Easy Exit Slip

By Mark Heintz

Over the past week I have been teaching my students the Atlantic Revolutions.  I thought they were understanding most of the content.  Since they were going to be writing an essay on the revolutions, I wanted to ensure they understood everything before they began writing.  At this point in their learning, the students had completed an online vocabulary quiz, been lectured to, completed an anticipatory reading guide, read a textbook chapter, read several primary and secondary documents, and completed some comparative activities all on the Atlantic Revolutions.  From all of these activities, I thought they were pretty good on the content. During their learning,  I listened to the conversations, answered questions, and reviewed the activities. Then I gave them an exit slip.

I asked the students to do three things:  one thing they didn't understand, two questions they still had, and three things they learned today.  It took less then five minutes for the students to write down their information, and it really gave me and them an insight into what they did and didn't understand. I really like using three things they learned today so they end on a positive note.

The information they provided helped guide the lesson for the next day.  I took all of their questions and found the common misinformation and went back over the material.  The students who seemed really lost, I was able to pull aside and redirect their learning.

The great thing about the use of this exit slip is that it can be used on the spur of the moment.  You can just have the students pull out a quarter sheet of paper and answer the questions.  Another way to do it is through a discussion post in Schoology.  The benefit to doing it online is you can have students start the next day by answering their own questions, respond to each others posts, or you as the teacher can respond to each one if you are really motivated.  A bonus to using Schoology is that you can hide all of the student responses from students until they respond.  So, you can force the students to post before just taking other students' answers.

Individualized ACT Math Prep

By Rachel Barry

In light of Illinois state testing this week, I decided to use this blog post to reflect on our ACT test prep course.  Four years ago, my coworker Ami Heng and I took over the math portion of the ACT prep course at our school.  We wanted to develop a course that was more individualized and technology-based for our students.  Our modes of providing resources to students have changed over time, as we originally had students using a Google Site on desktop computers and now students have a Schoology course on their own iPad, however, the process is very similar.  

Before I dive into our course, I would like to provide you with a little background information.  The ACT math test is based on eight pillars of topics in mathematics:

Ami and I read through numerous retired ACT tests to see which of these topics showed up the most often and analyzed data from prior junior classes to see which standards students struggled with the most.  Of the 126 standards, we chose to focus on a core of 62 standards.  As needed we have added some additional standards over the past couple years.

Our course is split into four days of math.  We paired the skills based on topic and number of standards under each category:

The BOA standards were covered in daily exit slips because students constantly struggle with word problems and the ACT is inconsistent with the types of questions asked in this category.

Each day, students would take a pre-assessment on a specific CRS band of skills, one question per standard.  Following the warm-up quiz, students would identify all of the topics that they got wrong.  This is where the individualization came into play; students would begin working on their own skills of weakness instead of going over topics that only some of the class needed help with.  

For each incorrect standard, there was a folder on Schoology.  In each folder, students would have four to five items, depending upon if there was a graphing calculator component to the standard.  Here is the folder for GRE 504: Midpoint of a Line Segment:

First, the students would watch a video, recorded using the Educreations app, talking them through the problem that they got wrong on the pre-assessment.  Then, they would watch a short lecture video on the topic (a notes sheet is provided).  The calculator video is optional, as it walks students through the steps to solve these types of problems using the graphing calculator.  Next, students download a set of 3-5 practice problems into their Notability app.  Upon completion, they type their answers into the Practice Quiz to see how they performed.  

This process would be repeated for all questions that they had answered incorrectly.  As mentioned before, the benefit to this model was that students were each addressing their individual weaknesses.  I observed increased engagement in students because the material was meaningful to them and their time was preserved.  With approximately every three new skills that a student masters, their ACT math score will go up a point.  With their weaknesses addressed in this course, students are provided with a targeted approach to success.

