The average middle school student has an attention span of 10 - 12 minutes, which means keeping them on track and engaged can be a tall order. If you're new to teaching with Kira, whether that be computer science or another subject, you may have even more questions about what this can look like in your new content area.
But fear not! We are here to help with easy-to-implement classroom suggestions to get your class on track.
Independent, Partner, Whole Group Mix-Up
Let’s consider a Kira lesson we created as an example; there is always the option to allow students to work at their own pace through modules. But to add engagement, you may choose to mix up the structures used across your lesson so that students get a mix of whole group, partner, and independent practice.
Kira makes materials for you so that you can spend less time figuring out WHAT to teach, and more time on HOW to deliver that instruction!
In this example, we will be teaching with Live Classroom and using the Access feature to help control student progression outside of Live Classroom. You can learn more about both of these in other Help Center articles!
Class Entry & Do Now
There are many ways to start a class. In this example, we will assume we plan to have students on Kira the entire time. If that’s not your preference, you can adjust the flow accordingly - and if you’re not sure where to start, you can work with the Homepage Chat to create an unplugged, offline warm-up to present to your students!
Starting the Lesson Together
Note on Whole Group Instruction: If you are using a curriculum that was shared with you, whether it’s coming from Kira or a coworker, you may find the setup does not match your instructional style.
As long as you’ve made a copy, you can use the Ask Kira AI to make changes to a lesson quickly. You can learn more in our article on Customizing Content, but know that you can quickly, in a matter of minutes, change things like:
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Independent Work
Partner Work
Group Share & Closing
Note that in this Kira Lesson, I did not build in a specific exit ticket - but I could add one, build a separate one, or choose to have my students do a paper-based exit ticket, Post-it note check, or similar if there was more data I wanted to gather before releasing them for the day.
Sponge Activities for Speedy Students
Some students - independently or as pairs - may finish earlier than others. That’s a fact of life! It’s useful to have sponge activities baked into your classroom plan - this is what students are expected to do if and when they finish early. Some ideas:
Typing skills - your school or district may have a preferred platform for this, but many free ones exist. You can even use Action Tiles to make learn-to-type activities on Kira!
Consider making a batch of activities for an entire Unit; you can label them as mild, medium, spicy, or by the skills they should know to attempt them.
Weekly Error Assessment - ask students to submit their favorite error (flawed code) or write a coding challenge. At the end of the week, work 1-2 of these into an end-of-week error assessment task.
More Ideas for Engagement and Encouragement
Mix up the way students move through content:
As in the example above!
Go unplugged to have students collaboratively brainstorm solutions to tough problems on chart paper before they begin coding.
Utilize unplugged teacher resources, including the printable Platypus
Get them out of their seat!
Chalk talks - the teacher puts up several chart papers around the room with questions or prompts. Students silently navigate the room, writing their responses in one round, then responding to other responses. When they return to their seats, have a discussion about what they wrote and read.
Four corners activities - the teacher places signs around the room (such as 'Strongly Agree', 'Strongly Disagree', 'Agree', 'Disagree' or A, B, C, D) and asks a series of questions. Students move to the corresponding corner for their response to each question. The teacher can then use this to launch discussions. Aim to have students in the minority answer corner answer first to get their thoughts before hearing from the more populous answers!
Normalize that rushing through just gets you… more activities.
Sponge activities to the rescue!
Celebrate victories and mistakes
Error scoreboard: Keep a board in the room where you tally errors that have helped the class learn. Try to beat your high score or have sections compete to see who can make the most errors, therefore doing the most learning.
Student-centered entry and wrap-up protocols
Give attention to the Do Nows - don’t just have students write down answers and move on. (Ditto exit slips!)
Honor an exit protocol that prioritizes engagement; it can involve tallying daily errors, reviewing new vocabulary, tracking new skills learned, etc.
So - how will you, Kira?