[inspirational music playing]

Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Susan Gear: Welcome, everyone. We are here to tell you about ALVN, which is called ALVN, because [ INAUDIBLE ] All right. So this is what we're going to do today, is we're going to give you an example of-- we're going to show you ALVN. We're going to use ALVN to find some of the factors. We're going to investigate the learner factors. We're going to determine how you can use this tool for your students and your faculty. And we're going to look at it in small groups. And I guess we'll put the people on the line.

So yeah. And by the end of this, you'll see what we think is just a fascinating tool for adult educators. And if you saw the plenary session this morning about how important it is that we have our students belong, this tool and help you that.

Kristi Reyes: [ INAUDIBLE ] And first, is everyone here in the physical room are you teachers? Yes, and so how about those of you joining by Zoom sharing the chat, are you a teacher, or administrator, or something else? So I have sometimes an administrative role. But I'm also [ INAUDIBLE ]. And for you teachers, I sometimes observed fun stuff.

And for Steve or anybody who's an administrator, you do observation. Good time. And so in my experience as both, I love to integrate technology. But I know the research, too. And on the other hand, when I'm observing within the evaluations of teachers, they know that I like to integrate technology. So they have that in their mind that I need to do something great with technology. And honestly, I've seen some stuff that did not fit, did not fit. And maybe you've experienced this.

Or early on, we got to be so excited by any tool. I'm going to try this out on Monday. And the students are just like, what is this about. How does this fit with my lesson? So the beauty of this, if you are teaching, and you're going to be evaluated, and you want to use technology, connecting it to your research, if you're an administrator or you're doing any coaching or mentoring of other faculty, of other instructors, you can help them out.

Just as an anecdote, for example, my son is in middle school. When they come close to the winter break, teachers are pretty burned out. They're kind of done. So it was like the Thursday before their winter break. So Blake, what did you do in school today? Oh, we did like 10 cahoots. Oh, really? OK, what was that like about your science class? Well, just random stuff.

And I try and [ INAUDIBLE ] So we have a fun technology, Because I get to engage them. It needs to be rooted in research and in what works, fitting with our lessons. So that is the beauty of this website. So should we go ahead and-- let's put this in the chat. If you have two devices, if you can just open up your camera on your device, point it at the QR code. I'm going to be having you use the site shortly, not just yet.

And we have a shortened version here the Bitly I'll try to put this if I can [ INAUDIBLE ] Yeah, just scan that with your phone, or type in bit.ly/tdlsalvn. A-L-V-N. So we'll be going to that site in a moment. But just have that ready. You can come back to this if you miss this, but you're going to be using the site shortly. And it's kind of hard to find, because there is a version that's K through 12. We're looking a newer version.

[ INAUDIBLE ]

Susan Gear: Strategies and career factors for adults. So should we get the next slide up? Oh. So it's me, not Kristi. Myself, I also have a code, so that might be why. So I have this QR code for you. And if you scan this QR code, it should bring up a tool called Mentimeter, where you can answer this question, which you cannot see. Use Alvin to find learner factors. So we're going to ask you, what are some critical learner factors do you think for a learner? Let me know if the QR code is working, please, and it brings up the question.

The question will be, what are some critical learner factors?

Kristi Reyes: Like, I can't see well. I have to wear my glasses. And if I forget my glasses, I can't really engage with this lesson. Or some students, they work five jobs.

Susan Gear: It doesn't matter.

Kristi Reyes: And learner factors for adults.

Susan Gear: For you.

Audience: Babysitting.

Susan Gear: Yeah, anything.

Audience: Babysitting.

Kristi Reyes: Childcare.

Susan Gear: Yeah.

Kristi Reyes: Some of my in my morning program, some are elderly. So they spend more time.

Susan Gear: So I wonder if this is working.

Kristi Reyes: So I don't like to use the-- we're saying factors. You can also think of maybe barriers, learner barriers that adults bring.

Susan Gear: Well, I'll clock to you what you're saying. Some people are saying time. Some people are talking about literacy, background education, children, work. Can we think of a few more? There are so many, right? Let's put them on the table.

Audience: [ INAUDIBLE ] Unrecognized disability. So they have a disability that they remember.

Susan Gear: [ INAUDIBLE ] So most of you can't see this, so we're not going to be able to bring it up. But I'll show that this is making a word cloud. And the larger the word, the more people said it. So the words that are really large right now are child care and time. There's trauma, higher education, social emotional trauma. So now, if we go to the next screen, these are the learner factors that ALVN talks about.

