Week 3

Week 3 in Review

Monday began my full transition to Desire to Learn (D2L) from my Google class site. There's definitely a give-and-take when giving up control from your site to D2L. On my former site I had complete control over the look-and-feel of the site and I miss being able to design a one-stop-shop unit page where my students could see at a glance what we were doing every day for the entire unit and could access any assignment with a single click.

That being said it looks like D2L offers some powerful abilities for automated grading and item analysis for assessments. I can also see where its nice to have a single platform for students to visits for all their classes, rather than having to seek out a variety of webpages for separate teachers.

I've decided to produce some screencast tutorials with Screencast-o-matic to show how I've set up my D2L site and the features I've found most useful this first week.  This is by no means the "right" way to do it; in fact, I'm hoping others reading this can send me their tips and tricks for utilizing D2L. I'm simply hoping to share my journey of finding useful features for D2L.

• Tutorial 1: Organizing
• Tutorial 2: News tool
• Tutorial 3: Automatic grading (coming soon!)

Monday 

Returned Unit 2 tests and students took a 5 question post-survey over Unit 2.  You can see the results here. I'm pretty stoked about the gains from pre to post survey. I've been using Google Forms to administer a pre-post survey and its been pretty easy to collect the data. However, I think D2L's assessment features will take me 1-2 steps further in item analysis by allowing me to drill down and see not just the percent of kids who missed the question, but the specific wrong answer they chose. This will hopefully evolve the conversation from "Why don't my students get this?" to "Why did the majority of students who missed the problem choose answer A?"

We started a new assignment called 1st Quarter Reflections in preparation for parent teacher conferences. At the end of most periods I make students write down a 1-2 sentence reflection on what they learned that day. Students also do this when they get an assessment back and reflect on what the assessment tells them.  For this assignment students had to review their daily reflections from 1st quarter and pick the 5 they were most proud of and explain why they chose them.

I really liked this assignment because (a) it made students be introspective, (b) there was a high degree of creativity and artistic freedom, and (c) because it can serve as a great conversation piece between students and parents on what they've been learning and enjoying in science this year. Here are two examples of student work.

click here to read

click here to read

Tuesday

Finished working on 1st quarter reflections.

Wednesday

Students watched YouTube notes on the Properties of Materials. They first copied the graphic organizer into their notebook from D2L. Then they watched my Part 1 and Part 2 notes off YouTube. I told them we were learning this vocabulary to set them up for the in-class activity tomorrow, where we were going to analyze random objects they'd be bringing from home (which a suprisingly high percentage of them remembered to do).

Why do I sometimes put my notes on YouTube?  (a) student focus tends to be improved because they put headphones on and are zoned in (b) students can pause and rewatch if need be (c) standing and delivering didn't add anything to this particular set of direction instruction (d) absent kids receive a comparable experience. (e) kids who finished early were able to move onto Friday's self-directed assignment and put a bit more time/effort into it.

Do you always do notes on YouTube? Nope. Only when it makes sense to do so.

Thursday

Students brought in random objects and rotated around the room analyzing the objects using vocabulary learned from yesterday's direct instruction. They worked in collaborative groups and moved every 4 minutes in accordance with the beeping sound from my kitchen timer on the board.  It was highly interactive, engaging, and funny to watch.  Students tried asking me, "Mr. Mabrey would you consider this object to be malleable? How about thermal expansions, etc..."  I just smiled at them and said "What does your group think?"

Friday

We processed the results from yesterday and had a class discussion about the trickier objects. Then students opened up a Google docs assignment called Properties Grid.  They're only halfway through and its pretty cool.  Check them out below:

• Properties Grid (Period 2)
• Properties Grid (Period 3)
• Properties Grid (Period 6)
• Properties Grid (Period 7)
• Properties Grid (Period 8)

Lessons Learned

1. D2L isn't scary once you receive some hot tips from someone. Thanks Jill and Lee for getting me rolling.
2. Students really get into creative writing assignments. I was impressed with how many kids loved the freedom I gave them with the 1st quarter reflections project. They seemed pretty proud of the final product.

Week 2

Week 2 in Review

This was the final week in our Chemical Interactions Unit. Therefore, though our test was on Friday we had a quiz at the beginning of the week over our third and final learning goal, and I'm glad we did! This was the first quiz of the year that quite a few students found difficult.  The team averages on the previous two quizzes had been remarkably high - 90% on Quiz 2.1 and 85% on Quiz 2.2; however, on this quiz, Quiz 2.3, the team average was 77%.

