Unplug and move

by Kirsten Fletcher

I love technology. My first year with a 1:1 iPad pilot was one of exploration. I was constantly trying new apps and finding new ways to revamp my activities. I have discovered that I can now use Baiboard to complete tasks that once required markers and butcher paper. I can do exit slips on-line instead of asking students to hand in papers. Why fill out notecards when you can do a Google Form? Videos and media albums have replaced poster projects and group skits. Unruly class discussions have given way to more organized Schoology discussions that hold all students accountable for their responses. These are all effective and engaging uses of technology.

Baiboard vs. butcher paper

Only now I find that I really miss the way I used to do things. I could do Kahoot every week, but nothing beats the running game where students are constantly moving and interacting. Videos are fine, but they take the spontaneity out of presentations. Sometimes it is nice to pull out the butcher paper and do a gallery walk or a chalk talk. And students don't pay attention to the comments on a Schoology discussion the way that they listen to a partner's comments. As I rethink my use of technology, I am discovering that my favorite classroom activities have everything to do with movement and interaction.


We recently attended an Institute Day session with Eric Jensen. One of the big take-aways for the staff was that we need to break up learning into small chunks and get students physically moving in the classroom. One colleague commented that he came back from the session and started intentionally building movement into every class period. His students finally asked him why all their teachers were making them move around all of a sudden.

We all know that with 1:1 technology, our students have a host of new distractions at their fingertips. Rather than compete with on-line games, I find it much easier to say "Stand up - put your tablets away" and get my students moving. I've started doing this as often as I can fit it in, both for brain breaks and to keep my students from lulling themselves into a tech daze. So I incorporate technology where it advances my learning objectives, but I refuse to throw out the partner discussions, mixers, gallery walks and games that force students to interact with material in a meaningful (and unplugged) way.

Useful Tool: Infinite Campus Sorting

by Katie Winstead

Entering Quarter 2, you might have a lot of assignment piling up in Infinite Campus. To easily accomplish tasks, it might be beneficial to sort the assignments in different ways.

I bring you: Infinite Campus Assignment Sorting!!

In your gradebook, you will see a "Sort" button at the top left.

When you click on "Sort," you get multiple options:

You can sorts by "Due Date" and "Descending" to put all of your recent assignments first (for example):

So.. Happy Quarter 2! Hope this little tips helps =)

Reminders

By Mark Heintz and Rachel Barry

Last week, counselor Scott Deutsch brought a group of students down to the Collablab to help students get organized.  We walked the students through how to create subjects and dividers in Notability.  You can read how to do that here.

The group discussed issues they have with completing homework or studying.  Students often have at least six classes with schedules and tasks that are very different.  Because teacher expectations vary many students struggle to keep everything they need to do or study organized. From the student perspective, it is hard to keep every expectation in every class organized. Furthermore, the students struggle with study habits at home.

One thing the group brought to our attention, was that they write down what they need to do in their planner, but they forget to look at the planer once they get home.   To help keep everything organized student can utilize the app called Reminders.

This feature allows the user to set reminders! A student can create a reminder for the items they need to complete that evening.   The reminder could be set to go off everyday! The next day the students can edit the task with the new items they need to complete.

If the student uses their iPad at night, it pops up on the iPad. So, it would be one more reminder for the students to further their learning at night. Its an easy addition to a student's organization methods. 

Why Am I Giving a Multiple Choice Quiz?

By Kim Miklusak

My daughter will be taking a quiz in the coming weeks where she has to name the 13 colonies.  I've been helping her study on Quizlet, and she loves it!  We've been practicing typing in the names, spelling, and identifying each state on the map.  The problem is that I don't know how she is being assessed on these names.  Does she get a blank sheet of paper and has to write them from memory?  Will there be a list and she has to circle the 13?  Is there a map?   Does spelling count?

None of this is a criticism of my daughter's teacher by any means!!  However, the whole experience as a parent has made me reflect more--and especially based on the discussions in Lead Learners over the past weeks--about the nature of assessments we give in our classrooms.  Oftentimes we give a multiple choice test or matching test because it is the easiest for us to grade.  We believe it assesses the students' content knowledge.  But I'm telling you right now, my daughter won't do well on this test if she has to write them all from memory.  And I can't help but think: if only they were to let her pick the way she wants to show her content knowledge, she would ace it!

...so as a teacher, why do I not want the same thing?  Specifically as an English teacher, I understand the time commitment and workload.  But I also know that I could just as easily give perhaps two or three different options for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills various times throughout various units.  As long as the rubrics were equitable and the content demonstration was equal, wouldn't it be worth it?

EG Lead Learners Team Meeting #3

Today was our third meeting of the Elk Grove Lead Learners Team. First, here is a brief overview of the EGLLT:

At Elk Grove High School, our Lead Learners Team is an interdisciplinary team of staff that comes together monthly to collaborate and learn, with our ultimate goal to improve learning for our students.  We are a team of staff that in many schools, and formerly at Elk Grove High School, would be called the "staff development team." Our EGLLT is a group of 30 staff members and it includes our principals, division chairs, counselors, teachers from all departments, and teachers from the feeder schools; it is truly a collaborative venture.

Our objectives for today's meeting were:

-Participants will be able to recognize and explain the difference between Clear Purpose and Clear Targets

-Participants will be able to recognize and explain the difference between Formative and Summative Assessment

-Participants will be able to use Formative Assessment every day to check for understanding and maximize student learning

The hope for the first two objectives was to get the entire school to use the words the same.  