So there are four critical ones. Learner background, and that's what you're-- No, no, that's not it. That will work. So there's learning background. And we can talk about literacy. You put that in. Physical well-being. Trauma was in there. Safety, sleep, social support.

Kristi Reyes: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Susan Gear: Well, and then we have social and emotional learning. And that's your emotion, your sense of belonging. This is really resonating with me because of the plenary that we just watched which was so fantastic how important that is. Stereotypes, threats, social awareness. Then we have what we call cognition, which sometimes people only think that cognition is important. But there's all this other stuff.

And so we have memory, metacognition, reasoning, short term memory, long term memory. These are all learner factors. And the last one is-- what's the last one?

Kristi Reyes: Problem solving. Sorry.

Susan Gear: It's here.

Kristi Reyes: Adult literacy.

Susan Gear: I can get this going the way. Yeah, adult literacy. And that's the things oral communication, numeracy, foundational reading skills, disciplinary literacy. So literacy was in there. And a lot of this when we talked about learner factors, I saw a lot of social and emotional learning. So we're really well aware of that. And I saw a lot of learner background. But I think I saw less of us put down the information from cognition and adult literacies, but they're also really important factors.

Kristi Reyes: I want to ask you if there's anything on here that is something you're not aware of, or you're not sure what the term means, because there are a couple that are not always very frequently used, academic. Like, for example, is everyone aware of stereotype threat? Oops. I touched it. Can you go back? Stereotype threat comes from the work of-- let me think of his name-- Claude Steele. And I've seen this in my program with some of the ESL learners.

But this is when students belong to a certain group and they come to our classes, and they feel that maybe their classmates, or their instructors are judging them by the dominant stereotype for that group. OK? And their mind gets so clouded with these thoughts of, like, oh, they think I'm like that, that they cannot perform well in class. And so this just a quick example. Pretty much all of our adult ed programs, you know when students come to register, they're filling out a form that asks what kind of questions. Age. What else?

Susan Gear: Address.

Kristi Reyes: Address.

Susan Gear: Which they may not have.

Audience: Demographic.

Susan Gear: Yes.

Kristi Reyes: Former level of education, previous schooling. And so I've had students in my ESL program. They come in and they have in their mind, oh, I have minimal education. And they start with that. And they're filling out this form, and that's sort of clouding their ability to even focus on the assessment, the placement exam. So that can be really difficult. But there are great, great ways to break that. And you're going to see if that's something that you have with your students.

Age sometimes. Some students come in thinking, oh, I'm too old to do this. Right? So that's a really interesting one. And then the only other one that sometimes folks don't always know what that means is metacognition. Does everybody know what that means?

Audience: Self learning.

Kristi Reyes: Yes, like, thinking about your learning. So we do that, for example, when we're teaching students reading skills. We do the read and think aloud, but having students reflect on their learning. And so we need to give more of that, because there's not enough time, usually, for reflection. But research shows very valuable and important.

Susan Gear: Let's find out if there's any questions for us. Any questions? OK.

Audience: When you say inhibition, can you explain inhibition a little bit? That one's a little--

Kristi Reyes: I think of that, especially for testing, I'm a language teacher. But this could be across the board. When students, they're feeling like I don't want to raise my hand and be wrong, and then that's so humiliating. And so that comes into practice, too, in how we give feedback to students when their answer is not quite right. And we don't want to say yes when it's not right, but in keeping encouraging them to participate.

So a lot of times, students just feel very reserved, because they want to save face. They're not willing to put risk. So that's about creating that really comfortable environment in our classroom. And they'll be less inhibited. They take risks.

Susan Gear: OK. So I think we went through all of this. This is what it looks like on ALVN when you go to the factors. They have all these different factors. And what we really like about this is that it gives you a factor, and then it gives you a teaching tool, and then it gives you the research behind that teaching.

Kristi Reyes: Yeah. And just one point here. When you're exploring this tool, we feel that you can look at strategies connected to learner factors. But we feel that it's best to start with learner factors. So in working with some teachers and, of course, we're teaching for OTAN called Best, building an edtech strategy toolkit. We have teachers go through this. And just for an example, one teacher said, oh, my gosh. There are so many learner factors.

You really need to think about the major factors for the majority of your class. But then you can go back and you see there's one student who's just really struggling. Then you can go back to this and kind of differentiate the instruction by looking at specific. But you should start with the factors and then go to the strategies, rather than the reverse. It's a little bit more effective.

Susan Gear: OK, here we go. OK, so let me. This is another Mentimeter activity. And this time, we're going to be looking at the-- well, let me get there. You're going to see the same thing, otherwise. It should be the same QR code as before. Let me just get to the right slide.

