to take this opportunity to share some highlights from the workshop. We realize that as you reflect on your course experience this semester and prepare for the coming spring semester you might be intrigued by the idea of flipping an activity or two in your classroom.
“Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter” (The Flipped Learning Network).
Benefits of flipping the classroom:
To increase student understanding of the content prior to coming to class so that class time can be better utilized for interacting and connecting with each other, practicing, and applying knowledge and skills for deeper and more meaningful learning.
To allow students to take ownership of their learning and become self-directed learners.
To differentiate instruction because students learn at different paces and in different ways.
To increase student support in class. Instructors can provide one-on-one help to students. Students can help one another.
To create a dynamic, engaging, and interactive learning environment.
To allow more “real world” learning experiences.
Workshop topics:
What is the flipped classroom and flipped learning?
How to create a flipped classroom
Curate or create content?
We designed and facilitated the workshop series like a flipped classroom, utilizing and modeling best practices, strategies, and a variety of methods and activities, to give our participants (and ourselves) an authentic flipped learning experience. We also had two weeks of (optional) hands-on workshops specifically for how to use several tools for flipped learning, such as Educanon and Google Forms/Sheets with Flubaroo, to help participants curate and create materials for their flipped lessons and activities.
Participants engaged in their learning before coming to class, and class time was used for applying learning through interactive group activities, discussions, sharing, and giving each other feedback, to ultimately create their own flipped learning lessons and activities. We as facilitators, did our best to provide not only learning materials, but a learning experience for our participants as we guided/supported them through the process. We’ve found that the best learning happened through the experience we had together. Also, it was exciting to see the participants (who teach different subjects), connect with each other and help each other. As one participant said, “I benefited from networking with other faculty on campus and the assistance I received with technology from Rachael and Brent.”
Another participant shared, “I’m going to completely revamp my courses thanks to this eight-week workshop, and I know that with the knowledge and tools made available to me that I will benefit greatly as an instructor and my students will be more engaged and invested in their learning. I’m excited to begin this new chapter of teaching.” We look forward to seeing what our participants have created for their classes and to share what they’ve created and implemented in a future blog post.
