Engaging Projects for students during COVID-19

Hi everyone, I'm Winnie. I'm a teacher and a relieving assistant principal in a primary school in Sydney, Australia. And today I'm going to share with you some engaging projects for your students that you can implement. They're very quick and easy projects to implement for your next term. I will give you access to all my resources to do that. So, Let's get started. Alright. I'm going to share my screen with you. Okay, so these were some of my questions that I had when I was coming up with some activities and projects to do for my students. So I was wondering, you know, how do I engage my students and provide them opportunities to interact with one another when I'm teaching? Teaching remotely? How do I continue to build that love of learning when students are at home? So these were some of the questions that I was thinking about when all of this started happening. So, yeah. So I was thinking that, you know, kids are already knowledgeable. Why don't they just, you know, share and teach each other their knowledge and their skills? And why don't we give them an opportunity for them to share and interact with each other? Because, you know, this is really important, especially during this time where kids need that, you know, interaction amongst all the isolation and being stuck at home. So this project will help, you know, students and kids play to their strengths and be able to help them, you know, give them an opportunity to share what they know and also be able to interact with others. So yeah, it's really exciting. So this is the project. So put in, we are learning to communicate clearly with others. The reason is because we're using our knowledge and skills to teach our peers. And the task is that they will design their own lessons. So they will record a video of themselves sharing knowledge or skills that they've learned and I use Google Classroom to post up some list of ideas, and I will share that with you as well, list of ideas that students can create their videos from, and then they will upload it into Google Classroom, and I've set up a Google Classroom for Stage 2, all of Stage 2 at my school, so that all the Stage 2 students can see the videos that people are posting. I've invited Stage 2 and 3 teachers teachers, learning and support, my principal's in there, so that my students have a wide audience so that they can share their videos on that platform. And I've also gotten my students to post their videos up on their ClassDojo portfolio so that their parents can see it as well. So a little bit— about— let's have a look— so Google Classroom, whether you are just starting to use it or you'd like some tips and advice on, you know, how to make it fun for your students, set expectations, how to organize your students, how to check in and have fun, I do have a link for that video. So it's there if you need it, and I've also included some timestamps as well if you wanted to go through it. Okay, so for— I've been using ClassDojo. On ClassDojo, you can use the student portfolio component of it, and this is where students can post up their photos, their videos, drawings, any files. They can annotate, they can journal, etc. So they— yeah, it's like a portfolio. This is where I've been getting my kids to post up their project videos so that their parents and so I can see it as well. You can also do this through Seesaw too. Very similar, pretty much the same. You know, they can post on their student journal, post a photo, drawings, videos, upload files, notes, links. So they can also do that through there too. So here are some project ideas that I gave for my students. So put in design your own lesson, record a video of you sharing knowledge or a skill that you've learned and upload onto Google Classroom or ClassDojo portfolio. And then here are the lists. So for reading, I've got a Stage 2 class. You can adapt it and edit it however you like. I'm going to give you that resource so that you can edit it however you want to adapt for your age group. So for reading, some of the ideas that I gave, you know, we've been working on the Super 6 strategies, so, you know, some videos that they can make are, you know, how do you predict, how do you question, how do you make connections. Maybe they can read a book and give the audience comprehension questions to answer. For writing, how do you brainstorm for a narrative or a persuasive text? What about the structure? What about writing a sizzling start? And then maybe using their piece of writing as an example and explain how they wrote it using the criteria. Or maybe in math, they can, you know, make a video of how to do the jump strategy or the split strategy or algorithms or, you know, using a ruler to measure lengths. And in geography, science, and art, maybe they can create a piece of art and make a video about how they did it. They could create a shadow play, puppet play, 'cause that's what we've been linking it into science. They could create an informative video about a country of their choice. They can conduct a science experiment. For PE, they can, you know, do their own Cosmic Kids yoga video or do their own Just Dance video or their fitness video how to draw something, or, you know, they can create a video on how to reduce plastic or how to grow a plant or random acts of kindness in action or how to look after your pet, etc. And then I've also put together a project criteria as well that is editable, and you'll be able to, you know, edit it and adapt it to your to your class. So this is the criteria that you can use as well. So I put in all the "we are learning to" and "why" because that's important for them to know and, you know, where they can upload it to. And this is the criteria. So I split it into the introduction, how you could share your information, the communication skills that they'll be using, and the conclusion. So in the introduction, you know, they've got to introduce themselves and think about their audience and what kind of language are they going to use? How are they going to adjust it to their audience? What's their video going to be about? So what are they learning to do? And actually say that in your video. You know, "We're learning to," I don't know, whatever it is. And this is because of— why are they learning this? And how are you sharing your information? So what props, prompts are you using to engage your audience? How are you going to help them learn and understand? And communication skills as well. So this is where the speaking and listening skills come in handy. So I've split this criteria and differentiated it for under good, great, and amazing. So for good communication skills, they're using consistent eye contact, confident stance, voice projection, clear voice, that provides supporting details, stay on topic, and then I've also put in great and amazing too. So this is also a good chance, you know, from the videos, you could also, you know, make some— yeah, make some assessment. You can use this for assessment data as well. And then in the conclusion, they