Google Forms for Reading Conferencing

Something that we have been using at Webb City is Google Forms to record reading conferences with a student done by the teacher.  Gone are the clipboards of what the students are reading, where they are in their AR points, and furthermore trying to keep track of where each student is according to their goals.

We have had a few teachers create Google Forms to collect their students' data daily, weekly, biweekly, however often they choose to meet with their students.  Some teachers ask comprehension questions, and/or purpose for reading questions.  Teachers are tracking the number of pages read and tracking AR (Accelerated Reader) points.

Collecting the data is the easy part.  Simply create a Google Form with the questions you want to collect data on including name of students.  While doing this you get a google sheet of all the data that you collected.  All in one location, but organized by date collected, not ideal.  Teachers using iPads can make a shortcut on their homepage that goes directly to their Google form, teachers using a computer can simply bookmark the google form and you are ready to collect data.

Organization of the data takes a little more knowledge of formulas inside of google sheets.  Most teachers would like to have a sheet of data for a given student.  This is ideal for reviewing the progress of a student with the student and with parents.

Inside your response sheet you can work with the filter formula to bring data into another sheet with certain criteria.  You simply need to create multiple sheets inside of your response Google Sheet.  Name each sheet your students' names to help organize, then copy the header of your response sheet into the top row of your new sheet.

Student Sheet Names

Header Row 

In cell A2 or the first cell under your header row, you will create a formula similar to this:

=FILTER('Form Responses 1'!A$2:G,'Form Responses 1'!B$2:B="Students'Name").

Replace "Student's Name" with the name of your student leaving it in "".  This will bring in the data of that student.  Simply repeat copying the formula and header into each sheet and you are done.  It will automatically fill per student once you submit a form response.

Example with student name Ethen

Example Spreadsheet of data:  Reading Conference- Short (Responses)

Once you set up your formulas you are done.  Now you can start analyzing your data and have your students reflect on their reading progress.  You can look into sharing the sheets with students and parents, but be careful about sharing other students' data.

Good Luck, may you unlock the power of Google Forms and Google Sheets in your reading conferences.  

District/Building Level Provide PD, How can we maximize it?

Professional Development days for teachers sometimes get a bad rap.  I remember in my 8 years of being in the classroom the moans of teachers as they travel to the meetings during early outs or come to a day without students.  "Why can't we just work in our classrooms?", or "I'm a PE teacher and this has nothing to do with me."  We have all heard the phrases or even said the phrase ourselves.  How can PD days become more engaging and pertinent to every staff member?  Well, at Webb City we have tried some different things and maybe these points can help.

1. Conference Type PD Day (Teacher's Choice):  We have a district wide PD day in January we run like a conference.  Sessions are presented by staff members and attendees can choose from a wide variety of sessions.  We encourage our staff to choose sessions that will help them in their classroom.  We even have named it Professional Communicty Learning Together (PCLT).
2. Small Groups:  Out High School have taken on PD days in the building as the opportunity to break up into small groups and rotate through different sessions that are planned.  This helps greatly with engagement and involvement in the different presentations.  We usually end up with groups of around 10-20.
3. 1 on 1 Time:  Most of my big group presentations are just overviews of a tool.  When someone wants to use a new tool I usually meet with them 1 on 1 and we are able to figure out what the tool or strategy can do for them.  This does take a lot of time, but it is well worth the time and effort if you have staff to do this.
4. BE POSITIVE:  If presenters and facilitators are excited to present and share then the day will always go better.  I really do enjoy helping teachers and this is one of the things that keeps me going, and if I bring this enthusiasm over my presentations it always pays off. 

Tools that might help to implement some of the strategies.

Sched.org  - Scheduling program that will help you manage a Conference.  $99 dollars per event, but well worth the price to be able to manage sessions and enrollment.  We have used it for 2 years and I think that it has freed up so much time.

Google Forms - Use this to create surveys that will help guide what sessions to offer and what topics you should be covered during professional development.  

Twitter - Back channel information and social side to professional development.  We have used a hashtag for our district and have hosed Twitter chats through the hashtag.  This creates a buzz for your event and also can create some great sharing between staff member of different buildings.

youcanbook.me - Booking program that links to Google Calendar.  This has made my job so much easier.  You simply set it up and post it on a site or give it to your staff and then you just manage your Google Calendar and it will notify you when you have meetings with teachers and will even email you depending on how you set it up.