Last week ETCATA hosted an Invent to Learn workshop with Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez. This experience provided Alberta educators with two full days of learning about making, tinkering and engineering in the classroom. Attendees were all provided with a copy of their book, Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. It is an excellent read filled with resources. I cannot recommend it enough for those interested in MakerEd.
If you were not able to attend you may be interested in checking out the collaborative notes started and shared by Janet Bell. They contain resources from Gary and Sylvia as well as some bonus material provided by other note taking collaborators. Sharing is caring! Day one was focused on learning and ended with some time to check out different materials and tools. I chose to work with the wearable tech materials. I have been trying to get a light up bracelet to work with no luck so I was determined to try again and this time I was able to get it to light up! After some tips from Sylvia I realized I needed to wrap the conductive thread quite a few times, very tightly at the connection points. Hands down, my favourite part of the workshop was being immersed in a maker challenge. Our challenge was simple: make a bird - if it sings and dances, great. We were given a hummingbird robotics kit, access to a bunch of materials, shown a clip from the Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room and put in small groups of 4-5 people.
Once our time was up we had the opportunity to showcase our creations to the rest of the groups. To see what others created was inspiring. Each bird so unique. Looking at them all you could see the artistic and technical strengths people brought to their projects. The Yoda bird moved in time with the Star Wars theme song and one group had worm drop out of their bird's beak.
After the challenge was over we debriefed and discussed how the learning tied in with the curriculum. We came up with:
-grade 4 simple machines (levers) -finding solutions to a problem (how to get the wings to flap) -middle school physical science -grade 5 electricity -connects with the new CTF curriculum (coming in) - YES! -Grade 3 Science (building and testing designs) -language arts -math (angles/degrees,measurement, patterns) -math (positive negative numbers, variables, ranges, less than/greater than, volume settings, repeated patterns) -cross curricular -so many competencies and skills -stay away from the knowledge for assessment -resilience (not give up as they are engaged and interested) -art Thank you Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez and ETCATA for providing this learning opportunity for Alberta educators. It was a hard two days of fun! Maggie and I are currently in the process of starting a makerspace in an elementary school and this workshop has given us some great resources to take back and use. Christine Quong
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The Fort Assiniboine 7-9 LA class with Charlene Assenheimer is hooking up with the 7/8 LA class with Janelle Peister in Swan Hills to share small group novel studies. We are using close reading strategies based on the jr/sr high English collaborative group read last year, Notice and Note by Kathlene Beers. Janelle and I are alternating the teaching of specific lessons and students will be looking for signposts such as memory moments and words of the wiser to lead their discussions. Using sticky notes and annotating as they read allow students to read closely and think deeply as they are reading so they have something to discuss with their group. All of the novels have a common supernatural theme and the groups are made up of students from each school. Communication will be through texting and video conferencing with vc units and google hangout. Summaries of their discussions will be on our jr high blog post. Have a look, make a comment and follow along if you like. We look forward to hearing from you! http://blogs.phrd.ab.ca/charlene.assenheimer/ Charlene Asseinheimer
One of the projects I used to teach on voice, had my students reading remixes of the story of the 3 Little Pigs. When I started this project back in 2007, we only had the desktop lab, but I started having students respond in less traditional paper and pencil kind of ways. I would read 3 different versions of the story to my students. We would start out with the classic version, followed by The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and lastly The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, by Eugene Trivizas. I used these books to show my students that good writers get ideas from other people’s work. I had the students follow up the reading by creating a blog as one of the characters, from one of the stories we read. They had to fill in their about me page and add a couple of posts as their character. I encouraged my students to respond to the original story by filling in the “holes”.
