Feedback on Time Travel Brochures

Description of Method

My students completed a google form eval on the Time Travel brochure experience and I wanted to share the results. I was pretty excited to see the high percentages of students who felt like the project increased different NETS-S abilities and their feedback on how to improve the project next year.  Check out their responses...

On developing NETS-S skills

On ways to improve the project (3 constructive and 1 for giggles)

• not do it because i dont think anybody learned anything they just typed something random and went with it and if u do it then you should check things like the rough draft in the notebook. And the thing i loved was the activity part like getting to get pictures or draw it like the creative part of it so do more of that.

• The time travel brochure is a creative, fun, and simple project that next years students can work on in a group if they are stuck and you ( Mr. Mabrey ) give us what we need to get started instantly and look at?decide how we want the brochure to come together and where we want everything to be. It is also a project we have plenty of time to do and be creative in what we put on it.

• Instead of doing all the eras as a group, let them get into groups with people who have the same era to give each other extra information (if needed) and help each other out.

• MAKE THEM DESIGN A TIME MACHINE SO THEY CAN REALLY TIME TRAVEL AND FIND THE WAFFLEISAURS AND BRING IT TO ME OR DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On letting classmates look over their brochure and put "+" on stuff they liked

• it was fun and social

• Letting people see my genius

• Gives encouragement so you think you didn't do a terrible job

• It was a popularity test. I saw some brochures that wern't the best, but because they are "popular" they had the most +.

• some people didn't get "+"

Concluding thoughts

I'm glad I went the extra mile to get feedback from the students. It's incredibly validating to see such high percentage in the 70-85% range for  different NETS-S categories. It's also great to get their on-the-ground advice for ways to improve the project for next years and for how some liked the chance to "like" elements of each other's work. Maybe next year we'll find the wafflesaurus......

Time Travel Brochures

Description of Project

To teach about geologic time I have my students create time travel agencies. Student work in groups of four to design vacation packages to different prehistoric eras. It's a 5 day project where the first two days are spent researching the plant/animal, climate/geologic characteristics from that era. The next day students design attractions framed around those characteristics and come up with an agency, name, logo, and distinguishing characteristics (senior citizen discounts, witty taglines, etc..) The last two days students plug their great ideas into Microsoft Publisher and whip out an amazing trifold brochure product.

What I love about PBL (project based learning)

• Content: content is learned through the project vs content acquisition then project.  Also content came from both library books I had checked out on a cart as well as a list of recommended sites I had found before hand that contained middle-school friendly language. 

• Collaboration: not only did students work in travel agency groups but they added sites onto our Recommended Website page for students in other classes to use. Collaboration was real-time and all-the-time, web-based.

• Creativity: students could go as crazy as they wanted with attractions, themes, etc... Several ended up spending hours and hours outside of school to make a final product they were proud of. The opening pics were of Tessa's amazingly artistic and content-rich brochure.

Publishing

After attending the METC conference I was haunted by the idea of publishing student work.  Why have them spend a week of class time to make a product that only I (or there mom) would look at? What if I gave them a larger audience and allowed their peers to celebrate their creativity with them?

Here's what I did.

The day after students submitted their brochures I put the brochures out by class on 4 different tables. Students were instructed to skim through the brochures from each table and put "+" next to features of a brochures they thought was cool. Think of it as a low-tech Facebook like.

Then they voted on the winning brochure for each class.  At the end of the day I had student-generated feedback on which brochure was the best for each class.  Students loved it!

Quotes I heard

• "I have 27 pluses!"

• "Look they're all voting for me! That's all me!!!!"

• "I've voting for Tessa."

Why a 1:1 environment was essential to making this happen

1. Video tutorials: Students watched a 2 min tutorial I made on how to start a brochure in Publisher. Without computers, 1/2 a class period would have been swallowed in direct instruction for this part of the project. With computers students could watch (and rewatch) at their leisure.
2. Source sharing: With laptops students were able to share websites and info with each other and different classes on a google doc. They developed all sorts of NETSy skills like information processing, vetting sources, and online collaboration. Without computers they were stuck with the sources I found.
3. Self-paced: With laptops students could move as fast or slow as needed. They could work on it from home and if absent they could access the material from D2L. Without laptops I wouldn't have cultivated a rich D2L site for the work to be continued from home because we would rarely used D2L in the classroom.
4. Feedback: The most important function of the 1:1 classroom is the freeing up of the teacher's time for individualized feedback. I spent 5 days going from student to student, checking on individual work, giving pointers and suggestions, and keeping students on track. Every day I probably talked to every student 2-3 times. Two to three times!! Have you ever been able to give that type of feedback to every student in a non 1:1 class?

What I'm thinking about for next year

1. Online Medium - I had students submit their Microsoft Publisher files to me via dropbox on D2L and thought about grading them online but found the process to be clunky and time consuming. I also thought about putting their publisher files online via blogs but think its not very aesthetically pleasing.  What I"d like to find is an online platform that is (a) easy-to-learn (b) doesn't take the focus off the content and (c) can showcase a student's creativity. Anyone know of any?
2. Kidblog -  I'm playing around with the ideas of having every student blog about projects throughout the year. Kidblog seems to be a cool blogging service setup for teachers that makes blogging easy to manage. If I use Kidblog next year, then these brochures will definitely appear on their. Is anyone using a blogging platform they would recommend?