Kristi Reyes: So if you have a second device like a phone or a tablet with a camera, if you just want to point it at the QR code, and it should open in your browser. And answer that question in just a minute. And just to kind of clarify what we mean by learner strategies, kind of like, what kind of activities do you do in the classroom.

Susan Gear: And I'll give you an example. For me, it's really important. I teach totally online right now. And so it's really important for me to check in with my students during the class and check in with them all the time, because I want to know where they're at mentally and emotionally. So I use a lot of check-in, and I do different things with check-in. Sometimes I use Mentimeter as a tool for check-in. Sometimes I use Google Forms as a tool for check-in. But I'm always checking out my students, because I don't see them, really.

Actually, I don't tell them to put the camera on, because I feel that's a privacy issue. So I see these little boxes. And in order for me to know how they're feeling, I do a lot of check-in. So that's one of the strategies that I use is a check-in. So that's an example. So go ahead and let's see what's coming up here. You get the question, what are some learning strategies that you use in your classroom.

Audience: No, mine's still stuck on the ask question.

Susan Gear: Really.

Audience: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Susan Gear: OK, let me try this.

Kristi Reyes: We need the English up. What are some of the learner strategies that you use in the classroom?

Susan Gear: Right. Yes. It should be, what are some learner strategies that you use in your classroom. And my example was the check-in.

Kristi Reyes: Got it? OK.

Susan Gear: Yeah, so I had to hit present. This is a cool tool, Mentimeter, that you can use with your students, too. And I'm seeing [ INAUDIBLE ] Are we ready for that then?

Kristi Reyes: Well, we're doing this.

Susan Gear: Yeah, that would work. OK. I don't see any answers yet. Oh, here we go. Now it's coming. So define unfamiliar words, including breaking down word parts, interviews, dialogues, hands on practice. I'll show you guys over here that this is what it looks like. This was not a word cloud. This one is just open ended answers. Oral participation and conversational tools to increase confidence and comfortability. Hands on practice.

Checking in verbally with students with comments on their assignments and Google Classroom. And I often get responses and have conversations through Google Classroom or email. So verbally checking in. Vocabulary words, specific skills, interviews and dialogues.

Kristi Reyes: So those are really great activities. How do you decide on those activities? You were just trained on some different activities. Right? So the beauty of this is you're connecting the learner factors with some strategies, strategies based research.

Susan Gear: Right, research. Research for adults. That's the beauty of this.

Kristi Reyes: OK, so we'll go ahead and move on. And this is really great. If you're, like, you know students like routines. So if you have this set routine that's working, keep that. But then if you see, well, I need to spice it up, I need to try something new to meet the needs of my students, there are more than 74 strategies here. So you can browse that, just the strategies alone, just to get ideas for different things that maybe you haven't tried before in your classroom, but then really focusing on your learner factor, their needs.

Then we go from the factors. The site is interactive, and it will hook you up with strategies specific to those learner factors.

Susan Gear: And if you make an account with this site, you can actually save those strategies and those the research that you find in your account so that you can come back to them later. So it's completely free. Yeah, it's completely free. It's through Digital Promise, which is a massive federal grant. And so it is a tool that you can use with yourself, or your teachers, and your students in order to make yourself know that what you're doing is based on research, not just maybe it'll work.

Kristi Reyes: I wanted to show really quick before we have you do some hands on and a demo by Susan. Here we are. You can see that there's the about tab right over here. Again, we think it's best to start with the learner factors. And there are three different themes you can see. The theme one adults need a variety of 21st century foundational skills. So the literacy.

Then theme two, adults need to see the benefits of learning tasks to fully engage. So making sure everything you're teaching, your explicit about how this is related to their needs and their goals, and relevant to their lives. And theme three, engaging in lifelong learning activities is interconnected with general well-being, which has come to be known as the SEL, social emotional learning, that I never thought this was coming to adult ed, because I had heard about it in K through 12.

But working with some of my students, there's a lot of trauma right now, if you've noticed. And so how can we give them that physical but also emotional well-being and feel welcome and comforted in our classrooms? So what you do is, just to have a quick look. Oh, gee. Can you do that? Yeah.

Susan Gear: You want to go down?

Kristi Reyes: Up, I think. So again, what you do is you start with the factors.

Susan Gear: Somebody called in. We have Ukrainian refugees in our program right now.

Kristi Reyes: Yeah, yep. OK, Susan, you're going to have to see if this is how it works.