Here is a link to an example I showed my students the first year (http://bigmomma-christine.blogspot.ca/). Here are some student samples (http://atriptograndmashouse.blogspot.ca/ & http://myownstoryofthethreelittlewolves.blogspot.ca/) I have not done this project on the 3 Little Pigs in a few years. Now that I have more access to iPads and laptops, I have my students creating things like movie trailer responses, vlogs, Telligami’s (avatar’s), Toontastics, Storybirds, Animotos, ToonDoos (comics) and more. Looking back, I could do this project again, but on my students’ blogs they could respond in more ways than adding just images and text like we did back then. Now they can use the tools available to them to respond in many different ways and of their choice. Pretty much anything they create using an app or web 2.0 tool can be embedded to their blog. If they choose to create something more hands on (not digital) they could then video tape a reflection about their piece or use a screencasting tool like Educreations or Explain Everything and that could be embedded to their blog. In the beginning, I only used blogs for publishing their language arts work. Since 2007, my students' blogs have evolved into a portfolio of their work across subjects. It is no longer limited to writing. The apps and web tools mentioned above can be used to represent learning across subjects. Let your students be creative and then upload their work to their blog. Use Tellegami to let your students take on the role of someone else for social studies. Have them create a commercial on why people should visit Alberta or Canada (thinking about social studies again) using Animoto or WeVid. Video record them explaining how they worked out a math problem. Let them video record their group doing a skit or role play. You are probably doing some of these activities already with your class. Just think though how can you make them digital and then students can share them on their blog or any other web publishing platform for that matter. The commenting feature on blogs lend themselves nicely to getting feedback. Not only can classmates be giving feedback, but parents and families can be encouraged to engage by commenting on student blogs too. I have found that opening up my blogs publicaly also allows students to get feedback from others students and people from anywhere. I started doing this by connecting my class to another same grade class in our division. We created links to each others blogs and our students began connecting and reading each other's work. We talked about giving constructive and positive feedback to each other. My students were so motivated by this. They loved hearing what others had to say about their work and they really took what the other students had to say, to heart. It was no longer only me saying the same things over and over to my students. Other people were giving them the feedback and they seemed to take this more seriously. A bit annoying for me but it worked! Later on I added more classrooms to our blogroll. This included classes across our province and throughout Canada. You could even open this up to classrooms anywhere in the world. In grade 5 students learn about Canada. Why not connect your class to students blogging across Canada? Where do you find these connections? Start with teachers or people you know or try Twitter. There are so many educators on Twitter looking for classes to connect with. Search the hashtag #comments4kids to find people blogging with students. Blogging is one way I am able to get my students engaging in the participatory culture we live in. How do you do this with your students? Please add your suggestions in the comments section...I would love to hear them;) For more information on blogging/eportfolios see our resource page: http://phrdconnections.weebly.com/eportfolios.html Nov. 7 PHRD PD day- Blogging Session By Christine Quong christinequong.ca Having dedicated time to plan with another teacher or several teachers has been one of the best parts of my job this year. As a Lead Collaboration Teacher, I get to work with teachers who request to work with our team. Using Jennifer Katz's 3 Block Model our team has recently been focused on Block 2, which is instructional design. Planning sessions have involved UDL focused unit plans as well as cross curricular unit plans. I have to admit my plans from the past look nothing like the planning I have had the opportunity to be a part of this year. When working with small groups of teachers to plan it has become clear to me that I have been missing out when planning in isolation all these years. I have always had a great team that shares ideas, but only a few times have we sat down to really plan out full units. I always felt like a didn't have time. Teachers are busy at least that was the excuse I used. Who had time to plan with others when you have phones calls to make, reports to write, materials to get ready for class, work to mark and on and on. Really, what was I thinking? The quality of the plans made in collaboration with others has been amazing this year. Everyone has different strengths to bring to the table. The more diverse the teachers in our group the more diverse our lessons were. I was always happy to have someone who was strong in music and math as these are not my personal areas of strength. I have my own strengths to bring which I think are integrating technology and (to use the kid friendly language I use with students) picture and people smarts. Having people to bounce ideas off of, I have learned, is invaluable. Other avenues I have explored to reach out and collaborate with educators is Twitter, Edcamps and Moocs. For the past few years, I have found using Twitter to connect and collaborate one way that I can find