Are Creative Projects a Dying Art?

By Kristen Guth

Lately, as I reflect on my unit plans, I find myself continually coming back to the same questions. What is the purpose of this activity? Is this going to help my kids master the learning targets? Is this going to give me the information I need about where they are currently at with regards to mastery? When I answer these questions truthfully, it sometimes means that I no longer see any justification for some of the “fun activities” that go along with novels I am teaching. As much as we have a good time creating funny Facebook profiles for Lady Macbeth, I’m not totally convinced that the activity provides anything more than just a few laughs. But, does that mean that I should cut out all opportunities for creativity in my classes? I sure hope not.

I recently gave my Honors World Literature students (sophomores) an opportunity to demonstrate in a creative way their understanding of Chinua Achebe’s important African novel, Things Fall Apart. I asked them to focus on important themes, character development, cultural significance of the novel, and/or metaphorical and philosophical analysis of the text. They had a lot of freedom in designing and implementing their visions, but the learning targets were the same for everyone:

1. I can thoughtfully evaluate and explain important themes, characters, and significant events in Things Fall Apart.
2. I can understand the point of view of a particular culture presented in a work of literature.
3. I can provide formal, written analysis to explain my creative project, including textual evidence (quotes + page #s).
4. I can speak with enthusiasm and expertise when presenting to my classmates.

It might sound cheesy,  but watching these students really pour their hearts into their projects was nothing short of inspiring. I was truly blown away by their creativity. More importantly, I was thoroughly impressed by their insightful commentary and meaningful conversations with classmates regarding the novel. So, was this creative project a worthwhile assessment? I’ll let you be the judge.

For more information on each project, please leave a comment or contact Kristen on the Twitter link above!

Sharing Student Voices: "Where I'm From" poems using Adobe Spark

By Sandra Lee

For first quarter, freshmen created "Where I'm From" poems while reading House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. They then recorded their readings of their poems using the Adobe Spark app. While the requirements were minimal, students applied their creativity using Adobe Spark by adding images, background colors, and music to reflect their poems. We required students to use this app because we wanted them to practice speaking loudly and clearly, but we wanted them to have opportunities for practice. Since we assess students' speaking skills in a number of formal and informal speeches, it was important for students to be able to practice speaking skills such as volume and annunciation in isolation. Overall, the students exceeded our expectations as listed in a rubric and created interesting and original projects that displayed their unique personalities and backgrounds.

Check out this student sample! 

And this one!

Hey, Did You Hear?

Here are some highlights from observing student learning!  If you have any questions or would like to explore some of these ideas in your classroom, please stop by the Collab Lab!

1.  Mirror Student's iPad on the Apple TV
This is a quick way to build student ownership and increase student engagement.  Here, Mark Heintz has asked a student to project over the AppleTV, so all students in the class to see him take notes.  Many teachers use this method of student ownership to show class agendas or view Schoology from the students' perspective, as their student view is different from that of the teacher.  

2.  Using Quizlet Live to engage students.   

Quizlet live is a great interactive learning tool. It's user friendly and fun! Many teachers at Elk Grove have used Quizlet live, and we recently had the chance to join in on the fun in Eleanor Pattie's chemistry class. After logging in with their join code, students are grouped in random teams with fun team names. Team members must collaborate to successfully compete against the clock and their classmates to demonstrate their learning. Students get immediate feedback to confirm, or recognize gaps in, their understanding.

        

3.  Place Your Bets! Formative Assessment & Self-Reflection in Chemistry 

Eleanor Pattie engages her students in checks for understanding using a game she calls Place Your Bets.  Students access learning resources via Schoology that Eleanor uses to pose questions. Before each question students reflect on their understanding to determine their "bet" which is a "dollar amount" they put on their game sheet.  At the end of the short round (~five minutes/8 questions) students tally the amount that corresponds to their correct answers to determine the class winner. "Place your Bets" is a quick and fun way to vary a check for understanding after a lesson.