Susan Gear: I can do this, though.

Kristi Reyes: OK, can you do that? And then can you go up please? And go ahead to factors there.

Susan Gear: Yeah. I think it works better as a touchscreen.

Kristi Reyes: I think so, too, because this is-- thank you. And so look at all those factors. So basically, let's see. What did someone say earlier? Inhibition, just as an example. So if we go there to inhibition, it gives us a good definition. What is inhibition? And look at how that is connected to all those other factors. Someone might have some inhibition, because they're just tired. Right? Didn't get a good night's sleep.

Maybe they're in a class, an adult secondary class, and they're the only second language learner. So it could be something like primary language. So it shows the connections to the other factors. But then when you go ahead and go down a bit--

Susan Gear: I like that it does this, too. It shows that inhibition actually has two different levels. You have the behavioral level and the cognitive level. And I would never have thought about it in that way, unless I had looked at ALVN.

Kristi Reyes: Yes. And then so what you do is you go down, and you see specific strategies just for that factor. And then when you choose one strategy, for example--

Susan Gear: OK, I want to choose check-ins, because--

Kristi Reyes: Yeah, that's her favorite. Very effective, though. Here's the really wonderful thing. It tells you how to do this. But also, it gives you a list of many different research studies and resources. Look at all those. And examples. So if you're being observed some time, and you do this lesson, and you're telling your supervisor, hey, this is what you're going to see, well, I'm going to use this technology, because I looked at my learner factors. And they have this certain factor.

And the research says that this is a strategy I should use. And this is the technology that serves that purpose.

Susan Gear: And it clearly gives you what's an example and what is research so that you can-- and although, a lot of it is using employers and workplaces for adults, because a lot of adults are in workplaces, you can apply the workplace as your classroom, because for many students, that is their workplace. So the things that they say about workplace could be said about-- let's see. Yeah. There we go. OK, so I have it.

Kristi Reyes: So there's an article, for example. From Forbes Magazine.

Susan Gear: OK, can we go back? OK, over here. Of course, I'm one of the vertically challenged people.

Audience: So the research that they're going to present isn't always open source research. So the website itself is open source, but sometimes you'll come across research that's not necessarily open source.

Kristi Reyes: it's not usually paywall, if that's what you mean. Sometimes I'd want to look at an article as New York Times. I need a subscription. No, all the other research there is open to you. I'm not sure what you mean by open.

Audience: What I mean is, if you want to turn around and share it in a slideshow, you still need to give credit.

Kristi Reyes: You probably need to give credit to the original person.

Susan Gear: And we're going to just say this, because we're doing a thing on AI later on. Over crediting is not a problem.

Kristi Reyes: So should we go back to the slides? Let's see.

Susan Gear: OK, yeah.

Kristi Reyes: I'll do this part, since you're vertically challenged. That's another learner factor, by the way.

Susan Gear: Yeah. You said vertically challenged, and I look [ INAUDIBLE ]

Audience: Also the term compactly enabled.

Kristi Reyes: That's a good one.

Susan Gear: OK. So this was an example, because I love check-ins. So I think we went over this already, because we did show it online. But so this is an example of the different pieces. I think we can go to the next slide. So and then I think we already went through this, too. Right?

Kristi Reyes: Well, this is where we're going to now. Susan's going to demonstrate a little bit. But we're going to give you about 15 minutes to explore the tool on your own. So Susan, for you, what is one of the major learner factors? Right now, Susan is teaching students in Afghanistan.

Susan Gear: Yeah, I'm teaching at the American University of Afghanistan. I'm teaching a writing class. I have 30 students in my writing class. And I teach totally remotely. And so what I have been doing is using ALVN to give me a lot of social and emotional learning ideas, because these students are incredibly traumatized. 90% of them are women, and they thank me every day that they have a place to go to get an education. As you know, Afghanistan is the only country in the world that forbids education to women.

So yeah. So I use the check-in. Like I said before, I use so many check-ins. I only get to teach them live once a week, because they don't have enough electricity to come every day. So everything is asynchronous. And then once a week, I get to meet them, and we have a class. And most of the time when I'm in the class with them, then I'm checking in on how they're feeling, how they're doing, getting them to communicate with me as a human, because I don't think they get very much of that.

So I spend a lot of time on social emotional learning, and ALVN has been instrumental in giving me ideas of things that I can do.

Kristi Reyes: So what Susan would probably look for, going to the factors, is something related to the trauma, or something. Right? She would go to the factors.