other educators who push my thinking and help me reflect on my own teaching practices. I check to see what others tweet out. Tweets can link me to blogs, articles, and links to resources they are using with their class. I then take some of those ideas, tweek and adopt the ones that work for me and my students. Twitter has become my main source of PD. I love it because it is PD on my time and PD that I choose. I have attended Edcamps such as Redcamp and EdcampEdmonton. I first heard about Edcamps through Twitter. By following other Alberta Educators, I came across a Redcamp tweet. I had no idea what an Edcamp was so I investigated further online. An unconference to meet others interested in education in Alberta, I was in. I attended #Redcamp12 and met other passionate Alberta educators face to face like Joe Bower, Sean Grainger and Verena Roberts. RedCamp opened with a short keynote from Joe Bower and all participants had the opportunity to propose a topic that they would be interested in learning about. You could start a new topic or tag on to a topic posted by someone else that you were also interested in. Topics were constructed by the participants that morning. It was a type of PD I had never experienced before. Not only did everyone have a say in the topics but they were not sit and get type sessions. They were conversations! The one session I attended, that stood out for me, was on Provincial Achievement Tests. Not only were educators there but I believe there was a city councilor that attended. It was great to be able to have these conversations with various stakeholders and see the perspective of others. I really love the format of Edcamps and loved the opportunity to meet face to face with other passionate educators I follow on Twitter. Last year I attended EdCampEdmonton. There I connected with more Alberta educators like Karla Holt, Jen Deyenberg, Kelli Holden and Catherine D. With Karla I share a passion for educational technology and I have been fortunate to be in a few classes with her. If I need to know about iPads, Karla is my go to person. Jen is the queen of all things games based learning and shares my interest in Universal Design for Learning. Kelli and Catherine were both grade 4 teachers, which happened to be the grade I taught. Catherine also took some of the same 3Block Model of UDL sessions with Jennifer Katz so when I have a question about that or even want some feedback on lessons or units I have been working on, I know I can ask her. Working in my current role, I do not have a class of my own but I continue to follow and learn from them whenever I can. Edcamps have allowed me to connect and learn face to face with educators that share the same interests. Many times these connections continue online and or face to face. These are some of the people that make up my Personal Learning Network. Whenever I am stuck or have a question, these are the people I know I can reach out too. Often I will tweet out a question and someone in my PLN will respond to help, or point me in the direction of help. The first Mooc I participated in was the #DCMooc. It was a Digital Citizenship Massive Online Open Course facilitated by Dr. Alec Couros. I took it because I was interested in the topic, it was free and I could participate as little or as much as I wanted. This was perfect because I was not sure how much I could commit to the course. I had never taken a Mooc, was working full time and was not sure what to expect. There were some weeks that I could not make the webinars or Twitter chats but I could always catch up, when I had time. Many sessions were scheduled twice, once in the afternoon one day and then again in the evening on a different date. The webinars were recorded and archived on the #DCMooc site and I could watch them whenever I had time or not at all. The choice was mine and it was what worked best for me. People could connect and share their learning in the Google+ Community or Tweet and follow the learning using or searching the #DCMooc. It was a great learning experience. A few weeks ago, the opportunity to join on as a Co-Conspirator for the #oclmooc, came up. It is a Connectivist MOOC for Alberta Educators...& other interested trainers, teachers and learners. I could not turn this down. Many of the educators I have met along the way of my Twitter, EdCamp and MOOC journey are also involved in the project. #oclmooc is open to all learners but I am particularly interested in how we as Alberta Educators can connect and collaborate more. Working in a smaller rural district it often challenging to provide meaningful professional development for ALL. Many times teachers are working on an island with nobody to connect with about the ideals or disciplines or subject matter that is important to them. With the technology that is available now there are so many ways anyone could connect to others with shared interests, despite distance. I have had the privilege to witness many great teachers over the years and even more so in the last year. How can we better share our wealth of expertise already here in Alberta and learn more openly? How many other Alberta educators out there feel like they are learning on an island? If you are one of these people, check out the #oclmooc. Start or continue building your own Personal Learning Network through the oclmooc. If you are not on Twitter, have not participated in a webinar or joined a Google+ community, not to worry. Now is your chance to learn...check out our getting started page. If you have questions at anytime ask a Co-Conspirator. I am excited for the learning and connecting to come in #oclmooc. How are you creating opportunities for more teacher collaboration in your school or division? Would love to hear from you in the comment section below.
