PBI Project:

Engagement of Learning through Nearpod

Weebly Link: pbi-bdgk.weebly.com

ECI 546 New Literacies & Media

NC State University

Brandy Causey

Danielle Szaro

Kandyce Wood

Virginia Hartley

November 2020
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RATIONALE

Our team sought deeper insight of how a digital tool such as Nearpod could

enhance the engagement and impact on student learning. We are currently teaching in

a time where the world is relying on technology due to safety precautions. We are

seeking connection with our students in new ways that require them to think

independently and critically. With such heavy emphasis on digital learning, it is

important to reflect how lessons are connecting with students’ needs, interests, and

engagement. As advised in Learning First, Technology Second, our Nearpod is

designed to present opportunities for “problem-solving, inquiry, and analysis” (Kolb,

2017, p.11). Our Nearpod requires students to activate their schema and reflects the

theories of constructivists like Jean Piaget who “have long proclaimed that new

knowledge is constructed from old knowledge” (Kolb, 2017, p.11). The focus of our

Nearpod was to connect first grade students with new vocabulary and applying word

meanings to different events or situations. Throughout the Nearpod design process,

the TPACK framework assisted our group in integrating all three elements of content

knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technology knowledge being meaningful and

successful in capturing how students were mastering specific learning goals such as

vocabulary enhancement. Prior to integrating Nearpod within literacy instruction, first

grade students have been working with the HMH into Reading program where they

follow along in textbooks while the teacher provides instruction from a Google Slides

presentation. This program introduces new vocabulary to students based on familiar

concepts such as community, families, jobs, etc. Students were distracted and not
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motivated when following along in texts with teacher instruction. One could think of the

students listening to instruction using Google Slides like the Museum Exhibitor

reference in Don’t Ditch that Tech. Students are previewing new material with

technology along with integrating standards and learning objectives throughout the

slides; however, the slides being presented are not interactive, engaging, applicable,

or able to collect reflective data. In agreeance with “Learning First, Technology

Second,” the goal of our Nearpod was to “integrate technology that allows students to

focus on the assignment task or activity with less distraction, that motivates them to

start the learning process, and that causes a shift in students’ behavior in which they

go from being passive to active social learners (Kolb, 2017, p. 41).” When selecting

activities for the Nearpod, we aimed for tasks that were age appropriate, encouraged

critical thinking, and allowed students to share personal experiences or connections.

The Preoperational Stage of the Piagetian theory closely correlates with Nearpod

connecting students to new knowledge by listening to the vocabulary word read aloud,

seeing and hearing the word being used, connecting the word with visual synonyms,

and creating visuals or illustrations to retain the word’s meaning. If we continue as

educators to follow Piaget’s four stages using the assistance of digital tools, then we

are building towards students’ critically applying how words are applied to real life

circumstances or objects. When considering the transition of the cognitive stages, we

found it was essential to review the Bloom’s Taxonomy Wheel in order to promote

higher level thinking, open ended questions, as well as questions that best fit students’

present levels. First grade has a wide range of readers who may or may not be
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proficient in identifying letters, connecting sounds, writing in full sentences, or using

clues from the text to support their answer. First grade standards and objectives set

high expectations as students are transitioning from emergent to proficient readers and

writers. With current restrictions and limitations on small groups, partner work, etc. we

planned for the Nearpod to be completed during whole group instruction with support

provided from the teacher using current safety measures. Students were given time

limits for some questions, allowed opportunities to have drawings as visual

representations, having word banks to support fill in the blank questions, along with

having opportunities for students to make connections of synonyms to new vocabulary

words.

PBI Lesson Implementation and Inquiry Methodology

When creating this lesson we, as a group, selected to use a Brandy’s first grade

classroom that is currently meeting face to face at least 50% of the time. The

classroom consists of eighteen students ranging in age from six to eight years old.

Fourteen students are reading on or above grade level, two students are reading just

below grade level, and two students are well below grade level as identified by the Star

Early Literacy benchmark and progress monitoring assessment. Five students are

identified as Attention Deficit Disorder and four of those receive support services

through the exceptional children’s program. Three other students are identified as

Developmentally Delayed and also receive services through the Exceptional Children’s

program. Eight students attend four days per week which is considered “full time”

under Plan B, five students attend school on Monday and Tuesday in Cohort A, and
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five students attend school on Thursday and Friday in Cohort B. Students have access

to eleven iPads and two desktop computers.

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic many classrooms have had their layout and

room design transformed to reflect classrooms of the past with desks separated and all

facing forward towards the teacher. As educators, we feel that best practices are being

pushed to the side in order to maintain social distancing and protect the safety of our

students and staff. It often seems that there is a new problem arising to challenge us

as 21st century educators. As a result of the current situation, we can either look for

problems or seek solutions. We have chosen to seek a solution that allows us to

engage multiple students simultaneously. Our solution was to use Nearpod in order to

enhance lessons being delivered through Google Slides.

Our lesson incorporated the following learning standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.2.E Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on

phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.4 Describe people, places, things, and events with

relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its

characters, setting, or events.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1.F Use frequently occurring adjectives.

Social Studies Essential Standard: 1.C.1 Understand the diversity of people in the local

community.

The initial ten minutes of the lesson focus on building academic vocabulary by
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having students respond to questions, identify real-life connections between words and

their use, and recognize and use words that name actions. In a typical classroom

setting the teacher would utilize partner turn and talk as a method to support

collaborative discussions, but in this unique learning environment students were

presented with the information via Nearpod. Through Nearpod, the teacher was able to

see student responses in real time and provide immediate feedback to support a class

discussion of the essential question, while also guiding and scaffolding the discussion

as needed to support student learning.