4.  Adobe Spark: Creating and Making Learning Visible in CTE 

The students in Pat McGing's Aerospace engineering class recently used Adobe Spark to create presentations to demonstrate their learning. Check out this example on Apollo 11:

Student Example

5.  Involving Students in their Learning: Remediation & Reassessment in Physics

Mr. Bozcar and the regular physics team have students self-assess following a unit test.  For each test question, students gives themselves a "+"  or  "-"  to indicate their confidence in knowing how to answer the question.  Then they give a check or an "x" to indicate if the answer was correct or not.  Then they give themselves a score of 1-4 based on a rubric (below right).

  

Next, students complete test corrections on the document below.  They are given a class period to do this.  

Lastly, the physics teachers have a schedule for reassessment with any one of the physics teachers on the team.

Hey, Did You Hear?

One of our goals in the Collab Lab is sharing our practices by getting into classrooms and seeing student learning in action.  Here are some highlights!

1.  Peer Editing using Whiteboard Tables
In Kim Miklusak's class, students were put into groups based on general teacher feedback on an area for improvement: organization, evidence & depth, or counter claims & analysis. Each group sat with a table leader, a student who was successful on this first essay, and the table leader guided the group in self-analysis of their essay.  Students used the white board tables to chart evidence and counter claims or to organize and re-organize their main ideas.  While this could have been done on paper, the act of writing, rewriting, and seeing each other's work in progress helped students collaborate on similar skill areas with the guidance of a peer.
 

2.  Student-Created Videos
In Dave Johnson's PreCalculus class, students are learning how to manipulate literal equations.  To reinforce their learning, he had students record videos using the app called ShowMe.  Students were able to work in pairs or alone to talk through the process of solving a literal equation.

Click here to listen to this student's video. 

3.  Building Cause & Effect Charts
Students read five key documents and for each document wrote the causes and the effects of the event described. Students wrote the causes and effects on the white board table.  The students were able to walk from table to table to provide feedback to one another.  

4.  Student-Created Study Guides
In Ami Heng's Honors Advanced Algebra class, students reviewed for their test by making study guides on the whiteboard tables in the room.  Students worked in groups to come up with definitions and properties, as well as provide examples of the different types of numbers.  

5.  ...while having 1-on-1 conferences!

When students were working in their groups to build study guides (#4), Ami Heng had individual conferences with students.  This allowed her to go over their beginning of the year benchmark test scores and discuss their progress in class so far this year.  

Using Replay App for Student Documentaries

By Kim Miklusak

For the Contemporary American Texts class, John Bottiglieri has his students create their own documentary.  You can find more information on the assignment here.  Mr. Bottiligieri allows students to pick whatever technology they would like to complete this assignment in order to meet the rubric requirements.  Traditionally students use iMovie and their iPads as we are a 1:1 school. Around this time of year you will see students setting up tripods in the hallway, interviewing people or speaking (and often re-speaking) into the iPad.  They then head back to class to edit and finish their projects.  If you would like to see student samples, please let Mr. Bottiglieri know!  Many are available only as files right now although we are hoping to make some available through YouTube in the future.

One student, Sarah Pauscher, was frustrated with iMovie, so she worked with the app Replay to create her documentary.  Check out her project about Chemotherapy.  Here is what Sarah had to say about the app and the process:  

"Out of all the apps that I had experimented with, I found that a good amount of them had crashed. Every time that I would use this app [Replay], it never crashed and it was the most interesting of all the apps I had. The app allowed me to incorporate many things into my documentary such as music in the background, text on screen and interesting effects. This app was easy to use and had many benefits to my documentary. This app compared to other benefited my document because it was easy to understand and had many interesting features. One disadvantage to this app was I'm pretty sure there is a limit to how many videos you can add into the whole thing. Other than that, I enjoyed using this app more than iMovie."

