I chose to watch the Classroom Strategies to Support 21st Century Learning webinar.

found this webinar extremely relevant to my position and even heard some strategies that I

already implement with my students. Some may think that it is not useful to hear strategies you

already use, but as a third-year teacher, this helped affirm that I am being effective with my

students.

Call and response was a topic discussed in the webinar. One of the hosts mentioned that

she will say “Chicka Chicka” and her students will respond “Boom Boom!” to get their attention.

This might seem simple and minor, but students really relate to practices like this because Chicka

Chicka Boom Boom is a popular book in kindergarten. This is something I would like to

implement in my classroom; I bet it is an effective attention-grabber for students.

One of the hosts of this webinar was a LEGO Education employee and brought an

interesting perspective. She discussed how using LEGOs in the classroom can be educational for

students; although learning through play is critical for young children, LEGOs can be used in

many ways besides just free play. For example, ‘desk pets’ are a hot trend in elementary

classrooms right now. Students can build their own desk pet with LEGOs and earn it or lose it;

when you earn it, it can stay on your desk. If you are making poor choices or having bad

behavior, your desk pet will be taken from your desk and you must work to earn it back.

The other host was a STEAM academic coach who talked about ways to incorporate

STEAM into learning. We know how relevant science, technology, engineering, art, and math

are, both in schools and in the workforce today. Science and math typically get their own

designated block of time for a student’s day or week. But, technology, engineering, and art more

often need to be purposefully incorporated into other subjects. It is useful for students to see

interdisciplinary content, such as art being a form of response in reading comprehension, for
example. We have to remember to integrate these subjects seamlessly and continuously since we

know, as educators, that each of these content areas cannot have their own block of time in a

student’s weekly schedule.