September 26, 2017
Course 2 Blog Post Prompt: Read Chapter 2, The Inquiring Human Animal (pages 13-24) from our course text, Thinking Through Project Based Learning (Krauss and Boss, 2013) and reflect on how knowing who you teach impacts what and how you teach. Read Chapter 3 and consider ways to enhance your physical classroom environment. What is your PBl wish list and what suggestions from this chapter can you incorporate into your classroom to support your unit of instruction and most importantly, your students’ applied learning?
Knowing who you teach greatly impacts what and how you teach. (I believe I just resorted to my “how to create a good topic sentence from a writing prompt” technique I teach my students.) Thinking back on my years of teaching, I’ve found the years I’ve been most successful with my students are the years I’ve encouraged them to allow their talents to shine during the semester’s assignments. Some students enjoy music or theatre or sports or building stuff more than they enjoy sitting in a classroom, so if I can tap into those interests, I find they focus better and participate more during class and make more of an effort on assignments. Knowing those students who believe they cannot be successful because they have rarely found academic success is also important because I know I need to find as many opportunities to encourage those students and provide them with the realization they can achieve their goals.
The class who will be completing my PBL is as diverse as I’ve ever taught. I have a football player, a basketball player, some track runners, a shy girl who thinks she shouldn’t be made to come to school because it means she has to interact with people, a sweet Hispanic girl who is working so hard to learn the English language, a young man who was just moved to my class from a higher level (and I can only imagine how this is making him feel), a farmer (who claims he’s Elvis), a transfer student from another Spartanburg district who is still trying to find his place, a few young men who would rather be in computer or art class, and a couple more who still remain enigmas to me (not due to lack of trying). As to their abilities, I have one learning English (and taking long strides every day); five who excel at everything I give them; five who work hard to do well, but it may take them a little while; two who I know can do well if they wouldn’t give up before they even started; and three who will need a good bit of assistance to be successful in my class, but they haven’t given up yet.
Knowing who my students are will help me plan the pace, requirements, and opportunities for choice in my PBL units. My current unit is an “All About Me” webzine. The students have written a segment about their names, a short op-ed paragraph about any topic they wished (from a list of 400, which may have been too many, if I’m being honest), and generated two Top Five lists on any categories they wanted. I originally gave them these choices: movies, TV shows, music, and books. They stared blankly at the board and then looked at me and asked if they had to choose one of those categories. I asked them what they wanted to do, and we now have favorite lists of shoes, video games, belts, designers, places, and more. Not only have they been given a choice (which ensured the completion of the task), but they also have helped me understand them more. Next week, they will be interviewing group members before turning their works into group Me-Zines.
By knowing what my students can already do, I can make those required elements to increase likelihoods of success. Segments where they’ve struggled some can be required as well. I can then provide some choice in the challenging aspects of the project that will encourage academic growth. Now that I know how quickly (or not so quickly) my students work, I can gauge how long each task will take to complete. I know that I will need to provide some additional activities for a few of my students who will complete their work far quicker than others, and I will need to bring some students back to me during CAVS for additional assistance getting some of the assignments completed by the deadlines.
