One STEAMy Summer

This summer was quite different than most of mine have been in the past.
A typical summer for me deals with either working 6 weeks of summer school and avoiding the endless home projects that need to be completed or when summer school is cancelled, working tirelessly at home.  This summer I got the pleasure of helping children build a SkyRise.  Now, before we go into the details, let it be known that I had absolutely no previous experience in building the things.  Also, I may want to mention that SkyRise is simply the name of the game format that the VEX Robot Competition Committee is hosting this year.  I want to reiterate, I have no previous experience whatsoever with building VEX robots, the programming behind them, nor the game that is being played.  So, it was intimidating to be hosting a camp full of young, enthusiastic, crazy smart children that are ready to dive into this world and take their knowledge back to their schools.   With some luck, they will take the strategies learned into their futures and paychecks.

It all started with learning about the NOVA Systemic Solutions program back in the 2013 summer during another program I was taking; George Washington University's Teachers in the Industry.  SySTEMic Solutions has one goal, STEM.  Most everyone in the education world is familiar with this term by now, but for those of you who are not, STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.  It is basically a call to arms for the education community that if you are not incorporating these types of programs into your schools then you are failing your students from being ready for future jobs.  In the past I have also been privy to hear the acronym changed to STEAM where the Arts were also to be incorporated and I am a firm believer in this term being thrown around more than the former.  I guess you can argue that Communication needs to some how fall into this mess of letters and before you know it, the acronym will be so long that we will right back to where we started.  Whatever happens, the bottom line is that it is good to have initiatives since it keeps programs and communities focused.  Believe me, the education program needs to be focused during this day and age.  And when I speak about the education community, I am including parents, business, and other community members.  Right now, we are tied to the old ways of what was needed or what we know and trying to find time to teach the new ways of what is needed.  But all of this is another story for another time.  Back to the craziness of the summer.

Last school year, I was told that I was able to order robot equipment to begin a Robot Club at my school.  I though it would be pretty straight forward, but this was no small task.  I went to the VEX website and quickly became overwhelmed.  There is so much information on there that it is easy to become bogged down by terminology, different robots, different robot programs, different..............well, everything.  The website is almost like being on a different planet if you have no experience at all.  With a few hours behind me trying to search for some hope within forums, on websites, on FaceBook, I did what any of us would do, I tried to get in contact with someone that knew what they were doing.  And alas, I had some guidance, but still didn't know what I was ordering when I was adding to the ticket in the checkout cart.  I simply had to trust my guide.

Fast forward to this summer when I was able to be a camp counselor for Robot Camp.  There was a full day training on how to run the camp.  Within the group of people were a few veterans, of one year, a bunch of newbies, including myself, and current students in high school that were able to have a robot club at their school the previous year.  During training, the instructor spoke so quickly, so fragmented, and threw around the terminology as if it were our native tongue.  I was surprised when I heard she was a high school teacher when in fact she should have been a professor of programming at a University.  She had no regard to her audience and was speaking strictly to people with previous experience.  Needless to say, I walked out of training feeling stressed because by next week, I have to know what I am doing.  And this my friends is where the coolest thing happened ever in my teaching career.

I let the students teach.  That's right, the students who were in high school that had one year experience.   They were now the experts and I was following their guidance.  Granted, I was an expert in classroom management which I would have never expected that out of them, but to go from being the expert in my classes, all of the time, to being the students of people half my age, was a very cool feeling.  You hear about it all of the time, students teaching each other or presenting a piece of who knows what to wow the teacher, but to rely solely on the students' knowledge for one whole week and lean on them was awesome.  They got to work with teachers and learn what it is to be professional at their jobs and in turn, we got to learn about the programming and building of these incredible robots.  I think it took an absolute helpless moment like this before I was able to open my eyes to the idea of letting the students do the teaching rather than it all come from me.  Of course, this program is way more interesting than straightforward mathematics, but there is some sort of dharma within here and I was finally able to see it.

So the layout of the camp was this:

• Build and Basic Programming - Day 1
• Perform Scaffolded Challenges with Robot and Modify Construction & Programs - Day 2 & Day 3
• Prepare & Compete in Team Competition - Day 4
• Compete in Individual Competition & Breakdown Robot - Day 5

This layout wasn't the structure we were given to follow, after a few tweaks it worked best for our group.   Ultimately,  I believe that the campers got more out of it with this layout.  These were long 7-8 hour days so we had to keep the kids moving.  They learned everything from how to program their XBOX/Playstation like controllers to being able to move the robot using BlueTooth by pre-programming their robot to move for any given amount of time.  This is what we called "autonomous" mode and it is part of the competition.  15 seconds to be exact and try to have your robot score as many points as possible.  There was also the second part of the competition which was 105 seconds of using the controller.  At the end of the day we would reconvene as a whole class and watch some pretty cool videos.

The construction came with a basic 25 step book that allowed all groups of 4 to build a "ClawBot".  This taught them the ideas behind the building, the gears, the tools, and the terminology.  However, they were quick to find out that this basic robot was no match for doing anything worthy within the SkyRise arena.  This is where the kids were encourage to modify their robots, create engineering journals, and restructure their programs so that they were able to do even more with them.  Some amazing transformations came from these tasks.  What is an interesting side note, the groups with the most experience in robotics usually aimed to far with the materials given and were not able to ever really get their robots to do much when it came to game time.  The groups that worked well together and were new would simply add a little, then test, then add a little more, then test again.  Pretty impressive formula that worked well for a one week camp.

