💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🗳️ Student interest surveys + assignments = FUN

Brace yourself: You’re about to get (what I think are) a good idea, a better idea, and a BEST idea.

🙂 Good idea: Have students fill out a student interest survey. These surveys are full of all sorts of fun questions that help you get to know your students. (Examples: favorite movies, favorite foods, family traditions, future aspirations, etc.)

Why? To get to know students. To build relevance. To build relationships.

These can be done in a simple Google Form (or even paper).

Our post — Student interest surveys to connect learning to their world — has a template you can copy. It also has a bunch of questions you can use.

😁 Better idea: Use AI to help with lesson plan ideas to make class more relevant to students. Ask an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Google Gemini (the new name for Google Bard) or Microsoft Copilot for ideas.

😆 BEST idea: Take what students tell you on their student interest surveys. Bring it to an AI assistant and ask AI for ways to incorporate those student interests into teaching and learning.

Example: In your surveys, you have several students tell you they’re into Fortnite. Ask an AI assistant for connections you can make to Fortnite with your content. (Possible important first step: Ask AI to tell you what Fortnite is and some details about it.)

Important note: Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. If AI gives you some great ideas, don’t take them and pretend to be an expert at that student interest. Be transparent — and let students tell you if the AI was on point with its suggestions.

➡️ What to do next: Create a student interest survey to give your students …

… OR take something you KNOW students are interested in and ask an AI assistant for ideas to incorporate it into a lesson about (insert topic).

Tried it? Hit reply and let me know how it goes!

🗄 TEMPLATE

“ Oops, we can’t unsend this email 🫣”

I get a lot of emails so it’s easy to miss things. But that headline, from Quizizz, caught my eye.

Why? Because I know the feeling of wanting to unsend an email. And also because I really wanted to know what it was they didn’t mean to send accidentally on purpose.

📧 Teaching email etiquette

As adults, we read and write a lot of emails. However, for most of us we didn’t start using electronic communication until we were already out of school.

Not so for students these days. If they need to communicate something to their teacher they often use email. But who’s teaching them HOW to write one?

✅ Answer: Quizizz!

🔗 Template: How to Email Your Teacher. A ready-to-run activity on email etiquette.

💡Ideas for using this template in class:

• Edit the template to fit your class adding names of teachers or admin to questions.

• Use the questions as discussion prompts for students.

• After students complete the quiz ask them to create their own “email etiquette” rubric for future use.

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!