Last year Janelle Peister planned a grade 8 unit (The Spanish & the Aztecs) with the PHRD AISI team. This year she teamed up with Charlene Assenhiemer and they decided to take unit and roll it out at the same time but make some adjustments. At the beginning of the school year, they took a half day to plan with the Lead Collaborative Teachers. They decided to connect their classrooms and students that were 30 minutes away from each other in rural Alberta. Charlene is in Fort Assinaboine and Janelle in Swan Hills. A plan was made to adjust their schedules so they would be teaching the unit, at the same time so they could use VC and Google+ to connect their classrooms. One week, Charlene would do some direct teaching to both classes using the Polycom VC unit. The next week, all students worked on centers with their partner from the other school. Students collaborated using Google Hangout, Google chat and Google Drive. The following week, Janelle took over and did some pre-teaching of both classes through the VC followed by another week of centers. This rotation of direct teaching and centers continued for the remainder of the unit. For more information on this unit and resources, click here. The following is a reflection by Janelle and Charlene after they finished this project the second time: If someone time-travelled back to your classroom a couple of years ago, and then bounced back to your class today, what would they see, hear or notice that is different about the way your instruction and assessment has changed? Janelle: At the beginning of my teaching career, I was very much of the mind-set that kids learned best when I showed a PowerPoint, they took notes and completed an assignment. After a review class, they wrote a quiz and that concluded our unit. This worked; kids produced work and they did well on their quizzes and I was able to have them sit and listen to the lesson, but they weren’t excited. Now, having worked with teams that are trained in getting kids excited about learning, my classroom is chaotic, noisy but full of students who enjoy learning. Often, I give very minimal instruction- just enough to set them running- and they take the projects and create fantastic results. I have become a facilitator rather than a teacher. There are days where more instruction is required, and the students have to sit and listen, but they know that they have the opportunity when the instruction is done to demonstrate their knowledge in a way of their choice. Also, generally, the kids teach themselves or teach each other. Before the students will ask me what they should do, they ask their peers. Charlene: I always knew that I wanted to be more of a facilitator of a learning than the sage on the stage type teacher. Kids in my class had no skills and no previous knowledge to critically work through the inquiry process. I became the read the text, take the notes, and do the project at the end kind of teacher. I am learning that project based learning can be more than the culminating assignment. I have come to learn that kids still require clear goals and some background knowledge but they become engaged when they can apply what they are learning, as they are learning, all through the unit instead of just showing what they know at the end. I am excited about the day when traditional testing is a thing of the past, for now I see that we teach a variety of ways to show what you know that still includes traditional testing. What’s most important in your mind now as you plan and deliver instruction and assessment? Janelle: There are two most important things in my mind when I plan: 1. What are the key concepts that I need the students to grasp and 2. How can I let them demonstrate this understanding in a way that is appealing to them? It is important for me to always have a wide range of assessments for the students to pick from; this way, they can always find something to their liking. However, each assessment choice will center on one key concept. This way, every student demonstrates their knowledge of the key concept; they just don’t always do it in the same way. For example, I need the students to demonstrate that they understand the theme of the novel. As a class, we will discuss what potential themes, might exist, how we can phrase it best, and find specific examples from the novel to support this idea. From there, the students can create a PowerPoint, a poster, a board game, a song, a movie, or write an essay that focuses on the theme of the novel. Charlene: I agree with Janelle that we must focus on the big rocks, or enduring understanding and skills we want students to learn and how we are going to keep them motivated and engaged in the learning. The outcomes are often abundant and I am getting better at sifting through and picking and choosing those that are most important. I have learned that collaborating with others to plan keeps things new and engaging not only for the kids but for me as well. I think that thinking outside the four walls of my classroom when I plan a lesson and thinking about how I can connect with others is a key part of that engagement. This type of connecting and collaborating is a big part of the global world we are preparing our students for. We have long known that kids learn best from and with their peers so when I plan I remember that I am always thinking of the relationships and connections that can enhance the learning experience for all of us. What’s your most pressing challenges at this time? Future… (Advice, decisional… based on values…) Janelle: I find it difficult to assign a grade to a student. I would almost prefer the class to be pass/fail. However, students, parent, administrators, and teachers are very grade oriented and it is a necessity to score each student. Charlene: You bet Janelle. Grading is tough and again comes to well chosen and clear outcomes. The difficulty comes when kids begin to demonstrate excellence with unexpected