At the end of the week, we celebrated everyone's accomplishments just like you would at any camp.  We wanted everyone to leave them with a craving to continue with these types of programs at their schools.  I feel like we did just that.  Some were a bit deflated because they didn't win or didn't get their robot to do exactly what they wanted, but I would pin it as high as 98% of the campers did enjoy their time.  By the end of the four week stent, I was able to help with programming, build extras onto the robots, and pretty much provide the basic level course knowledge needed.  I also watched the high school students in which I worked with begin using some classroom management skills.  It took a team and I was really pleased with mine.

So now I'm ready.  I'm ready to get the club started for next year.  I have already ordered all of the parts and have enough ready for two teams if the club decides to fill up with that many students.  I will run the club the way I know how and that is by following our camp layout.  Being able to go through the process four times was really helpful for trial and error.  Since our club will only be able to meet for about 20-30 minutes a day, one could imagine how long it will take to complete the programming and building necessary for a basic robot.  If it took these students 8 continuous hours, then with all of the breaks along with putting away the materials and getting them back out, not meeting every day and so on, I'm thinking it will easily take 5 - 6 school weeks.  I have the contact information for one of the other schools and I can't wait to be able to bring our students over to them for a competition.

Dessert for your Class: Kahoot and Socrative

Formative assessments can actually be fun.  What??!!  I know that doesn't sound too crazy, but that's because some classes are just pure fun and the students elected to be there.  But what about the majority of the classes that the students don't have any say in and required by the state to be there, a.k.a.............the core curriculum.  How do you consistently connect to most if not all of your students in your class, multiple times during a class block or period?  Here are two companies, Mobitroll and MasteryConnect, that have it right.  They have created Kahoot & Socrative.  Together, they are a powerhouse and will cover most of the formative assessments that a teacher, YOU, can present in a lesson.  They are both like little tools that act as dessert for your brain.  So my goal here is just to give you an idea of the magic within these two tools and why you should be turning to them for formative assessing in the classroom.

In the beginning, there was the raising of hands.  Do you understand it?  Raise your hand if you do.  Then we moved on to thumbs, and cards, and colors, and shapes, and then we found out that the only reason that students would acknowledge that they understand something is that they didn't want to hear you repeat yourself and wanted class to be over so that they can get their work done.  They wanted to play with the material being presented to really see if they understand it.  It's not that they are totally disengaged with the material, they just became disengaged with you.  So, one major thing we need to make sure we do is give them a brain break from you and the absorption of new knowledge every 5-10 minutes to let them play with the material.  At the same time, we need to use their understanding on every one of these breaks to steer the ship of our lessons..............for the most part anyway.  

Each of these sites has their benefits and I believe you should eventually be using both.  I don't feel that either of these sites will work well if you are trying to use this as a way to flip your classroom.  These are more for the on-the-fly, in-class engagement..............and they rock!!

The greatest part about both Kahoot and Socrative is that students can use their own device or a computer that you have in the classroom.  

 If you've ever been to a bar / restaurant with those quiz games that flash up on a screen and they set a device down at your table, then this is what Kahoot is for your classroom.  You get points for answering correctly and the quicker you answer, the more points you have the chance of earning.  A leader board will be presented on screen as well.   Kahoot, is dedicated to the formative learning that you need to do some prep work for.  Not a lot, just some.  You need to know what questions you are going to want to assess in class.  Now, if you're anything like me, sometimes I have a hard time doing that because I let the class dictate what kind of questions I'm going to ask.  So I have to scaffold questions that help them build the understanding and terminology that I want to see.  Questions that I thought I could ask I couldn't because of the absence of some basic foundational knowledge.  However, you probably have some major concepts that you want to hit up on.  Kahoot works perfectly for that.  You simply post your pre-made question on the board, students log in on their whatever (devices),  and they answer the questions.
  

Very similar to the Promethean ActiVotes that we used a few years back.  

The only drawback to creating a quick engaging Kahoot that I can tell is that you will want to put up an image with your question to make it pop!!  I found myself quickly taking screenshots of SOL questions using the program SnapIt! on our school computers since it is typically a pain in the rump to try and write any mathematical notation in any program other than one dedicated to math.  Science and History teachers will probably find themselves doing the same.  At home, I've become a master at Shift-Command-4 for taking snapshots on the Mac.  But that's it, that would be my only argument and it carries weight to most every online program out there.  Kahoot has a timer embedded on each question that gives the students some sense of urgency.  It also provides instant feedback.  Answer the question and it pops up on the screen with anonymity.   Wrapping up the day, getting feedback throughout your lesson, or getting ready to give a quiz, test, or major unit review?  Kahoot is your jam to use.  It's seriously engaging, fun and so easy to use for both student and teacher.  It really will change very little that you do in class other than make it more engaging and give you instant feedback on where your lesson needs go.  Heck, play a couple out of the "share" community and see if it will fit in your class.

Socrative is the other beautifully designed formative tool for engagement and feedback.  I personally used this for a year, but would've mixed it up with some Kahoot as well.  Every time I asked the students to hook up to Socrative, they were engaged.  Some would get on their phones and some would jump on the computers.  Students who may not have had internet access and were to lazy to go to a computer, I paired up with a student and had them answer the questions together.  Basically, simple classroom management.  What makes this program powerful is that you can use it on the fly.  

If you are the type of teacher who works on the fly with your formative assessments, you will probably be leaning on Socrative.  

As with Kahoot, you can pre-populate questions and have a prepared, scaffolded questionnaires.  You can display your questions on the big promethean board or not.  

My most used and favorite feature was the "quick question".  It allowed you to ask something on the fly and students would use their device to answer.  No preparation needed.  A glorified raising of hands or cards if you will.  One added feature that raising hand would not allow for is that students are allowed to type/text their answers if you asking for something other than a true/false or multiple choice selection.  Obviously, this holds most/all students accountable for providing feedback.  As part of the Fundamental Five crew, this is actually one great way to have it implemented.  Small groups discuss and then type in their feedback.  From the teacher perspective, you simply assign the task using your phone, tablet, or computer and then receive the feedback once you close the question session.  There is also a cool game called "space race".  

