Thinking about the Future

Time to start adding new people to our first year crew.

Original Songs to Review Content-Socials 8

In this lesson, students were asked to review facts about the medieval unit in the style of a Troubadour (medieval singing entertainer).  Students were given the option to write their own music and lyrics, or use a program called Garage Band to write their own lyrics to a popular song's beat. If students were uncomfortable with any type of musical performance they were given the option of displaying their understanding of the information in another format but all groups chose to incorporate music in some way. Students played guitar, sang, wrote raps and one even played the french horn!

The video posted is of option A.  Very high engagement with the students.  

Here are the words to their song that they made up!!!!
Long ago in the land of France,
There was a man who took a chance,
On a lovely lady that caught his eye,
But she said no, started to cry, didn't know why she said no, but she did.

One day in the land of France,
I saw a serf in his underpants,
He was pulling carrots and tomatoes you see,
To bring to the chef to make a meal for me,
Cuz I'm the king, I'm the king, ohh yeah, I'm the king, yeah I'm the king

Do you wanna be a knight,
Yah I wanna be a knight,
Then you gotta do it right,
If you wanna be knight,
Then you gotta serve me well,
 I won't make your life a hell,
Be loyal always,
In my fields where cows can graze,
Cuz I'm the king, I'm the king, oh yeah I'm the king
Yes I'm the king

One day there was a boy named Greg,
He was very sick cuz he had the plague,
He had a fever and buboes too,
He smelled so bad,
Yes he smelled like poo,
Cuz he had the plague, he had the plague, oh yeah, the deadly plague, the deadly plague

So the doctors and the nurses started healing the sick and wounded,
To protect them from this disease,
 Carried by the rats and the fleas,
To give them hot fluids and they gave them lucky charms,
 Put them in the oven, with mercury where it was warm,
Cuz he had the plague, the deadly plague, oh yeah, the deadly plague, the deadly plague

Do you wanna be a knight,
Yeah I wanna be a knight,
Then you gotta do it right,
If you wanna be a knight,
Then you gotta serve me well,
I won't make your life a hell,
Be loyal always,
In my fields where cows can graze,
Cuz I'm the king.
do

*This is all true!!!!*

Post courtesy of Lindsay Anderson

Creative Assessments

I am the type of person that does not like a count down.  I find that if I am aware there are 'only' 8 classes left I tend to slide in my focus and energy.  As a result I challenged myself and the students with something new.  With my focus this year on assessment I figured that would be a good starting point.  I took the ideas of student choice, movement, social media, creativity and put them in a blender.  What resulted were tests that challenge and excite the students rather than bore them and strike fear in them. 

Scissors and glue section of the SS 10 test

For my 10s I decided to give them some scissors and glue while writing their test.  Normally I have a multiple choice question which asks them to link a major company to a region.  Here I gave them five and asked them to glue them to the correct region.  In a post test survey of my students they all said the liked this section as it gave them an opportunity to 'move'.  JS: "It gave me a chance take a break during the exam.  I didn't feel like I was writing an exam, rather doing a worksheet."  CS "Having to connect them without the answer in front of me made me think."  These were among my favourite comments.

T-Shirt Question

Another question I used on my Geography 12 and Socials 10 class.  Here I employed choice and creativity.  The idea was to use text and images to create an advertisement which explains two of four resource ethics (12s) or two of three types of unemployment (10s).  Students appreciated the options and the mental challenge. 

Twitter /Facebook Conversation/Play Dialogue 

Another one I used was referencing a cartoon (deforestation) and having two of the earth's four spheres engaged in a dialogue discussing the impacts deforestation has on them.  

Here are few things I learned from this process.  I need to expose students to this type of testing earlier (I did this last minute and didn't quite prepare my students and as a result I spent a fair bit of time clarifying what was asked of them).  While I use non-traditional teaching methods I need to give students an opportunity to practice making slogans or developing a dialogue.  

Another observations was that I loved marking these exams.  I will say it again, I loved marking.  I normally loathe it.  This time I was excited to see how students had responded, what ideas they had created, connections they made etc.  Both tests were marked in a night and I am notorious for taking a number of days to return tests.

From the students perspective they liked the options, appreciated the challenge, believed it was like writing a work sheet and felt relaxed.  All aspects of test taking I value.

Moving forward - I am going to look into using more diverse and non-traditional means to test students.  While it is important to clearly link them to learning outcomes; the students responses to them should be personalized and diverse. 

The Results Are In! (Part 1)

We have been tracking the results of this project in so many different ways...from surveys to student and teacher reflections, and with both anecdotal and numerical data. Nothing is more powerful however, than the testimony of the actual students. Interviews are being conducted though June, but here is a sample of some elementary and middle school kids.

