Live Streaming Students’ Engagement: Utilizing Technology and Formative Assessment to Support Gifted and Talented Student Learning

1. Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education
Lunch and Learn Webinar
June 4, 2019
Live Streaming Students’ Engagement:
Utilizing Technology and Formative Assessment to Support
Gifted and Talented Student Learning
Kimberly M. McCormick, Ph.D.
Department of Early Childhood Education
Towson University

3. When a student is actively engaged in their learning, this has
been found to be a strong predictor of success in school.
One important aspect of student engagement is how students
cognitively engage with their learning.
This component of engagement can be difficult to assess, since
it is not what can quickly be quantified in a classroom.
This session will highlight aspects of the school experience that
can support student’s cognitive engagement and strategies that
teachers can utilize in their classroom so that all students can be
supported in today’s classrooms.

4. What is “student engagement?”
Behavioral engagement is what can easily be observed
inside the classroom. This is students actively participating
in classroom activities, assignments, and projects. We can
think of this as “engagement of the body.”
Cognitive engagement relates to a student being truly
invested in the actual learning process. This is not just
appearing to be engaged in what is happening in the
classroom, but the mind is engaged as well. This is the
effort, investment, and strategies students use for
learning. We can think of this as “engagement of the
mind.”
Motivational/emotional engagement is meant by students
seeing the value of what they are doing in school.
Students are not just going through the motions of the
academic experience, but self-reflect and connect to their
learning. This is the feelings of connection or dis-
connection a student has to their school. We can think of
this as “engagement of the heart.”
Student engagement encompasses three key components: behavioral engagement,
cognitive engagement, and motivational/emotional engagement.

5. The Differences of How Students and
Adults View Student Engagement
For students when thinking
about engagement, what
first comes to mind is what
is happening internally.
On the other hand for
adults, they first think
about the external
behaviors of the student
when defining how an
individual is engaged.

6. What This Means for the Classroom
This theme of how
adults and students
view the components
of student
engagement
differently is essential
to highlight.
Adults feel that if they
can collect visual data
from students to
confirm that students
are engaged, then all
is right in the
classroom.
But in reality, students
have shared that this
visual piece is
normally the last
piece for them to go.
So, in a classroom at
first glance all
students might appear
to be engaged, but in
reality students could
almost be to the point
of total dis-
engagement.

7. How Formative Assessment Fits In
Formative assessment is one way that cognitive engagement can
be strengthened. It provides the ideal opportunity for students to
participate in their learning by understanding why they are
learning, how to make progress, and become ultimately become
independent learners. Also keeping in mind that it can be difficult
for teachers to assess if students are cognitively engaged in the
learning process, this shows how crucial formative assessment can
be in the gifted and talented classroom. Formative assessment
can give an opportunity to know exactly what is being mastered
while a lesson is taking place.

8. Technologies to Merge with Formative Assessment!
Click on images to navigate to their website!

9. Putting it into Practice
Formative Assessment Strategies
www.padlet.com
Post-it notes and chart paper can be pushed
aside for this “electronic” bulletin board. Think
outside the box for this formative assessment
strategy. Each student could have a Padlet board
or you could have a whole class or small group
respond on a board.

10. Special Notes:
The shelf board is nice for sorting and/or
categorizing activities. However, if you
want students to manipulate or move
the posts, canvas is a better option.
The backchannel option works well for
activities where you want posts to be
more interactive or like a dialogue.
First Steps with Padlet:
Choosing a layout!

11. Think about what you want to post!

12. How to customize your Padlet “wall.” - Click here for a Youtube video
You can also make your wallpaper fit your objective!

13. Brainstorming
a topic
Live question
bank
Gather student
work
Individual
student
portfolio
Exit or
Entrance
Tickets
Intro or ice
breaker type
activities
Thinking or
Mind Maps
Parent
communication
and newsletter
Book or
literature circle
discussions
Analyze a
quote
Current events Notetaking
Complete the
story
Create a wall of
student questions
before beginning a
project
Create a vocabulary
board for a reading
selection
List facts vs. opinions
about a topic
Have students
respond to a video that
is posted that connects
to an non-fiction piece
of reading
Post text-self, text-
world, or text-test
connections
Writing prompts: could
stem from videos,
audio, or pictures
Sequencing activities
where students
manipulate posts
Word sorting activity
with blends or word
families
The sky is the limit with the
literacy activities that you could
utilize with Padlet!

14. Putting it into Practice
Formative Assessment Strategies
www.popplet.com
This is an electronic mind mapping or
graphic organizer tool. It allows students
to think and learn visually while making
connections and forming relationships
between things using dynamic media.

15. The heart of Popplet is the popple!

16. Putting it into Practice
Formative Assessment Strategies
www.plickers.com
This response system is a bit different in
that only the teacher needs the
technology (Tablet or SmartPhone with
Plickers app) and then each student
needs one response card. Through the
magic of technology teachers can “scan”
responses to multiple choice and
true/false questions and collect data on
student understanding and facilitate high
cognitive engagement.

18. Traditional
multiple
choice or
true/false
questions
Poll
questions
and voting
Writing
workshop
status of
the class
Social and
emotional
status of
characters
in a story
Choose
your own
adventure
readings
Survey
questions
Student-
generated
questions
Some beginning ideas of the types of questioning that you can do with Plickers!

19. One of the biggest drawbacks of student response
systems is that often in literacy you want students
to do more than just answer multiple choice.
How to get students to write answers while still taking advantage of the
data these response systems have to offer?
Simple: don't put answer options down!
What to do: Create the questions like where A is a, B is b, C is c, and D is d. In
groups, have students answer the question on a sentence strip. While the view
is NOT on bar graph, have students put their sentence strip next to a letter.
Students can then vote on the best answer. When done, flip it over to the bar
graph view. Have students talk in groups about the results and then share out.

20. You can also upload images so you can expand the types of questions you ask!

21. Putting it into Practice
Formative Assessment Strategies
www.kahoot.com
A web based response system for teachers to do
formative assessments. Each student needs a device.
Can be done with a timed option or as a competition.
Data is saved in teacher account to use later for
analysis.

22. Putting it into Practice
Formative Assessment Strategies
www.socrative.com
A web based response system for
teachers to do formative assessments.
Each student needs a device. More
options for “forms” of assessment.
Student and teacher need account.
Data is saved in teacher account to
use later for analysis.

23. Putting it into Practice
Formative Assessment Strategies
Voki allows users to create speaking avatars. Basically users
create fun, quick digital videos to share.
www.voki.com
*Another similar site is Blabberize.
You do the same thing but with your
own pictures.

24. Instructional Ideas
Research Presentations
Share personal learning or
response to a text
Mystery: Who or what am I
guessing games
Practice reading fluency Digital author’s chair
Summarize a text (try
imposing a time limit)
Type into the voki to
determine if changes to
writing are needed
Talking head of the teacher
• Giving directions
• Giving a sample quiz
• Restating important information
before students work

25. Padlet, Popplet, Plickers, Socrative, Kahoot, and Voki are just a
few examples of formative assessment activities that could be
utilized in the classroom. Data collected through formative
assessment gives the teacher valuable information to use to
differentiate the learning which also is essential to supporting
student engagement.

26. Live Streaming Students’ Engagement:
Utilizing Technology and Formative Assessment to
Support Gifted and Talented Student Learning
Kimberly M. McCormick, Ph.D.
kmccormick@towson.edu
Department of Early Childhood Education