This is a perfect game where students should be teamed up and have the collaborate to answer questions.  As they get them correct, their rocket ship moves across the screen.  They watch the other teams' progress as well which makes it a fun way to wrap up a day or a whole unit.  The final feature that I used all of the time was called "exit ticket".  Again, this has to be a prepared questionnaire, but it is a great way to have the students summarize what they have learned if you knew what you were going to ask them at the end of the day.  Otherwise, go ahead and have them answer another "Quick Question".  

At the end of the school day or at the end of the class, you can go back through the data of the exit tickets or quizzes that you assigned and get feedback or use as summative assessments.  Again, very easy to implement and very easy to build your pre-existing curriculum around.  Unlike Kahoot, Socrative provides students and teachers with a downloadable app.  However, it is in the projected works to provide a downloadable app for Kahoot users.

So, the question looms, what will you choose, if any.  They are both fun and engaging products that provide you with the feedback you are looking for.  You do need access to the internet to engage in using these products and may find that your success rate goes up with more and more high schoolers having data plans.  Middle schoolers are still all over the place with whether or not they even have a cell phone so you may want to lean towards a computer in the class or simply stick to the ActiVotes, ActivExpressions, or whatever it is that your program uses for interactive feedback.

CatchUp with SketchUp

 

A few weeks ago I decided to procrastinate on some school work and began to play with Google's SketchUp.  I watched an educational video where a history teacher incorporates the principles used in SketchUp to have his students recreate buildings from the era that they are studying.  They then, post those to a webpage that they create and write about the significance of the era, the building, and any important folks of the time.  It sounded as the class is collaboratively rebuilding an awesome history book.  Immediately I was into it.

I knew I wanted to look into it for Geometry class since it is free and it can

help me to apply some of the rules that we learn in the class.  The program itself is pretty complicated, however, I found that it also offers some tutorial videos that were recently produced.  These videos take you through so many aspects and break it down into all of its simplicity.  Within minutes, I created a three dimensional house where I could walk through the door and explore the inside.  One of the cool things that I thought about while doing this was that I was probably going to use this program to help me finish my basement sometime in the future.

So back to the educational value for my students.  I wanted them to experience some of the power of SketchUp.  I noticed one of the other math teachers does a tessellation project with his students at the end of the year.  I was finishing up the semester with my students and I told him that my students would be able to create something just as good as his best or even better.  My goal was for them to design their projects using the tool and then recreate it using colored pencils.  What I found out was that it took a really long time if they were to recreate it so I nixed that idea.  I showed them how to do different tessellations each day for a week and gave them 15-20 minutes to create their own designs using the principle learned.  On the week of their midterm, they were to design a unique tessellation that had a theme and incorporated at least two tessellations.  What was created was amazing.


One student created a design that portrayed the game MineCraft in 2D.  Another student created a snowflake using some of SketchUp's 3D features.  Other students never finished, but to give you an idea, one created a design with Black Widow spiders and another student was creating a windmill out of fans.

I am so blown away by the power of this program that I need to sit back for a minute and find out exactly where it can be incorporated.  If I were to introduce this early in the year, who knows what could be designed by the end of the year.

Anybody KHAN do it!!

 

Well, this week I received a bunch of messages from teachers and friends alike.  "Did you see the 60 minute video on Khan Academy?"  Now, I have seen Khan Academy before, linked some of the videos to my lessons, peruse the app once and a while...............but what was all of the hype about?  Why so many messages in such little time?  I'm finally just accepting the fact that I am the geeky friend of some people.  Whatever the case, it was time to see what this video was all about.

 

So after watching it, I went into the website and started playing with the program.  I noticed first of all that there was a lot more to it than just a series of videos.  Although there is an enormous library of videos teaching the subject at a surface level, there are also a lot of skills tests that are associated to a lot, but not all of the videos.  See if your an expert at addition and if not, you can watch a video and go back to practice your skill.  A little energy bar lights up as you get questions correct and points are accumulated for something.  If you get questions wrong you lose progress in the energy bar.  You need to fill the energy bar in order to show some sign of mastery.  There were also many other incentives dealing with "badges".  Collect badges and become elite.

 

Anyway, I was interested from it on a teacher's end as well.  So I opened up both of my google accounts, that's right, I said it, both of them.  One as a student, one as a teacher.  I wanted to see how easy it was to manage and as I predicted, it was very easy.  It was easy to create classes, add and delete students from the class and it was easy to see their progress.  It would collect all of the data that they accrued while they were on the site.  How many attempts at a problem, how long they were on an exercise or video, whether or not they need help or if they showed mastery.  It had everything.  They are currently linking everything to the national common core and trying to get their video collection done for all of their skills lessons.  It was quite extensive.

 

I am not one to wait around, so today I tried it out with the students since I've been having them complete any assignments on a black and white page in a while.  They loved being able to try it out.  They were into trying to get the little energy bar up so that they showed completion.  One girl must have done over 50 problems and it gave me time to work with her.  It did not have a video associated with it, but I did not mind showing them how to do a couple of their problems.  The more a student gets wrong, the more it seems they need to get right to show mastery.  Later on, I checked out the progress report as a teacher and it had everything that I witnessed.  Even the girl who was having trouble was red flagged on my account.  It wasn't hard to get them on it and to start having them practice.

