Group items tagged

"On the night of Monday, June 13, someone stole my 12.9-inch iPad Pro from my bag during the annual Beard Bash event. I won't go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say my valuables (as well as those of my colleague Serenity Caldwell) were in a secure location. Unfortunately, secure doesn't always mean nothing bad will happen, and in this case, something bad did happen: My iPad Pro was removed from my bag, Serenity's belongings were stuffed into my bag to make it look full (I guess), and the iPad Pro went bye-bye. The night of the theft, long after Serenity and I had stashed our belongings, she approached me and asked why I'd put her coat inside my bag (which, of course, I hadn't done). After a minute or two of self doubt: "Had I put her coat in my bag? Maybe I just don't remember," I was certain I hadn't misremembered. I ran to our belongings to check out what happened and flew into a bit of a panic when I realized my iPad was definitely gone. I took a minute to pull myself together and got to work tracking down my missing iPad Pro."

"As a female middle school STEM teacher, leveling the playing field among my boys and my girls in both their love of science and their beliefs about their potential success as scientists has always been one of my highest priorities and one of my biggest anxiety-inducers. Now, while developing a school-wide makerspace for every preschool-through-8th-grade child in my school, I feel a great responsibility to create both a physical space and a program that is welcoming and encouraging for all students. Coming from my roots in molecular biology research and learning sciences research, I of course turned to the scientific literature as I crafted my plan (in addition to my extensive visits to existing makerspaces). Following are some of my plans followed by the research supporting each plan."

Handing Assessment Over to Students I have been giving a lot of thought about how to give my students more of a voice in their learning and in our classroom. Initially, I was focused on increasing their presence on our classroom blog through podcasts, videos, and blog posts. I even gave thought to asking my district IT to unblock Twitter so that we could create a class account (which I am still going to do). But never would assessment have crossed my mind. Fortunately, I took my thoughts to my PLN. Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) responded to my tweet about amplifying students' voices with rich insights and a couple articles that got the cerebral wheels turning. If you like what you read here, be sure to follow Janine on Twitter. Assessment for learning is a pedagogical golden nugget. No one ever said that the teacher had to do it alone. Why not give your students a voice in how they are assessed? It might tell you more about where they are at than assessing your class conventionally. Rubrics are my favorite way to assess student projects. I'm even pretty good at creating them. By doing so, I completely understand the assignment and learning outcomes for any given project. But do my students? Is there a way to better utilize rubrics as assessment of learning where students' voices are intensified. Yes! Allowing students to create the criteria for assessment does just that. It doesn't just serve the purpose of better summative assessment. Student-created rubrics also provides a medium for formative assessment as well. If my assignment is for students to analyze the effects of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on post-war America, I will be able to formatively assess the class' understanding of the main points of this event by the criteria that they suggest this assignment should be graded on. I will know that I need to reteach aspects of this event in American history if students believe that including a description of John Wilkes Booth's escape from Ford's The

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"I love teaching! I love being a School Librarian & Technology Specialist. I love my practice, my profession, my school, my library, my students, my families, and my community! I can't imagine doing anything else that feeds my soul like being an educator. I love the seasons and the time and tide of it. * Every new school year is a do-over. Any and all the mistakes or things you didn't get to do the year before can be corrected the next year. I can't think of any other profession that gives you such a clear start and stop and a time to reflect. The great thing about summers off (other than that they are made of awesome) is the ability to step back and reflect about the past school year. "

"Twelve years after landing my first teaching job, I was invited to interview for a position in a nearby school. Job interviews had been in my rearview mirror for so long that I wasn't sure what to expect. But it didn't matter; I had a job already, and this changed my perspective completely on this one. I decided that I was going to ask the interviewers a few questions of my own. Principals routinely end job interviews by asking candidates if they have any questions. Most teachers struggle with this. Many will simply say, No, or ask when they can expect a decision. Some ask questions they believe will be endearing; things like, "Are there committees I can join?" or "Can I get into my room early?" I realized in the last job interview I ever had that my questions were the most important ones, and the last thing I was concerned with was sucking up to the principals. After all, in a way, I was interviewing them. Walking back to my car that day, I knew I wouldn't take the job if they offered it to me, because they struggled to answer the questions I asked to my satisfaction."

"s mentioned in last week's post, Affordable ISTE 2011, I attend a lot of conferences. I always bring my laptop, but when I'm on the road my mobile devises are indispensible. My cell phone (an iPhone 3) is usually stuffed in my back pocket and I carry my iPad around in my small conference bag. At most conferences, I leave my laptop in my hotel room and use it at night to answer lengthy emails and maybe write a blog post or two. "

"For the past couple of years I've been really fortunate to have access to iPads in my classroom. The increased access to this mobile technology has provided my students with that many more individualized opportunities to show and share their learning. Now if you're new to this blog you may not realize that student choice and voice is something I believe very strongly about. Very strongly. This means I am constantly looking for apps that allow my students to learn, show, and share their knowledge in innovative ways. As a result I purchase and download many, many iPad apps for my work iPad. I take them for a test drive sort of speak before they make their way onto the iPads my students have access to. The reality is very few apps I test drive end up on my student's iPads. But why? Below you will find some of the questions I ask (and why) before an app will make it on my students iPads. I am hoping this information will be of benefit for both teachers purchasing apps for their students, and developers creating apps for students. Here are my top eight questions."