My PBL wish list is to have smaller tables in my classroom to increase space. I already use tables instead of desks because I enjoy bringing my students together for collaboration opportunities and the tables provides more space to spread out; however, my tables are just too big. I also want a computer program allowing me to monitor my students’ activities on the computer at all times. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve allowed my students to use the computers to complete a variety of assignments, project and non-project related. I’ve needed to work one-on-one with a few of them in order to aid in their success. To do this means I cannot be watching every student’s computer activities or be up and moving around; also, I do not have my room arranged in a way that allows me to see what everyone is doing at once. After holding one student back to discuss his misuse of the computer (he’d finished his assignment, was bored, and decided he was going to flip the screen and the turn the laptop on its side), he told me other students were visiting game sites and searching things that had nothing to do with the assignment. I spent close to an hour looking at every student’s internet history. If I could pull up everyone’s screens on my computer and project them, I could watch what they are doing. This has multiple benefits: 1) I can ensure my students are only going where I’ve told them to go; 2) I can monitor their progress and make sure they aren’t stalling; 3) I can identify those students who are struggling and not asking for assistance; 4) I can quickly give feedback from where I’m standing (especially beneficial when someone has completed a task successfully; I typically have to be standing over their shoulder or have them tell me they’ve had success); and 5) I can use what a student is doing correctly as a model for the other students. I have asked before, and I’ve been told we must set up our rooms in a way to monitor all student computers at one time (unrealistic); I’ve looked for my own programs and found a few inexpensive and free programs, but I’ve hit a brick wall when I was told I could not load those to our computers because of the first reason. I use GoogleDocs/Slides to show students how to collaborate on assignments, but I can’t see what other sites they are visiting; I can only see what they are doing on the document. When we begin researching various topics, it’s important for the students to choose reliable sources, and being able to see all of their results up on the board at once will allow me to quickly address issues as opposed to missing something and having a student spend a lengthy amount of time doing something wrong just to need to go back and fix it later. This is my biggest roadblock when it comes to the PBL assignments I want to do with my students.
October 9, 2017
Course 2 Blog Post: Read Chapter 4 in our course text, Thinking Through Project Learning, Guiding Deeper Inquiry. Consider your development of formative and summative assessments for your current unit that assess content standards and select 21st century skills such as collaboration, presentation and critical thinking, and technology literacy.
I really wish that I had encountered this chapter over the summer before creating my PBL. The idea of a starter project and starting small would alleviate the stress I currently feel as I am coming up on implementing my project. Starting with a PBL at the very beginning of the semester instead of waiting until the end would also work better because my students would be learning the process from the beginning instead of halfway through the semester. The students need to have an opportunity to learn the process before taking on a bigger process, and I feel I don't have time to teach the process in a way that's going to leave them with a good taste in their mouth about PBL and becoming independent learners. I'd considered switching my PBL to a different class period (which meant a different level and curriculum), but I do not have a 3-4 week chunk of time to do a PBL with them, so I'm back to my original class and wishing I could go back in time to begin the semester with this PBL instead of the middle-to-end of the semester with this PBL. Teaching it from the very beginning of the semester would allow them to build on what they learn and create a more meaningful experience than a one-and-done project. I'm not giving them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes to make it better the next time around.
I also wish we had PBL instruction posters we could put up in the classroom--"Do Three--Ask Me," "Buzz" instructions, "SCAMPER" and so forth. I believe this would help the students understand what to do.
November 21, 2017
Course 2 Blog Post Assignment: For this blog post, we were asked to record a session of our PBL unit and reflect on its successes. Our task was not to point out all of the mistakes we made, which was extremely difficult, but instead focus on what worked and how to improve the lesson in the future. The activity described below occurred about halfway through a unit studying Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and creating our own class speech.
The video discussed below has been deleted to respect the privacy of my students.
Assignment Overview: I recorded my class’s creation of their class speech. Each student had already written a Dream speech during the previous class periods, with the exception of the young lady in maroon (she was absent on that day and her speech’s lines were later added in). The students’ speeches were cut up into individual sentences. During this class period, students were to sort through the strips of paper they were given and organize them according to commonalities (sentence starters, such as “I have a dream…,” “Together,” “Now is the time…” and ideas such as freedom and equality). They weeded out the sentences that didn’t seem to fit and selected sentences they couldn’t live without. After sorting out the commonalities, we looked for common topics--equality, school, homelessness, etc. Students grouped those ideas, and then they began piecing all of these together into separate paragraphs, which they taped onto the posters. I then took their individual paragraphs, tweaked them a little (but not much), and then gave them their speech during the next class period. In order to accomplish all of this, they needed to understand how to structure a paragraph, connect similar ideas, and work together as a group.
