Lola empowers kids to take charge of their own learning!

It's near the end of the year, and the kids are all excited about school getting out. Translation: we still have work to do, but these days, it's difficult to get them settled down to the business of the classroom...especially after recess. But I was feeling inspired by my recent Lola success with whole group learning! So, I quickly tapped out a Lola routine for a "work with your seat-partner" Social Studies assignment about the Constitution. Just as the recess bell rang, I assigned the routine.

As the kids came in, they saw their assignment clearly projected on the big screen...and got right to work without my saying a word! No repeating over and over to take out their Social Studies books...no responding again and again to, "What are we supposed to do?" questions.

It was the smoothest transition from recess back to class I'd had all week. That works for me!

Lola helps teachers like me differentiate learning!

My students thrive when each works at his/her own pace, as they should. Some are faster at reading, some ponder before writing and some elaborate with details, especially when researching and taking notes. Lola allows me to create routines to support all these types of student researchers.

Additionally, I observed that the students weren't interested in what the person next to him or her was doing, but rather focused on where in the routine he or she was regarding Lola's prompting. Moreover, the students had a chance to exercise and develop self-control, time management and goal persistence, all of which are essential Executive Functions skills!

Whole Group Lessons Are a Breeze with Lola

“More writing?!” groaned my class of 5th graders. My explanation: that we’d be editing, not writing, didn’t go over too well. Rough draft…editing…final draft; any one of these can be a real challenge for some kids. And this assignment was especially important. It was their 5th Grade Culmination speeches. But the class didn’t realize I had a way to make this assignment not only doable but fun, using Lola.

Of course, my class is familiar with Lola because I’m using it regularly with three students. But today I tried something different. I configured my laptop so my Work System would project on the big screen. Voila! I was able to make Lola available to the whole class.

Lola’s ‘Routine/Task’ functions helped guide me in breaking down the steps for editing an essay. In about 10 minutes at lunch, I had 7 steps tapped out. Everything from ‘proofreading’ to ‘check punctuation’ and ‘upgrade your verb choice’ was on my list. Lola makes it easy for a teacher to include anything he or she wants the kids focus on. Simply run your own, customized Work System and, as each step illuminates, kids can easily follow along. In today’s example, the repetition of directions (by me) and never-ending questions such as: “What do I do?” (from the students) was eliminated, thus freeing up my time and energies so I could circulate the room and help students as needed.

Seeing the steps broken down--and handy so they could refer to them--facilitated a better understanding of the writing process for the kids and made for a productive afternoon lesson for all.

Writing made easy. Thanks, Lola! ☺

Lola helps special education assistants

Yesterday I came back into the classroom after a break, and as I walked to my seat I glanced at the iPad screens of two students I assist. I was able to see that they were referencing their Work Systems and that they were on task. Then I sat down and checked if there were any messages from them that needed an immediate response and was able to see the task steps coming up in Lola. All of this was done quickly and quietly without speaking or interrupting the flow of the classroom.

Lola is a tool that helps students increase their focus and organization skills. It’s great to be able to communicate through the messaging function on Lola, instead of trying to carry out potentially disruptive conversations in the middle of a lesson. It reinforces a focused and productive atmosphere in the classroom. It also supports my efforts to assist students with special needs in a very private and effective way.

Parents Love Lola Too!!

Teachers and support providers can capture student progress by simply taking a screenshot of a completed or in-progress Lola Work System routine and share it with parents! For example, the morning routine shown above tracks a student who was, before Lola, not able to follow the class morning routine; however, if you look at the timers and star points you can see where she was sustaining focus and where she needed some prompting, but she went from off task and silly to a productive start of the day!

This particular routine was designed in collaboration by the student, behaviorist and teacher which facilitates student buy in by making the student have a say in timers, breaks and task breakdowns. My sharing the completed screen shot with her parents Stella could feel proud of her accomplishments at school AND at home.

Lola Tracks Students Progress

The Lola Teacher Dashboard helps monitor individual progress at a glance! When a teacher assigns a Lola Work System Routine to a group of students, the dashboard displays, in real time, when the student has started, which task a student is on, along with a visual on elapsed time.

Additionally, when a teacher notices that one of her students has fallen behind, she can click on the student, then check in by messaging a prompt, receive messages and answer quick questions.

Creating a morning routine

With Lola, you can create routines - task lists - that help kids stay on track and get things done. This 3-minute video from Karen Caruso breaks down the steps she went through to create a morning routine.

Behaviorists Love Lola

One of the ironies of being a behaviorist is having a job where the end goal is to not have a job. That process is called fading. At first, you implement interventions in an intrusive manner, and as progress is tracked, the behaviorist fades the intervention and him or herself, until the client is able to independently show a socially acceptable behavior.

This is when Lola comes in. Based on my nine-year-old client’s progress, I went from working with my client 5 days a week, 8 hours a day to only working 4 days a week, 4 hours a day. However fading isn’t always successful, especially if the client regresses. In my case, my client regressed. Lola, in a sense, took over my presence by electronically implementing an intervention.

My client was given instructions through a step by step task analysis, while being reminded of her reinforcers and consequences. After every successful completion of the given instruction, my client was able to take a break, bring a buddy and return to her desk, all without having her behaviorist present. Not only does this allow the behaviorist to be absent, it reinforces the fading process by having the client independently follow directions and reinforce herself for her progress. It’s a win win for everybody!

Kid Created, Kid Approved :)

After witnessing a 5th grader feel empowered to teach his classmates how to round decimals using Lola, I got an idea. Why not let the kids have a go at designing a Work System? So, when they arrived that morning for math intervention, I told them we were going to try something different. And anyone who’s ever worked with a kid will tell you: they’re all about changing things up!

Using the Work System I’d created for the decimal rounding the day before, I walked them through the step-by-step instructions. I explained what it meant to ‘break down’ a larger problem into smaller, manageable chunks so it's easier to understand. I likened it to a puzzle: “You can’t put ALL the pieces together at once, but if you work on the smaller pieces, one at a time, they eventually come together to make the big picture.” This seemed to resonate, so we began. With a little guidance from me, the kids wrote a Work System for a multi-step word problem involving decimals. They even added a step at the end that said: “You’re done!” (They thought this was important and guaranteed a 3-star take-away).

We ran their Work System to see how it panned out. It ran beautifully! The kids were pretty proud of themselves. There was just one hitch: they realized they hadn’t allowed enough time for the completion of each task. “I guess we could put a little more time on the timer...in case a kid gets distracted. That happens sometimes,” they said.

Can't argue with that.