💥 NEW Google Slides template: Instagram profile

🤖 30 ways AI can help you and your students

Want to know what AI can REALLY do for you and your students in the classroom?

In my book AI for Educators, I share 30 (!) practical ways AI can support teaching and learning.

• #9: Anticipate the response you’d expect from AI.

• #15: Empower students to make a difference in the world.

• #18: Ask for definitions on a variety of levels

Tens of thousands of copies sold. Terrence said: “This book makes so many rational points that it helps ease the pressure I fell as a older teacher with years of successful experiences.”

Get AI for Educators in paperback or Kindle ebook on Amazon

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🕵️‍♀️ Analyze characters, history with Insta profile template

Teaching your students about a person — ANY person?

Use this FREE Instagram-style profile template for Google Slides or PowerPoint.

This is a quick and easy way to make learning feel like a place that students are very familiar with — Instagram!

Students show what they’ve learned in the details they add — the bio, the images, the profile picture — even the number of followers and following.

Get a copy of this Google Slides template here.

How can I use this?

Students can make an Instagram-style profile for:

• a character they’re reading about in a book

• a historic figure they’re studying

• themselves!

• their future selves

• a friend

• someone in the career they want to enter one day

• a scientist doing a successful lab they’re about to do

• an inanimate object (a virus, a food, a mineral, an element on the periodic table, etc.)

• an animal

• a stereotype

How students show what they know

1. Add a fitting profile picture that says something about the subject of the Insta profile

2. Write a meaningful (yet concise!) bio that covers the most important points of the subject of the profile

3. Add a relevant link (or make up a domain / “dot com”) that relates to the subject

4. Add images to the grid at the bottom that represent important things about the subject

5. Change the number of posts, followers and following to fit what would be appropriate for the subject

6. Click on individual images and then add comments to explain what the image says about the subject

7. Students can explain the details they added — and how they show what they’ve learned — in the speaker notes (a spot that’s NOT in the actual document but is a great place to talk about process and rationale)

Make a copy of the Insta-style profile template in Google Slides

(Want PowerPoint? Open the Google Slides file and go to File > Download > PowerPoint)

🎯 QUICK TEACHING STRATEGY 🎯

✅ Streamline class with habit stacking

If you're tired of telling your students over and over and over again to do something, you might be able to stack it together with something they already do.

That's habit stacking.

It's one of the easier ways to create new habits. If you're tired of telling your students over and over and over again to do something, you might be able to stack it together with something they already do. That's habit stacking.

James Clear states it simply in his book Atomic Habits:

"After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]."

Want to add healthy options to your lunch? As soon as you get your lunch box out (current habit), add a fruit or vegetable to it before anything else (new habit).

Using habit stacking in class

Can habit stacking work in the classroom? Absolutely. It just takes two simple steps (and then lots of execution):

Identify the new habit that you want your students (or yourself) to start.

Stack it with an existing habit you already have.

Here are some examples:

1. After students walk in the classroom, they'll take out their Chromebooks and open Google Classroom.

   Current habit: Walking in the classroom

   New habit: Take out Chromebook and open Google Classroom

   This one was powerful in my own classroom. I didn't have to remind my students to get their Chromebooks out because it was just what we all did every day as soon as we got to class. The "as soon as you enter the class" habit may be one of the easiest on which to stack new habits.

2. After the teacher finishes direct instruction, students do a 3-2-1 activity.

   Current habit: Finishing direct instruction

   New habit: Do a 3-2-1 activity

   Right after the teacher teaches -- or after a class discussion -- students' brains are still holding all that new information in their working memory. If they can sort through it, they can save some of it in a 3-2-1 activity or help lock it in long term memory by processing it. A 3-2-1 activity (or, at least, one of many variations of it): 3 new facts, 2 things I find interesting, 1 question for next time.

3. After the teacher sits down at their desk, the teacher will do one round of box breathing.

   Current habit: Sitting down at the teacher's desk

   New habit: Do one round of box breathing

   These habits aren't just for students! We can build little mental health habits into our day to help us do more than just survive. If you're like me, sitting down at your desk is a pretty regular habit. Box breathing can help reduce stress and improve concentration. Breathe in slowly for four seconds. Hold that breath for four seconds. Slowly exhale for four seconds. Hold that breath out for four seconds. 

💡Read more: Habit stacking: 10 ways it can streamline class

👋 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!