Thanks to Sarah's recommendation, I checked out the Replay app.  I can't wait to use it and offer it as an option to my students in American Literature for their American Dream interview project and later in the year for their 20% Time projects.  Look for an upcoming post on how to use Replay and more suggestions for the classroom!

Redefining Ready Scholarship: Student Perspectives

By: Kim Miklusak & Rachel Barry

District 214 has introduced a new scholarship opportunity for current seniors.  The District 214 Foundation is offering a $1,000 Redefining Ready Scholarship in a new and exciting format: a video!  For students to apply for this scholarship, they are to submit a 30-second video on how they found their career path and post it to Twitter with the hastag #redefiningready. 

We, Kim and Rachel, got involved in this project when the teacher of the Teacher Internship Class asked us to step in to show multiple apps for students to use to create these videos.  The apps included Adobe Voice, Explain Everything, Educreations, and ShowMe.  We showed students how the apps worked and what videos from the apps looked like and then discussed with them the pros and cons of each based on what they wanted to accomplish with their project.

Students were then given time over the next few weeks to work and explore the apps to see which would best tell their story.  Here are some finished student samples:

Patty's Student Example           Jasmine's Student Example

Here is what Jasmine had to say about the process:  

As soon as I heard about the #RedefiningReady Scholarship, I wasn't so sure, if I would want to record myself, because I am not a good speaker when it comes to recording myself, or me being recorded with a device. Then when I found out I have 2 of my classes that are giving us an opportunity to work on the Scholarship in class, I was starting to consider working on it. The next step was finding an app that I could use for the recording, which was not hard at all. I already had iMovie on my ipad for a previous class project. I then had to start writing a script and find pictures and music of what I wanted to say in the scholarship that shows that I am Redefining Ready. I changed my mind on what I wanted to talk about so many times! Once I got my script written out, I asked my brother to help me record myself [but he didn't, so] I had to figure out how to use voice over on imovie. It took me about 26 tries to get the right video that I wanted. i enjoyed making this Scholarship. I learned many new skills that I have never knew how to use them. I encourage all seniors this year and in the near future to take this opportunity.

More information about the scholarship can be found here.

Teaming on Tuesdays #2: Student Presentations Made Easy!

By The Collab Lab Team

Today was our second Teaming on Tuesday of the Second Semester.  Our Teaming on Tuesdays offer staff an opportunity to participate in a short professional learning experiences, as short as ten minutes, that usually involves a brief visit to a classroom to see a strategy in action, followed by collaboration time in the Collab Lab to brainstorm applications in our own classroom and/or "play" with the apps.

The American Literature team invited us to observe their students doing presentations with Adobe Voice. Students projected their creation through Apple TV, but also gave an introduction in person and shared their presentation with their teacher digitally--mainly through a Media Album on Schoology. Much like ShowMe, Adobe Voice allows students to include images and text, then record their voice in the same slide. One advantage of Adobe Voice is that if a student makes a mistake, he or she can re-record one slide without having to record the entire presentation again.

When we returned to the Collab Lab, we brainstormed possible applications of Adobe Voice. In addition to presentations, one idea that emerged was to have students summarize the day's lesson in Adobe Voice as an exit slip. They could add one slide a day so that they have a review activity by the end of the week. We also discussed how students could create their own review videos to share with class--a type of podcasting, for example.  Other teachers liked the idea of having students take their own photographs around where they live and to create their own "About Me" presentations for their foreign language classes.  If you have more ideas and/or examples, please share them with us as the year goes on.

Here are some more examples of some of the American Literature students' projects!
1.  Mahatma Gandhi
2.  Dennis Rodman
3.  Lorde

Classkick

By Mark Heintz

Game changer! I have heard this term used in education twice. The first time was from Persida Bujdei.  She came into a peer observation group and was ecstatic about the power of AirPlay.  She was right on the implications and power of AirPlay. AirPlay continues to be a game changer!

The second was from Rachel Barry.   She came in after using Classkick for the first time.  Game changer was all she said. After using it, I cannot say enough on how much of gamer changer Classkick is.    Click here for the website. The website automatically plays an overview video that provides functionality of Classkick.