The lesson transitions into the shared reading mini lesson. During this part of

the lesson the teacher reviews the concept of text organization and asks students to

analyze the description as a type of text organization using the poem “Who Put the

Cookies in the Cookie Jar?” by George Shannon and illustrated by Julie Paschkis.

Students are then asked to identify characters from the poem that help put cookies in

the cookie jar.

The final portion of the lesson consists of additional phonics practice and the

week three high frequency words review. During this portion, students analyze words

to determine the correct spelling of a Consonant-Vowel-Consonant word pattern that

best completes the sentence.

Challenges and Successes

The success of the lesson was that students were more engaged as shown in

the “without” and “with” Nearpod implementation videos. Increase in engagement was

evident as students raised their hands to offer answers and sat upright in their seats.
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All of the students were directly involved in the lesson as they completed Google

slides, made interactive via Nearpod, to review vocabulary. Both the lesson without

Nearpod and the lesson with Nearpod followed the same lesson outline and were

similar in content. Students in the pre-Nearpod lesson had their heads on their desks

and very few raised their hands to offer answers to questions about the vocabulary.

Students in the Nearpod lesson were speaking up, asking questions, raising hands,

and touching or talking to iPads. The biggest difference was the variation of delivery

which increased student participation, level of energy, excitement and overall

engagement.

The outcomes as a teacher were positive reinforcement of the effectiveness of

using Nearpod to increase student engagement! Restrictions as a result of the

pandemic have posed difficulties with carrying out hands-on activities and cooperative

learning within the classroom. This lesson has been one of the most engaging and

exciting lessons since we have moved to Plan B in our district. Plan B is an

arrangement where classrooms are divided and students attend school in separate

cohorts, as well as virtually. From the excitement noted from students, it encourages

an educator to feel eager to offer more lessons with Nearpod.

I, along with the members of the group, learned that it is worth it to take extra

time to integrate digital activities like Nearpod. Google Slides can be interesting

enough, but when paired with the interactiveness of Nearpod, it takes student

engagement to a whole new level. I also learned how to use Nearpod embedded within

a Google Slide. I had never used Nearpod before, although a few in our group had.
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Nearpod can be used in a multitude of ways, but since my grade level uses a lot of

Google slides I plan to “spice them up” with Nearpod.

The internal challenges that I encountered was the fear of using something new

to deliver content and review vocabulary. I was a bit afraid of feeling incapable. I also

have a student teacher who is completing her Senior II internship and she is

responsible for teaching Language Arts. It was challenging to try and explain

something that was new to her since it was also new to me. We decided to “tag team”

the lesson, both acting as facilitators and instructors during the lesson. An external

challenge was that students had trouble with the fill-in the blank responses. They

wanted to choose only one answer when all answers could be used. This challenge

presented itself as a result of my lack of experience with Nearpod. Other than going

over it with Kandyce as she made changes to my original GoogleSlide when creating

the Nearpod, I had not used Nearpod before. My understanding of the fill-in the blank

responses did not match how they looked in “student view” of the lesson. The success

was that the students did not mind because there were only a few questions in this

format. Because this was a formative assessment, I was able to glean enough

information about my students’ understanding of the vocabulary in spite of the

technical issues with the fill-in the blank questions. Another external challenge was that

students were not confident in typing their answers to the open-ended question.

I addressed the challenges by offering immediate feedback on varying student

responses for the fill-in the blank questions and having a class discussion about the

format. I also went into the student view on the laptop connected to the BrightLinks
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projector so that I could demonstrate how students should select their answer(s).

Furthermore, I addressed the challenges with the lack of student confidence in typing

answers by reminding them of the talk to type feature on the keyboard of the iPads.

Reminding them of this, relieved all feelings of insecurity as they began speaking into

the microphone and supplying the best answers!

Collaboration

Robert John Meehan (2020) explained it best when he said, “The most

valuable resource teachers have is each other. Without collaboration, our growth is

limited to our own perspective.” When signing up for this group, we all knew that we

would have major parts to play in a project that would span multiple weeks. We each

have different ideas, perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses. In order for us to be

successful, we had to put in a lot of time and effort. We met several times during the

month of October to plan, set goals, discuss progress, and revise our research

findings. During our many meetings, we decided that Brandy’s classroom would be the

best choice to implement our lesson. Kandyce and Ginny were working with students

remotely, which can make it difficult to judge engagement. Danielle just received a new

roster, switching from face to face to remote. After choosing who would use the lesson

in their classroom, we broke the project down into several parts to help each other

accomplish our goal of answering our research question. Our collaboration was

successful, because we were respectful of one another in implementing time for

planning, production, and feedback via Google Meet. We all shared a common goal to
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help each other create the best product we could by answering our question of, “how

does Nearpod affect student engagement and impact learning?”. As a group, we

agreed for future collaboration and research, we need to create agendas that will

support and guide our meetings with tools such as timelines of goals to accomplish.
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References

Best, R. J. M. (2020, October 24). Robert John Meehan Educator, Author, Poet. What Teachers

Can Be... http://whatteacherscanbe.blogspot.com/

Carroll, K. B. J. A. (2020). HMH: into Reading (Teacher’s Guide) Grade 6, Volume 1. HMH.

Kolb, L. (2017). Learning First, Technology Second: The Educator’s Guide to Designing

Authentic Lessons. International Society for Technology in Education.

Miller, M., Ridgway, N., & Ridgway, A. (2019). DON’T Ditch That Tech: Differentiated

Instruction in a Digital World. Dave Burgess Consulting, Incorporated.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School

Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts Grade 1.

Retrieved November 2020 from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/.

Shannon, G., & Paschkis, J. (2013). Who Put the Cookies in the Cookie Jar? Henry Holt and

Co. (BYR).