Homework Check in 2.0

For my first fieldstudy in LTT I created an daily online check in process that I asked students to participate in.  It was mildly successful in its original form.  Yes there were students who chose not to participate, but for those who did, they felt that it was both useful and valuable.  From my perspective it has become something that I would not give up - it gave me an insight into students and a way to connect with them in an immediate way that I had never experienced before.  Before this I would wait for someone to come in for help or raise their hand in class with a question .... often waiting a VERY long time.  This gave them a private way to post their wonderings and I felt I made a impact on kids by responding to their questions in a timely way.  Even though it didn't touch every student, in my opinion, it was a worthwhile activity.  This year as I embarked on my final semester of LTT, implementing a completely new field study, the check-in process was continued. I started playing around with updating the form to involve different pages of questions depending on the date ..... I'm still a bit unsure how this all works as my test feedback page seems to be showing up for all check ins but I will fix that up when I have a chance.

Today I have invited 18 students who have been the most involved in this process to participate in a forum/discussion type check-in on my googlegroups to see if we can start making this a more group oriented activity.  I am hoping that students being able to see what others are posting and being able to respond to other's questions (no just me) that I can step back and see them take more responsibility for their learning.  I've asked them to participate for a month and then at the end of that time I will ask for feedback on the process ....... let the experiment begin!

Inquiry #3 - turning the tables on assessment

This third and final field study for my graduate program is about midway through and I figured it was time to reflect on how things were progressing.  I had chosen to implement SBG (standards based grading) in my math 9 adapted class.  This group of students is made up of those who have really struggled all throughout their schooling with math and have in many cases just given up.  Its a challenging group to work with at the best of times and to keep them interested and motivated for a full 10 months has been difficult in the past.  So after much reading this summer from Matt Townsley, Alfie Kohn, Robert Marzano and many more I decided to completely change my approach to assessing these students in hopes that they would feel more willing to try, persevere and take responsibility for their learning.  So this is what I've done:

• given students a list of concepts that we are covering in this first unit
• given frequent short skills checks (aka quizzes)  I am including an assessment on the back where they indicated where they think they are in terms of their mastering and then I give them feedback and my opinion after checking their work

• NO marks of any sort are recorded on skills checks
• I have borrowed a mark recording sheet from Lisa to record mastery scores (thanks for sharing!)

• students have had the opportunity to reassess or "challenge" a concept during a scheduled class block
• have posted all the mastery scores online (www.engrade.ca) and have weighted everything to zero so that there is no % reported.  This way everyone is focused on the information that is there.

At this point there are a few key things that I'm noticing.  First, when I returned the first skills check, students actively helped each other and at the end of class there was NOT ONE crumpled up paper on the floor for me to pick up.  In the past when a score was recorded on the assessment, it wasn't long before someone who did quite poorly had crushed and had personally turned off.  The confirmation that they were "dumb" once again.  It was so neat to see everyone working together to figure things out.

I have a few students who had told me that in middle school they always wrote their tests in the learning center - to say they experienced test anxiety was an understatement.  After the first skills check (when I asked them to stay) they realized that the assessments weren't given to punish them, just to get a snapshot of what they had mastered.  They'd have another chance (and another and another ...)  if they wanted it. So now when a student arrives after an absence and we are writing a skills check, there is no panic in their eyes!  So far attendance on assessment days has been quite good.

With this particular group I choose to schedule an in class "challenge" time with the option of seeing me outside of class time if they wanted.  Students were given a print out of their current mastery level per concept and signed up for a challenge the following week.  Each was required to have some proof that they had figured something out before rewriting.  This first time had seven students challenge and all but two were able to improve their standing.  Nice!

As I get further into this I'm finding that the reporting of the information broken down by concepts so incredibly informative for both me and the students that I've started doing something similar in my math 9 classes.  Even though I'm not officially introducing SBG here (at least this year), when I'm recording information about skills checks in these classes I have ended up breaking down the assessment into core concepts.  Now when a parent asks me what their son or daughter needs help with .... I can provide them with much more useful feedback.

I like that assessments DON'T have to be skills checks or tests.  The other day I had a challenge question involving adding decimals and presented it in a "draw" format where all the kids submitted their answer and then I drew out papers until I had a winner (who received a pen as a prize).  Everyone had fun and I had a quick assessment that I could record in my mark book.

Down sides:  time, reassessment preparation, extra practice and the eventual conversion to some sort of grade.  Currently I'm finding that I'm spending a lot more time marking assessments - and then recording the data.  I'm just thankful that there are only 20 kids in this class!  If all 4 of my classes were involved I might be a bit more overwhelmed.  I seem to be only one step ahead of the kids in the area of reassessments - I'm waiting for the day a student approaches me and asks to challenge one that I don't have created and I'll do it on the fly.  Ideally students would locate some sort of extra practice to do but since we work without a textbook, I'm feeling like I am responsible for providing this for them.  This is taking LOTS of time and I really need to create a list of websites that they can go to for the extra practice rather than creating it myself.  The last issue is that of grades.  I'm concerned that as November approaches, I will have yet to come up with a nice clean way to determine a grade for the report card.  I had asked my principal if I could opt out of reporting a % as long as I wrote a full anecdotal on where they are at.  He indicated that I was required by the ministry to give a grade so I guess that is what will happen ... somehow.  I may involve the students in the determination of this mark - we'll see.