 It is an amazing tool! The user can upload any pdf or image into Classkick.  Classkick also connects with Google Drive. Any images or pdf already in Drive can be selected.  Once uploaded, the user easily can select any part of a pdf.

From Rachel's remark, I quickly created a lesson using Classkick. The lesson focused on the analysis of evidence and student writing.  The power of Classkick lies in the instant feedback it grants to the students and teacher.  The teacher can select any student and view their work in real time.   The teacher can comment on the information and the student receives the feedback in real time.   IN REAL TIME!

Since it is in real time, the feedback is immediate.  In the above image, the student wrote, "In both places."  I circled which places, and then they inserted Europe and Africa. The whole process took less than thirty seconds.  Since it was so fast,  the student's learning progressed quicker than ever before, because they received almost instant feedback while in the writing process.

The above image is the teacher's view.  The teacher can easily see the progress of all students. The teacher can click any square for a zoomed in view and the ability to provide feedback.  A great part of this view is just watching students think and express themselves in real time.  You don't have to be right next to the student, which allows students a degree of normalcy when writing.  Furthermore, the teacher can display any work via AirPlay.  Therefore, if a student writes something that is worthy of showing to the whole class, the teacher can easily display the work. The great thing, the teacher can display multiple student examples very quickly because of the central location of the work.

 

The student's work above shows their writing in purple and the teacher's feedback in red. The black is another student's feedback.  That's right, the teacher can enable student to student feedback.  And the student to student interaction occurs in real time!  The student can click on the hand icon in the upper left hand of the screen.  Once raised, teachers and students can help the person with the raised hand. Students can only help another student if the hand is raised.  They can then comment. The primary user can always delete any comments written by the teacher or another student.  

Students can work ahead if needed.  Also, students can work on the task after the class ended. The last bonus I will raise, is the work is saved for later use.  

To Read or Not to Read? Can Shakespeare fit in a Standards-Based English Curriculum?

By Kristen Guth

Recently I have been involved in a lot of conversations about Standards-Based Grading and what that looks like in an English class. These meaningful conversations have also forced me to ask myself a lot of difficult questions. If I am working to implement SBG, does that imply that I should only be teaching skills and not the content? Is the text we are selecting an appropriate vehicle for helping students access, learn, and master the skills? Can the average, non-AP student practice and demonstrate mastery of reading skills while reading Shakespeare?

In having these conversations with colleagues and friends, I have discovered that many schools have removed Shakespeare from their English courses, at least at the regular level. This realization makes me incredibly sad for those students and those teachers. Not only will those students be missing out on the cultural relevancy of Shakespeare’s works, but they are also missing an amazing opportunity to see that reading skills are the necessary key to unlocking and appreciating the true meaning of a text.

We are currently reading Macbeth in my Sophomore World Literature & Composition classes, and I believe that it has been an amazing text to use for a skills-based curriculum. Because the text is difficult and the comprehension does not come easy, students are forced to closely analyze the language, literary devices, word choice, themes, etc. in order to have any real understanding of the play. 

One of my colleagues, Matt Snow, shared with me an entirely skills-based scene analysis activity that he uses at the honors level. Students are required to read for conflict, sequence of events, cause and effect, key quotes, literary terms, symbols, themes, inferences, and predictions. The first time I showed it to my regular students, they were pretty scared. Even though we had practiced all of these skills with other texts, they thought there was no way they could possibly be successful when the same practice was applied to such a difficult text. I am not going to lie, it was not easy for them. I had to do a lot of facilitating and guiding the first time through, but I have gradually been able to pull away and put all of the responsibility on the kids. They really had to work together with their groups and grind through some of the tougher questions, but it was amazing to watch. By repeating this practice with several parts of the play, their mastery of the skills has grown in conjunction with their mastery of the content.