I can easily see this type of skills based format become a main part of education.  I like the idea that they are receiving the surface level teaching from someone else along with a quick practice.  Watching some of the videos on the site it shows how to implement it into the classroom and I can see me do something of this nature.  Have students work at their own pace until a few of them reach a certain checkpoint and then have them go a little deeper into it with an authentic problem.  On the other end, in use with an authentic unit, this could be the overt knowledge that they get and then can create something with their knowledge..........a rap........or a video.  Something.

There are a ton of other videos in Science and Economics as well.  I'm not sure if they are as streamlined as the math, but they are there as a one stop shop.  Pretty cool stuff.  I definitely see me utilizing it in the future.

 

My Light Bulb

Driving down the road the other morning I'm sitting there thinking about the music.  A little bit of 80's rock, jamming out to "Tarzan Boy".  I haven't heard that song in forever and I start reflecting on the first time I heard it.  My parent's study, on the lime green chair over my JVC boom box.

Out of no where, it hits me.  The light turns on in my head and I'm now thinking about how easy it would be for me to incorporate a Wiki into one of my lessons.  My students are in AFDA, a high school course dedicated to functions and algebra.  However, one of the sections is learning all about financing.  I have a few seniors in my class and the rest juniors.  I thought, they are soon going to be going to beach week and I remember watching a video when I was learning about Wikis by a group named CommonCraft.  They broke it down to a quick and easy 3 minute video that just made absolute sense.  Basically, wikis for dummies.  

I decided to take the idea that CommonCraft uses of building a camping trip using a wiki and have them build a Beach Week trip using the wiki.  Now, I have done the same with middle school, but this one had to propose a little higher math.  Since some of them have jobs, the propose questions would be, "How many hours would you have to work in order for you to save up for beach week?".  They will need to research the taxes that get taken out of Virginia paychecks, think about car rental places and insurance, look up rental properties and so on.  I even think that they could use part of the Wiki to do a price budget of food like we did my summer program when we learned how BlackBoard could help out in collaboration.

So, I'm not sure what sparked this idea to pop in my head.  In fact, it was quite frustrating and I missed the rest of the song.  Luckily, I was on Pandora and I quickly jumped over to Spotify to put it on my playlist.  Problem averted and Tarzan Boy was back to bless the airwaves in my car.

Commutes and Podcasts

For a few years now I have been listening to podcasts.  When they first came out, I was listening to them sporadically and had no interest in hearing what other people had to say about stuff.  That's how I felt about them.  People simply talking about stuff because they had nobody to talk to in their community that would listen to them.  BUT, some part of me thought there was some value and I didn't forget about them.
I started looking for topics that I was always researching on the web.  Technology STUFF and education technology STUFF.  Once I had a focus of what it is I wanted to hear people rant and rave about, I was hooked.  My library is not extensive for podcast, but it keeps me interested for the duration of my hour ride to work sometimes when I don't want to listen to music or the stupid news AND I don't want to be listening to all of the thoughts in my head.  I simply used them to get ideas to research later on the web.  If you're reading this, you probably are in the same course and you probably like your job enough to enjoy researching new stuff.  I get all of my podcasts from iTunes, but here are some of the things that I listen to and their sites.

The Tech Teachers - 2 teachers that are easy to listen to and talk about sites that could be used in school and technology affordances.

The Tech Chic Tips - A podcast with tips for educators about using technology in instruction to engage students. 

Ed Tech Crew - A weekly podcast about technology in education.

November Learning Podcasts - Cool interviews with educators who are pushing the edge.

Teacher 2.0 - Short snippets aimed to harness e-learning tools and engage students.

School Sucks - Sometimes it's common sense, sometimes it's crap, but it does provide me with the other side of the coin and help me think about what's wrong with education.

MathGrad - Mathy stuff connected to real world concepts.  It helps me bring ideas into my curriculum.

Political Thinking In Your Head

So I came across this article a few weeks ago that my wife sent to me.  Now, just to give you a quick idea of who I am, I do not like how politics are handled these days, I have not and never will solely sell myself to one "party", and I think the games that are played in the political ring are childish and unforgiving.

With that said, this article struck a nerve with me.  Not because of politics, but because of how different sides of the political ring think.  In the research conducted, people are hard wired to think the way they do based on genetics and obviously some learned behaviors. In a nutshell, Republican will stand their grounds and not bend, they want to see things stay the same.  Democrats are a little more wishy washy, but want to see change and progress made by taking chances.  Two opposite sides of the coins.  It summarizes the article by stating that if Democrats want to see change happen, then they must stay convicted to one item and not jump around to a bunch of different ones.  That would be the only way that the two "thinking" groups could ever find a common ground.

I was amazed that this same song and dance truly happens in education.  There are those that want to keep it the same because it is what they know and it is safe.  There are others who are progressive and want to see it change at the rate of society.  I would really like to know who will win this all out war of ideals.  What did make the most sense though is that if we do want to see change in education, we can't change it all over night.  We need to stick to one thing, back it up with data, and sell it to the people who are digging their heels in the ground.

