March 12--(In)Visibility Project--First Week Progress

March 12--(In)Visibility Project

A few weeks ago, my professor visited my classroom to co-teach a collaboration mini-PBL and guide my students through the creation of a contract. We were still in the middle of our Learning from the Past PBL, which required little interaction with other students at the project level. They enjoyed sharing their findings with each other, but they didn’t need to work together to create a final product. I knew that was coming, and I wanted to prepare them for that with a few different activities. The Torn Paper Art challenge was what I’d hoped would be one of a few different group challenges during the next few weeks leading up to the (In)Visibility Project, but I discovered my students needed more time in class to complete the Learning from the Past booklets, and collaboration mini-lessons moved to the back burner.

Fast-forward to March 6th. Time to move on. We’ve spent almost every day in class working on the booklets, and I feel like we’re spinning our wheels going nowhere. I’m becoming frustrated. That’s a reflection for a different blog post; I digress. My students are tired of working by themselves and want to work with other students, which really is a good bit of PBL--working with other students to accomplish a common goal.


TEAM CONTRACTS

The (In)Visibility Project will give them the opportunity to collaborate with other students, research a majority-voted topic (student choice), and create technology-based product for for an authentic audience (their fellow classmates with an extension to the entire school community). We began discussing those aspects of the project from the very beginning, and for the most part, they seem to be joining me on the journey so far.

We revisited the team contract concept again this past Thursday. This time, the contract would be sticking with them much longer than 45 minutes, and they could quickly find themselves kicked out of a group for not following through with the expectations laid out by the group. I liked the original contract my students completed during the mini-PBL (page 3 of this lesson plan), I wanted something heftier and more in-depth that allowed my students to fully grasp the gravity of signing the contract and the expectations their groupmates and I had for them during this process. I really liked the New Tech contracts I saw at J.L. Mann, but I couldn’t find any examples of those online (probably copyrighted), so I sought other examples online and found a college project contract to tweak for my students.

We spent almost the entire class period Thursday working on the group contracts with varied success. We popcorned a few good answers now and then; I made some suggestions now and then to guide them towards some expectations that would hopefully lead to success. Mostly, they worked diligently and successfully to create a team contract they could agree upon. Were the contracts perfect? No, but it was their first time with such an in-depth contract and second time creating a contract at all. Did they seem to appreciate the contract process? For the most part, yes. Some of them balked at providing their contact information. Others had no clue how to contribute because they seemed to have limited group work experience. Could the process have gone better? Yes. We were continuously refocusing attention away from a student who really didn’t want to be there that day (long story that is hopefully turning into a happy ending), and we didn’t get to where I wanted us to be (story of this class, it seems like). Was it better than the first time? Yes! I noticed very few un-answered questions when I reviewed the contract, and I worked with that particular group to fix those issues before they signed the contract. They appear to grasp the importance of the contracts, and I expect the importance will continue to be realized as the roles they selected are utilized in coming tasks.

One decision every group made was to have no peer evaluation at the conclusion of the unit; all students would receive the same grade on the assignment, no matter what. I fully explained to them that this meant if one student didn’t pull his weight, all students would be penalized. Even after meeting with every group individually and discussing this, they all chose no peer evaluation. Perhaps it is because of my experience to always have so much of the project to do that I would never choose no peer evaluation. I’m hoping they don’t regret this.


PROJECT PROPOSALS--COACHING OBSERVATION

• Project Proposal Lesson Outline
• Project Proposal Student Document

Now that teams have signed their group contracts and selected their topics, they need to focus their research and determine initial research tasks. In order to accomplish this, as well as give the students the opportunity to begin practicing peer feedback. I have discovered I am somewhat unrealistic with the amount of time I expect a task to take. Our initial “Breaking Down the Topic” brainstorming, discussion, and sharing took almost 40 minutes, and the students needed to be re-instructed on multiple occasions to help them accomplish what I wanted them to do. Looking back, it’s possible these issues could stem from confusing instructions, distracted students (they are facing each other, as opposed to straight forward), or student apathy (which was the case for at least two of the students, especially by the end of the class period).

I hoped “Considering the Audience” would allow us to pick up the pace some, but they struggled with grasping how the issues of bullying, social media, school safety, and depression could impact groups differently.

By the end of the class period, the students, for the most part, completed their proposals. One group stopped working on it, but I believe that was because I was going too fast for them, and they became frustrated. We barely had time for the daily journals, though, and we definitely didn’t have time to present the proposals for feedback. I believe that will need to happen at the beginning of class tomorrow before we begin learning how to find the answers to our research questions.

One thing I really like about the students working in groups: Instead of monitoring the progress of 14 different students in this class, I am monitoring the progress of 4 different groups. At times, my students will be working on different tasks, but they will be able to ask their peers for assistance, and I will be able to work with those students who are really struggling. While the assistance isn’t necessarily one-on-one, it’s more focused than the whole-class instruction and less time-consuming than individual instruction. I found myself able to sit down and talk to all the students about their research questions multiple times, and I know that would not have been the case had the students been completing individual assignments. My hope is that they are gaining the same, if not more, knowledge about research from this group project. Only time will tell...hopefully I can gauge that timing correctly.

Learning from the Past Wrap-Up #1

March 12

I’m trying not to be discouraged. I’m trying not to back down. I’m hoping to teach my students responsibility. I’m afraid it’s not working.

The last day I gave students to work on their Learning from the Past booklets in class was March 2. At that point, the students had been working on the project for four weeks with numerous opportunities for assistance and feedback during class. I asked my students to submit their Learning from the Past booklets by March 7 to receive full credit; they are required to come see me, giving me the opportunity to go over the formatting of the booklet. Our school has a small 25-minute study hall built into the normal school day for just that purpose--extra assistance with a teacher. Each day after the 7th results in a deduction of 5 points. So as not to shock anyone when report cards came out, I entered 0s in when no one submitted booklets by March 7th. I entered 0s for 12 of 13 students. Only one student came to me on the 7th to review his booklet; he wasn’t finished yet. Today is the 12th. I’ve met with 5 of 13 students. None have submitted books yet as they needed to go in and finish certain parts or tweak what they had. Two are close, though.

Am I expecting too much? Should I back down and be easier on them? I don’t believe I required to much of these students or gave them work too hard:

• Interview
• Interview summary
• Research
• 3 research paragraphs
• 5 side-by-side comparisons
• Works Cited page
• Acknowledgment page
• Cover sheet

Each of those tasks were given anywhere from one to four full class periods except for the last two tasks, which were to be completed when they had the chance. I gave whole-class instruction, small group instruction, and one-on-one instruction; I’m not sure I could have explained it any clearer beyond doing it for them. I’d hoped the public audience--giving the booklets to the person they interviewed--would motivate the students to complete the work, but it doesn’t seem the case.

We’ve moved on to the next PBL--(In)Visibility Project--which is a group PBL. Hopefully this results in work that is more complete and better demonstrates what I know these students are capable of creating. Only time will tell, though.