Susan Gear: OK, let's go back there. Let's go to the--

Kristi Reyes: Then from there, she would find the strategies.

Susan Gear: Let's see if I want to do adverse experiences, for example. And I would read about it. And I would look at the main idea, which is interpersonal and not interpersonal, which would be the things that are-- this is hard.

Kristi Reyes: Go touch.

Susan Gear: And then and then here are the tools that we can use. And so I do actually do a lot of annotating. I have a paid tool that I use on campus called Perusall, and it allows students to read. What's really cool about it is you can bring in different reading levels. So I can go to Newsela and take in a low level, or medium level, and a high level, and put them all in Perusall, group by students, based on what level they need. And they can annotate, and they can have a discussion about the article.

So I do a lot of annotating. I think you could probably do something like that in Google with an article, and have different students go to a different URL, and have them annotate at their level. So I do a lot of that. I try to work on building empathy, but not with me and them. With them. And the way I work on the building of empathy is I have them using a WhatsApp group. And I'm in the group.

And it's just amazing to see how much they help each other, because their morning is my night. So when they're asking questions for me, I'm sleeping. So I wake up in the morning, I go to my WhatsApp, and I see this was a question, and another student answered it. And every question is almost always answered by the time I wake up. And then I just answer. I respond, and I say yes, it's due Saturday at 8:30, and just to make sure that they know that they have the right answer.

So yeah, WhatsApp is a way I build some empathy with them. And I do a lot of annotating. And so what I did to find this out is, when I went to ALVN, I said, OK, let me see. What are some ideas for building empathy? And here they are. Active listening, motivating adult learners using empathy. So I used some of these examples to help me formulate the best way for me to handle that. And that's why I think this is the power of ALVN. OK, so now go where?

Kristi Reyes: Back two slides?

Susan Gear: OK, can you do that? OK.

Kristi Reyes: OK, so this is what we want you to do. Was everybody able to open the site on your device? OK. Now go back to that slide.

Susan Gear: Anybody having a problem with it--

[indistinct speech]

Kristi Reyes: So the link there, bit.ly/alvntech is a link to a spreadsheet that we're going to have you use. Not yet. Not yet. What we want to do is, first, on your own-- let me actually go back a slide. Kind of how Susan just demonstrated there, thinking about some the major factor, one or two factors of your class, your learners, your school, I guess, if you're an administrator. And go to ALVN.

Start with the factors. Take a few minutes to click on the factor, see what strategies, browse a few strategies, look at one or two pieces of the research that you will see at the bottom of the page, and just take, we're going to say, 15 minutes to explore on your own. And then we're going to be having you contribute to a spreadsheet so that we can share some information together. So any questions before we give you a few minutes to explore on your own?

Susan Gear: Yeah, just take some time, because it's very meaty. And just take some time and see. Just get used to it.

Kristi Reyes: You want them to be here?

Susan Gear: No, they need to be at the-- they need to have the link.

Kristi Reyes: We'll go back for a second. It is right there.

Susan Gear: Yeah, so they can go to the QR code.

Kristi Reyes: Either the code or the link.

Susan Gear: Yeah, yes. The QR code is telling you that you're on Zoom.

Kristi Reyes: So the link in the chat. If they want to chat in the chat, we'll try to do that.

Susan Gear: Yeah. The chat right here.

Kristi Reyes: Going to have to get the link, probably without going out. I can go to here. Sorry. One second. Let me put the link in the chat for y'all. One second. OK. OK. [ INAUDIBLE ] It's my turn. I want to know what to do.

We'll go back to the main page here. Sorry. [ INAUDIBLE ] It comes in the chat room. So just, you'll see it in the chat. The link is to the inhibition. If you can just click on factors to get to the main factors, that would be best.

That's the link you put. Yeah. So it's already gone. Oh, but yeah, it's on inhibition. So just click back to factors to get to the main factors page.

Audience: You do a nice job with the color coding.

Susan Gear: Yes.

Audience: It really is intuitive.

Kristi Reyes: So for whoever just came in, welcome. Right on time. We want to click on the link in the chat, or go to bit.ly/tdlsalvn.

Susan Gear: OK.

Kristi Reyes: I'll do it again.

Susan Gear: Yeah, every time somebody comes in, they don't have the chat anymore.

Audience: This is a totally free website, open source website, totally free?

Kristi Reyes: Yeah.

Audience: That's fantastic. So K12 can use it, as well?

Susan Gear: They have a K12 version. It's a different version for K12.

Audience: But it's in the same format? You go to the same website?

