Best Practice, Shared Resources, Tools and Community

By Tom | April 9, 2010

Mike Caufield’s post made me realize I’ve done a pretty poor job of publicizing what we’re trying to do lately in good old HCPS1. So here’s my attempt to put this out there for people to spot holes, misdirection, etc.

Setting Best Practice

We’re turning to video for best practice more and more. We’re doing that for individual subjects, certain pedagogical techniques, major tools like IWBs (no luck so far) and for other things you might not expect like administrator training.

We have a whole series dedicated to illustrating the art of the post observation interview for our administrators. It’s a three step process so for some of them we now have the planning conference video, the class itself and then the post-observation wrap up interview. That allows administrators to see the steps of the process, put themselves in the classroom to gather data and then watch how that administrator wraps things up. This video series supports a larger web based structure that has different observational tools, process maps etc. We tend to use the videos when the administration is brought together. They’ll watch a video, break it down in small groups etc. etc. and then be directed back to the main site for the tools/process maps/documentation.

So that’s the relatively simple part.

Here’s where we’re attempting to merge a lot of things in a flowing loosely linked communal animal.

What we’ve had in the past are courses usually based on applications like this one I did on Google Earth many moons ago2. There’s some attempt there to provide content based examples but there’s lots of failure points. In some ways the discussion of the pedagogy gets in the way of how to use the application and vice versa. Additionally, there’s no way to communicate, rate or contribute anything back. People could find errors, crazy ways to make things far better etc. and I’d never know nor would anyone else. This is a dead site and there are many like it scattered across the HCPS intranets. They have additional problems like being hard to find, being rarely updated and often ending up off kilter in terms of best practice (both demonstrated and as examples).

So here are our steps to getting this right.

Step one – Set best practice district wide.

Framework – We’re doing this through the TIPC. It’s a mix of a condensed version of P21 and ISTE standards mixed with some student centered and constructivist beliefs. This provides a pretty decent tool for self-reflection and is extensible enough to be used to develop walk through tools.

Best Practice Examples – We’re taking this on in two ways.
Video – We’re video taping exceptional teachers and lessons and making them available in a variety of formats with and without annotations to illustrate key points. We’ll also be working on combining the video with the resources from the lesson when possible.

Content – We also wanted to reward and publicize the teachers who were creating exemplary lessons according to the TIPC. That led to the Henrico 21 awards. There will be 15 winners from k-12 who will be recognized publicly and given a cash prize3. Their winning entries will be published and shared according to some of the ideas I laid out here.

We had about 600 submissions to this contest with about 7GB of student artifacts as well- that doesn’t include a lot that was on linked web pages. We’re in the judging stages right now. It’s been very interesting to think about these submissions as a way to snapshot where we might be as a district in terms of understanding and implementing the TIPC.

How Do I? We have created modules for each category of the TIPC (they still need a lot of work but here’s one). These modules focus on why these skills are important, stress the conceptual understanding, and have some minor examples of how they might be used along with some basic tutorials.

Paralleling these modules we have tool based databases that tie the tool to the concepts and to tutorials on how to use the tools themselves. The databases also need some serious work.

So clearly there’s a lot of work still to be done and I haven’t even gotten to the interweaving portion yet.

Linking It Together Conceptually, I don’t think the majority of k12 teachers browse for information on increasing creativity in the classroom. They’re more likely to be looking for the things that the state says are important like SOLs. So we put up our best practice examples with SOL tags. Then the goal is to look at those lessons and see what the likely support needs for a teacher attempting these lessons will be. That’s where we link in the conceptual frameworks and the tool tutorials. We also want the reverse happening. If a teacher is participating in a course on creativity we want that module to link in the best practice lessons and have the tutorials available as well. Cross pollination is the goal both because it’s more likely to get teachers involved and doing things right and because we have too many pieces of content living on lonely islands.

The other aspect here is an attempt to create a community talking about these lessons and teaching in general. There will be commenting and rating for the elements. More importantly, I’m going to make a concerted effort to get people commenting. I feel this is key and can be an amazingly powerful aspect of a site like this. I also have no illusions about how difficult that is going to be.