Tetrahedral Kites-Math 8

We just finished our unit on volume and surface area of prisms.   I wanted to do something fun as an end project, and I decided on two activities:

1.  The first one was to build a more complicated 3-D figure out of a given net.

2.  The second one was to build tetrahedral kites.  It has been a real success, the students are really into in and they just want to keep building them.  It has been a great way to help the students recognise how to build a 3-D object and learn about volume and surface area of them.  We are still working on them and planning on flying the bigger ones (photo #2) and then making one really big one and attempting to fly that.  We will be doing some calculations on surface area and volume of the different sized kites as well.  I will attach another video of flying the bigger kites next week.
 

This post is courtesy of Pam Rutten.

Contacting Home

Last week was a tough week, it felt like my students and I were a few days away from summer break.  Not only were they arriving late, but they were unprepared (no books, pens, pencils, paper...) for the class and during class time they were unfocused.  I was frustrated and angry they had quit 5/6 weeks before the end of the year - it took two days of wallowing in my misery to break out of it.  By the third day I was tired of focusing on the negative; I did not want to dwell on things or students who were not working. 

So I took some time out of my lunch to email six parents a positive email about their child.  Instead of marks I focused on the child's work ethic, behaviour in class and interaction with peers and staff.  All were relatively brief but to the point:   "Contributes to class culture" / "Independent worker" / "Self motivated" / "Wonderful sense of curiosity" /  "Helps others after completing work" / "... proud of your son / daughter". 

I received three emails in return.  They thanked me for taking the time to send something positive home,  reaffirmed the comments I sent them (how proud they are of their child), and in return offered some insight as to how myself and my course were being received at home.  My favorite response came from a dad who called me at 3:01 on Friday.  First of all he wanted to make sure that the email was written by me and second to thank me.  It just happened that he and his son had planned a dinner out that night and he was excited to have a reason to celebrate on a Friday.  It had been a long time since he had a positive contact home about his son.  He was a bit taken aback and asked a number of questions to make sure I wasn't blowing smoke.

In writing these emails a couple of things caught my attention:

a.  We are in the business of human relationships.  Regardless of curriculum, course etc... the foundation of teaching is the connection with the student and hopefully the parent.
b.  As parents, regardless of age, we worry that our son / daughter is doing the right thing, making the right choices, behaving in the way we raised them.  Rarely are we given positive feedback that eases our worries.  It felt like a sense of relief from the parents who replied.
c.   I was surprised how each parent had some feedback for me.  We tend to forget what happens in our classroom is often relayed back to parents, friends... 
d.  To be completely selfish - this was a rewarding experience (on a number of levels).  When I was young and new to the profession I would call roughly 75% of all the students I taught to let their parents know of something positive.  I am going to make a goal of emailing / calling as many parents as I can - 5/6 a week.  
e.  When the students returned to class the next day all six of them thanked me for sending the email.

I would encourage you to try and do something similar.


Post courtesy of Russ Reid

Writing Case Studies

All the  elementary and middle school groups met yesterday morning to work through their case studies.  It is a pretty intense process but the feedback was very positive.  The teachers felt it helped them to pull all their information together for the year so far, and that it was a great way to look at the growth of the students they have been focusing on.  It helped them to clarify what is really helping their student grow in academic confidence, in their relationships with others or the teacher, in learning to work with others, in figuring out that they have strengths to contribute to their classroom community.

Some of the stories revolved around the importance of a strong and supportive relationship with the teacher, or the power of finding out you have strengths that you can offer your peers that they may not have seen before. Sometimes the key was the idea of success breeding success - that once a student starts to believe they actually CAN do some of the work in a variety of ways, they are more willing to attempt more traditional work. With other students movement and hands on learning were extremely motivating.

Again, I am so lucky to work with a group of teachers so willing to look at their own practice, take risks, explore ideas, try new things, and tell the stories!

Post Courtesy of Judith King.

My Favourite Lesson

I don't know if I have ever had a more consistently successful lesson than playing Cranium at the end of a unit. If you have never tried it (personally) then I highly recommend getting the real game itself and playing it with friends and family . In Lit 12, King Lear "Kranium" is the wrap up review activity for our unit on King Lear. Students play on teams of 3 against other teams of 3. If students are in groups of 2 then both kids need to be fairly outgoing or confident in the material. Kids and adults alike love this game as it combines elements of drawing, sculpting, acting, and answering knowledge questions. Usually it is a good idea for the teacher to make the groups to ensure a balance of students who are confident with the "role playing" options. Students who are not comfortable with role play can choose the drawing, sculpting, or knowledge questions instead. For Literature class the questions are based on key themes, characters, symbols, and important plot events. In our school, Cranium has also been used in socials classes as review for unit tests, but the potential is endless for subject areas and grade levels.