[indistinct speech]

Kristi Reyes: So the instructions are to click on the factors tab for the ALVN factors. Then select maybe the major factor, one or two. But just start with the major factor for your learners. Then explore a couple of the strategies. And as you go to a strategy, then look at one or two pieces of the research. You don't have to read in full the research links, but just kind of skim real quickly. We'll give you about 10 minutes.

Audience: It's down at the bottom. I saw the K12. And then I remember. So if I go back here, I'm an adult learner.

Susan Gear: Right. If you want to find the K12 one, [ INAUDIBLE ] Oh, there you go. Yeah, there's the K12 right there.

Audience: And that will also have social emotional learning and all that? Because you know it shows math and literacy.

Susan Gear: Go up a little higher. I think there's more. No?

[indistinct speech]

Kristi Reyes: OK. So the instructions are to go to bit.ly/tdlsalvn. Or open your phone and point it at the QR code with your camera. Then click on factors. And think of the major factor, or factors-- two would be best-- the major factor or factors that influence your student's learning. Select a factor. Skim what it says, then go down to strategies on the same page, and select one or two strategies.

It's usually good to look at something you don't know about, so you can kind of broaden your toolkit. So select one or two strategies. Read what the strategy is. And at the bottom of each strategy, there are links of resources and research. So we'll take about seven or so more minutes to do this. Select one of the pieces of research or resources there, and just skim it, as you will just kind of explore the site. I hope you can hear it better now.

[indistinct speech]

Susan Gear: No, no, it doesn't seem like they do. Not that in my experience. I've only done this for two semesters, so I don't know. The first semester.

[indistinct speech]

This semester, I had more aware of the personal diligence than last semester. So it means they are getting out early.

[indistinct speech]

I don't know a lot about the K12 one.

[indistinct speech]

And there is research. Adult ed is a lack of research most of the time.

Audience: Oh, no kidding.

Kristi Reyes: Yeah.

Susan Gear: Five more minutes, and then we're going to do a group activity.

[indistinct speech]

So we have 18 people online. So should we make three breakout rooms?

Kristi Reyes: Sure.

Susan Gear: Yeah, they're asking for the link to the spreadsheet. So we're going to--

Kristi Reyes: We'll put it in the chat.

Susan Gear: We're going to put you guys into breakout rooms in just a second so you can talk about it. This is just like working on your own, and then you're going to think, pair, share, is what it is. So do the spreadsheet link as soon as we put you into breakout rooms. Right?

Kristi Reyes: Yeah. So just take a couple more minutes to explore the site, and then you're going to be doing a group activity.

Susan Gear: Oh, I can't make them bigger.

Kristi Reyes: And I hear that familiar, oh, breakout rooms, I'm out of here.

Susan Gear: For a co-host. I think we have to make this computer a co-host.

Kristi Reyes: OK, sure.

Susan Gear: So let me see. We have to do it here.

Kristi Reyes: No.

Susan Gear: No, here. Which computer is this one?

Kristi Reyes: But actually, it's going to be Michelle.

Susan Gear: Michelle. Michelle, is your name here?

Kristi Reyes: She's going to log in right now.

Susan Gear: OK. OK. Because we have to make you a co-host, or we can't make the breakout rooms. I mean, we could probably do it here, but.

Kristi Reyes: A window has already started. Oh, there it goes. Click on the first one. But then she's not going in right now.

Susan Gear: OK, I'm going to make the breakout rooms. OK, how many? We have 15 people. So shall we do three people in a room? OK, we'll make five breakout rooms. And sign automatically. OK. I can create them. I just can't--

Kristi Reyes: Don't do it yet. It says please make your co-host start this meeting.

Susan Gear: Oh, I have to let you in. OK. One second.

Kristi Reyes: The waiting room is disabled.

Susan Gear: Yeah, the waiting room is disabled. So I don't know why you can't get in.

[indistinct speech]

Can you just use this computer?

Kristi Reyes: Sure.

Susan Gear: And then I can make this. The computers are already in, I believe. But I don't even see this computer here. I don't even see that computer. This one is the host. I don't see anybody who's a co-host. Yeah, I don't see how to do it right now, how to make you a co-host.

Kristi Reyes: Make me a co-host?

Susan Gear: Yeah. I don't see your computer.

Kristi Reyes: Cynthia King?

Susan Gear: Oh, Cynthia. OK.

Kristi Reyes: Yeah, Cynthia King should be a monitor. So she should be in there. Go up.

Susan Gear: Oh, there. There she is. OK. Let me make this person a co-host. Yes, OK. Now, good. OK. This is so much easier to do online. OK, so shall we put them in the breakout rooms?

