🙌 Tips to thrive at end of the school year

🎉 Happy Teacher Appreciation Week from Figma Edu

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week from the Figma for Education Team! This week, we're honoring teachers by supporting thousands of DonorsChoose projects. 🥳 🎉 

Join the celebration by sharing your project with us on social using the hashtag #FigmaEdu and tagging @Alex_FigmaEdu

When teachers are empowered with the right tools, the possibilities in their classroom (and their students’ futures) are endless. Figma is always free for teachers and students because we believe that the next generation of makers deserves access to world-changing design and collaboration tools.

Ready to see what FigJam, our online whiteboard tool, is all about? Want to try out Figma design with your CTE, graphic design or computer science students to design professional apps?

Join the countless teachers who've begun using FigJam to make learning more engaging, collaborative, and fun.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🎓How to THRIVE at the end of the year

As the school year winds down, it’s time to shift from survival mode to thrive-al mode! The “End of the Year THRIVE-al (Not Survival) Guide” offers practical tips and resources to help you make the most of the remaining days.

You can check out the entire post for all of the ideas, resources and links but here are some highlights:

💻 A “time to kill” file with 40 sites for students who finish early.

These sites offer strategies to keep students engaged as attention spans begin to wane.

You’ll find interactive activities like:

• Free Rice: Each time you answer a multiple choice vocabulary question correctly, you generate enough money for the United Nations World Food Programme to buy 10 grains of rice to help reach Zero Hunger.

• GMZ Podcasts: A valuable resource for teachers looking for high-quality podcasts to incorporate into their classroom instruction. Teachers can browse the podcast library and access resources such as lesson plans and discussion guides.

• Pixar in a Box: Pixar has partnered up with Khan Academy to bring your students Pixar in a Box. With video tutorials and interactive lessons, this course gives us a window into the jobs of Pixar animators. Topics include the art of storytelling, animation, rigging, color science and more. This course shows students that the subjects they learn in school — math, science, computer science, and humanities — are used every day to create the movies we love from Pixar.

• Google Expeditions: Google Expeditions are not gone. They just now live in Google Arts and Culture. Take a virtual field trip to hundreds of places around the world and beyond. Search by subject, topic, location and more.

• Chrome Music Lab: A website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments to explore music and its connections to science, math, art, and more.

How you can use the “time to kill” file in class:

• Find one of the sites from this post that fits your class and assign it to them as an option for finishing early.

• Choose a few of the sites that students can pick from.

• Give them access to everything through our interactive free time choice board. Just share the link and let them choose.

• Make a copy of the choice board and edit it to make it work for you. Click on the link to the choice board then in the lower right-hand corner click on the reuse icon 🔄 to make a copy of the Genially. Note: You’ll need to create your own Genially account first Here is how to get started.

📺 The “end of year inspiration” file

For me, TED Talks deliver a quick, meaningful dose of inspiration. They’re these 15-minute-or-less keynote speeches by experts in different fields. The premise: the speaker gives the talk of his/her life about his/her life’s passion. Connect these talks (linked from the TED website) with class content, or just show them for the sheer sake of inspiration.

• The danger of a single story (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie): In this video novelist Chimamanda Adichie shares found her authentic cultural voice.  She warns us the danger of only hearing a single story about another person, or country or culture and judge them on that we risk misunderstanding.

• Do schools kill creativity? (Ken Robinson): This is the most-watched TED Talk of all time. Ken Robinson advocates for a school system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. It can create a fascinating discussion afterward on the education system and your own school.

• Your body language shapes who you are (Amy Cuddy): The second-most-watched TED Talk of all time and one of my personal favorites. Amy Cuddy reveals secrets of how to get confidence even when we don’t feel confident. Plus, she discusses a traumatic time in her life and how she regained her confidence.

How you can use the “end of year inspiration” file in class:

• Use any of the templates in our Teaching with Teachflix ebook with the videos. Note: The link above with automatically download the ebook to your computer.

• Use the free AI tool like Brisk Teaching or Quizizz AI to create resources to use with the TED Talks.

• Encourage students to create their own Ted Talk using these free activities from TED-ED.

Get all of the resources here: End of the Year THRIVE-al (Not Survival) Guide

🗄 Template

📱 Text me what you’ve learned!

In this Figjam template, created by Renee Dawson, students use the cards to summarize what they learned in 2-3 sentences (like they would in a text message), and then snap a selfie.

Make a copy then share it with students. All of the directions are already inside of the template!

Students will:

1. Use the cards to summarize what they learned in 2-3 sentences. Write it just like they would write a text message.

2. Add their selfie to the card with their name, date, and subject.

3. Use the alignment scales to rate your understanding of the lesson.

🔗 Template Link

💡Learn more:

• Using FigJam with students: A getting started guide

• How to use FigJam in the classroom: 20 ideas + templates

👋 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!