I have rarely seen students as proud of their work as they were with this skills-based activity, and it provided me with some really clear formative feedback on their reading skills. More importantly, it gave my students such a great sense of accomplishment knowing that they could use their reading skills to tackle the subtleties, nuances, and deeper meanings of a text that they could not even begin to comprehend on the first read. There is a reason that Shakespeare has been read in English classes for so long, and I think his plays definitely still have a place in a Standards-Based Grading curriculum. 

Student Samples: 

       

 









For an additional blog post about teaching Shakespeare through graphic novels, check out this post!

Could you last a day in your students' shoes?

by Kirsten Fletcher

As teachers, I think we sometimes run the risk of becoming so absorbed in our daily tasks that we lose sight of how our students receive our carefully crafted lessons.  At the beginning of the school year, I read a powerful blog post by Grant Wiggins about a High School Learning Coach whose principal recommended that she spend 2 days in her students' shoes. When she tried it, she was surprised at how absolutely exhausting it was to sit and listen, take notes and tests, work at someone else's pace all day, and never move.

A few weeks ago, I got my own glimpse into my students' lives when I asked them to write a bilingual poem about their own identity. Some wrote light-hearted poems about pop tarts or their favorite band. Others expressed, in a few bilingual lines, how heartbreaking it is to not qualify for scholarships or college admissions. One of my students submitted the following poem outlining a day in her life.

I'm embarrassed to say that I am sometimes so concerned about writing my lesson plans, posting grades, preparing for my observation, keeping up with my PLN, and completing all my "teacher" duties, that I forget the impact that all my daily decisions have on the lives of my students.

Seeing school and home responsibilities through my student's eyes has made me seriously consider the amount of homework I'm giving on a daily basis. Seeing her express her anxiety over losing points for late work makes me think twice about docking points for student work. Realizing that my students aren't getting any more sleep than I am makes me want to cut them some slack when they don't say "Bonjour" back to me or when they grunt in response to my well-intentioned "Ça va?".

Most of all, I'm grateful to have students who are willing to share their experiences with me, and I continue to strive to deserve their confidence.  I've learned that I need to make more time to listen to what they need if I'm going to teach them anything. Thank you to my amazing students for this valuable reminder. Merci!

7 Reasons to Give Up Control to Your Students

by Mark Heintz

A few years ago I observed Linda Ashida changing the dynamic of her classroom by having students display all of the class materials through AirPlay. She relinquished control to the students and saw tremendous benefits.  Over the last year, I moved to a similar organization of the classroom and have seen the following:

1. Pacing. Students broadcasting over AirPlay changes the instruction pace to that of the student.  If a student displays any material from the class, they control the pace.  This way, I do not move too quickly through the information.  It forces me to have a student highlight the objective, open the reading, display the link, fill out the worksheet, or write the summary statement.  Having students display via AirPlay provides another layer of protection that further ensures all students are where they should be and are keeping up with the pace of the lesson.

2. Student examples.  Having students display everything over AirPlay provides live student examples of work.  Students become comfortable quickly with showing their work.  Providing their examples to the entire class provides instant feedback for their entire class!  What once was a one-on-one conversation, now benefits the whole class.  In a few minutes, I can evaluate several student's work in a timely fashion that benefits everyone.

3. A Safe Environment Focused on Learning.  If students display materials instead of the teacher, it rapidly creates an environment focused on the students' understanding of skills and content.  Students begin to feel comfortable sharing their work with the class.  They actually desire it, because it directly helps them get better at whatever you are working on.  Students know they can fail or be wrong at something because they will get the help they need to learn it.

4. Inclusion. A quiet student can have a loud presence through displaying via AirPlay.  An off task student can now be redirected through displaying the notes, writing down the summary, or displaying the materials to the entire class.  The student remains on task while displaying the information.

5. Students have all the materials.  When students display the course content, they have access to all of the materials.  As a teacher, I put up everything on Schoology.  For them to display everything, the course has to be logically laid out for each students to access the materials.  At the end of the lesson, they know where all of the learning materials were and often have them downloaded on their device.

