Quill at the iLearn NYC Innovation Institute II
by, Maddy Maher | Editorial Intern
On Jan. 29, members of the Quill team had the exciting opportunity to return to the John Dewey High School in Brooklyn for the second installment of iZone’s iLearnNYC Innovation Institute. The iLearnNYC Innovation Institute provides New York City teachers with free training in today’s most innovative and effective educational technology tools. We spent the day supporting educators with navigating the ins and outs of implementing Quill’s tools and walked away with some important teacher insight:
Sentence combining improves sentence construction & logical thought.
In both of the day’s Breakout Sessions, teachers played around with our sentence combining tool, Quill Connect. Quill Connect refines sentence construction skills by asking students to combine two or more simple sentences into a more complex one. We designed Connect using research-based evidence, cited in Dr. Bruce Saddler’s Best Practices in Writing Instruction, which proves that sentence combining activities are the most effective way to build syntax-manipulation skills.
Many teachers expressed appreciation that Connect fosters multiple levels of student learning by teaching grammar concepts, logical organization of ideas, and reading comprehension. One commented on Connect’s effectiveness in helping ELL students learn the numerous grammar rules and exceptions in the English language. What struck participants the most, however, is Quill Connect’s focus on refining writing style in addition to teaching basic grammatical concepts. When asked why the tool focuses on elements of writing beyond basic grammar, we quoted our colleague Donald: “We don’t just want students to be good at Quill, we want students to be good at writing.” Quill Connect aims to engage students and help them think critically beyond the rote grammar skill itself.
Quill innovates based on teacher feedback.
Our updates and innovations are inspired by the feedback of teachers who use our tools in the classroom. We’re constantly evolving and adapting our tools and interface to better serve educators, and our educators have taken notice.
For some of the day’s participants, the iLearn Innovation Institute was not their first introduction to Quill. Instead, they used the breakout sessions as an opportunity to stay updated on our newest features. “In the past few months, Quill’s come out with exciting new features that add value to the product,” remarked one teacher, referring to the launch of Quill Lessons at the end of September and the introduction of our co-teaching feature in January.
Quill Lessons foster student engagement.
In both of our sessions, our enthusiastic Director of Partnerships Becca Garrison gave attendees an in-depth look at Quill Lessons. With a focus on student engagement, Quill Lessons allows teachers to lead interactive whole-class instruction around sentence construction. Each Quill Lessons activity provides a lesson plan, writing prompts, discussion topics, and follow-up independent practice activities.
Educators attending the sessions partook in a sample Lesson on their personal computers as if they were students, and they loved the level of engagement fostered by the learning tool. Many noted the variety of teaching methods that it incorporated: “I love how some of these questions and prompts are really in depth and at a high level, and some are geared specifically towards skill practice,” commented one educator.
Throughout the day, teachers gave us great feedback on how we can incorporate more opportunities for extensive student writing and on adding more themed content. We’d like to thank everyone who attended our sessions! Check out what we learned at the first iLearn Innovation Institute back in November here!