Kristi Reyes: We need to delete in the chat first. OK, OK, so let's give you-- hopefully, you had a little glimpse. OK, so don't leave. Don't leave. You can just put in the chat, I'm listening, if you prefer not to participate in Zoom in the breakout room. OK? That's what I tell me students. So let me see if I can move this just a little bit to this side. Let me just move it. OK, so here's what we're going to do.

This a little bit down. See, I'm getting the hang of it. Hey, yeah. No, I got a little overconfident. There we go. OK. So let me go forward here in the slides. Can you help me?

Susan Gear: Yeah. Just go in the slide.

Kristi Reyes: Yeah. Got it. OK, we were way back. OK, here we come. This is what we're going to be doing for an activity. So hopefully, you had a little chance. But let me just show you. Go back one.

Susan Gear: Oh, going back.

Kristi Reyes: OK. So you had a little chance to explore, hopefully, one factor, and at least one strategy. So we're going to partner you all up. Obviously, it looks like you two would make good partners. OK? Let's see. Steve, would you mind jumping over there? OK. And we're going to put you into breakout rooms, and we're going to be putting the spreadsheet in the chat in a moment.

And this is what you're going to do. You're going to talk to your group members, and take a few minutes, introduce yourself, say what and where you are teaching, or if you're an administrator, what your goal is. And then what you're going to do is just say, well, my learners main factor is blank. And just in my quick time of exploring ALVN, I found this strategy.

And then once you talk through it, what we'd like you to do as you're able in your groups, we'll be sharing this spreadsheet in the chat. And you're going to work together. So if Susan and I are working together, maybe I'll just go with her chat since she loves the check-ins so much. We can just use hers, or maybe I can convince her, hey, but have you thought about this strategy. So together we're going to enter some information for the two of us.

And so on this spreadsheet, you're going to think of one strategy. Not yet. You're going to summarize what the research, maybe just one piece of research, what it said, why this is a great strategy for learners with this particular factor. And then since this is a technology summit, you all, I'm sure, use technology. So what is a technology tool that you could use to implement that strategy in your classroom?

So let us show you. Not yet, Susan. I know she's really excited.

Susan Gear: Well, I gave you the box.

Kristi Reyes: I'm going to open the spreadsheet just to show you what you'll be expected to do after you have a little chat. OK?

Susan Gear: So that's the little X at the top.

Kristi Reyes: Maybe just close it for now. OK. So this is what you're going to do. And this is maybe the wrong one, because it doesn't have our-- so this is what you're going to do. You're going to work together. There it is. So you can see that Susan, she kind of wanted to be independent, and that is a learner factor. And she put in, she found this strategy. She teaches vocabulary quite a bit to her English language learners.

So her strategy is explicit instruction with vocabulary. She put the hyperlink to where she found that. If you are able to do that on this spreadsheet, that would be great. But if you want to just type it out, that would be fine. Then she just copied and pasted why an instructor would use that strategy. I think, actually, she didn't copy and paste. She kind of put it into her own words. Then she thought, OK, what do I use now, and maybe what is something I'd heard about that would really fit with this.

And so she thought, hey, using a KWL. Is everybody familiar with that? K is what? What I already know, what I want to learn, and what I've learned. So when she's introducing some vocabulary, she brings up that KWL. Hey, we're going to be talking about words for job application. Here are some words. What else do you know? What do you want to know afterwards? Her other one was reflection. Google Forms.

So we won't go to those actual sites, but she had students kind of--

Susan Gear: They are linked, though. So you can go there.

Kristi Reyes: Yeah, you can visit them.

Susan Gear: Here in your groups.

Kristi Reyes: Correct me if I'm wrong. This was kind to reflect on what they had learned, as well.

Susan Gear: Right, vocabulary. I have them use the vocabulary.

Kristi Reyes: And then do you want to talk about your Padlet wall?

Susan Gear: Yeah, and then the Padlet wall was my favorite activity. That's why it's highlighted in yellow. Because I have the students actually take the vocabulary, and they have to do something with it. They have to find a picture that illustrates it, write a sentence, and comment on other people's work on Padlet. And so that's what we did, and it was amazing. I did it with low beginning ESL students at the time. And they were doing adjectives. And they had the best time commenting on each other's photos.

Their English language skills incrementally went up when they were having these free discussions with each other on the Padlet well. And when they talked to me, they had no language. Right? But when they were discussing each other's photos, they did have language. And it was amazing to me to see that. So that was the tool. The highlighted one is a tool that I think I used the most.