outcomes. Because students are individuals, I tend to want to celebrate the individual, incidental learning that occurs in abundance with collaborative, project based learning. When students are engaged they are all learning but this leads to some questions. How do we direct them to the outcomes we’ve chosen when they are self directed and engaged in what they want to know? If they are learning, who are we to decide what is important? Can we assess the learning process instead of the product to get around content based outcomes? I could go on but assessment is definitely a challenging problem that only more frequent professional conversations can help to solve. I would say another pressing challenge is finding teachers who are willing to collaborate outside of their four walls. I think teachers fail to realize how great they are and think it is a lot of work to change, but in reality all teaching is work. The stress that often accompanies change can be alleviated by thinking positively and being willing to take a risk. I know that some of our ideas succeed and some fail but how we handle our successes and failures is part of the inquiry process that we want to model for our students. I think teachers are becoming naturally risk takers and understand that success and failure is happening in their classrooms every day; however, as a culture we don’t like to share our failures and this is what prevents teachers from leaving the safety of their classrooms. We need to celebrate all the teachers that taking the leap to reduce this stigma by collaborating and sharing their successes and failures outside of their four walled classrooms. What do you need in order to confront this challenge? Janelle: Rubrics have been a lifesaver. Attending a PD session on creating really great, but vague rubrics would be incredibly helpful. Charlene: I think I ranted a solution above. What do you need to effectively apply differentiation strategies in your environment? Janelle: You need the training. There are so many facets to teaching a differentiated classroom and it is a challenge to keep up with the different strategies that exist. However, if you have the willingness to try and the enthusiasm to engage the students, that provides a really great start. Charlene: I think you need to know your students. Relationships are key to differentiation. Everyone must respect and accept individual differences in order to provide a supportive learning environment for everyone. If you don’t have a climate of inclusion than the focus will be on external motivators like fitting in instead of internal motivators like learning in a way that works for each student. This climate needs to be established first in your own classroom and then when students come together time needs to be spent creating a supportive, positive learning environment. If you sent a time-traveler ahead a couple of years… What do you hope they would describe about your instruction and assessment then? Janelle: I hope that a time traveler would see a fun, relaxed and self-motivated classroom. I hope they would describe my instruction as foundational yet, intriguing. I hope they would describe my assessment as diverse. Charlene: I hope that they could ask any student at any time and get a unique, inspiring and reflective answer that might include; I am learning…...by exploring…….because…… and found…………. I hope kids would be eager to share their learning not only with strangers but with others around them. I hope they see a teacher who is experimenting, learning and sharing alongside students. I hope there is evidence of self and peer assessment as well as teacher assessment using the same tools and outcomes. What was your experience have the opportunity to roll this unit plan out a second time. What did you do differently this time? What advice would you give to other teachers that are thinking about collaborating on a project like this? Janelle: I learned the value of instruction! AISI and I, with my class of grade eights in the 2012-2013 school year, tried to implement differentiation in the classroom in its purest form. This became uncontrollable chaos. Without instruction, the students were stressed and scared and became defiant and unwilling to work. Though differentiation is a great idea, there is still a place for formal instruction. PowerPoint presentations still work; showing film clips on class content still works, having students answer basic comprehension questions still works. Differentiation does not mean letting the students run free, with little to no basic knowledge. Telling a student they can represent their knowledge in any way does not generate an inherent sense of motivation to learn. The students need to be taught the materials in a variety of ways (auditory, visually, and through discovery) and they need to be able to demonstrate their ability in a multiple of ways. However, it is still the teacher's job to ensure the students are properly set up for success, by providing students with a foundation of knowledge. Charlene: I agree with Janelle, there are times when teachers still need to direct teach. Students do not yet have the skills or confidence to run with pure activity based learning. Self motivated learning is hard work. Being given a context and practicing the skills needed will help to ensure the success of all students. Direct instruction and practice still need to be engaging and multimodal to meet the needs of each student. |
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AuthorsThis blog and resources website has been developed through the work of various AISI coaches in PHRD. The lead collaborative teachers for the 2015/2016 school year, Cheryl Frose, Christine Quong and Tammy Tkachuk will continue to update this site. If you have resources you would like to share or would like to contribute to the blog, please contact us. Archives
May 2016
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