Establishing Clear Purpose & Clear Targets

The EGLLT discussed the difference between a purpose and a target.  The purpose in the teacher actions, approach, logistics, etc. while the target is the content, skills, etc.  

Formative & Summative Assessment
One of the activities used to differentiate between formative and summative assessment was this Google Form. After completing this form, we discussed the results in our groups. We also talked about the best uses of each type of assessment as well as how all of these can be used to inform students of their learning. In small groups, we created six-word statements to define formative assessment.

Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning
In a jigsaw activity, we learned the background of the Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning. Then, teachers presented examples of each strategies. Thank you to Kirsten Fletcher, Leslie Guimon, Rachel Barry, Tom Boczar, Matt Bohnenkamp, Kristen Guth, Paul Kelly, Quinn Loch, and Kerry Frazier for sharing your practices!

 

  

Using Error Analysis to Think Critically

By: Rachel Barry

I believe that the most important skill to be taught in any mathematics curricula is critical thinking.  A student should leave my class knowing how to work through difficult problems, using a variety of strategies to develop solutions to these given problems.  If a student has left my class, without learning various methods to process through challenging situations, then I feel that I have failed them.  Critical thinking is crucial for students going out into the real world.

There are many approaches to develop critical thinking skills.  This comes more naturally to some students than others, and for some students the context is important to dig into those critical thinking skills.  In most cases, seeing a problem from a different perspective helps students realize a bigger picture that there may be more than one way to solve a problem.   This is a hard concept for some students to grasp because in math there is one correct answer, however, there may be more than one way to get to that answer.

In this blog post, I am going to share with you a couple ways that I use error analysis to build critical thinking skills.

Example 1: Where is the Error?

About once a week, I use error analysis in warm-ups for students to decipher what another student did incorrectly.  They have to look through a student's work, circle or explain the error that the student made, and then correct the work from where the error was made.  This process helps students in two ways.  First, I am able to address common mistakes that students make before they make the errors themselves.  Secondly, this builds students confidence because they are made aware that other students make mistakes as well. 

For the attached warm-up, I shared this with students as a note (instead of the .pdf that you see) in Notability.  This allows students to manipulate the work, instead of write over it.  You can learn more about this Notability feature in this earlier blog post. 

Example 2: Who is correct?

In this example, the work of two students is displayed.  One is correct and the other is wrong.  My students need to figure out who solved the problem correctly and what the other student did wrong.  Again, this process allows students to see common mistakes that students make and forces them to explain why something is wrong, which builds critical thinking skills.

Examples 3 & 4: Why is this wrong?

Another great method to get students to think outside of the norm is to ask students why an answer is incorrect.  In a standardized test warm-up activity, I ask why an answer choice is incorrect.  Students then have to work backwards from the answer to figure out what error the student made.  Then, they provide the correct answer.  The extra step on the front end ideally prevents students from making that same mistake when they are taking a standardized test. 

Analyzing distracters in standardized test questions also can address the common student errors of misreading the question or circling the wrong answer choice.  For example, let's take a look at the problem below.

Many times students solve for “x” correctly in a problem.  The question, however, does not ask for the value of x, but instead it asks them to find the value of "2x".  Distracter analysis can be used to address students reading the problem incorrectly.

If you have any additional ways to use error analysis to build students' critical thinking skills, please share in the comments section!

Student Roles in the Classroom

Written by Quinn Loch

About two weeks ago, Elk Grove, Wheeling, and Rolling Meadows High Schools attended an institute day with Eric Jensen about brain-based learning. Throughout the day we explored how the brain works in the context of education and learning. Personally, gaining insight into how the brain best gathers new information and makes connections based on state of mind has been helpful in guiding my instruction.

To be honest, when I first saw that we had five and half hours of a guest speaker on the agenda, I was doubtful of my own ability to stay engaged and awake for that length of time. When the day started, the 10 people at our table were able to pick from various roles for the day. Each role required a specific responsibility. Throughout the day, the presenter asked specific roles to engage the group in some way. I had the role of "summarizer" and had to periodically lead a discussion with the group about the main ideas of what we just covered. Other roles in the group included a leader and a someone to facilitate the "stretch breaks."

These roles not only held everyone in the group accountable and increased communication, but everyone in the group stayed engaged throughout the morning and afternoon. There was rarely a time period of more than 3 minutes in which there wasn't some break in the presentation that required conversations within the group, movement throughout the room, or back-and-forth feedback.

I decided to adopt the idea of student roles in the freshman biology classrooms later that week with hopes of increasing student engagement. We had just finished up the first quarter and were due for a change of seats. Since my biology classes are split up into groups of four, I made the following roles...

Student Roles in Biology

I gave my students the option to pick their roles within the group and made it clear that we would be switching the roles up from time to time. I made sure to have each role engaged at least once for the first few days. I'd be lying if I said that there was 100% buy-in right away. It has taken some time for students to adopt their responsibilities, but I have found the overall affect to be positive.

Like any new idea or strategy, it is going to some time to work out the details and I may change up roles or responsibilities as the year goes on. I look forward to the continued use of this strategy in my classroom and hope to shape it in a way that increases student engagement, communication, and ownership. I will follow up with my progress/struggles/thoughts later in the year.