A Little Adventure in Learning (and uploading videos) - Macbeth Unplugged

It's that time of year when all AP Literature students (or at least the ones at Stratford) study "the Scottish play" - or, for those of us who are not thespians, "Macbeth".  I firmly believe that Shakespeare, when he sat down to write his plays, didn't envision high school students some four hundred years later reading and annotating the plays, but rather intended for them to be acted out on the stage.  Couple that with the fact that I was (and am) one of those kids who, when called upon to role play anything immediately start either sweating, or laughing, or both. It's a bad scene.  So, in the spirit of not being a hypocrite, yet wanting to honor what I believe were the Bard's true intentions, I decided that rather than just reading the play and filling out a packet, we would take a more interpretive route.  Here's what we did, and here's what I learned from it...
After splitting the kids into six groups, each group was assigned a section of the play (there are five acts, but act one is a doozie, so I split that one in half).  Each group was then charged with creating and presenting their interpretation of their assigned section with the following guidelines:

1. Do NOT just reenact the play as it is written.
2. Capture the key events in the section.
3. Determine the most important lines in your section, and speak that in Shakespearean English (the rest of your reenactment should be in modern day English).
4. Film whatever your final product is, and upload it to itsLearning.

Additionally, the kids had to (presumably*) read the entire play, as well as their scene, and were given two and a half weeks to put their piece together.  I created an assignment page for the kids to upload to, as well as a "viewing" page, with the reasoning that it would be much more fluid to watch the play from start to finish with the embedded videos, rather than having to jump from one assignment to another.  Plus, this plan caused the kids to have an opportunity to upload the video twice, which hopefully will make the future projects I have planned easier for them.  

Thankfully, the majority of the project went very smoothly, with only a two of groups out of twenty-four struggling in some fashion to get their videos into its.  (I'm not convinced it was a technology issue, but more along the lines of procrastination).  Of the two that were not successful, I just had them email me the video, I uploaded it to Google Drive, and then pasted that link into the embed box.  

Finally, I created a survey asking the kids to give me feedback on how this project, as opposed to a more traditional approach to studying a play (e.g. read the play, fill out the packet, take a test), worked.  I'm interested to see what the overall response is, and will share that in future posts.

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Sixty two days has been pass since we began this school year but in Pk they are like dog years! Routines and procedures are in place and we have been building a community of friends who really like to be in the school and learn. Teaching technology in Pk is like teaching any other skill like reading, counting or writing you begin from level 0. For those of you who works with upper levels that means they don’t know how to read and they need a lot of modeling but I don’t know these new generations have new skills embedded in their genes because once you start they quickly know how to do it!

Right now we are working how to use a digital portfolio (I am using Seesaw), but that involves more than lessons about how to upload your files (for that I already have my expert tutor helping me), it is more about lessons about reflecting about your work and the importance of collaboration.

Sesenta y dos días ya han pasado desde que empezamos el año escolar pero, ¡en el Pk se sienten más! Las rutinas y los procedimientos funcionan en el salón y hemos construido una comunidad de amigos que realmente le gusta ir a la escuela y aprender. Enseñar tecnología en PK es como enseñar cualquier otra habilidad como leer, contar o escribir se empieza desde cero. Para aquellos que enseñan en grados escolares más altos, eso significa que no pueden leer y no siguen instrucciones, por lo que necesitan que se les modele mucho, pero no sé si estas nuevas generaciones tienen estas nuevas habilidades escritas en su código genético porque una vez que empiezas, ellos aprenden como hacerlo rápidamente.

Ahora estamos trabajando en cómo usar nuestro portafolio digital (estamos usando Seesaw), pero significa más que lecciones acerca de cómo subir tus archivos (y ya tengo un experto guía ayudándome) es mucho más acerca de cómo debemos de reflexionar acerca de nuestro trabajo y de la importancia de la colaboración.

Welcome to November.

Welcome to November.

It’s hard to believe that the first semester is almost over! I have had so many aha moments in my teaching methods this semester. I have tried and failed at many things since beginning my #vanjourney and am so excited to continue to try small shifts to become better every day.

One of the push points I am currently trying to explore and refine:

·       Accountability

What you need to know. I’m crazy. No but really I am. So here is my problem with accountability. When I am working with my small group I get super excited. Like super excited. I love talking to my students and listening to their perspective on different ways to solve and how to explain a million trillion things. #mathlife. So the problem here is I am so outrageously engaged in what is going on in my small group that I forget to actually hold the other groups as accountable. Whoops. Sorry.

The problem: I work in middle school. Obviously they are going to get off task if you let them. Duh. So my students have mastered the art of fake working. They are really great at it. Ok, ok, no more pervasive language…. SOME of my students are masters at the art of fake working!

I’m actually fairly impressed. Adults try to master this skill all the time. Bravo kiddos bravo!

Anyways I obviously have things in place that I am supposed to do to hold them accountable.

Let’s list them all:

·       The google doc- I should be checking each night. Yaaaaa…..

·       The group accountability- you know where they check each other… Yaaaaa……

·       The daily reflections at each station that they write. Wellll…

·       The time I’m supposed to walk around and stamp where they finish each day to keep track that I don’t do.