Identifying What’s Important
In the segment on which I’m reflecting, I’m moving my students on to the last step of a class speech writing session--organizing the sentences into a paragraph. I wish I’d asked my students what steps they think they should follow to create the paragraphs. Perhaps by creating that sense of ownership in the process, more students would be willingly involved in the assignment. I notice that I provide some good feedback to the students, helping them understand to which categories their strips belong. I need to learn to ask more questions instead of making statements. When I’m working with each of the partnerships along the center row, I found I directed them more than guided them. How much are they learning if I don’t grant them that ownership? I am proud of my flexibility, though. One of the group’s sentences didn’t fit as a paragraph, so I asked them to go around to the rest of the class’s paragraphs and work them into what the other students were creating. I was reluctant because of how I know my students handle that form of interaction/distraction; however, they did well, and I had less sentence strips to incorporate on my own.
Making ConnectionsI did not give my students an assignment sheet for this because I wanted the flexibility of adapting it as we went along. For some students, I believe that made each step harder because they didn’t have a reference when they lost track of what they were supposed to do. Providing them with clearer instructions would decrease the downtime and questions they had. I would have more time to provide feedback to each of the groups and not feel like I was losing my mind. I also would have more time to focus on the random questions my students ask; I noticed a few asked me questions that I completely ignored, albeit unintentionally.
Incorporating Contextual KnowledgeStudents were grouped into small groups of two to four students according to who I know works well together and ability levels. The three groups who were initially groups of four were larger because of the number of sentence strips I anticipated them receiving during earlier steps. I divided one of the groups during this section of the class because the number of topics we’d gathered required more groups. This also broke up a group in the back that hadn’t been as focused as they should have been unless I stood directly next to them.
Drafting Next StepsIn the future, I plan to have a more structured plan with instructions either projected on the board or on paper for them to read. I also plan to have the tables arranged in a way that allows me to traverse the outside of a circle/rectangle and keeps the students further apart from each other. I believe the structure and arrangement will create a less chaotic environment and encourage the students to focus on the work in front of them as opposed to the students around them.
November 21, 2017
Course 2 Blog Post Assignment: Reflect on the implementation of a Genius Hour in one of your classes. (Ironically, looking back, this isn’t the Genius Hour I remember; instead, I remember the more advanced Genius Hour my English II students did revolving around the 1920s. Perhaps that’s why I needed to reflect on this particular unit because I need to remember what went wrong and how to fix it in the future.)
Genius Hour: Civil Rights ExpertsI believe my Genius Hour assignment falls better into the category of Inquiry-Based-Learning than what I believe Genius Hour assignments should be. I envision the creation of an object that someone learns how to do along the way. My Genius Hour was incorporated into a new PBL created for this semester revolving around Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. For their Genius Hour, students would become experts on one aspect of civil rights, be it from the past or the present (it did not have to focus in on the African American Civil Rights Movement). I set out expecting my students to create something in the MakerSpace that would showcase knowledge they learned during a series of research sessions. In fact, after a few sessions of research, I met with the students in small groups to discuss the similarities of their topics (for example, childhood and adulthood of Dr. King, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Gandhi) and begin planning the final product. We came up with some amazing ideas, too. Two boys who were researching Jackie Robinson planned to create a 3D model of a baseball field, complete with baseball players in the midst of a game; two students who researched King were going to create a version of the game of LIFE to showcase steps on his journey as a civil rights activist. We made plans, but when it came time to actually create what would showcase our knowledge, my students were more concerned with socializing and pushing work off on someone else or not doing anything unless I was personally assisting them. After one day in the MakerSpace, one group of three students only producing one letter outlined on a poster, three other groups producing not much more, and only one group really making any headway, I completely scratched the creative products as I deemed they would be a waste of resources and time. Instead, we returned to the classroom to create individual research booklets using a basic template I provided. The students were more receptive and worked diligently for two days to find appropriate pictures and write what they knew in their own words. They enjoyed receiving printed and bound versions of their books. Sample #1 Sample #2 Sample #3 Sample #4