Kristi Reyes: And then you can see she put just a one sentence explanation of why she chose--

Susan Gear: This I cut and paste.

Kristi Reyes: Why she chose that tool. So then my example is the next row down. And how many of you teach writing? No? OK. Teaching writing is really tough. And actually, that one is not mine. Anyway, so what I wanted to do, I know that it's so important to have students read each other's work. Modeling peer review, it takes up a lot of time, and I don't always have a lot of time. But I know that they need that.

So I decided to try to incorporate more peer review. And instead of just talking or, by hand, filling out a form, why not just use, again, a Google form, where they're working together, and they're filling out a Google form, not really correcting grammar of their classmates, because they're not linguistic experts, but giving a sentence about what was the best part of this writing, what part they didn't understand, or want to know more about, and what questions they have.

And so you can see I did with the Google form. I can also do that in Canvas. If you use Canvas, you can create collaborations and peer review, as students are submitting that one. And then also, we used rubrics, because, honestly, it's hard to stay honest with and be objective when you're looking at students' writing over time. And I see someone who started very low, and they've made some progress, but you want to give them 100% when, really, they're not quite there yet.

So that is the other tool in Canvas. I can put in a rubric. But also, I can just put a link to the rubric if they're using Google Docs, for example. So I won't read everything. I got a little bit verbose about why I chose that tool. But hopefully, you get the idea. Thank you, Salma, for highlighting on the screen what to do. So we're going to go ahead and put this link let me just in the chat.

Susan Gear: One more thing is that Kristi and I actually tried our three tools out in class, to choose the one that we like the best. And you're not going to be able to do that, obviously, because you're here. So you can do that later. Try out all three tools that you guys talked about, and then decide which one you like the best. And you can go back in and highlight it later, because the spreadsheet will still be there.

Kristi Reyes: So I'm going to put this link in the chat. So if everybody who's in Zoom, if you can click on that link now to have that open. We're going to be putting you into breakout rooms. I'm going to go back to the slide show for the folks who are here physically in the room so that they can open up the slide show. Right? OK, OK.

Susan Gear: I got to do the breakout rooms.

Kristi Reyes: OK, so let me get back to the slides really quick.

Susan Gear: OK. I'll close it out then.

Kristi Reyes: OK. So for those of you right here, there it is.

Susan Gear: And we can share it in the breakout room.

Kristi Reyes: Bit.ly. It's in the breakout room already. OK, so are the instructions clear? Do you have any questions first before we give you some time to work with them more in breakout rooms? Questions from in the chat from anybody?

Susan Gear: No questions so far.

Kristi Reyes: OK. so if you are in Zoom, if there's someone from your team who can kind of, when you get to your breakout rooms, quickly introduce yourself, say what and where you teach. And if there's someone from your group who is able to share their screen, hopefully, we have that enabled. I'm not really sure. But that would be great.

Susan Gear: I think we can share this slide to the breakout rooms.

Kristi Reyes: OK, so I'll let Susan do that. All right, everybody. So we're going to give you about 20 minutes or so for this activity. So when you're ready, say hello. You're in your breakout rooms if you're in Zoom. And we'll walk around here in the classroom. Any questions from the breakouts, please just press on the help button, and we'll try to come to your breakout rooms to help.

Susan Gear: OK, I'm going to open all the rooms. And then I'm going to go here to new share. And I'm going to share this right here, and I'm going to share it to the breakout rooms so everybody will be able to see it.

[indistinct speech]

OK so Francisco's there. So they're still rooms of three, one room of two, and the other person left.

[indistinct speech]

I did. But she's not here. Yeah, she left.

[indistinct speech]

Well, it takes a while.

[indistinct speech]

OK, let's start again. Who would like to share out?

Kristi Reyes: First maybe from David Rosen, Katrina Tamura, Barbara Layman, from your group, would one of you just share in a couple of sentences what you discussed in your group?

Audience: I think that would need to be to Katrina.

Susan Gear: Katrina is muted, though. Maybe there you go.

Audience: OK. All right. We chose growth minds. We chose the long term memory, and we talked about developing a growth mindset and how we would do that. And we talked about discussion boards, and vision boards, and creating-- let's see here.

Audience: WeVideo.

Audience: Yeah, WeVideo, the group projects. So we know that students have all of this experience and background that they have been storing for years and years. And it helps to acknowledge that, and call upon their previous learning, and their previous experiences. And that helps them to, if they're using their current language, to discuss, or their current skills to accomplish something in the present, they're likely to remember it.