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Today we completed our second of five days slated to implement a grade-level 20% project with 7th graders (about 270 students). For this project social studies, math, and ELA teachers collaborated to make this happen. I'm not going to lie, a project of this magnitude requires educators that are willing to take risks to do whatever it takes to make things happen for their students. As we met to plan for this project, we knew if we were to be successful, we needed to have some clear-cut goals.
Our 20% Project Goals:
- To create a learning opportunity that was student-driven.
- To create an environment that fostered inquiry and exploration...focus on the process, not the end product
- To expose students to a project-based learning opportunity with an authentic target audience, not their teacher
- To disrupt the learning environment to facilitate optimal success; to literally re-imagine what that learning environment could look like!
Yes, accomplishing our goals meant disrupting student schedules...in a very controlled and organized way. Once we worked out the "taking attendance" issue, our solution to accomplish this feat worked really well.
Our 20% Project Schedule:
- We paired up six participating teachers and created three "Home Bases" with two teachers at each home base: One group in the two side-by-side computer labs, another group is in the library, and a third group in one of the science labs.
- Students selected a home base of their choosing.
- Students followed their normal schedule (electives and science were not participating). During Social Studies, Math, and ELA, they reported to homebase, signed in, and got to work...three hours of their day dedicated to work on their project...so far, so good!
It's been amazing walking around, helping students with a wide variety of topics and experiencing their enthusiasm. I had no idea just how creative this group was and our hope is, they will discover just how creative they are as well! Oh and that learning can be fun. While there is no denying a handful of students are probably taking advantage of the situation and not maximizing this opportunity, the vast majority are, and I for one am glad to see we are not holding those students back for the poor choices of a few! And interestingly, we had significantly fewer students absent today than normal...especially for this time of the year...hmmm, something must be different!
Crowdsourcing seems to be a new term that is in vogue right now. I recently read a blog post from Catlin Tucker about Crowdsourcing Information in the Classroom, and I've got to admit, I was intrigued! With all of the success the Boston police had in identifying and capturing the culprits for the marathon bombing due to crowdsourcing, I thought this was a term my 7th graders needed to understand the value of for future needs. Coupled with my recent study of Design Thinking strategies, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for my students to dig into the new content we were about to begin in class...Texas and the Civil War. So the assignment was simple. I divided them into groups and divided the topic into 5 categories. They were to find important pieces of information pertaining to their category. Throughout the day, students kept adding to the body of knowledge. They had to review what was already added and find information that was missing...it was some pretty engaging stuff! Below are some pictures detailing our progress:
Now, normally technology is the first tool we go to when we begin our work...in classroom, that is mainly our iPads. But for this activity, trying to be "nimble thinkers" generating lots of information quickly, our iPads became our second tool to use when we began to snap pictures of all of this content. Loading those images into our Evernote account made all of the information searchable once we synced our accounts.
Our next assignment...we're going to take this information and organize it into Thinking Maps...From there, they are going to construct some scripts to podcast the information. Finished products will be posted soon!
I have been intrigued by the idea of implementing a 20% project for a while, but honestly, I haven't been brave enough to tackle it. Let's face it, I teach 7th graders! But fortunately, this year, I have a group of students that I felt would be a perfect fit something as unusual as this challenge...and I teach with some brave souls, so two weeks ago we launched what I hope will be an intellectual journey worth celebrating!
We launched the project with a presentation on exactly what the 20% Project was and included a video of some of Kevin Brookhouser's students describing their experiences.
We covered the rules and expectations for the project and I explained that I had shared a folder in their Google Drive with a variety of documents needed to progress through the project. We then participated in an activity called the Good/Bad Idea Factory activity modeled after the exercise I found on Kevin Brookhouser's website, I teach. I think. Students broke into small groups and had about 20 minutes to brainstorm as many topic ideas as possible. I told them not to focus on implementation of these topics or to get bogged down in what the end-product of the topics would be, just to brainstorm potential topics.
The next day, we did a gallery walk to look over all of the ideas generated. Students had to select about 5 topics that seemed interesting. They completed this form to help narrow down their selection. After they narrowed their ideas to a final topic, they completed this form for their Proposal Pitch. This will be an activity in which they will pitch their proposal to their classmates who will then have about 2 minutes to give feedback about the proposal. I've included an article that discussed the importance of "pitching" your ideas to make them happen. Hopefully this activity will provide additional resources for students to formulate their best topic with a strong set of guiding questions.
One really engaging thing we did was the availability to host a Google Hangout with Mr. Juan deLuca from Mexico City who has implemented this type of project with his students. He explained the importance of generating bad ideas as well as good ideas because there's a fine line between the two. He also encouraged students to find a mentor to help with the project. All in all, it was a very productive first day. Stay tuned for further reports on our progress...I would say we're off to a strong start!
I've been doing some research lately on assessment: its purpose, its effectiveness, the role it plays in the learning process. As I worked on my masters degree, I soon realized we never had tests per se, but weekly papers and projects to complete. I was constantly amazed at how much I was learning...and with no testing? How could that be? But interestingly enough, I never made that connection with my students! At least not until this year...
My classes this year are an interesting bunch. From day one, I assumed the role of Lead Learner in my classroom. This year has been one of exploration and experimentation punctuated with implementing two pilots: Google Apps for Education and 1:1 iPad deployment. So the ground was fertile for additional exploration of transformational learning opportunities.