While I’m proud of what my students accomplished, I’m wondering where I went wrong in the planning of the Genius Hour. Was it that I didn’t provide enough structure for my students? I initially had my students jotting down notes on notebook paper, but they weren’t writing down their sources anywhere. I provided them with a log to record where they visited during the sessions, but some still didn’t write down their sources. Was it the topic? Many of my students began asking if the class had shifted to a history class, so they weren’t seeing the connection with ELA. One student even told me he just wasn’t interested in learning about the African American Civil Rights Movement; I guided him to the topic of the Little Rock Nine, and he showed a little more interest then. Did I not give them enough time? During the six or seven days, they had about forty-five minutes to an hour to work on their research--generating questions, answering those questions, generating more questions, answering those questions. However, this was a somewhat open-ended task, and I did not give them a structured format to follow for recording these questions and answers. I believe if I implement this again in the future, I will create a more definitive process that will limit the directions they can take but still be open-ended enough to grant them freedom to find the information they seek to find. Perhaps this will allow them to better budget their time. Did I have them doing too much at one time? We were studying King’s speech, writing our own speeches, learning new rhetorical strategies to incorporate into our own speeches, researching Civil Rights topics, and working on text-dependent analysis all in the matter of a couple of weeks. Some of my students seemed lost from the beginning, while others appeared bored halfway through.
In the end, though, I call this a success. While I didn’t quite make it to everything I wanted to accomplish (students’ resources are listed as links instead of actual citations, which makes me cringe, but I ran out of time), they were proud of what they made and begged to take them home with them over break. I only had to fuss at one student who tried to throw his in the trash. Sample #3 was created by that student who just wasn’t interested in Civil Rights, and while his isn’t perfect (none of them were), this is more than he’s ever done for me before. Same deal for Sample #4 above; he typically does the bare minimum to coast by, but he worked hard on this book. They learned how to insert pictures into a document; they learned how to change the font size and style; some learned how to cut and paste text from inside a table to outside of the table. They learned how to use the binding machine and were fascinated as we used it. And almost every one of them was excited to get it back and take it home with them. They did a good job, and I’m proud of them. Even if my plans didn’t quite turn out the way I expected.
November 27, 2017
Course 2 Blog Post: Student Agency
Review the New Tech rubric (high school/middle school/elementary) and consider ways we can provide students with opportunities and experiences that can foster a growth mindset and can build student agency.
View Carol Dwek’s TED Talk: The Power of Yet. In this talk Dweck explains her research into “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en
Are you not smart enough to solve it...or have you just not solved it YET? Carol Dwek’s Ted Talk “The Power of Yet” focuses on encouraging students to believe they can achieve, even if they haven’t yet. Dwek presents the concept of focusing on challenging the students to grow instead of maintaining the same level of intelligence and talent. I have to question myself: Am I encouraging growth or stagnancy in my classroom? Do I challenge my students to become better, smarter, more talented individuals who can face a challenge? Or do I encourage them to maintain their current abilities?
I teach two very different levels of English--English II Honors (9th grade students who were typically identified as Gifted and Talented at an early age and took English I as 8th grade students) and English I CP. My English II students evidently experienced an encouraged growth mindset from an early age as they have been motivated to strive for the best academically; granted some students in this class do not continue to have this growth mindset and choose to do the minimum to get by. On the other hand, many of my English I students have been discouraged on numerous occasions during their educational journey to me; they accept Cs and Ds because it means they are getting by and not being left behind, with a few motivated to pursue the challenge of earning an A. Of course, as I typed that last sentence, am I encouraging them to remain stagnant by thinking of how they perform on given tasks using the letters I assign to their final product?
Dwek stated we should praise the process over the product. Encourage students because of their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance. How often do I praise my gifted and talented honors students? Quite likely far more than I praise my CP students. We praise them by placing them in these categories. They grow up knowing they are “gifted” and “talented” and smart; however, some have developed the mindset that they don’t have to keep growing because they already have achieved these labels. By encouraging the process, I would be switching the mindset from producing something they already know how to do to what they can learn how to do during the process of creating something new.