Checking for Change So we need to see if doing all this stuff is making a difference and that is where the Reflective Friends process comes in. Despite the awful name4, it’s a pretty intense and powerful process. We did this for 3 high schools this year and will be spreading it to 7 or so next year. Basically –

General data collection about the learning environment and how well aligned it is with the T-PAC model and 21st Century classrooms.

In this option, data collection tools will be used that look for the presence of the following indicators:

* Student centered learning activities
* Critical thinking and problem-solving embedded in the learning activities
* Opportunities for communication and collaboration in the learning activities
* Learning activities that foster student creativity and innovation
* Opportunities for students to find, evaluate, organize and synthesize information
* Use of technology as a tool for meeting all of the above indicators

These data will help school faculty and staff determine their baseline level on each indicator and identify areas for future professional development and training.

Data are gathered through classroom observations and teacher/student interviews. That data is compiled and shared with the administration. We then meet to analyze the data and discuss next steps. It’s really an interesting and intense process.

The results of the Henrico 21 submissions next year will also help us gauge where we are as a district.

I think it’s time to stop now. I’m not sure how clear I was but it feels good to get a chunk of this out of my head. It’s a lot to do and think about that’s for sure.

1 When I have to leave Jim Groom length comments there’s a problem.

2 Yes, it makes me cry too

3 Yeah, I’m not sure money is the right path here either.

4 Critical Friends was seen as too intimidating. Seriously.

Topics: Organization, Projects, Reflections | 1 Comment »

BattleDecks (Queensland Rules)

By Tom | April 8, 2010


cc licensed flickr photo shared by bionicteaching

Way back when, I really, really wanted to do something with this whole BattleDecks idea. Two years or so later and I finally step up to the plate.

These were the rules my students got when they came in.

Your group will be assigned to one of the following topics.

1. Internet safety
2. 21st century skills
3. Technology integration
4. The future of education

Rules

* Your presentation will last between 2 and 3 minutes
* You can only choose from these 20 pictures
1
* You must use 10 of the provided images
* You can add no more than 10 written words in the entire slide show2

You have 30 minutes to prepare.

So it’s not exactly like the BattleDecks setup but it’s close enough and I think the rule changes made allow for more processing and a little less improv/comedy talent being necessary. The students had a lot of fun and the presentations were pretty decent. I think they’d improve the more we did this sort of thing.

My plan for next semester is to do this weekly or every two weeks as a review of the previous class. I’m kicking around a few additional ideas to keep it interesting.

I like this activity for all sorts of reasons. It allows for a lot processing, creativity and gets people thinking about presenting in a different way. It also works for all sorts of content.

1 The images were chosen fairly randomly from a selection I had taken that happened to be on my computer. I tried to pick images that were interesting and open to multiple interpretations.

2 I need to come up with a better way to say this. i had to explain it multiple times.

Topics: Lost | 12 Comments »

Questioning – Elementary Math

By Tom | April 8, 2010

Dan’s post on math questioning reminded me of the video below and how impressed I was by this teacher’s questioning skills. She ran the whole class like this and made it work well. It really was so much fun to watch.

This is an elementary math classroom but I promise it’s worth watching for any teacher.

I filmed this a while back. Sadly, it’s too easy to do these projects and put them in the heavily fortified garden a lot of our school video lives in and forget about them.

Here is a Word document that was related to this series and adds some context.

Here’s the question the students are trying to solve. Although I think she had the questions more clearly delineated. I would suggest heavy reformatting before using it with students.

more good teacher questions

Topics: Math, Video | 5 Comments »

Mega Shark Infographic

By Tom | March 10, 2010

I don’t know what it is about posters lately but this is simply awesome. It’s from the movie Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus1.

Mega Shark Infographic

Mega Shark Infographic

Pitching this WCYDWT style would be awesome.

Any crazy physics teachers out there willing to give this a shot? I was utterly bored by physics both times2 I took it but I’d have spent a happy week trying to figure stuff like this out.

Found via the always awesome Super Punch

1 It’s now on my list to watch. I don’t know why Jim Groom hasn’t dedicated an entire blog to this yet.

2 I took it once in HS and once in college. I didn’t fail people. I only failed classes when I had personality conflicts with teachers.