Another benefit is that the use of technology allows for students to continue to work on these topics outside of our meeting time.  I see Schoology notifications at all hours that tell me that students are working on this course.  Students can e-mail me outside of class if they are struggling with some of the practice problems.  Overall, I feel that students have been able to improve their scores with this individualized method of ACT prep.

Collaborating to Learn: A New Twist on Peer Observation Groups

Posted by Linda Ashida

The Collab Lab is in its 4th year of facilitating Peer Observation Groups (POGs), and it is exciting to see the ways they continue to evolve depending on the needs of the staff participating. First semester we ran four POGs, involving nearly 40 staff members. Participants represented all departments, and included classroom teachers, student services staff, and special education personnel.  Each POG completed several two-week observation cycles, consisting of a classroom visit the first week, and a follow-up meeting the second week.  The follow-up meetings gave participants a chance to reflect on the practices they observed in their peer's classroom and to share strategies that they could apply in their own lessons. The POG meetings naturally evolved to meet the needs of the groups. Sometimes groups would suspend the two-week observation cycle to conduct a mini-workshop where participants would share or demonstrate specific teaching and learning strategies that they were most interested in.  For example, several groups conducted mini-workshops on our most commonly used LMS, Schoology.

The POGs continue to evolve second semester as we noticed that many staff wanted to participate, but they were unable to make the long-term commitment to join a POG.  Therefore, while we continue to facilitate Peer Observation Groups, our focus has shifted to offer more short-term collaborative learning opportunities in the form of Peer Learning Workshops.  These are informal workshops in which one or two teachers demonstrate a teaching strategy and other participants
share similar examples from their disciplines, or share ways they will apply their new learning. As we move closer to being a 100% 1:1 iPad school, we have found increasing interest in these kinds of workshops.

Some examples of our Peer Learning Workshops second semester:

February:

1) Personalizing Instruction with Schoology: 
2/17 5th Hour
Ami Heng and Colleen Mullaney shared strategies that they use with @Schoology to differentiate instruction and learn at their own pace.

2)  Learning Accomodations for Students with Special Needs
2/17/15 6th hour and 2/24/15 5th Hour
Drs. Karen Simon-Leff and Marla Carson conducted a session on strategies to meet the needs of students with autism, and students who exhibit learned helplessness.  Participants discusses specific strategies to encourage a growth-mindset in their students.

March:

3)  Student-Centered Learning with Notability and Flashcard apps 
3/4/15 8th Hour
Katie Owen will conduct a demonstration on student-centered activities that she has developed using Notability and Flashcard apps.  After a 15-minute demonstration, participants will have the chance to "play" with these apps and create applications of these activities for their classes.

4)  Making Student Learning Visible with Student-Created Videos
 3/11/15 8th hour
Cristina Barnum will conduct a demonstration of how her students demonstrate their learning for each unit using Educreation Videos.  After a 15-minute demonstration, participants will have the chance to "play" with this and create applications of these activities for their classes.

5) Formative Asssessment and Peer Learning in PE classes
3/11/15 5th hour
Anthony Furman will host a 15-minute observation of his Advanced Strength and Conditioning class.  Participants will observe the ways that students use technology with Train Heroic and Ubersense to do movement analysis, get immediate feedback and coach their peers.  After the observation, participants will return to the Collab Lab to discuss applications of this kind of formative assessment in their own classes.

We will offer even more Peer Learning Workshops in April and May.

Do you have ideas for other kinds of peer learning experiences? We'd love to hear from you!  Please leave us a comment below.

Schoology Media Folders across subjects

By Kim Miklusak

This is a follow-up to Linda Ashida's post about Using Videos to Transform Learning

This week my students worked with Schoology's media folders for the first time.  The students have watched and annotated Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Other Ameica" speech and then read and annotated Arnold Kling's "Libertarianism and Poverty" article.  We did other activities with both texts; the culminating project was to put the authors in conversation with each other.  What would MLK agree/disagree/qualify with Kling or vice versa?  Instead of doing this as a written paragraph as we had done in the past for similar assignments, the students recorded themselves presenting their argument using their Camera Roll.  They then posted the video in a media folder in Schoology.  Finally, their partner watched the video and responded in the comments--first paraphrasing the argument and then evaluating it.

