Go to know Jackie Stevens

Introducing Edulastic Innovator Spotlight member Jackie Stevens! Jackie is an English Teacher and Instructional Coach in Mora, MN. Jackie has known she wanted to teach since she was in 2d class! Check out her Edulastic Tips – they are truly bully.

What inspired yous to work in teaching?

I decided in 7th grade that I was going to be an English teacher and my conviction with that conclusion has never wavered! I had an amazing 2nd grade teacher, and during the summertime post-obit that year, I realized I missed being at school. It was the outset time I recognized that I genuinely enjoyed going to school instead of viewing it as a requirement. My dearest of learning continued to grow over the side by side several years, forth with my beloved of writing. For a fourth dimension, I thought that I wanted to be an author – until I became intimidated by the thought of having to sell my writing in society to make that a career!

When I started 7th course, I was terrified. My pocket-sized bubble of 20 classmates at my private elementary school ballooned into my public eye school'south large sea of over 250 classmates. And even so, my 7th class reading teacher helped me focus on my learning over again. I still call up very specific details of her classroom, her vocalization, her lessons, and her demeanor. I realized that I wanted to be able to spend every day making other students feel how Mrs. Foust fabricated me feel in her class: at-home, confident, and accepted.

What do y'all love about Edulastic?

First, I love the alive class board, particularly while students are taking an cess. It allows me to monitor which students might exist rushing, which students are stuck, and which students might be cheating, if their colorful box matrix is identical to the student in front of them. During our daily warm ups, the live class board allows me to see with which questions students struggled, and then I can provide some instant re-educational activity.

Next, I honey the standards-based reports. Each benchmark assessed on a summative assessment is reported every bit a split up assignment. Then, if a student has one or two benchmarks that were particularly challenging, they are able to piece of work on those specifically equally opposed to retaking the entire assessment. This exercise would non be possible without the ease of Edulastic's standards-based reports. I am also admittedly obsessed with the different question types and the multitude of options within each question type! Not merely do the drag and drop question types help set up students for state standardized assessments, merely they likewise allow me to create questions that ask students to recollect differently than they do on a traditional multiple choice question. The passage question type is fantastic for close-reading questions.

Finally, the ability to embed different media into the questions opens so many possibilities for an assessment. I have embedded YouTube videos, Vocaroo audio clips, Google Slides presentations, and more! The embedding capabilities take led me to aggrandize my use of Edulastic to non just summative or formative assessments, just ongoing written report guides every bit well.

What tips do yous have for teachers who are new to Edulastic?

  • Tip one: Check out Edulastic's YouTube channel! That hooked me right abroad and gave me so many ideas. The how-to videos are fantastic for beginners, as are the videos that discuss the different ways other educators are using Edulastic in their content areas.
  • Tip two: Attain out to the Edulastic support squad and community when you have questions. The back up team responds super chop-chop and solves all my problems! And the online Facebook community can provide ideas or feedback on assessment/lesson ideas.
  • Tip iii: As you start to move your previous assessments over to Edulastic, try to comprise ane or two of Edulastic'due south unique question types into each assessment. If yous endeavor to alter your whole assessment at once, you might find yourself overwhelmed, or yous might peradventure make some questions more complicated and less clear than the original versions. Slowly trying out the different question types volition build your confidence in using them and go your students more than comfortable with them over time.

What is your teaching philosophy?

I have no command over which students become my students. They are assigned to my class roster, they get in in my classroom, and they get the young people for whose educational activity I am responsible. I can't hand pick them. I can't change the experiences they have had in school before they became my students, the families by whom they take been raised, or the brains and bodies they have been given. What I accept control over, is HOW I teach them. I tin alter that over and over and once again. I can try new strategies and learn new things. And that is what I will practise every day of my career. I volition change what I can control in order to attain my students and aid them experience success.

Share an #EduVictory from the past year. In other words, practise you accept a particular success story that has happened in your classroom or at your school?

I had a student this past year with whom I had a hard time making a connexion. In fact, nearly of her teachers had a hard fourth dimension making a connection with her. She didn't share aloud in class and preferred to work by herself instead of in a group or with a partner. She had frequent absences, so she was always playing grab up in schoolhouse. She wasn't a high-performer on our grade assessments, and nearly of her piece of work was turned in incomplete. Then, nosotros started studying poetry in the showtime of Feb. Students took a mid-unit assessment on Edulastic which included a question that asked them to write a haiku. What this student wrote was not a haiku – it didn't follow any of the syllable requirements for that form of verse. However, it was a Beautiful poem. Considering I was able to see her poem right afterward she finished information technology, cheers to Edulastic'due south live class board, I talked to the student 1-on-one in grade that day and told her how much I loved her poem.

As a culminating projection for the unit, students worked on creating verse anthologies including some their own poems. It was the first project all year that this student completed in its entirety and by the due engagement. It was wonderful. Through the poems she wrote, I got to see a unlike side of her that she hadn't been comfortable sharing earlier. A month later, we moved into distance learning for the balance of the school year. My student was without internet access for the elapsing, then paper packets were sent abode for each of her classes weekly. I was able to connect with her mom via text merely a couple of times over those months. I asked her to encourage her daughter to keep writing poetry. At the stop of the year, when we collected newspaper copies of assignments from our students, she had completed absolutely everything I had sent abode for her. It wasn't an globe-shattering connection. I don't know if I accept had any impact on this educatee'south educational journey. However, I know I was able to encounter a talent of hers and encourage her to share it. I was able to give positive updates to her mom, which weren't the types of communication she was used to having with the school. And I was able to see that she had engaged with her schoolhouse work and accomplish something during distance learning that I hadn't seen from her all year. I'll accept it!

Fun Facts

Edulastic #BestKeptSecret?

The embedding characteristic available in any question!

Favorite blazon of question in Edulastic?

Passage-based

What subject(southward) do you use Edulastic for?

ELA

Favorite Book?

"I'll Give You the Lord's day" by Jandy Nelson

Favorite Movie?

Pride and Prejudice

Must have classroom decor?

A reading nook for comfort and some plants to reap the benefits of biophilic design!

Join Jackie and Other Educators

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