Anatomy Award Nominations

Background

During my cell unit students learn that cells are alive unto themselves and they memorize the names of about 10 of the most common cell organelles alongside a simple 1-2 word description of the role each plays for the greater good of the cell. For example, the nucleus is "the control center" and the ribosome is the "protein factory."

To add some creativity to the task, I then ask students to create 60 second persuasive speeches where they nominate an organelle to receive The Most Important Organelle Anatomy Award (a spoof off the Academy Awards).  Students learn about the organelles the first day, work on the speeches the second day, and present their speeches the third day.  A quick, 3 day project-based learning experience incorporating problem solving, creativity, persuasive arguments, and oral presentation skills.

How D2L saved me

My plan was to do this 3 day project the first three days back from spring break, Mon-Wednesday. Little beknowst to me I was going to have a 102F temp and deep-chested coughing fits on Sunday night. However, I had already loaded D2L with the instructions, the lecture, the examples, and the rubrics and thought in a fever-induced moment,"Let's see if they can do it anyway."  Here was the subplan I left on D2L.

What was going to happen on Wednesday?

Monday and Tuesday came and went. I didn't show up on my classroom either day, received no updates from a sub, and only received 2 student emails that I quickly replied to.  I had no idea what I was going to see when I returned to my classroom. Would I find classes ready to present? Or would I find students who struggled, gave up, and screwed around for two days meaning I'd have to start from scratch on Thursday.

Take a look for your self.  Here's a video I made of some of the student examples that were presented on Wednesday.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I was very impressed with my students. 

They didn't need the sub's help one iota.

They took their notes, read the directions, looked at last year's examples, helped each other, got creative, wrote some scripts, made some funny speeches, and had a great time.

And I didn't even have to be there.

Not that's not to say that my having been there would have been nice.

I'm sure my presence would have helped ease the anxiety of quite a few students and I could have lent some advice that likely would have improved the product of quite a few speeches I did receive.

However, a large percentage of my students were completely successful without me holding their hands.

And we were able to continue on with our unit without going back over the days "lost" with the sub.

On top of that 7 students were absent those days just like I was, and 2 of them,  Autumn and Jena, showed up on Wednesday with finished A-level products  because they were able to access everything they needed from D2L at home and had completed their projects.

Boom.

Concluding Thoughts

1. It's nice to have class proceed as normal during sub days rather than having to create a "filler" lesson.
2. It's nice to see students complete work from home when absent and be completely caught up upon their return.
3. It's nice to know students can not only complete a lesson, but can complete a problem-based learning assignment that required a lot of creativity, problem-solving, and spunk when you're gone and not just fill out a simple worksheet.
4. Thank you D2L. And thank you Flipped Classroom.

Family Descriptions (Guest Post by Laura Todd)

Description of Project

Students described their families in Spanish using technology to enhance the presentation.

Exemplar Student Work

Click here to watch the PowToon

click here to view prezi

 What I liked about the project

Students had the freedom to choose presentation form so the variety was refreshing to both students and myself.

What I'd like to do differently next year

I want to use D2L to post videos on how to add accent marks, how to convert a moviemaker file to an mp4, and how to upload a link in the dropbox (This cannot be done as I understand so we had to paste the link to  a word doc and then submit this doc.) I felt like I was teaching a technology class and would like to dedicate more time to perfecting their Spanish pronunciation and grammar.

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

Week 14

Week in Review

And we're off. Third quarter is officially in session. This week my science students are getting their hands dirty in an Earth Processes unit. Over the next 5 weeks we will study characteristics of rocks and minerals, parts of the earth and the theory of plate tectonics, and will finish off with a big glance backwards in geologic time.

Monday

Snow day.

Tuesday

Students dove into the minerals samples to begin the unit. Without a word of instruction I passed out boxes of minerals and students had to brainstorm characteristics of the minerals they saw. They then chose one characteristic and made groups according to that characteristic.  For example if their brainstorm was: color, texture, size, odor (some smelled of nasty egg), sparklies, magnetic, brittleness; they may have chose texture and made a pile of smooth minerals and a pile of rough minerals.  After grouping a few different times they came up with questions they wanted to learn about the minerals that unit.  

I love starting the unit in this manner because it gets kids hands dirty and causes them to start asking questions, rather than beginning by giving students answers before they have any questions.

Wednesday

Students were told they were going to have a mineral identification lab on Friday, therefore they needed to learn the lab vocabulary today.  Students were given an open ended note sheet with a list of the terms they needed to learn and then given the freedom to right down whatever phrases and pictures they needed in order to learn the material.

I like using an open-ended note sheet because it gives students a bit of ownership over their notes. They know they need to know the terms and it gives them the freedom to choose what to write and where to access the material. If they like the material from the textbook - great. If they would rather obtain the info off the web -great. The trick as a teacher is to continuously circling your room and making sure students are understanding what they're writing down.

Thursday

Google doc. Students completed a line on the My mineral is better than your mineral google doc for their classs period.  It seemed like students loved getting a chance to explore what minerals had to do with their life.  My favorite quotes were "You mean gold is a mineral?" and "My birthstone is a mineral?" and "Let's fireproof our cell phones."

Having a column where students vote is pretty clutch. Not only do students know their work is public, but they keep trying to one up each other by finding the coolest minerals.  High motivation and high capability for creativity.

Friday

Lab Day. Students worked in collaborative groups to identify 5 mystery samples using the vocabulary they learned on Wednesday.  This is the day we discovered how well students understood their notes from Wednesday and many students learned there is a head knowledge and a skill knowledge to science.  Though most students could tell me the concept of hardness was a mineral's ability to resist being scratched, most had difficulty actually performing the task.

At the end of the lab students, had to write one sentence reflections that began with "Today I learned...."  My favorites:

• Today I learned some minerals are REALLY HARD. They can scratch nails!
• Today I learned biotite is weird and flaky.
• Today I learned minerals can cut glass.
• Today I learned cleavage means "clean cut" and fragment is "funky fresh."
• Today I learned not to work with *****. He does nothing."