Connie has been using Floop since Fall 2018. She currently works as the 5th Grade Science teacher at Wolfe City Elementary in Wolfe City, TX.
Twitter: @ConnieCox2019
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While teaching STEM science in Killeen, TX, I was carrying home 150 notebooks regularly or staying at school until 7 PM reading and commenting on student work. It was difficult to give each student the feedback they deserved and I wasn’t able to spend as much time with my husband, Chandler, as I wanted. Something had to change, and cutting my grading time was key!
Chandler (who is also an avid Floop user), saw a Tweet about Floop and thought I should try it in my classroom. He knows how important building relationships with my students is to me and that feedback is such an excellent way to do that. Making each comment personal by investing energy into reading your students’ work and giving feedback is a way to get to know them and their style of writing. In addition, using Floop I can go through 140 assignments in 30 minutes! The speed of giving feedback with the drag and drop comment feature is fantastic. I can turn assignments around in 24 hours for my students but still give personalized and meaningful feedback. During COVID virtual semester, I continued using Floop, reading each submission and giving feedback. My students thanked me for actually reading their work and writing comments that they felt like they were actually in class with me because I communicated with them on their assignments. This was a defining moment for how important feedback is.
I use Floop for all of my assignments with my current 5th graders because it is so easy to use. Not only do I see the value, but so do my students! I have embedded Floop into the way I teach from the first day of school, so my students know what to do; they log in to the web app and submit their work. They know I am on Floop looking at their work and reading their words because of my feedback. They can easily see any work that they need to submit or need to revise. My students feel so smart – once they see their work and my feedback, they keep trying to improve! They even comment back with Thank You’s for the feedback!
My 5th-grade students have learned how to use their computer cameras, convert Google Docs and spreadsheets to PDFs, and export Lucidcharts as PDFs in order to upload to Floop. They are learning technology skills that will take them further than elementary school.