I was originally inspired by this when I went to observe Kirsten Fletcher's AP French students work with media folders to make commercials and practice verb tenses.  I like a few things about media folders: first, the students have an authentic audience.  While I didn't require them to record their faces, the fact that their voices were on there somehow made it more real to them.  They could hear what they would normally write.  I think students revised what they were going to say more times than they would normally have done in their writing!  I also liked that it was completely controlled by them.  I did not have to handle any of the uploading.  This helps students continue to take ownership of their learning.  When they were both done, I was able to go in and give my own feedback to both partners.

I can see many uses for media folders across so many subjects: recording speeches, practicing foreign language, giving presentations, performing science labs/experiments, or even just explaining their thought processes for an article or a math/science problem.  Do you have other suggestions?  Leave them in the comments below!

Extending Learning Outside the Classroom

By Rachel Barry

When I was initially granted my 1:1 iPad pilot, I had hopes for my students to utilize the iPad beyond our 50-minute classroom.  Prior to my pilot, I would occasionally receive an e-mail from a student outside of class.  I would have to try to strategically type out answers (in words) to a math question, using terms and language they would hopefully understand.  Through the increase of technology, I have been able to provide my students with much more personalized, and hopefully more easily understood, responses.  

Through the use of the Educreations app, I am able to provide my students with "personalized tutoring".  By this, I mean that if they send me a problem or a screen-shot of their work, I am able to record a video talking them through the rest of the problem.  Students utilize this resource option when working on a review packet prior to a unit test, if they are absent from school, or simply when working on course material outside of class.  I then post any videos that I create to our Schoology course for all students to be able to access.

This mode of communication came in great use last Thursday, when we were out of school due to inclement weather, along with many Chicago area schools.  Kim Miklusak reflected on our students' remote learning in a blog post that you can view here.  Many students at our school utilized this day to continue their learning through accessing course work in Schoology, webinars with teachers, or communicating with teachers and peers through Twitter.  Personally, I was amazed and proud of how many of my students were working on their math problems from home and e-mailing me with questions!  My students were able to continue working through the course material and were not halted because they were confused by a problem.  Instead, they would send me an e-mail asking for help on a video, I would record an explanation, and they would be able to continue working.  Here is a sample video from the Cold Day, where I show a student how to set up a problem.

Please feel free to stop down in the Collab Lab if you would like any help recording videos!

Schoology Checklists to Teach Writing

By Mark Heintz

A few weeks ago @MsRachelBarry posted how to create a Schoology checklist.  If you want to learn how to create a checklist or don't know what they are, you should read her post by clicking here.  The checklist feature is great for materials that students can easily self-assess or can be automatically graded with an assessment, such as a multiple choice, matching, ordering of events, or true false questions.  You can mandate students post assignments, view links, or take assessments in the order you want them to.  I have used checklists in varying ways, but recently I created a Schoology checklist to help teach writing.

I teach a comparative essay in world history.  It is a very specific essay that addresses students ability to compare two concepts or processes using historical content.  Students struggle with writing and struggle more with writing in an academic sense.  Furthermore, teaching writing often comes with varying skill levels and the checklist allows for more individualized learning to take place.   Here is the prompt I used for this checklist:

For the first step, I had the students sort historical terms into either the Haitian, French, or Latin American Revolution.