"The week after my dad passed, I decided to come back. Bereavement time was up and I felt that getting back into my classroom would help. I was wrong. By the third day I was still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I ended taking the last two days of the week off. I came back, what I felt as "refreshed", the following Monday. Only still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. As soon as I walked into the school I immediately met with the principal and told him that I couldn't continue. I needed more time away to deal with my emotions and to understand the scope of what took place. I could hear words of my dad echoing in my ear - "take care of yourself… if you don't, you'll end up sick." While my dad's health wasn't that great, and he knew it; he always made sure that everyone else took better care of themselves. Exactly like me. I make sure that others are always put before me. I could not longer do that. I needed to take care of myself before I ended up lying on the floor unable to move, like Izzy in Grey's Anatomy. Those four extra days was what I needed. I processed his death, I cried, I slept (for nearly two whole days), and I remembered the good times. I sat on the couch catching up on missed shows, Netflix, and Days of our Lives. We stress the importance of good mental health to our students, but I wasn't heeding my own words. I knew that being in the classroom too soon after his death wasn't making me a good teacher for my students."

"I absolutely love all of the new robotics toys that have been coming out for elementary age learners.  I have been using them for my summer maker camp, with my gifted education classes, and for my upcoming Saturday morning program. One of my gifted girls noted, "Where do all of these robots come from?" I laughed and told her, "It's actually has become one of my passions. Collecting them has become a major hobby of mine." I usually use them for an hour per week with my two groups of gifted learners.  I am an advocate of student-centric learning and giving them choices as to which instructional activities they would like to engage. For their robotics hour each week, I am giving them the following choices with their goal of using five of the robotics to complete five of the tasks provided. My robotics-type devices include:"

"Since November I've had the privledge of teaching with an iPad in my grade one class. Along the way I have discovered a lot of great ways to use it to help my students have their individual learning needs met.  Having just one iPad did bring about its own set of challenges but we were very lucky to have access to some additional iPads in the final term of school.  Next year we will have  iPads again thanks in part to my participation in my school's successful innovative learning grant application and another special project I'm involved with at the school district level.  Needless to say my head has been spinning all summer with ways I can integrate this technology into my classroom with out loosing sight of the important non technology based teaching and learning my students need too."

"One question I get asked often is about flipping my Kindergarten class. If you have never heard about a flipped class read more about it here. The quick answer is I don't flip my class for my students. I simply haven't seen a need for this for my young kids. What I have been doing the last few years is flipping my class for the parents by using a classroom blog. This might not be flipping in the true sense of the word but it is as close as I have come. My goal is to use blog posts and videos to help parents understand the learning that is happening in our classroom. With that knowledge my hope is parents can support or even expand on that learning at home. I believe that informing parents about our learning is important at all levels, but especially for young kids."

"It was the summer of my disconnect… I've decided to try for a different focus this summer.  I want to spend a LOT less time online and tinker with technology that doesn't revolve around a 2D computer screen. Last year at this time, I was wrapping up my look at teaching computer programming to primary students.  I had just finished submitting in my Coetail Final Project and this was the subject-matter that I had chosen for my final project.  My investigation was done mainly through the 2D environment of the computer screen.    My own children and I spent last summer participating in two online "kids camp" programs that were an extension of my Coetail Final Project.  They were Scratch Programming and Minecraft.  We worked through several weeks of challenges, earned digital badges, and posted our creations online.  Some of them were featured in a weekly Show and Tell that was streamed over the internet by Pursuitery (has some connection with Connected Learning Alliance  and Mimi Ito of "Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out"). That was a huge amount of fun but it was all pixels."

"It took just one relentless bout of the flu to remind me of the power of empirical evidence and the importance of shooting data. More than numbers, it was the evidence gleaned from my experiences and the images that I gathered along the way that helped my doctor solve the riddle that was delaying my recovery. My kids thought I was crazy, but I took some photos to save the evidence, and my doctor appreciated this. Gross? Absolutely. Helpful? Definitely! The doctor said that the pictures inspired him to take a different approach in my treatment. "Good data gathering," he joked, and I smiled, recalling one of my greatest pet peeves: educators and parents who rant about their disdain for this very important work. To listen to some, you'd think data are only numbers that shady reformers crunch in order to cash in on imaginary problems created by incompetent teachers. This is a dangerous assumption. The fact is that data are information that matter, and if they don't matter or if the conclusions we reach aren't helping us solve important problems, then we need to change the data we're collecting and the way we approach analysis. After all, isn't it a bit silly to blame data for our own faulty decision making?"