Students this year really seem to relish challenge, look forward to projects (the iPad enabled students to create some pretty professional looking content), and really any type of activities that fell outside the norm. In contrast, test prep was non-existent. Even with testing being done online, the mundane routine of wrapping up a unit study with a test didn't yield the kind of results I was looking for. They really didn't know any more information after a test than they knew prior to testing. Yet I had students counting down the days until we begin our 20% project. (More about that in a series of upcoming posts.)
As we've progressed through this school year, I've come to observe that mere tests were
passé to the majority of my students. Most wouldn't prepare and were satisfied with "good enough" grades. But more importantly, I didn't see these end-of-unit tests impacting the learning process. So...in lieu of these, I have begun to design assessments that require students to dig into the content and literally leverage it for the creation of something new. What I noticed was, they began to make connections that had been missed in the initial exposure to the content. Not only did learning continue THROUGH the assessment phase, it actually went deeper. It was much more meaningful and higher quality work was elicited when their work had an audience; therefore, I implemented peer evaluations of their work using the rubric I used to evaluate their work. I believe evaluating peer work is helping students to develop a deeper understanding of what's needed to "up their game" when it comes to content creation. Another element I added was a Reflection piece to the assessment phase. Reflection appears to be key to improvement! Taking time to reflect on their work, highlight what they did well, and contemplate what could have been better, seems to be a necessary component to improving work.
When I remarked to a student that no one was really preparing for tests and they seemed to be a waste of time, that student replied, "Oh, you're just now figuring that out?" Out of the mouths of babes...
Here are some examples of a recent Podcast Project we completed at the end of our Texas Revolution unit:
Battle of Goliad (Oct 9, 1835)
The Grass Fight
The Consultation
The Battle of the Alamo
The Goliad Massacre
As we completed the fall campaign of the Texas Army, students wrote an expository essay about the events we had just studied. Click here to see an example of an essay on student wrote.
My Assessment on Assessment:
- Design assessments that are authentic, engaging, and require students to dive deep into the content-they may even be fun!
- Always provide a rubric so there are clear and compelling standards for expectations. For peer assessment, the rubric may need to be tweaked a little to represent information students, rather than the teacher, may be qualified to assess.
- Integrate an additional skill you would like your students to develop and identify that within the rubric and project instructions. This provides opportunities for engagement and equips them with 21st century skills that can be used in other content areas.
- Make sure that at the core of the assessment, content is the focus.
- Don't forget reflection time! Have students reflect on what was easy, what was hard, and where could they have improved. It's so easy to skip this phase, especially when time is tight. But I believe, when routinely adding this component to the assessment phase, you will begin to develop a "Reflective Mindset" in students that fosters improvement.
We are about to embark on a 20% Project. We'll see if exposure to this new form of assessment has developed some skills that will translate into success in this project. Stay tuned; I will begin a series of posts on our 20% Project and its progress.
I read an article in Edudemic about the 5 Critical Mistakes Schools Make With iPads and How to Correct Them. I also attending a session at TCEA with Carl Hooker on the 10 Things Not To Do With iPad Deployment. Getting educated on others' mistakes I felt would be instrumental in eliminating at least a few unnecessary mistakes. As a result
I am finally understanding why Apple touts the iPad as a single-user device. Don't get me wrong; I do think it's possible to implement a class set of these devices, but there are definitely some key tips and tricks that need to be considered for effective deployment.
1. Lables: Create labels to place on the devices that list each student assigned to each device with their respective class period. This is helpful for quick reference when an issue occurs as well as for distributing/collecting the devices each period.
2. Security: Implement a study of the importance of maintaining personal account security. It is imperative the students remember to log out of any accounts they use during class in an effort to keep their content secure and minimize the likelihood of someone posting content in their name. While we haven't had huge issues with this, there have been some incidences that exposed this problem that could be place students in very vulnerable positions. This is also a component I now want to include in our digital citizenship unit.
3. Create & Delete: Once content is created on the devices, it needs to be moved to the cloud and deleted. Case in point...we use the Adobe Reader app a lot for notes as well as other activities, then screenshot the content to add to our Interactive Notebooks created in Evernote. Once this content is created in Adobe Reader, and the screenshot is taken, that content needs to be deleted. If not, what's to keep the next student from using this content for themselves? So, we have now added that additional step to our workflow.
4. Protect: When using shared apps such as Pages for content creation, it's important for students to understand they are responsible for protecting ALL content created in that app, not just theirs, but their "device mates" as well. Sharing these devices really provides an opportunity for them to experience the understanding of the importance of the "do unto others" concept.
5. Honesty: These devices have actually minimized cheating because of "time-stamping" and "revision history" especially when using our Google Apps accounts. Providing students with opportunities to understand the "ins and outs" of digital footprints may go a long way in developing their understanding of its importance.
6. SWAT Team: Select a team of volunteers that distribute/collect devices every class period. The team for the last period of the day is especially important; I have microfiber clothes that are used to wipe each of the screens, then all devices are plugged into the cart. We don't plug them in during the day; they are only returned to the cart.
One last tip I have found particularly useful doesn't solely apply to a class set of iPads, but I thought I would share anyways:
7. Video Viewing: If you are doing any screencasting and your district blocks YouTube, I have found the best solution is to upload the videos to Google Drive. Using the Google Drive app, students can view the videos without needing Adobe Flash.
These devices are transforming my classroom. Students are learning to work more independently. We have been completing some "Station Work" that allowed them to proceed at their own pace through the content. I had one student yesterday remark that she wished she could work on it at home, but she didn't have an iPad to use...oh well, not a bad problem to have!