(Quick aside on nomenclature. I title my quizzes based on the unit and learning goal. The first number corresponds to the unit and the number after the decimal corresponds to the learning goal. Quiz 2.1 is over unit 2, learning goal 1; Quiz 2.2 over unit 2, learning goal 2; etc....)

When I passed back Quiz 2.3 on I stressed the end of first quarter is October 11th and the test on Friday is weighted so that it affects there grade more than all of the quizzes from the unit. Whether it was my speech or the fear of parents seeing a report card, I had more students voluntarily choosing to reassess Quiz 2.3 the day before the test then any other quiz I've given before and many of them turned a D or F into an A.  More importantly, they discovered their misconceptions, addressed them, which prepared them to show off their knowledge on test day.  Team average on Chemical Interactions Test: 84%.  Not too shabby.

Monday 

Students began a Google Doc assignment called Everyday Compounds.  Its an assignment I scraped later in the week so students could focus on reassessing and finishing a study guide; however, I'd like to make room for it next year. In it students pick out a compound from their everyday life, research its elemental components, and marvel at how random elements come together to make something totally different. You can check out there work - Period 2, Period 3, Period, 6, Period 7, Period 8.  (If things look a bit unfinished it's because we ended up dropping the assignment to focus on reassessing Quiz 2.3 and Friday's test. However there are some entries that are complete and look great.)

One thing I really liked about the assignment is I made kids link their content to the web source they obtained it from. Then, at the begining and end of each period I scrolled through the class's Google Doc on the screen in front of the room and clicked on students' work and we had discussions about reputable and unreputable sources. Kids were into it and I could see the light bulb going off that Answer.com shouldn't be a go-to location for information.

Tuesday 

Students took a paper-and-pencil quiz on Learning Goal 3 - Period Table Organization. Then they continued working on the Everyday Compound assignment. I enjoyed watching them struggle with finding a website that broke down the chemical formula of their item. Many students discovered they had to first find the components, then search for chemical formulas. For instance, some girls chose a volleyball and discovered they had to research independently the bladder, then the lacing, then the leather making up the ball.

Wednesday

Students received their quizzes back and received my pep talk. Every began working on a study guide for Friday's test. Majority of them finished it for homework.

Thursday

Students had a checklist of options that looked like this:

• Show Mr. Mabrey your completed study guide
• Check study guide with a key
• Reassess quiz (if you want to)
• Pair up and review / make notecards
• Play Zondle review game.

This was a great day of self-directed learning. If you walked in my room it looked a bit like a zoo, but it was well-orchestrated chaos (at least from my perspective). Kids were strewn around the room working on study guides, checking study guides, quizzing wherever they found a quiet location, or playing review games on Zondle. Speaking of Zondle, I love that program. Completely free. Kids can sign up for an account (I have them use their Student ID and Lunch code as passwords), and teachers can make question banks that students can play review games from.

What was especially cool with today's lesson was I had the highest performing kids in my second period login with my credentials and they created the question bank the rest of the kids used that day.  In other words, they did the work for me!  Not only that, but I let them add goofy questions in addition to the content questions and they thought that was a riot.  Will definitely continue using Zondle in subsequent units.

Friday

Test day. Students took their Unit 2 tests then completed a short 5 question post-survey on the unit. The 5 question post-survey is the same 5 questions they took after the Unit 1 test. I use these questions to help determine my teaching effectiveness for the unit and try to limit the questions to 4-5 so as not to overwhelm the students with filling in bubbles. We had a shortened schedule due to an author assembly in the afternoon so all the students didn't complete the post-survey. Looking forward to sharing the results when I get them.

Lessons Learned

1. I have a cool group of mentors for being a FLiP teacher. I met Lee and Jill this week and they helped me troubleshoot some parts of Desire 2 Learn (D2L), our district's new LMS.  My goal is too start shifting my online platform from my google.site to D2L this unit and to start using the quiz and test features of D2L.
2. The cow is working!  I started putting this cow magnet on the board as an indicator to students when we're using laptops.  When students come into the room they now know they should grab the laptops out of the C.O.W. (computers on wheels) if the magnet is on the board and immediately begin logging in. No cow, no laptops today.  This routine is a huge timesaver.
   

Week 1

Hello!

FLiP
I recently was selected to be a FLiP (Future Learner Project) classroom at Congress Middle School for the 2013-14 school year. This means I now possess a laptop cart with 30 laptops so I can transform my instruction within the classroom to (a) increase higher order thinking (b) tap into student creativity and passion (c) develop NETS-S skills and student responsibility and (d) help myself and my peers figure out how our school will transform our instruction when the entire school goes 1:1 in 2014-15.  Yikes. What a list - but I'm excited!

Week 1 in Review
Currently my students are concluding a unit called Chemical Interactions, where they're exposed to basic atomic structure and how the periodic table is organized. This unit paves the way for units on physical and chemical propeties of substances as well as for chemical reactions and energy changes.

• Monday - Students played around with this Isotope Simulation from the guys at University of Boulder.  I gave them a sheet with guided questiosn that essentially said, "Play around with the simulation and answer these 4 questions along the way."  We did this because the kids had a hard time with isotopes last week and I've used a "Build an Atom" simulation from phet before and found the kids loved it.  Same outcome here. I think being able to viscerally manipulate neutrons and watch nuclei become unstable was much more powerful than hearing me talk at the board and drawing pictures.

• Tuesday - Students took a paper-and-pencial quiz on Learning Goal 2 - Drawing Atoms (and isotopes). Then they got started on a Periodic Table Grid.  Since we're starting our final learning goal for the unit (organization of the periodic table), students chose any of the 118 elements listed on the Periodic Table on my wall, researched their element, then wrote about them on a class Google Doc.  Students then commented on the entries, sharing what they liked and offering piece of constructive criticism.  Check them out here (you have to have a Park Hill ID in order to access the gdocs): Period 2, Period 3, Period 6, Period 7, Period 8. I really am impressed with the quality of summarizing in the "What is cool" column. Several students helped other students realize it isn't cool to just "Cut and Paste" info off a website because the information is too boring. You could tell students enjoyed the opportunity to find cool videos in the way they would whisper-yell across the room "Hey, you gotta come check out this Phosphorous video."  In hindsight, I'm glad I found 5-6 solid websites with Middle School appropriate langauge on the elements in order to help them find information. Otherwise I think this would be an extremely frustrating activity, since most of what is written online assumes one already has a basic understanding of atomic structure. You can check the sites I used off my class website.

• Wednesday: Quizzes returned and processed. Finished working on Google Doc grid.

• Thursday: My students took notes on Periodic Table Organization for the majority of the class. However, rather than having me stand-and-deliver in front of the class, I recorded myself using Screencastomatic.com and uploaded the notes to YouTube.  I don't think all direct instruction should be done in this manner (as Solomon said, there is a time and a place for everything), but I think it worked well in this case for the following reasons: (1) Kept students attention since they could move at their own place, stop and pause or keep rolling as needed, and had autonomy over volume control (2) Nothing fancy would have been done in person that couldn't be replicated via video (3) Allowed higher ability students to finish more quickly so they were able to go back and comment on their peers entries from Tues-Wed. (4) Absent students received comparable instruction.

• Friday: First day of the week without computers. Students worked in collaborative groups, rotating around the room  and examining objects at tables in order to determine the elemental structure of each compound.  Challenging, fun, and fast-paced, this is an activity I've done for 3 years and wouldn't discard it.  Computers could add nothing to this activity, so they stayed in the cart. By the end of the period students self-discover the majority of objects in the room (and outside. We spent 5-7 min outside picking random objects) are composed primarily of C, H, and O.  Then they record down, C,H,O,N,P,S for the main elements of living things and we call it a day.

Lessons Learned

1. Assign Laptops. Taking the advice from my team math teacher, I made a chart assigning each student to a laptop. Now, every day when students come in they look for the magnetic cow sticker (COW - computers on wheels) on the board, and if there, they automatically grab their laptop from the COW at the front of the room.  At the end of the period, they shut the computers all the way down and put them back in the same slot.  We've got it down 85% of the class having laptops at their desk by the time the class bells rings and less than 60 seconds putting away at the end.  This is also helpful in damage control. If something is wrong with their laptops students are quick to report it to me so the student next hour doesn't cite it against them.  Great idea. Thanks Amy!
2. Lesson Review. Rather than a paper-and-pencil bell ringer I use the opportunity at the beginning of class to do a fast-paced verbal review with my students of yesterday's material.  As I do this students know they are to be longing onto the computer and getting it to the desk top screen.  Once its there they tilt it to a 45 degree angle so as not to distract them. Seems to work pretty good.

Whew. Quite a first entry. Let's see what Week 2 holds!