By Leandra McGriff October 14, 2022
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I like to promote a collaborative and team environment in the classroom. I tell my students to “ask three before me.” I encourage them to ask each neighbor to either side and Codey, the Tynker Troll, to see if they can find the answers on their own.
Ask Three Before Me
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I like to have student volunteers share their game or project with the rest of the class. Not only is it a fun and easy way to inspire other kids to create something new, but it provides a great opportunity to practice public speaking and presentation skills.
Sharing is caring
The best way to reinforce skills is to have students use them. Tynker is a fantastic way for students to demonstrate their learning and understanding in other subject areas. Start with the Tynker STEM library!
Encourage students to demonstrate their understanding of other subjects using code
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Students like to know that their hard work is being acknowledged, so I’ve also been saving their report cards as PDFs and emailing it to them as progress reports.
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Stay Connected with your students
Teachers can partner with them and leverage what they know. We can work through it together because we’re all here to learn together.
Tap into the Natural Leaders in your Classroom
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Tynker days are pin-drop silent in my classroom with the exception of collaboration between students. Students love to help each other with their coding projects.
Promote Communication
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Learn the Platform first
I think teachers need to take the time to learn the platform first, so they can be reflective themselves and realize that if they had difficulty their kids might have difficulty as well.
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The beauty of Tynker lies in being able to differentiate for your learners by both interest and ability levels, so you can scale up and wide, personalizing their learning asynchronously.
Customize the Content
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We’ve created a leaderboard with all the grades competing against each other. Tynker gives me feedback, and I can see the certificates earned per grade. We’ve turned each grade into its own team. They chat and ping each other and work together.
Game the System
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Realizing that for some kids just getting through one lesson right now is an accomplishment. I think just being realistic and not pushing yourself or beating yourself up too much about not reaching a certain goal. So, I set a recommended lesson, while also giving myself and my students that grace.
Give yourself some grace
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Tynker's mission is to provide every child with solid foundations in Computer Science, programming, and critical thinking skills to prepare them to become better architects of their future world.