METC Day 2

Shot in the arm

Second day of METC did not disappoint. In addition to the ideas, to the tips and tricks, and the new fangled websites/apps, I really appreciate the cathartic shot-in-the-arm this conference was. You walk away with a lighter step, a bit more excited to teach the next day, to reach that sleeper kid in the back row, and to help kids achieve their passions. At least that’s what it’s done for me.  Completely emotional and unquantifiable and totally awesome. 

Things I want to try

click here to watch

Whiteboard Screencasts – Keynote speaker Lodge McCammon made a powerful argument for simple screencasting using an iPhone, tripod, and a whiteboard.  There’s a low barrier to entry (assuming you have a smartphone), its scalable, and easy enough to teach your students how to make their own videos.  Even though screencastomatic (my current preferred screencasting medium) is fairly user friendly, there is ZERO learning curve for his method and it delivers a pretty high value product.

I’m definitely taking his lead and making some videos with my whiteboard in my classroom either using the school tripod for my iPhone or MacGyvering my own tripod with towers of textbooks on tables.

Watch Lodge’s videos off his YouTube channel here to see what I’m talking about.

click here to watch

Ujam.com – free website (with email signup) where you can record your voice and have a dashboard of effects to play with. Looks super-fun for making funky audio for videos, avatars, and student products. On that note, I spend a whole session with a master social studies 6^th grade teacher named Josh Stumpenhorst and have a bunch of great ideas for him. Would love to pass them along to all who are interested.  

Problem based learning (PBL) - Josh Stumpenhorst makes a powerful argument on why we all need to transform our curriculum into PBL. A lot has been said about PBL and there's no need to regurgitate it all here. I think what most sold me on Stumpenhorst's version of PBL is in Josh's classroom he gives them (a) choice, (b) international audience (students posting it on the web) (c) passion-based. The KidBlog entries he showed us of his 6th grade student work was AMAZING.  

"You start sharing student work in a public space and the quality of work will change" ~ Josh Stumpenhorst.  

"Don't you want students to be able to Google themselves and see their story, their narrative, their passions?" ~ Josh Stumpenhorst.

METC Day 1

#METC14

First day of Midwest Educational Technology Conference at St. Charles Convention Center. Lots of great ideas thrown around in the main session and the breakouts. As is the case with any conference you’ve got to sift through the muck and mire and find the nuggets you’re going to allow to shape and change you.  Here’s my attempts to put in words the best of what’s hit me today.

Things I want to try…

Passion Projects

Josh Stumpenhorst, Chris McGee, and Scott Morrison all do some version of passion projects. It’s the google premise – employees spend 80% of the work week doing assigned work and 20% of their work week working on something of their own crazy design.  

Morrison’s been doing it at Plaza for a year now after learning about it at METC in 2013. On Friday’s kids choose something they’re passion about and go to work, researching it and learning it.  It’s unscripted, ungraded, and totally open-ended. The structure of it is that kids have to produce some sort of product and they have to reflect on it at the end of every period.

This idea is super-enticing to me. It brings together all of my best moments in education the last 3 years – directing drama at Plaza in 2012-13; facilitating student-led, student-created dances, assemblies, and projects at Congress in 2013-14; watching Cailin Morrow play her guitar in my class the last day of school after 96.5 The Buzz played her music on the radio waves in 2012.  Each of these moments involved sitting on the sidelines watching students shine about something they’re passionate about. 

Do I dare to give away Friday’s and see if we can pull off a colossal “Yes, and….”  - mastering 8^th science curriculum and allowing kids to break into something they’re passionate about at school

Blogging

Lots of people talked about student blogging.  What if I had every student blogging on Blogger with their ParkHIll student ID and had their blogs populate Blogger? What if they blogged about their Passion Projects every Friday and emailed their parents a link to their blog post at the end of Friday class? (thanks Steve Sheriff for the idea)  What if I had them comment on at least one person’s passion project from a different class? What if this spilled over to the rest of their classes and they started updating those classes as well?

Digital Legacy 

Kevin Honeycutt really pushed the idea of digital legacy in a few of his sessions. Besides telling our students not to bully, not to post nude pictures, not to drop the F bomb online, what are we telling them TO DO? When I google their name will I only see links to the video games they played and the social networks they joined, or will I see things that make me want to hire them or give scholarships to them? What if we had student engage in legacy projects – projects where students have to do something good for their community or the world? Great examples at openworldcause.com

People to Follow

Here are some folks who blog/tweet that I’m now following on my PLN (and you should too!). Their blogs and websites are treasure troves of honest reflections of engaging students in the classroom and their mishaps along the way. 

• Chris McGee (@cmcgee200) - coachinandout.blogspot.com
• Josh Stumpenhorst (@stumpteacher) - stumpteacher.blogspot.com
• Kevin Honeycutt (@kevinhoneycutt) – kevinhonecutt.org
• Lodge McCammon (@packetlodge) - Lodge's YouTube channel