There are a lot of affordances for wikis in the classroom.  I have used them and found that they are a great treasure to deposit a bunch of math concepts on.  Students really have had a lot of individual fun on them as well.  My first experience with them was in the summer of 2009.  I had my students simply use them to work on tests together without talking.  Each group had their own page and would collaborate by putting down the answers and members would either change the answer or simply do the other problems. I tend to use summer school to experiment with these types of technologies without any formal training.
My next experience with using a wiki was to redo my home page for school.  It gave me more freedom and it was easier to use.  CHECK OUT MY OLD SCHOOL WIKI.  Again, the whole idea of the wiki was still in its infancy in my mind and I really had not figured out how to use it well.  Without enough time to see the benefits in education, I really was only playing around with it so that I can learn it and hoping some sort of lightning bolt of knowledge would hit me.  I was also learning so many other tools at the time that I had no idea which were good or bad.  They just all seemed new and fun and I wanted to introduce the students to all of them because I knew other teachers would not.  This turned out to be a very bad thing when trying to promote change in a classroom.
The last time I used a wiki in class, I had the students working on it.  They were each in charge of posting our notes on it each week.  For each lesson, they were to link a video, a picture summarizing the topic of discussion, a game site(if found), and a link to definitions of the math words learned.  It proved to be too much management for me and a lot of extra work for the students.  The idea was for them to be creating a hypermedia presentation for reference.  Students would then build on it from each class and each semester.  I did not feel I had enough time to teach a wiki and teach the curriculum.  I now know that I do.
If this class has taught me one thing, it is that scaffolding is a very powerful principle in school.  I can, and probably will, go back to the wiki idea.  However, this time, lessons will be scaffolded in a way that it will not only teach the students the layout of a wiki, but allow them to creatively add on to it as well.  I do not have to manage it as I thought I did.  I would rather let it be more of an organic thing.  As time goes on and more people add to it, more will want to add to it and make it better.  It could ultimately end up being a great piece of work.
Stay tuned for Wiki 2.0 in my classroom, it might take a while, but it could prove to be one of the best references in Loudoun.  Especially, if I reach beyond the school walls and have other schools participate.

Blog? Yes please.

Over the past few years, I have been amazed at how far online publications have become a part of my life.  I currently subscribe to over 15 different educator blogs and learn ideas about   not only what others in my profession are thinking, but what they have to offer to the educational community.  At this time, I am simply offering my lens of how cool I think these things are.  I have read everything from why we should not give homework across every curriculum to seeing some of the coolest approaches to my subject matter.  From other teachers giving 30 day initiatives to becoming friends and communicating with them on Twitter.  In fact, from blog to twitter, I met a few of these people when I went to a conference in summer of 2010 at the ISTE conference.  All of us had a common goal.  A goal to transform education or at least do our part to bring a different approach to how we presented information inside our classrooms.  I have also joined people in webinars along the way.  All because I found their blogs interesting and inspiring and had to take that relationship a little further.

At the beginning of 2010-2011 school year, I naively wanted to introduce blogs into my classroom simply because I could see some of the affordances of them.  I had one of my classes put up all of their presentations online and begin keeping their digital lives archived.  I furthered lessons by keeping my assignments online and commenting on what they were doing.  On the student blogs, they added links that connected them to websites that they would frequently use in my class.  They used them to reflect on their assignments using questions that I had posted.  I also had them begin keeping a diary of vocabulary.  Unfortunately, this proved to be too much work for me and I had to drop it.  Managing their use of the blogs along with building my entire curriculum around teaching the uses of these things proved to be a lot of work that I was not willing to attach to their grades.  I have tried blogs a couple of times because I have seen the power of them.  My most successful story of students learning blogs is that one of my students has managed to keep tuning into his..............and that to me, makes it all worth the effort.  Here is an example of the blog I keep coming back to you.  You will notice my students will be down on the left side, most or all which have not been touched since they were part of my classes.

The thing that will always keep my mind shuffled is that my students were able to intelligently understand the use of blogs.  They searched the internet and found others that they were interested in.  They hated keeping their own up to date because it was subject related, but were also able to see value in the ones that they had read.  The optimist in me simply wants to think that blogging was so new to these students that they had a hard time seeing their own benefit of using them.  I want to think I planted a seed that will lead them to a path of connecting to other people's knowledge and thoughts.  With the population that I teach and the adult troubles that they face, it is important to see that they are not alone.

Geometry Test

For weeks I've been meaning to post this and today I'm finally going to do it.  The bad part is that I didn't take any pictures to show, but maybe later.

So we had just finished reading the back of the napkin.  I put a mind map up on the board of all of the relationship of triangles whether they are similar or congruent.  For those of you struggling to remember, Side Side Side or Angle Side Angle are some of the proofs that they needed to know.  The map worked great and the portion of the class that participated, I feel, really got something out of it.  A few days later we watched one of the videos that we saw in class with that fella doing the mind map.  Here it is.  We then followed this up with a discussion on how the mind map was set up and how it told a story.  Similar to what we did in our night class.

I then asked the students to come up with their own maps using all of the materials that we use in class along with the topics that we learned.  I put them in groups of three.  They had a lot of fun doing this project and I felt like it was a good way to assess whether or not they retained the information presented to them over the course.  I've come to a conclusion that it isn't necessary for them to remember how to solve all of the problems in every section that we cover, but to have a general idea of what they've learned.  Also, I want them to know why we use these techniques.  In class we have already gone through the processes of using the formulas and information to solve problems.  It feels better to me if they were to remember that there is a technique to solving the problem and they have an idea of where to look if ever they needed to solve a problem.  To me, this seems more practical in life although not so practical for the SOL's.

Hopefully, I'll get pictures of their maps and post them.  They are hanging outside of my room.

Test Before Break

The dilemma is Spring Break and having the students remember what it is that we were working on before they took 9 days off.  It came to me on the drive home while listening to Pandora.  The song "Story of My Life" by Social Distortion was the song.  I ended up getting into it just like Tom Cruise got into the song "Free Falling" .

I researched YouTube and was able to find a link that showed the lyrics.  As a class we listened and watched.  Afterwards, we broke it down to how each of the verses or as my kids corrected me, the sonnets, were set up.  We determined whether or not it had to rhyme, how many sentences were in a sonnet, and how the syllables went along with the tune.