Basically what I am saying is that I’m not checking on them every day like I should.

But why?

I have been placing my priority on what is happening in my group. They get to ask me anything they want when they come to see me, they get to explain their thinking and use sentence stems to explain WHY something works not HOW to do it. Since I am placing my priority here the work they are doing in other places is falling further and further behind on my things I actually have time to do list.

Sooooo……

 

My next plan is to have students track what they have accomplished each day on a poster in the room so that they can hold each other accountable. (Quick backtrack… when students are not with me they are working through a travel itinerary combined with computer lessons, differentiated practice on computers that provide scaffold supports, and group work reviewing and practicing new and old mathematical problems. see travel itinerary over there <-). We shall see how this public tracker works. I’m still working on logistics of how

Overwhelmed Being Innovative and Feeling It

"With great responsibility comes great reward," said Voltaire and then reiterated by Spiderman. Although it feels good to be in a place where I can be in a position to make change, it is overwhelming the feelings that come with it. I wish that I could have time to take a step back and breathe a bit.

I have taken a lot of flack for wanting to be innovative, and I've tried to let it flow like water off a duck's back. It takes a lot of time and energy to research the different ways we can bring new ideas and learning in to the classroom, but luckily, I have friends who are on the front lines with me fighting the good fight. It still gets lonely sometimes.

I presented at CAST last Saturday with two of my most innovative friends and the Science department. It was probably one of the best experiences of my life, but it was also shrouded in darkness knowing that people from my own school weren't in the class to support two of their own. On the bright side, it was a wonderful presentation that included Weiss via Skype, and four separate presentations collaborated in to one. It was truly a blending of minds and ideas. We seemed to engage and encourage the attendees to break out of their comfort zone and join us in innovating their classrooms. In fact, a woman from Sherwood reached out to me for help in illustrating what blended might look like with her kids. I need to concentrate on the good and leave the gloom behind.

I need to regroup and make it my mission to seek out and offer support to the innovative ones that have been scared into hiding and doing things the way we've always done them.  They need me as much as I need them.

There are always fireflies in the darkest of nights, and I need to venture out and find them.

Reflections from PreK

As we prepare for the Thanksgiving break, I have been reflecting on the progress my students have made so far this year. They are definitely coming along in regards to my goal for them of taking ownership of their learning. We are working every day on self-awareness; allowing them the opportunity to realize when they are not learning at their best and if and when an alternate seating arrangement might be more beneficial. This is definitely a work in progress, as it is extremely difficult for 4-year-olds to truly understand the process of thinking about their needs rather than their wants.

In addition to this, I was inspired by fellow Vanguard teacher Annie Mitchell to participate this year in the Hour of Code. Annie made an awesome slideshow for the Prek students on her campus that she was gracious enough to share with me. I have since taught a small group of my students how to use the Kodable app, which is the app that we will primarily focus on. They have been very excited and engaged with it and will serve as my peer tutors when we participate in the Hour of Code next month.

Finally, I recently gave one of the first “TED talks” at my school. I chose to highlight the 8 things to look for in an innovative classroom (as written by George Couros in The Innovator’s Mindset). I spent some time researching and relating to teachers how these things would look in PreK. I was very pleased with the teacher response and hope that teachers took away something valuable from my talk. I am excited to see where the rest of this school year takes Lion Lane. J

Culture and Tracking is the Key!

Well it is November in my 24th year of teaching and I feel like my first year all over again. Being the trailblazer is hard work. Not because of the late nights, but the feel of being alone in the world. I can soooo identify with the main character in "The Martian." You are working hard, not knowing if it is all for not, or someone will someday return to you and say "That really worked for kids!"

After returning from iNacol, I found some inspiration. I was able to network with some awesome people, but the best part is that NO One has the answer. We are all "trial and error-ing" our way through this process. I think that the culture piece is huge and must continue throughout the year and I've learned that tracking is the key!

I have struggle with keeping up with student work and where they are and what they have completed. But as I learn more about Student Agency, I've learned to give some of that over to the students. Hold them accountable for their learning. The rubric that we were given for the Raise Your Hand Piece of my life was awesome. It allowed me to see exactly where I am in the process and gave me a goal to look forward to. (And let me tell you, the future is bright if we can get to the end of the rubric.)

I am trying several different trackers. Here are a couple of examples.

I also got a great idea from an it's learning afternoon about putting it in google sheet and posting on activboard. Can't wait to try it!

So my vanflection year to date...give myself and the kids time to adjust, keep my culture going, and tracking is the key!

'Appy Hour! Pour Me Another...and Another

I have committed to my classes to do at least one new app or tech project every two weeks. We have made five social studies projects on historical and contemporary heroes. We have also created projects about government and historical documents. The kids LOVE this Smart Songs and were able to use them to create tech projects.

This year I am trying to spill into Language Arts with tech projects. Since technology makes the students so in LOVE with social studies, why can't it engage and motivate students in reading? 

I started with Shadow Puppet app. The students were very motivated to read so they could summarize and infer the moral of folktales. I then tried it for their book club book which is on an instructional level. WOW! They were so motivated to keep with their assignments and discussions that I now know a tech project is must for book clubs now. I am going to try Show Me, Explain Everything, and PicCollage for reading.