6. Student Centered.  To have students display the materials, I plan on more student centered learning.  It forces me to create lessons that involve the students heavily and provides feedback to them constantly.  The lesson structure is developed with lots of checks for understanding that are centered around students displaying their work to the entire class.

7.  Freedom. Not being at my computer frees me to be with students. If I am not moving to the computer to change a PowerPoint, click on a link, pull up a reading, or anything else, I can be with the students.  I move around and see what they are doing instead of spending time at my desk. It minimizing my transitions as a teacher.  When students pull up the materials, I can be engaging students.

Student Voice: Business Incubation & App Creation

This week the CollabLab welcomes guest bloggers Sean and Wendy, both juniors at Elk Grove HS.

Hi, I’m Sean Duffy and I partnered with my classmate, Wendy Rosenquist, to create our business, Údar. Both Wendy and I attend Elk Grove High School. We are part of the brand new EGHS Business Incubator program, which provides us with the resources and determination to create and pursue our business. In this new class, students, such as ourselves, are placed into a supportive environment where they are allowed to create their very own businesses. In its starting year, Elk Grove's Business Incubator program had 14 unique businesses that competed against each other in front of a panel of judges in order to continue on to compete against Wheeling High School's winning business incubator teams.

Údar won first place in Elk Grove High School's "Shark Tank" competition and went forth to face Wheeling's teams in D214's first ever Start Up Showcase. Once again Údar won the competition in a decisive tie between a rivaling businesses from Wheeling High School. From this experience I can say without a doubt that this new class offers a new and unique experience in learning while also bringing forth an exciting opportunity to gain an excellent foothold as a business in the real world! We can say that we will be taking this class once again without a doubt and we look forward to any competitors that are prepared to enter the EGHS business incubator program!

From Udar's website: "We are a mobile game meant for fun and enjoyment! Everyone has a story to tell, and that's where we come in. Check out our promo video below to learn more!"  Follow them on Twitter @Udar!

Student Feedback and Previewing

By Mark Heintz

The 2014-2015 school year focused on literacy and building background knowledge before learning.  In the past few weeks, I allocated considerable amount of class time dedicated to pre-reading.  The objective of the lesson was stated and the skills I hoped they acquire.

To start the lesson, I created a fact cube with words from the up coming reading.  I cut the nine squares and put the students into pairs.  I gave the students seven minutes to attempt the cube.  It was great to see them piece the puzzle together.  The students were so engaged! The students struggled, but I was able to guide them without telling them the answers.  When the students finished, they left the cube on their desks so they would have access to the definitions while reading.

Next, I had the students pick two of the words and predict what the reading will be about.  Here are two examples.  

It was so powerful!  The students received positive praise for their efforts.  When I picked these two students to display their work over AppleTV, they were taken aback by how right they were and the praise I gave them and their fellow students.  

The best part was there wasn't a wrong answer in this process.  The examples above show how students were able to predict what the reading was about.  Even if a student was wrong in their prediction, they were connecting the words and thinking in the process! The reading was short but dense.  As they read, they so much to fall back on because their learning had been activated and received feedback on their understandings of the definitions and predictions.  

Using iPads and Schoology to explore and share poetry

By Kim Miklusak

Our AP students have reached the end of their exams this week.  They have worked so hard all year--but specifically these past two weeks--to reach this point.  To celebrate we are spending two days in class exploring poetry.

We have scattered poetry throughout the year in our AP Lang curriculum.  We spent another day talking about it on Poem in your Pocket Day.  The directions for yesterday were simple: 1) find a poem or poems you like.  2) Post the link or the poem into a Schoology discussion.  3) Give one sentence explaining why your peers would like it.