will need to summarize their main points, you know, what was the most important key information you want your audience to remember and take away from your video. And also, they can also ask a question so that people can comment below as well. So these were some project videos that my students created for each other. So I put this here so that you can also get an idea. Of what students can create. So I had kids do how to do taekwondo, all about neutron stars, how to write a persuasive text, how to wash your hands properly, how to use the written strategy for subtraction, how to perform different types of dribbles in basketball, how to make a stop-motion video, narrative, bouncy egg, Milky Way, how to play ukulele, how to make a marble run, how to make a lava lamp, how to do a cartwheel, how to make edible slime, how to draw a dabbing unicorn, how to do pull-ups, how to draw pop-up Pikachu for Easter, how to shoot a goal in netball, how to care for a cat, and the list goes on. Yeah, so they, the students were so creative. They had they put up and uploaded so many videos for each other. Yeah, it was amazing. So just wanted to share with you what I was really, really impressed with from their videos were, you know, their creativity. So I had some kids dress up as Crazy Science Professor, had kids doing their own math shows. There was a lot of family and friend collaboration as well. Siblings were involved. They would be there to, you know, help each other with the science experiment or answer questions for math or, you know, bounce off ideas. There was a lot of positivity as well. So every video that was posted had a lot of positive and encouraging comments. So a lot of kids left each other really positive and encouraging comments under each video. They were interacting with each other. Yeah, and kids who asked a question in their videos, their peers would answer that question in the comment below. And yeah, it was just a really nice way, you know, to promote a really positive and creative collaborative environment, especially with a lot of the interaction that was happening as well. So when kids posted their videos up from Google Classroom, yeah, a lot of the kids were commenting below and also teachers commenting and giving feedback as well. So I know a colleague and I, we had a look, we watched the How to Do Taekwondo video. Yeah, so this one here, and we ended up recording ourselves doing the taekwondo as well, and then we posted, uploaded that for our stage, and the kids thought it was hilarious that they were watching us trying to follow the taekwondo video. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. And also, using that criteria, I've been commenting and giving feedback to my students and using that criteria to help you know, push them forward and give them feedback on, you know, are they— have they been using, you know, voice projection? Have they been using eye contact? You know, what prompts are they using? Are they summarizing their main points, etc.? So that's the feedback that we've been giving our students. And as, yeah, supervising my stage, I've been encouraging my the teachers on my stage to leave feedback and comments on the students, the students in their class. So, yeah, that's been really helpful and it's been helping the interaction and, yeah, just definitely, yeah, it's just resulted in a really highly engaging and positive environment because, you know, all the students, the teachers are all all there to interact and share and learn from each other. And it's just been so helpful having the audience there too, because the students are, you know, the audience are parents and also the teachers. So it's not just their teacher who's watching and seeing all of this. They're— yeah, the, you know, our principal's on there too, other exec are on there. So they they have a wide audience and the more interaction, the more comments, it's just been really helping the students with their well-being as well. Because going to school, it's all about learning and well-being and building character and they're at school and when they are at school they get to interact with each other, whereas now they're at home. So this is another way, another strategy for them to interact with each other, to, you know, put up these videos to share their knowledge, teach other people, learn from other people, interact from other people. And yeah, I did a survey on the students to see what, how they felt about the projects that they were creating. And they said, you know, they loved sharing what they know and what they love doing. They really liked being creative, they liked learning and trying new things from other students, and that there's no right or wrong. So yeah, that was really nice. So here are some resources that I'm going to leave in the description. So I'm going to leave a step-by-step guide on how to implement this engaging project for students and editable and PDF resources. So let me just show you what I will put in there. So there's this. So put in step by step. And if you have any questions, definitely comment below and ask. And editable project ideas and criteria. Ooh, and I've also put in there, I've asked my kids for advice. So this is advice from kids on creating, you know, first video for their project. So this is a resource that you can just download, upload to your Google Classroom, and share with your kids and easily implement for the next term coming. So some of the kids' advice, they said, "Don't be nervous and do your best. No one's gonna make fun of you if you—" "Get something wrong, just have fun." "Have a confident stance and speak loudly." "Try your best, edit your work." We've got "Use humor to make people feel engaged." "Try your best to keep calm and be confident." "Give video editing a try." "To use music, writing, or effects." We've got "Use hand gestures, confident stance, correct position, move, humor." make people understand the steps and give enough information. We've got do it with someone you work well with, talk loudly, don't be shy, watch other people's videos to get inspiration and don't give up. And lastly, we've got stay happy, try your best and have lots of fun. So you've got some advice from kids to other kids, you know, who are doing their projects. So I've also got a PDF in there as well if you want it. So yeah, so these will— I'll put the links below so that you have access to that. Alright. So comment below. So what strategies have you been using to engage your students at home? What ideas do you have for the term ahead? Share your thoughts and strategies below in the comments, and thanks for watching, and subscribe for more videos. You can find me @MsWinnieTang on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I hope this was very helpful for you, very quick, easy. You can download the resources of upload them onto your Google Classroom, and yeah, then you have a project ready to go for the next term. Anyway, thank you for listening, and stay safe, be kind to yourself and to others, and yeah, see you in the next video. Bye.