The kids were wrapping up a unit on Right Triangles.  It turned out to work perfectly.  Since there were only 5 students who showed up in class and 5 different topics we talked about, each student chose a topic and began putting together their song.  They worked for the entirety of the class, asked very good questions, listened to the song more times than I could stand, helped each other, laughed and learned.  They did this while most other teachers were watching movies.

The good that came out of it is that students were getting a chance to step back and focus on the topic.  They didn't complete the song due to poor planning of time, but this turns out to be a good thing.  We will complete our songs on the Monday we get back, giving the students a renewed focus as to where we were before they left.  One student who missed a class that week picked a topic he was not in class for.  So he had to learn the topic before he could write about it.  Naturally, his classmates helped him with this.  I had them focus their energy this time into the meat and potatoes of the lessons as opposed to the poems that we did and most of them simply just wrote about how they feel about the subject matter.

The feedback that I got was mostly a positive one.  The students' only gripe was that they weren't able to choose the song that they would write to.  They wanted a rap song.  I told them my car driving story and they were pretty much SOL once I heard that on the radio.

We are going to wrap this up by recording it and if it's any good, we will post it on YouTube.

Pic of Garden from earlier post

Unfortuanately, I forgot to take a picture of it while it was hanging up.





Poetic Assessment

Twas the night before Thursday and all through the house, all the ITSers were stirring, with rhymes for each verse????.  Well you get the point.  So, I went to school the very next day, and because we had just finished a unit, it was test day!!  Yay!!!!
In class I have been using a website produced by Henrico County that has everything you need to know for Geometry.  Already produced worksheets and powerpoints, along with some other connections.  The only things it is missing is the assessment pieces.  So I, who am a newby when it comes to teaching Geometry, have been pairing up the lessons from online to the sections of the book.  This way I can draw questions from the assessment pieces from our book.  Well, after each test, the students have made it clear they didn't like the format.  I have now changed it up 4 times for 4 tests.  So I decided to use the same types of poems that we used in class the night before to help in the assessment.  We paired up and the kids were to come up with four different types of poems for the material that we have covered.  Since it was their first time, I wanted to go light on them in terms of grading.  They did a great job!!  They were laughing and actually having fun.  I had them read them aloud and it was fun to see how humble they became.  For the majority, they were able to draw some of the basic concepts from the lessons and put it into words.  For some, they were able to take the tougher concepts and produce fun little poems.  It really helped me see where the students were in their understanding.  Many obviously hadn't crossed from their middle school understanding of triangles to the deeper concepts.  One group focused on their frustration of having to learn these things.  I finished up the assessment with an 8 question multiple choice test.  Given that I may use this form of assessment again, I will make sure that I will bring up their old poems and let them know a little more specifically what I am looking for.  It also would've been nice if I had time to produce a better rubric.  The one I handed them was a little rushed and only covered the basic understanding of the poems.  I needed to make sure they covered the specifics of what they had learned.  Whatever the case, the students had fun in a math class.  That in itself is an achievement.

Hexagonal Informational Garden

So I broke a bit of the golden rule in class, but it was worth it.  I know when designing a lesson, we are supposed to connect each lesson to something into the real world and try to connect it outside the school walls.  This time I decided to stay within the school walls and tell the kids the truth.  They were helping me with the bulletin board since I was in charge of this months display.  Ugh!!  I hate my turn on the bulletin board.

We've been talking a whole lot about draw tools and paint tools in our evening class.  Naturally, I strayed right towards that, but not before I thought about how to implement it.  In Geometry, there are two draw tools that have been all of the talk for geometry teachers, SketchPad (paid) and Geogebra (free).  I took the time to introduce them to the tool.  I gave them a short step - by - step instruction sheet that would help them explore some of the basic tools and teach them how to create a cube using the tools.  What was great is that the instructions implemented the techniques used in creating the figure just as we had previously done using other tools (compass, ruler, protractor).  So the connection was made with the students.  They also become really familiar with terminology such as points, line segments, rays, parallels, and I can keep going, but bottom line is each tool has a picture with it.  This really helps them treat these basics like second nature because of the repetition of use.

So, to make a long story longer.  I have a bulletin board.  I took the students through some of the basics on how to start creating the hexagon.  I then showed them how to transfer their picture into paint and use the fill tool, resize, and change colors.  Ultimately, they had a choice.  Once they followed the directions on creating a hexagon using a certain design, they were to either print it out and color it with their own style or put it into paint and use the paint program to do the same thing, then add a stem onto it so it became a flower.  They were then to grab a snap of information (I told them to google "cool infographics"), and paste this to their hexagon.  I showed them a finished product that I had done previously and that is all it took.  So the criteria was for them to create the two designs I had showed them for credit, then they can create their own flowers on their own time for extra points, ultimately helping the HEXAGONAL GARDEN GROW throughout the month.

In a quick wrap up, the students actually leaned more towards using the paint program to color their pictures. They loved the fact that they could choose the information that went onto their flower.  They loved to design something that was going to help out.  Their fluency in the program was exponential.  They helped each other in design and navigation.  They started to see the benefits of the constructions that we were doing previously without the software program.  The 'Norton approved'  think out loud approach to showing them the software  was definitely the best approach.

The Essay Looms

It is now that I have to create my essay for the Telecommunications lesson plan.  It always takes me a while before I can get the gears rolling on a cool idea that will make my lesson jump out at the kids.  Once the idea starts to flow, I'll be fine.  As it is for now, I'm letting it fester in my head and hopefully it will be ready to jump out onto paper tomorrow,...................since there is no time to waste.

I'm using an awesome simulation program for the lesson, but it already has an authentic problem attached to it.  I find that this lesson plan is a perfect opportunity to implement this particular simulation into my class, but it is really hard to think of an authentic problem on top of an authentic problem.

