Category Archives: learning

The Un-Service Day

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Many people have been attending a new type of conference lately called an “unconference.”  These conferences pool the ideas and expertise of the attendees to create sessions in which everyone is expected to share what they know.   Today my school district held an “Un-service Day” which was not the typical inservice that we are all used to!  District employees were asked to submit session ideas based on their own knowledge and skills.  A list went out to the faculty and staff and we all were able to choose the sessions we wanted to attend.  Session materials were posted on a wiki so that we could have access to all of the resources.  http://qcsdapril242012.wikispaces.com/  We also used a hashtag on twitter, #qcsd424, and we posted comments throughout the day.

My colleague, Laura, and I presented a session on using SMART boards and clickers to engage adolescent students.  We had a small group but I really enjoyed putting our ideas together.  We had fun creating the SMART lesson that we used for the session and the group of teachers that attended had a great conversation about what is needed to help children learn.

During the day I also got to attend a workshop on Google Docs, Blackboard, and SMART Notebook.  I have already begun implementing some of the things I learned in these sessions!  For example, I have created a self evaluation rubric using Google Forms so that the students can check and revise their work prior to turning in their assignment.  I posted the form on Edmodo and the students will be able to revise their rubric submission after they make revisions to their project.

One of the nicest things about the day was the positive atmosphere.  Everyone felt the benefit of contributing their ideas and gaining new information from their peers.  I would love to know if anyone else gets to do a similar type of professional development in their school districts.  What was the best PD that your district has offered?

Grades Getting in the Way

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I just handed back our first unit test for the year.  Leading up to this test we did many activities that helped the students master the learning targets for this unit and several quizzes to help them know what they needed to focus on.  Things were going well and I was very confident that the students would do a good job on the test.  I am very pleased to say that overall the students did a great job!  What bothers me isn’t their scores at all.  It is the way the atmosphere in the room changes when an assessment is handed back.  Everyone feels uncomfortable including me!  The students who didn’t do as well as they liked feel angry.  The students who did very well don’t want to make other students feel bad and so they also feel uncomfortable.  And I don’t like the feeling of trying to justify having had to grade the kids.  “I understand that you know what you did wrong but I can’t just change the grade on your paper.” 

 

My question is how can I get the students to focus more on learning and less on the grade.  In our school we use standards based grading which is supposed to help shift the focus to the learning.  We give students feedback and allow them multiple opportunities to show mastery of each learning target.  The feedback that matters most to the students, however, is not the kind that shows them where they are in the learning but the grade they received on the assessment.  Although we changed the terminology from “A through F” to “Advanced through Insufficient Progress,” students still look at the grade as a judgment for or against them.  I tell them to focus on the learning and the grades will follow.   Meanwhile I’ll keep going back to any target where they are not proficient and helping them learn the targets.  A grade of “not proficient” should really be “not proficient yet.”  

 

I don’t see the grade as a final judgement but a marker along the path towards their success.  Now I just need to help my students stick to the path and keep moving onward.

Writing Science Stories

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Picture 9

I love the idea of digital story telling!  Although I don’t teach language arts, I love a good story as much as anyone else and there is nothing better to get kids fired up about their learning than letting them create stories.  The stories we made in class today weren’t actually written but drawn on paper and the students talked and shared while they drew.  They had to include the seven forms of energy in a super hero style story.  First they created their hero and gave them a special weekness to make them more interesting and likeable!  Next they drew a disaster for the hero to face.  They filled in the rest with the hero’s adventure and finally they helped their hero save the world by restoring energy to the people!  Hurray!

We used “Really Big Super Fun Science Paper” otherwise known as newsprint and began with some notes in one corner of the paper to be sure everyone had the background knowledge.  I like the large paper because the kids aren’t afraid to mess up and they seem to try to fill up as much of the paper as they can.  Think big!  We all love when our students are engaged in what they are learning and I was really happy to hear the students chatting while using the vocabulary from our unit.  While it is difficult to write and hold a conversation, the students today had no problem talking and drawing at the same time.  Everyone was relaxed and enjoyed themselves.  I’m hoping that they will remember their own stories and will have a positive attitude about the next lessons that look more deeply into the seven forms of energy.

The Flip Video cameras made it easy to record what the students were doing and everyone (almost) wanted to tell their story to the camera!  It added an element of fun to the project and the students enjoyed sharing what they were learning.

Sharing

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This week and next week I will be following the K12 Online Conference.  The entire conference is held online!  I don’t have to leave my family room!  Can I really learn from my spot on the couch with my cat curled up next to me?  Sure!  I know from experience that we all learn more when we are comfortable and relaxed, so why not?   Tonight, for example, the conversation was about sharing.  Why is sharing such a risk?  I think that teachers as well as students often question themselves and wonder if they are right or wrong.  This makes sharing risky…what if what I’m sharing is wrong?  We have to make a decision before we share openly.  We have to decide that life is better when we share even if we are occasionally wrong.  Let’s face it, you are a result of all of the knowledge, friendship, and love that was shared with you by others in your life.  Dean Shareski, a speaker at the K12 Online Conference said that it is our moral imperative to share!  The real secret is that when we share we actually receive much more than we give.  You never know what opportunities will open up or what connections are in store.  You have to share to find out!

Podcasting to Learn

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Give a group of students a camera and ask them to make a short video explaining what they have learned. Your students jump right in thinking that this sounds fun but what actually happens is intense higher order thinking, problem solving, and analyzing. The students will need to review, compile ideas, organize, and even take their learning to a higher level as they grapple with the parts of the lesson that weren’t quite as clear as they had thought. They great thing about podcasting is that the students rarely realize how hard they are working and how much they are learning! They are exercising their creativity and independence and enjoying working with their classmates. The truth is, it matters very little to me how the podcast turns out, I know that the students are developing skills that are otherwise very difficult to practice in an authentic way. Skills like problem solving and communicating, collaborating and compromising. They are taking risks, putting their ideas on the line for other students to assess and maybe even critique. Students take pride in a finished podcast that showcases their learning. It becomes evidence of their success and gives them confidence that they can achieve even more.

The Keystone Summit

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What a fantastic experience!  Last week I attended the Keystone Summit at Bucknell University.  Teachers were selected from all over Pennsylvania.  We shared our ideas about integrating technology into the classroom experience and learned how to help students become stronger learners.  As a facilitator, I shared a class on using Web 2.0 tools to teach science and another class on differentiating instruction.  The best part of the summit for me was connecting with such a devoted group of educators.  We discussed the themes of connecting, leading, innovating, and exploring.  Which is the most important of the four?  I will be sharing what I learned with my students this year.  It is their turn to connect, lead, innovate, and explore as they face the challenges of their eighth grade year.