When finished, the students submit their worksheet to Schoology. After submitting the worksheet, a quiz comprised of a matching question assessed the same information on the worksheet.  This is learning that the students could assess on their own through the quiz.  Here is a sample of the quiz:  

After students pass the quiz, they move on to grouping the information into either a method or an outcome of the revolutionary process.  The first two steps can sometimes be accomplished without my help.  Some of the higher skilled students can move onto to the harder concepts and work on the skills they need to at their own pace.  At the same time, I can have students who do not understand the content, stay at the own level and get the help they need. Furthermore, students cannot move on to higher level skills without laying the ground work needed to be a good writer.  It is a failsafe way to ensure students can be successful.  When students know the content and do the first steps, it helps students become successful.  Here is a sample of the grouping worksheet and quiz.  

After they pass the quiz, students have to check in with me, the teacher, before they can move on to the next step.  The next step is when students come up with possible groupings for methods and outcomes.  There is not one correct answer, therefore it cannot easily be assessed with a multiple choice assessment.  So, I have the students write their possible groupings in a short essay question in Schoology.  I check the students' work and approve of it before they can move.

Students move on to evaluating and writing of the essay.  I have the students read through several thesis statements to see if they contain all of the components needed to be considered a good thesis.  I then have the students submit their work and take a matching quiz in Schoology to assess their evaluative skills.  

Worksheet

Schoology Thesis Quiz

The last stage in the process is writing comparative statements.   Students will evaluate pre-generated comparative statements.  After reading the statement, they will fix the statement by rewriting it in the correct manner.  They will post their statements in Schoology for me to evaluate.  At the end of the lesson, the students will have a portfolio of student work and samples to look back upon for future essays.  

When completed, the students will be able to write the essay on their own.  This is in the early stages of the essay writing process.  The students will have seen several parts of the essay and have done the planning stages of the essay.  If everything goes well, the students will be successful when they write the essay. 

Tech Tuesday: Updates to Schoology

Busy day down here in the Collab Lab!  We had a representative from Schoology come to observe teachers and discuss our uses of Schoology here at EG.  Thank you to Carmen Ruiz, Kristen Guth, Sandra Lee, and Steve Lesniak for hosting our guest! 

Here are some new features that will be coming with Schoology:

1. Course Section Management: This will be launched in one month or less Common preps can be merged so that updates/assignments/calendar can be pushed out to multiple sections.  All materials will be in one section and pushed out from there.

2. Portfolios: Students will have a "location" on Schoology to house multiple portfolios of work (essays, career information, etc.) Teachers/Counselors can also assign portfolios to students.

3. Shared Rubrics: As of Friday, teachers are now able to share rubrics within the grading feature.

4. Broadcasting (Big Blue Button): Host a live video seminar! This is currently only for the browser version.

5. Embed Resources Apps (YouTube, Khan Academy, GoogleDrive): In Assignments, you are now able to add direct resources from external apps. This would help alleviate students seeing inappropriate videos on the way to the designated YouTube video, for example, or direct students to a Khan Academy quiz, etc.


Here are some responses to some questions staff posed to the representative:

1.  Can you delete a submission if a student submits to the incorrect assignment? Currently there is not a way to do this.  The teacher will have to reference the student's most current revision.

2.  Students cannot view colored folders on the app.  Is this going to be an option?  The representative is bringing this back to Schoology.

3.  The speaking feature, rich-text, and inserting images do not work on the mobile version.  Is there a way to change this?  It appears that this is a mobile development issue and Chris is going to share this feedback with Schoology.  A work around is to use the browser version of Schoology on the iPad or on a desktop computer. This should be coming by the end of March. Stop in to the CollabLab if you'd like more information.

4. Can we archive updates for us to reference next year? Currently there is not a way to push updates to resources sections, but you can return to the archived version of the course. Another workaround is to create an update as attachment that could be saved as a resource.

5. It would be great to be able to comment on posts in a Media Album. Is this an option? This functionality is available on the browser version but not currently on the mobile app. They are bringing this feedback back as well.

Schoology is so responsive to teacher feedback--especially those using it "on the front line." Please contact the CollabLab if you have any questions, have examples to share, or would like to know more!