Warm-ups With Google Forms + Differentiating News Content for the Classroom

Warm-ups With Google Forms 

Bell ringer, eye opener, lightbulb question... I've heard class warm-ups called many different things. It's no surprise why so many teachers choose to add some sort of warm-up to their class routine. They can help students remember elements from the lesson the day before or be used as a pre-quiz to get a better picture or your students' prior knowledge on a new topic.

If your students have access to a computer, using a single Google Form for all of your warm-ups is an easy way to take this snapshot of student understanding in your classroom.

How-to

1. Create a new form in Google Drive and create two questions, one multiple choice and the other paragraph text.
2. After getting the form looking like you want it, shorten the URL to the form using a service like bit.ly or goo.gl.
3. Students can bookmark the link on their own devices or you can have the short link written somewhere in the room so students can navigate to your form easily.
4. Anytime you want to do a warm-up just post a slide with your multiple choice question or extended response. Students will fill out the generic form.
5. You can now see all of the class responses populating in the spreadsheet that your form will create. Use this information to steer the discussion for the day.

Newsela - Differentiate The News

It is often difficult to find text that is appropriate for all of your student's reading levels. If you teach current events or are looking for some good articles for class, check out Newsela. Newsela is a collection of news articles that is updated daily and each article is offered at 5 different lexile levels. Using this tool allows you to deliver the same content to all students while differentiating for their individual needs. There is also a quiz feature built in so that students can test their understanding of the article.