"Technology has not always been my strong point. In fact, for six years I was so terrified of it that when given a SMART board for my classroom I politely turned it away. Technology cannot be forced upon teachers. They have to have their A-HA moment. Mine was spring of 2013. I begrudgingly checked my Twitter account one night (did not like Twitter) and ran across a teacher named Erin Klein. She was doing something called Augmented Reality with her 2nd graders, and I was amazed. I started looking at all of the other engaging activities that teachers were doing with students via technology, and I knew that I needed to get my tail in gear. My students deserved the same type of education. The type of education that fosters life long learners. The type of education that provokes children to question and really use those deep critical thinking skills. So late that night I taught myself how to make images come to life in my classroom using Aurasma. Aurasma is an app that creates Augmented Reality. It absolutely changed my classroom. Flipped it upside down."

"Today was a big day in my grade 4-5 STEM class: It was our first time to start the "Maker Studio" rotation. Maker Studio is a concept I developed this past summer attending Maker Faire Kansas City and the awesome "Create, Make and Learn" week-long #MakerEd #STEM summer institute in Vermont coordinated by Lucie deLaBruere (@techsavvygirl). Last year was my 17th as an educator but my first as an elementary STEM teacher. I enjoyed developing and sharing lessons about a wide variety of topics, but as a "STEM teacher" was uncomfortable with my predominant focus on direct instruction lessons. Some of my favorite units from last year focused on the science and technology of music and sound, kitchen chemistry, and collaborative projects in MinecraftEDU involving permiter/area building challenges, coordinate grid scavenger hunts, and more. Our projects and activities together in these units were engaging, fun, and standards-based, but still relied predominantly on direct instruction. The after-school "Makers Club" I facilitated provided many opportunities for student-directed learning, but didn't change my predominant teacher-directed instruction during STEM class. My summer PD experiences at #MakerFaireKC and #CML14 were transformative. Enter "Maker Studio.""

"Over the past couple of weeks I have shared two of Elise Gravel's wonderful non fiction children's books on disgusting critters. We have read The Slug and The Rat. After reading The Rat, and knowing that Elise is on twitter I asked my students if they wanted to tweet her and tell her what they thought about her book. To no surprise the answer was YES! Since I teach a combined grade one and two class I started by modelling how to tweet with the entire class. I ask my grade one students what they wanted to say to her and I typed their tweets as they spoke them. In the process I modelled how a tweet is written and what we needed to include in a tweet. With a few tweets sent, my grade two students were encouraged to tweet to her too while I worked with some of my grade one students. Of course, the rules never change, and I saw each tweet before it went live. Actually one tweet did sneak out without my eyes but it was quickly brought to my attention. This tweeting provided my students an authentic opportunity for writing. "

"I recently was asked to give a webinar that would guide participants through selecting the right products for their makerspace, where I unveiled my "Worlds of Making 'MAKER' Framework." I was really excited about this opportunity, as it gave me the chance to address one of the questions I am most frequently asked. In my work with schools across the country, I have shied away from telling people what they should buy in their makerspace, although many want to know from me what they should buy. I strongly believe in following a process for how you and go about selecting the right products for your makerspace. My definition of what a makerspace is drives every decision I make for my makerspace, and that includes selecting the right products for my makerspace. Many people associate the Maker Movement with 'stuff' like 3D printers, but in my opinion, this isn't what pushes children outside of their comfort zone, it is that opportunity for open-ended exploration that is key. When creating a makerspace, many school districts just go out and buy things that other districts buy, really in essence, just replicating another school districts makerspace. But here's the reality: no two school makerspaces should be exactly alike because no two school communities are exactly alike."

"For my series of instructional videos I have a green screen as my background. I then use software to replace the green color with different backgrounds. This chromakey effect allows me to place objects behind and in front of me. I think it helps my videos look slick and puts the focus on my content. I'm often asked about the set up I use to film my videos. Here's a 360 spherical photo that I've annotated. Feel free to scroll and zoom around to check out my setup."

"Maker education, when planned around skills acquisition, can enhance social-emotional development. Self-Awareness: Making in all its forms requires a full range of skills including cognitive, physical, and affective skills. Given this need for multiple and diverse skill set, effective and successful making comes from an accurate assessment of one's strengths and limitations as well as having optimism and confidence that challenges can be overcome within the making process. Example questions related to self-awareness and making include: What strategies am I using to increase my awareness of my emotions and how they influence my performance during the making-related tasks? What are my strengths given this particular making task? What are my limitations and how can I use my strengths to overcome them?"