A work-intensive but excellent way to get to know your students during the first week of school, shared by Heather Beiss, and created by Sarah VanDerWerf:
Basically, a name tent is a name tag for students to put on their desks, made of a piece of paper folded in half. However, VanDerWerf’s brilliant idea is using the inside of the name tag as an an anonymous set of weekly questions and feedback. You can collect them daily in a class folder, and distribute them back each day from the folder.
Check this out! You can draw amazing fractal trees! And other fractals of your own invention.
Thanks to Dr. Sofia Checa for sharing.
Are you looking for ways to inspire the students in your class to work together better? To work as a team, and lean in, asking each other questions and helping each other out?
One way to encourage this kind of teamwork is to give students a “participation quiz” using this website. Best practice is to start out just writing the positive things the groups/teams are doing. Thanks to Mr. Pinsky who I believe wrote the code, and to Heather Beiss, who kindly shared the link with the teachers at my school: