Students Use 21st Century Tools to Communicate Ideas

Tonight was Freedom Middle School's Honors Night/Open House.  I had the pleasure of seeing the 7th graders I have been working with show off their projects this evening.  Even more exciting was seeing how proud their teacher was of their work.

You can see their projects here: 7B Tell Their Story Edcanvas

The 7th grade social studies teacher and I worked together to create a creative and meaningful way for students to share their understanding of slavery in America.  Students were challenged to portray what it was like to be a slave using a 21st century tool.  After building their background knowledge through readings, videos, and webquests, students took on the role of a slave and created either a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page that communicated what it was like to be a slave.

Students were extremely creative and worked to provide details and personal touches to their projects.  They worked together and helped one another very well.  At honors night students dressed up as their slave and came to show off of their projects.  A parent approached me and shared how much her student enjoyed this project and how engaged he was.  She thought it was "really cool" that his teachers  were so creative and willing to help them find ways they like to learn.  SUCCESS!

Student explaining her project to her family

*New idea!  Students use QR codes to cite their sources.  It was quite simple - they created a Google Doc of their sources, made the document viewable to anyone with the link, created a QR code from that link, and added the QR code to their project.  This was a great way to cite their sources without it taking over their entire project.

*Going Green!  For a week long project, only 1 piece of paper was needed for each students (this was the directions and the rubric).  Student work was published online and never printed. In retrospect, the teacher and I would have given the directions to the students digitally instead, which would have made this an entirely paperless project!

Bivariate Data Day 3

Today was another exciting day in Meagan's class!  Now that students have been introduced to the unit, they began their self-guided/flipped classroom journey.  Meagan showed them how to access, open, and navigate the Numbers file....how to follow the steps on their own and how to check in with the teacher.  Then it was their turn to start!  Class was very quiet today, but this allowed Meagan to move around and check on student note-taking and answer any questions.

*Note:  Some students had a difficult time watching the video because they did not bring their headphones....

Meagan explaining how to navigate through the Numbers file.

The form Meagan and I created to keep track of student progress throughout the self-guided unit.

A student watching the first video and taking notes.

A student taking notes on the video.

Bivariate Data Day 2

This is what teaching should be like everyday!

I arrived at Freedom early today to make sure Meagan and Colleen had enough hawaiian leis for their students.  They both have so much energy and are excited to start this unit!  Who knew math could be so much fun :)

Class began with the Limbo Song was playing loudly and teachers giving leis to each student as they walked in....students were immediately engaged when walking into class!

Meagan handing out leis

A few quotes from students...."Ooh, I feel like I'm in Hawaii!".... "I love this class right now"...."Are we having a party?"....

Some of the more surprising were, "Are we doing math?" and "Why are we doing this?".....students were surprised we could learn AND have fun.....we need to change this mentality!

Meagan told her students that "although we are going to play a game today, this is still Math class, so you need to keep track of one number: the number of times you can successfully make it under the Limbo bar.  She told them to record this on the chart that was up on the SMARTBoard screen.  I then demonstrated how to Limbo and then students lined up and began to Limbo.  After lots of giggles and smiles, students were encouraging their classmates who still hadn't gotten out.  EVERY SINGLE STUDENT WAS ENGAGED.

Students began to understand the concept immediately.....shouts of "The short people have it easier!", "This isn't fair cuz I'm so tall," and "You are lucky you are short, girl!" were quite common.

Once all students had limboed, Meagan asked "Why do you think some students did better than others?"  Immediately students said because some were shorter or more flexible.  Meagan led the discussion of which of these two things we could measure today....and students then proceeded to measure their heights and enter in their data on the data table.

Meagan had students predict what a graph of their information would look like, and then revealed the actual graph.  Students spent the next 10 minutes analyzing the graph and learning how to read a trendline.

They made predictions, identified outliers, and concluded that their hypothesis was correct.  Homework was to come up with an idea of two other things that could be measured and compared to see if a relationship existed and to post this idea on the eChalk discussion.

This all happened in 45 minutes, by the way.

A very insightful observation from one student...."WAIT!  So each of those dots on the graph is a person?  Ohh!  I would have done so much better on the pre-test if I knew that!"  Learning has already taken place....and in a very meaningful an memorable way.

Best part of the day was watching Meagan be such a leader.....so confident and excited to allow her classroom to be a bit chaotic for the sake of learning.  Not many teachers are willing to do this!

Click here to read Meagan's own post about this day in her blog.



Here are some more pictures from the day....including this one of the principal testing his limbo skills in Colleen's class!

Students entering in their data

Bivariate Data Day 1

So excited to help Meagan and Colleen start today!  They are excited as well.  We have been working on this unit for at least a month and they are finally ready to start.

Today they are giving the pre-test (as a discovery ed probe).   We still have some things to finalize and they are working on getting all of the lessons into eChalk tomorrow.  They already posted the intro activity in eChalk and you can see from the picture below that it has students curious for math class Wednesday!

Picture of the eChalk Class Page

Student taking the Discovery Education Pre-Test

Site Visit

Today I helped host a site visit for 2 districts - one from Oak Park and one from Iowa.  I had the privilege of escorting a group to visit classes at Heritage.  They were incredibly impressed with Charlie, of course!

Charlie speaking with visitors

It was exciting to listen to their comments about our district....here are a few

• "Surprised to see how engaged students are"
• "Technology is being use to amplify teaching" (from Charlie)
• "Engagement allows for differentiation"
• "Students are learning tech skills at the same time as content"
• "Students want to share their learning"
• "Learning is continual when kids take device home"

Some teachers came to answer questions as well.....Al spoke about giving kids choices in projects (and that he didn't need to be an expert in using the applications!), Kerry spoke about finding the instructional balance as a new teacher, and Megan spoke about how technology has given some kids a "voice" that they didn't have before.

Independent Reading Blog @ Heritage

On Friday I met with 2 middle school teachers to discuss blogging.  They are looking for a way for students to blog about books the read independently.  We discussed various ways to go about this including the eChalk blog, Goodreads and Blogger.  They want students to be able to see this and read about each others' books.  They would like to start using this in their Lit Studies classes but eventually have the whole school participate - which is AWESOME!  I can just imagine teachers and students sharing all about what they are reading!  The possibilites are endless....

I spent some time Friday and today researching how to make this efficient and effective.  I think Blogger will work best because it is easy to use, secure, and all kids already have accounts.   One thing they were looking for is a way to separate posts by class period.  There is no way to have multiple pages in a blog all be "blog" pages.  The only way to separate posts in any way is to create a page that links to a label.  So, I created a page in the blog called "4th Period" and had it point to the url http://practiceblog87654.blogspot.com/search/label/4th, (name of the blog, label).  This is a way to sort posts by certain labels.  You can also separate them by clicking on the little label link on the sidebar.

I did some test posts and spent a little time customizing the look.  Here is the result so far....

I emailed Kerry and Christine and am waiting to hear back on their thoughts :)

Gotta know when to hold 'em....

Today I spent the first 2 morning periods at one of the middle schools  continuing to work with a teacher and his 8th grade students on their climate change challenge based learning project.  Today the students were working to refine their project ideas as well as to work on their Cacoo diagram.  Some groups are doing well, but others really need guidance on what specifically they will DO.  I spoke with one group and it reminded me of my trip to Waste Management in Stickney this summer with a teacher and his summer school students.  This group really wants to help Berwyn recycle more.  The teacher has his work cut out helping each group identify a project and make it happen!

I also attended the principals' meeting.  It is always refreshing to hear all of the good things going on in the district!  I also got some great leadership advice on decision making....based on this song! "Gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run."

In the afternoon I met with the teachers regarding blogging.....I need to do some work on this...

Fitness Tracking and Common Core

Because of a rescheduling, I spent most of today in the office :(  It was good to have the time to do some necessary research though.  I researched different options for PE teachers to have students track their fitness data over time.  Discovered that the best option is http://www.fitnessgram.net/home/. It allows teachers to track student fitness data long term, can be used district-wide, and has reporting tools to share information with families so students can set goals.  The only challenge now is find the money to pay for it!  Spoke to our superintendent about it briefly - next is to contact the district wellness coordinator.

I also spent some time working with Sue to do some research to help one of the middle school teams boost their Common Core implementation.  Common Core is so new to everyone and has been a challenge to figure out just how to transition.....Sue and I still have more to do!

I met with the PE teachers at one of the middle schools this afternoon to find out what their goals for the fitness tracking are.  They are excited about having access to the program - they know this is the direction PE education is going and want to start soon!