I couldn't believe where the students took this.  Some gravitated toward poems they knew.  Some went to Button Poetry, a poetry slam site I have shared with them before.  Some students went out into the hallway to gather around an iPad.  Some students spent a very long time working on writing their own very silly but fun haiku.  Some students paired up and shared ear buds.  Some students went to poems in their native language, wondering whether they should translate it on their own or if they should just settle for Google.

(The formatting looks normal on the iPad.  This is the desktop view.)

But just as importantly, some students started calling across the room to each other to watch this poem or that.  They really got into it--even the students who weren't as on task to start.  There was no assessment attached to it.  The value was that students were able to explore and to experience.  And in the end some students maybe started to like poetry or learn that poetry can be more than the may have thought.  And in the best case some students found some poems that said things that they had thought but hadn't heard anyone express so beautifully before.

Today we will start class by spending time looking through the poems posted in the Schoology discussion, watching some of the videos people shared, and commenting on everyone's posts.  Then we will use that as a foundation to read some Emily Dickinson and John Donne!

Exit Slips and Higher Level Thinking

By Mark Heintz

Higher level thinking in May? You bet! At the end of my lesson on Monday, students wrote four impacts of the Neolithic Revolution.  We did one as a class, then they attempted three in their groups. As an exit slip, students submitted what they thought was their best to an open ended essay question in Schoology.

As I read through them, I found that some students grasped the goal of the lesson and used the document as evidence, while others...needed more time. There was such a wide range of sentences submitted and some students did not submit.  As I was reading, I realized I wanted all students to see the range of writing.   Furthermore, I wanted students to evaluate the writing and rank it as either high, middle, and low quality.

I took student exemplars and I typed them in a note in Notability, then attached the note it to Schoology.  This enabled the students to simply drag or edit the statements.  

The students ranked the statements from high to low and it was great! The students saw student examples from the day before.  They ranked the statements simply by clicking on the statements and moving them to the top if they were the best and the bottom if they were the worst.  As a class we discussed the why they ranked them they way they did.  The students were providing great reasons and rationales for their rankings.  The students who did not submit their statement the previous day were exposed to different quality of statements.  The students received timely feedback that improved their writing.  At the end of the day, the students were asked to complete a similar task with the Second Agricultural Revolution and the statements were significantly stronger.  

Active Learners

By Mark Heintz

I create a lot of materials for my students to learn such as lecture notes, examples, PowerPoints, quizzes, review materials, videos and a number of other items.  I learn a lot in process of creating these materials, in fact, way more than my students, because I create and they do not.

In my first few years of teaching, I was the sage on the stage.  I lectured and created materials all towards the purpose of students understanding the content.  However, I found that I spent an exuberant amount of time going back over material that I already covered, because the students had poor retention rates of the material.  Even more revealing, the review day had more of an impact on students test grades than the learning that occurred over the entire unit.  The review day put material in their short term memory that was useful on the test the next day.

After reflecting, I found that most of the student learning was passive.  So, I present the Cone of Learning! When students are active in the process, their retention rates increase.

Now, I want my students to be an active participant in the learning process.   The picture below shows one of the learning goals for the first unit our Human Geography class.   Also, it states the skills students will develop in that unit.  The marriage of these two, content and skills, is crucial to learning. It forces the learning process to be based on reading, writing, interpreting, and mainly doing the work. 

After the purpose has been set, the students will manipulate images to one of the categories of the five themes.  Then, the students will write why they think the image belongs in that category.  I should preface this learning progression by stating this will be the students first exposure to the five themes of geography.  I want the students to build their background knowledge through interpreting images and writing out their understanding of that interpretation.  Then, the students will discuss their interpretations in a small group setting, and finally report out as a class.

Normally, I would have lectured to the students on the five themes to first give the students background knowledge.  I would have found images to give the students specific examples and guided them through the themes from my direct instruction.   Now, I love the students being an active participant in their learning.    

All of this background building will lead to the students writing in response to a document based question on the five themes of geography. Along the way, students will have practiced the skills and been given feedback as they learn.  They will write to learn and learn to write at the same time, all while being active participants in the learning process.