As Ms. Slusarek stated, "There are some grammar mistakes, but I think this group captured the effective use of technology and how to motivate people to join a cause!"
Mr. Krause will be providing a Problem/Project Based Learning opportunity. Students will create a "time sheet" via a Google form to record their total minutes focused on specific tasks. Sure, we could just have them create a Google Sheet for recording of data, but we wanted something "flashy". Google Forms provides a way for students to "enter" their time.
After the time sheets are recording in the Google sheet, students will use a formula to add of the total minutes.
Impact On Students: Critical Thinking: Allotting the correct amount of time on the correct task is a valuable life lesson. Not only are we allowing students to design their own time sheet, we are also asking them to be responsible for their time on tasks.
As a completion to a "I am a Doctor and developing a Case Study" to present at a Symposium, we used a Google form to gather all of the web links of online created pieces of information.
Our Environmental Science groups had a work day to continue development of their "Area of Concern" videos. Through the tremendous preparation and hard work by Mrs. Stainton, experts in the field of concern were brought in.
While students discussed their projects with those students, Mrs. Stainton and myself continued to provide resources and support for the other groups while the developed their plan.
One meaningful conversation that I had was with a group that is creating a Common Craft video. I showed them how the common craft videos are set up. Students are also discovering the possibilities with the Green Screen FX app, which they will be using.
I asked each of our students the following question,
"What was your best learning experience of the year?"
I created the entire movie on an iPad with iMovie and can't be more thrilled with the result. Not only by their answers, but by the quality of the video.
Some students gave detailed answers, some shortened them up. Either way, I am thankful I took the time to ask! My advice would be Vicki's advice, "Take one day to LISTEN to your students talk about their best learning experience in your classroom this year."
To culminate our Chapter 2 concepts of integer operations and graphing equations, I modified our textbook problem to that of a three act math problem.
The best part of our problem was the "hook" found below. Students had great expressions of "uhg" and "awe" when I asked them if they wanted to see the winner of the "climb to the top" they needed to complete the work. So many times, students want the teacher to do more work than themselves.
I felt that they time and energy it took to create the videos (taken with iPad2) and produced using YouTube Doubler and Camtasia was well worth it. The student version of the lesson can be found HERE.
Students used a Google Form to give their predictions. Great accountability. I thought the winner was obvious when viewing the prediction video, but many students did not guess the correct winner.
Students then received a "slowed down" version of climbers which allowed students to count the number of stairs versus the time.
I included the prediction video in this video along with the slower version. Next year, I will NOT include the prediction video...it took students some time to realize that the slower version was half way through the video.
Students then received a Google Spreadsheet that allowed for them to gather data for each climber. See some classroom video below.
CHALLENGE: The biggest challenge is that all climbers did not have a CONSTANT rate. We eventually are going to create a rule that gives us an average of a climbers rate.. Not sure how to get around this, but felt this video of real people was better than the book.
CHALLENGE: This problem did not involve negative integers. Next year, I would like to have students go up and down the stairs.
Overall, I believe that the problem engaged and assessed the students. Obviously when we were done, we showed them the answers...
NOTE: the whole process took about 4-5 hours of prep. Was it worth it? Yes!
our students explain "What They Like About School..."
NOTE: We will be showing this to parents when they wait patiently during Parent-Teacher Conferences... ANOTHER NOTE: None of our teachers or students have had this type of technology or been involved with Problem-Based Learning; It is definitely a work in progress...
When I Googled videos about subtracting integers, every one had a teacher lecturing how to do it. We decided to create four videos that would allow for students to see real subtraction problems of integers. They needed to determine the "take away" problem and how it changes to an addition of the opposite. We consider it a small case of problem based learning!
We began our study of citizenship and the BIG question or learning target for the year:
What does it mean to be a CITIZEN of this classroom, of our school, of your home, of the Pulaski Community, of Wisconsin, of the USA, and of the world?
Two focuses for the day pertained to citizenship in their groups:
1) Being AWARE – of current events and impending consequences and of our history (personal/overall)
2) Being ACTIVE – involve yourself by communicating to others your thoughts and ideas AND by creating solutions to problems that you care about.
If students touched the toxic waste or inside the circle, they received a penalty. Loss of the use of an arm, needing to sit down only, losing the ability to move. This was a great opportunity to relate that being an ACTIVE citizen doesn't happen if we don't follow society's rules.
The beautiful thing about our "Afternoon Block" is that we have 1 hour and 40 minutes to use how we would like. This activity will be explained in the following videos. We took one hour and 5 minutes to complete it, and then students completed their "Why is this going to be the best school year ever!" five sentence paragraph into our "Daily Endeavor" newspaper template - a Google Doc of course.
Students video taped (is that even the correct wording - no tape)...let's try that again. Students digitally recorded their creative games using their iPad. Before this we created a Posterous blog for each student. See why I chose Posteroushere. IMPORTANT note! Use Safari and not the Posterous iPad APP to set up the students account. The app did not recognize a new account. Safari worked great.
We then shared the students' videos with the class using our digital projector.
This was a great idea. We have an "afternoon block' of one hour and twenty minutes to complete social studies and communication arts. 47 students learning at one time. Our first attempt at the problem based learning aspect was to demonstrate a game that has never been created. Since placing 47 students in one room would be challenging we created a Ustream Channel and broadcast the instruction to two different rooms. It was quite successful. In the future, we want to incorporate Google Chat so that students from the other room can communicate with the students that are being presented.
Students watching in another classroom.
We have 12 different learning areas in our two classrooms. Students have access to a large whiteboard learning area. This was fantastic for students to draw, write, and create their game. The best aspect of the whiteboard area is that it does NOT need to be erased. Students will return on Tuesday and their ideas will still be present. AWESOME!
Something that I learned: Problem-Based Learning is inquiring driven. Project-Based Learning is a summary of what has been learned. Passion-Based Learning is following a desire to learn whatever interests people.