It is a Crash Scene Investigation site that walks through how to solve a problem if one were an investigator.  I think that it is going to have to be on the lines of training for a crash scene.  Part of my outcome is that an actual investigator is going to come in and speak with them.  Maybe I will spruce it up a bit and have the investigator actually walk through an actual accident.  She/He could answer questions only thought of by the students that would enable them to determine who is at fault, what caused the accident, and what illegalities, if any, were present?  If they were good trainees, then they would be able to follow all of the math and science behind what the presenter is saying.

Wow, this blog thing definitely helps straighten out some thoughts.  Cool.  Thanks blog. :0)

Your biggest fan.
Jason.

Renewed Approach

So as it was, my students weren't going to be able handle project based learning.  With attendance being the main issue, trying to have groups that are consistent is challenging.  I have restructured the way I've approached my lessons.

Over the past quarter, I noticed that the students want to be in charge of their learning.  If I were to go up to the board and try something traditional, you would see heads go down within a minute.  Not that I'm that boring, but that's what probably landed them in my school in the first place.  These students want to be doing something at all times.  Note taking from my lectures is not "doing something" apparently.  I think there is something beneficial to group discussion and I'll come back to that in a moment.

I have put my students on a computer based learning program.  Attached to all the lessons are quizzes to show some sort of mastery.  The kids get the instant feedback that they seek and are constantly doing something.  This is where it gets pretty cool.  I have given them a pace at which they need to follow and complete X amount of lessons in a certain amount of time.  I have also associated GAMES with about 1/2 of the lessons in which they to complete a level in which I have established.  I am now able to walk around the classroom and sit with students and give them one on one tutoring.  If they show they have not mastered the lesson after taking the online quiz, I review with them how to do the particular problems, and then have associated worksheets that they are to complete before they get credit for that lesson.

The best part about this is that the students are now working at their own pace.  Although I have to put a certain pace to the class, (because of SOL's), it allows them to concentrate on their weaknesses and fly through their strengths.

My goals are these:

• Have students who show mastery help out others that may struggle in small groups
• Use the beginning of class to have the students work out in groups a real - life problem that either teaches them something new or uses some of their old skills.  This will be about 15 minutes at the beginning.  Then discuss some of the techniques they could have used from the things they learned.
• Have students BLOG about their new learnings after each section that they complete.
• Connect concepts to the real world
• Review challenges etc.....
• Create projects (like the things we are learning in class) that will bring the majority of the concepts together.

My Head Hurts

JASON THINKING

So, I'm sitting here trying to think of a webquest...................................and sitting....................................and sitting..................................you get the point.  I've never designed one before, but I've used them.  I've also seen a ton of webquests out there for graphing lines for algebra and so I knew I didn't want to do that.  In fact, most people attack that area of the subject when creating online tools.  It's good because that is an important part of the curriculum, but the focus of these lines usually is on the same thing, slope and y intercept.  Whatever, I'm not going to do that anyway.  Well, here I am thinking of something a bit more ambitious.  Unfortunately, this is where my brain always takes me.  I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I always seem to want to invent the wheel.

I'm now thinking of the area of algebra that I want to learn more about, but also want the students to understand.  The area of quadratics.  In taking a test this week on linear systems, I used a webquest that focus on buying a car that would be most efficient.  I had one of the students say to me, "I didn't know this is what these things were for".  It dawned on me that we hadn't covered the word problems or real world scenarios in that particular class because of time restraints.  We only went through process.  I figured at that moment, I would make sure that I apply the concept of real world at the beginning.  It's really not hard to understand the mathematics and what it means, it is hard to actually recreate the algebra behind all of the data collection and graphs.

AND NOW my quest begins.  A quadratic problem that would give the students a good idea of what they are doing at the beginning of me actually having them learn the processes.

Thus far, my first problem was to take all of the ideas in my head and focus on something that they would find interesting.  After looking at some of the word problems that others had posted I've settled on traffic accidents.  Students will look at different demographic areas such as age vs. AA members, texting vs. age, cell phone calls vs. age, age vs. accidents.  I think that I will have appropriate links for them to find the information, but I haven't found anything great, but I've found the information.  Now, I'm stuck on the Introduction.  Do I go with a game show theme or do I go with helping out a family member letter?  UGH!!!!! Ultimately, I would like them to be able to write a letter to someone that actually could use this information to help apply laws.  If my students were able to make a change, that would be pretty cool.  Since my little part in class was to look at the collaboration, I thought this was a great idea.  So I have definitely included that as part of the quest.

The hardest part of this is in making sure that if I actually want to use this, I've found myself doing a lot of research on quality websites.  Again, I've found the information, but I would like for them to actually have to use some sort of database or something to have to search for it, not really just read an article and collect the info out of it.

And so it is, my head hurts.

My Dilemma

Well, grades came out, and as arbitrary as they are, they were not good .  I had one on one discussions with all of my students and 90% of them felt that their grade was accurate based on their efforts and the amount of work that they completed.  This leads me to my dilemma.

In my school, the biggest obstacle that we are up against is truancy.  If I had to guess, about half of the students have a P.O. (parole officer) and are being monitored by the court system.  Another good portion of students attend, but are unmotivated, and a small percentage needed a different environment to thrive.  With that said, we went through the quarter, where I put together great lessons that incorporated multiple disciplines and sometimes, multiple topics within the subject of Algebra.  The students were 100% engaged.  Learning through collaboration and creativity.  The thing is, these lessons were great!!...............for the few that showed up regularly.  It was the majority of students who would be absent for 2 or 3 days in a row or absent 1 day here the next ( and then trying to figure out what the hell was going on), and gone the next day.  The thought provoking lessons that were put together, a lot of the time, were a bust because the students would not show some or all of the time allotted.  Before they knew it, we were on to the next topic in class, and my part time students were barely getting off their feet on the previous topics.