All in all this has been one of the most exciting adventures in my classroom that I've embarked on in a long time.  Its so cool to be able to refocus kids on what they are learning, rather than on the score at the top of a page.

Animoto exploration

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

We had some time to explore a new technology this afternoon, so I took some time to explore Animoto for video creation.  On the first day I spend sometime introducing myself to my new students and thought this might be a way I could do this.  The 30 second video is a bit short for my liking but if the I have the educational request accepted then I could see remaking this so that its a bit more comprehensive.

Here is my second one using photos from my husband's 5th place win at this year's Kuhmo Super Challenge.



I've also made use of smilebox to create slideshow/video segments before and found it to be rather straightforward.  Here is an example of one that was created using photos my daughters took at a digital photography course this summer.

Create your own slideshow design

Determining Credibility

Wow – that crap detection video and article by Howard Rheingold was great! I can honestly say that I really had no solid idea how to detect the credibility of a site – my approach in the past has been to view multiple sites to see if there was common information and falling back on the idea that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably was. The first image that came to mind when I was reading the article was of a photo that of a shark jumping out of the water below a helicopter with a navy seal hanging off the ladder – it was definitely an eye catcher at the time! Having it associated with the National Geographic make it more credible and it quickly went viral as people forwraded the email to thier friends and family around the world. As to be expected it was identified as a hoax but these types of things spread so quickly these days by people who have take things at face value and don't critically evaluate the information that is on the web.   This was my introduction to digital editing of photos and I now find myself questioning before I accept a photo as fact.

From Rheigold’s video, the ideas about what to look for and how to determine the credibility of the site were extremely helpful for me as a teacher and parent as well as a learner. This is information that all teachers and parents should know as we guide our young people within the web environment so that we don't get duped into inaccurate information. We need to assist our kids through our modelling of checking out the facts but also asking the good questions about where they found their information.

1) Who is the author? Use http://www.easywhois.com/ to find out who owns the site
2) Does the author provide sources?
3) Search the names of the authors of the sources.
4) See if this site has been bookmarked on Delicious or Diigo

I see this form of teaching incredibly important for today’s kids as they must develop that critical thinking that will help separate the good information from the bad.  Lets be honest, there is SOOO much information out there and even google can get it wrong, sending us to sites that are less than accurate.   Its up to us as educators to provide these lessons for them as we cannot expect that the parents of our students have themselves developed this critical lens.

One other idea that occurred to me as I mulled this reading over what how people would view my own additions to the web. Would I make it through the filter or would my ideas be tossed aside as not credible?

Networked Learning - the way it is

I’ve always been a bit of a loner – both socially and academically. Working through things on my own has been my preferred mode for a long time. With both time and maturity I’ve come to see the “networked” learning both advantageous though at times a bit threatening. Threatening in that the sharing requires some clear articulation of purpose either verbally or in written form. Sadly, somewhere along the way I have developed the view that this was not one of my strengths, so I've had to push myself in this area to join in.

Initially my network was made up of  people who were close to me (my husband, colleagues at Riverside and friends) and until this course didn't realize just how limiting this was.  My network is still made up of  these people but has expanded quite drastically once I incorporated digital connections.  My husband is my go to guy when it comes to technology, at least the hardware side as this is his area of expertise and with him I feel comfortable asking as many stupid questions as I need to figure something out. There are colleagues at school who are involved in incorporating technology in their classrooms on a regular basis and are very willing to share their experiences and lend a hand when I get stuck. I am very aware that I am very lucky to be surrounded by such positive role models. They have been there to walk me through sharepoint challenges, give me feedback on my attempts at technology integration and sharing of websites and programs. Without them I most likely would not have enrolled in this program! Since the spring of 2009 when I was first introduced to RSS feeders, I have collected quite a number of blog feeds that relate to technology in education and math education. The ability to follow such a large number of blogs easily has been in my mind one of the most exciting things I’ve experience over the past year. Through the reading of these professionals I have found my thoughts and ideas about technology, change, assessment challenged. I’ve have felt the need to stop and reflect on what I do on a daily basis, why I do it and in some cases, start to expand my approach because of them. The challenging of my thoughts has brought on lots of searches for additional articles and posts that help me clarify and determine my next course of action.  I am no longer limited to conversations that happen at monthly staff and department meetings.

The benefits of networked learning for me, is the ability to stay current. I’m sad to say that my first 10-15 years of teaching was pretty much the same. Any new ideas that I encountered where most likely presented at some Pro-D session but quickly got lost in the shuffle once I returned to the classroom. Now through the networks that I participate in, I’m more engaged in the current thoughts and directions of 21st century education – I am beginning to feel more confident in participating in the conversations rather than just being an observer. Through my network I am able to support my desire to be forever learning.

When I consider the teacher who is not engaged in these learning networks (myself no so long ago), I am aware more than ever the risk to taking this approach. Besides just becoming stagnant, teaching the same thing year after year, and what this does to one’s spirit, one also starts feeling quite threatened by the “new” ideas that are being presented and implemented around you. In some instances these new ideas are chasing very good (older) teachers out of the system (I know a few who have chosen to retire rather than move forward). I suspect that before too long, if one is not actively involving in professional networks that the teacher will begin sensing that their ability to move forward, get the positions they want will be limited.