During our Roaring ‘20s PBL, I refused to give my students a list of ideas for their creative product. Instead, they were tasked with completing a product proposal and meeting with me to gain approval for the assignment. I asked them questions about the final product and what it would like and how it would present the ideas; however, I now realize I should have been asking them about the process of creating the product and what they would need to learn how to do in order to accomplish it. Granted, they did produce some amazing products (a 3D model of a 1920s-style radio, a miniature replica of a baseball stadium, an animated video about Hubble, a Weebly and a Google website), but I’m unsure of how they grew as they created those products. I felt rushed, which is often the case as the end of the semester approaches. I do believe my students grew intellectually (many were able to talk for at least a minute on their researched topic without the use of notes); however, I want my students to grow more than intellectually and continue to challenge themselves.
How often do I praise my English I students? I try to praise them on a daily basis, but so many of these students have given up already. They realize they aren’t reading and writing at the same level as many of their classmates and, as Dweck mentioned, believe they’ve found themselves at a dead end. If I encourage them during the process of a challenging task, for the strategies they choose to accomplish the task, as they are maintaining focus on the task, and for persevering to the end of the task even if unsuccessful on the task, perhaps the next time they face it, they will be more successful. My English I students have six school days until they take the writing portion of the English I EOC. I plan to focus on the process of this challenge the next few days and stress the strategies they can use to be successful instead of focusing on the end game and if they are successful.
Changing the students’ mindsets to one of growth may not be easy, but it may place these students on an even playing field. They can become agents for their own learning and pursue their own interests and grow their own talents if we focus less on the final product and more on how to get there.
December 8, 2017
Course 2 Blog Post: What I Used to Think/But Now I Know; reflection on the first semester of PBL implementation.
This semester has been a roller coaster. I struggled to implement my original PBL and had to go back to the drawing board in order to fulfill the requirements of this class. Thank you, Dawn, for being flexible and providing me an opportunity for success.
As part of the "I Have a Dream" unit, my students engaged in a number of text-dependent analysis writing opportunities as we prepared for the upcoming TDA portion of the EOC. Before beginning the unit, I gave my students a pretest, assessing how well they could incorporate textual evidence into their writing. What I discovered was that the majority of them either did not remember they needed textual evidence or could not remember how to insert the textual evidence. We spent the better part of a week perusing King’s “Dream Speech” in order to locate evidence to support conclusions we had for different TDA prompts. We looked at key phrases to use to introduce the textual evidence and practiced writing the paragraphs together and in small groups. This was the tedious portion of the PBL as opposed to the fun project portion that focused on incorporating personal experience into the creation of a speech. For the most part, with a few exceptions, the students were successful on their final TDA assignment they did for the unit--they incorporated textual evidence using appropriate phrases to support their conclusions.
I used to think that I could create PBLs on top of previously existing units, but I’ve discovered that I need to be a bit more simplistic in the creation of the projects. Every task they do should be leading toward one final product instead of multiple. This unit included a TDA, a personal speech, a class speech, and a Genius Hour. That was way too much, and I know it overwhelmed my students. It definitely overwhelmed me. This is likely why my Genius Hour projects didn’t turn out the way I expected, and I had to step back for a few moments to reconfigure my expectations. I believe next time I do the unit, I will focus on the speeches as the only project. The TDA can be a secondary parallel lesson to this as it will help us focus in on how to write an effective speech. I don’t think I will do this particular Genius Hour again.
What follows are my blog posts for the Fall 2017 endorsement class. This semester we were required to implement our summer PBL unit, create a Genius Hour unit, and begin planning our next unit. As tends to happen with me, the best laid plans did not go as expected, and I had to revise my plans for the semester and create two new units in addition to the Genius Hour unit.
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