This causes me to really doubt the approach of project based learning for my type of student.  I've always wanted to do it and finally, this year, I did.  Now, I'm highly disappointed with the results.  Some students have argued that they are not used to learning this way and they are too conditioned to learn a new way.  Is that true?  Should I not try to give them a glimpse of the future?  I can definitely say that I am one of few in our school that approaches learning through authentic problems.  Unfortunately, swimming against the current is exhausting in such a tough subject.  It's not that the support is not at the school, it just wears you down having to explain to the students, all of the time, why they need these skills when there is next to none preaching these same principles with me.  Again, not because they don't agree, but only because this is not how they practice their subject, so most of this is foreign to the kids.

So, where am I now?  I have gone back into my shell and am using technology to simply redistribute information through technology rather than use it to educate students on how to seek their own knowledge.  They are having more success because all of the lessons are in individual sections (because it's math) and the students can easily see what topic they have missed when they don't come to school, but it's simply not realistic to how they will work outside of school.

NOOOOWWWWW back to the drawing board.  They are learning on a self paced program which I am able to get around the room and individually help them.  They are collaborating on an ongoing notes document in Google Docs for those that miss class.  They are learning through games.  They are getting practice from these things and worksheets, but nothing authentic.  They have the means to communicate with the class or myself if they are out.  They can always see what assignments they have turned in and not turned in and retrieve any documents they may need.  So maybe, I will only have the authenticity be thrown in on a formal assessment.  It may be too demanding for this population to be able to handle projects that take 4 or 5 days to complete?????  I truly believe that the authentic approach is the way to go.  I haven't been asked once this year, "when are we ever going to use this"?  Something must be going right in that sense.  Now it is just time to find a balance.

Suggestions appreciated. :0)

BACK TO THE OLD WITH A SPLASH OF NEW

This week I had both a good lesson and bad lesson, both dealing with the same topic.  This is progress for me, because as soon as I began diving into the lesson the first time, I knew it was a great idea, just poorly planned in terms of time management.  The topic was line of best fit.  In case you don't know, you must look at a trend of any data given, and predict what it is going to happen in the future.  Sounds simple, especially if a graph is in front of you.  But in order to predict with a precision, you should create a formula.  Hence, the algebra.

Well, that's what we did.  But we did it using my salary and my spending based on what my paycheck and bank account said.  The students were definitely in to seeing my spending trends and the lesson was going to be AWESOME!!  Until, I tried to break it down over 31 days for the month and we had to do all of the calculations of where my account stood each day........................boring!!  It was way too slow for me, and I even praised the kids for pushing through it with me.  In the end, we did the lesson, but I had to seriously tweak it before I taught the next class this lesson.  So I dove back to the old Apple stock!!  This is the same lesson except I use points from some company that the kids like.  We graphed points using this data.  Very cool and leads to a lot of good topic discussions.  This basically got the same point across that my other lesson did, in better than half of the time. We find out the function of the data in a linear form and then I have them predict how much the stock would be worth in "X" amount of days using their formula.
I finalized the assignment by having them go and find data on their own.  NFL statistics, crime statistics, stocks............etc., something that they were interested in.  They then were able to mimic the lesson taught.  I had them do everything by hand.  Once I checked their work, they graphed the same thing using a computer program, posted it to their blog along with the function that they were able to find, and then I asked each individual a unique question that they had to answer based on their data and graph.  Here is one of my students postings.

Good points to the lesson:

• Discussion
• Engagement
• Deep understanding of the topic at hand

Bad points to the lesson:

• I'm at the board throwing out probing questions
• I'm writing everything I want them to write down.

I think in the future I'm going to add some sort of tweak to it so that they produce a quick summary and answer a question or give them some sort of goal.  My database lesson is going to be working off the line of best fit.  It is one of my favorite lessons to teach because it summarizes why we use graphs and how we can predict with some sort of accuracy.

Tsunami

So this week I took the students through the events of Sri Lanka in 2004. We watched a few clips of the horror and they asked tons of questions. My students were all around the age 0f 9 or 10 at this time, but they remembered it. We discussed the devastation and what a tsunami was and how they are created.

I then used Google Earth to show them where the earthquake had taken place. Using a "ruler" tool, I was able to connect a line from the coastline of Sri Lanka to the epicenter and measure the distance. I made up another spot of where the wave was after "X" amount of seconds and some times of when this was taking place. I explained to the kids that they are the Homeland Security of the nation of Sri Lanka, and they have to figure out how long the had before the wave hits the coastline. They must evacuate the coastline by a certain time after figuring out the speed of the wave.

After giving them some time, I went ahead and showed them how I would've solved it. A lot of them were very close in solving the problem. They used the tools given to them by previous teachers to solve the problem. I then proceeded to give them some new tools in which we use in algebra formulas. Slope and the Point-Slope Formula in function form was my goal for them that day.

Granted, this kept the students attention and they were all 100% engaged in figuring it out. The entire time that I was giving the lesson, I was thinking, how can I have them do all of this? I think upon reflection, I would give them some coordinates to find on the earth and find the distances on their own. I would show them the tools to use on google earth and they would have to recreate that much. I would provide an XY table for those that I saw subtracting the distance for each second that went by. I also think that I would send them a video of how to create functions from real life problems to see if my brightest students were able to come up with something.

The finale of the day was to have them create their own real life problem given some numbers. I wanted to see if they were able to be creative even though the numbers were just given to them. I did this because we were getting pressed for time. I know in the future that I want them to look up a natural disaster and come up with their own scenario using real data.