Topics: Data Visualization, Design, Humor, Physics | 6 Comments »

It Seemed to Work

By Tom | February 28, 2010

I had, at least from my point of view, a pretty satisfying class the other night.

I teach a 7:00PM – 9:40PM class for career switchers through the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Richmond. The focus on the class is technology integration and I end up with a really wide range of ages, experiences, and technology skills. So you can imagine how excited people are to work their normal jobs and then come into a nice 3 hour night class. Sometimes things go well, sometimes they go poorly.

Here’s something that seemed to work well last Wednesday.

Step One- I started off the class with some audio clips from student interviews. It was some good stuff (content wise- even if the audio quality was pretty poor). The students were saying things about how all they do is take notes and take tests. They complained of boredom etc. etc. I figured that would get their attention because no one wants to be thought of that way- especially if you haven’t started teaching yet.

Step Two-I had a Google form for them to use. The task was just to list the things you’d like students to say about your class if they were interviewed. This form was embedded in the post I use each class to organize the material we’ll be discussing and visiting.

Step Three-That data is thrown into a word cloud1. We talk about the main themes. This is a double bonus for me. I’m showing a quick and easy way to get data from a class and how to display it in a quick and easy way that facilitates conversation- all for free and on the fly with no tech-y knowledge needed.

Now the conversation shifts to what do you do in your class to make students say these things.

Step Four- Now we appear to leave this topic. The task is, as individuals, to find one video example of a lesson that integrates technology well. I give them a few places to look but they can get examples from wherever. You can see those places here.

Then at each table (5-6 people) they have to come to a consensus about which is the best example. Each group then posts a link to the best example in the comments to the post.

Step Five-Before we watch these three videos as a class,2 I give them a definite task. “As you watch these videos, your goal is to break them down into components and look for correlations between the lessons.” No one really got that initially so I went to an on-the-fly analogy. My attempt was “Sandwiches are very different, yet good sandwiches have similarities.” We then spoke of good bread, etc. etc. Not the best analogy but it did help clarify things.

So we finish watching the movies and start to break down the components as a class3. We get our lesson plan elements. The were things like student choice, multimedia, creativity etc. Then I brought back up the key elements we talked about at the beginning of the class. Things matched up pretty well. It was neat to see things work that cyclically.

So what do I think made this work?

There was the solid hook at the beginning. Emotionally hearing students say your class is boring bothers a lot of people. They weren’t trashing things, and I think that’s important, they were just saying the class consisted of 95% notes and 5% tests. I think the fact that it was audio added to the power. Multimedia is a good starter.

Secondly, the way students broke things down individually, as a group, and then as a class worked well. We’ve done a fair amount of table work so that helps as well. I think people are starting to become more comfortable.

I’ll have to think some more about how to do all of this better. It’s amazing how many times you can teach a class and still feel like a complete newcomer.

1 (RIP Wordle and possibly Many Eyes

2 They’re about 2-3 minutes each. You probably don’t want much more than that. More than 3 minutes can feel really long.

3 Thinking about it now, I should have done that breakdown at the table first and then brought it back out to the group.

Topics: Reflections | 5 Comments »

Then I Defy You, Stars!

By Tom | February 19, 2010

It’s been a long week and sometimes it’s good to follow even bad ideas through to the finish.

Topics: English, Examples, Humor | No Comments »

Plague: Romeo & Juliet Poster

By Tom | February 17, 2010

How do you make people want to know more before you start a topic1?

I liked this whole series done for Science World by Rethink Communications. Think of this idea as visual pre-reading. The posters get you curious. Curiosity is good.

I’d like to make a series before starting novels and post them around the room. It’d work nicely for history as well. The key, in both cases, is to focus on what would capture the interest of your students and make a strong connection to something they do like and understand2. It’s likely you and your English teacher friends are not like most people. You’re going to like oblique references to Kafka- your students, not so much. Remember to think about things normal people like. This is another reason it’s good to know your students and to pay attention to the many realms outside of education.

A quick mock up of a poster for Romeo and Juliet.

Rationale – Remember this isn’t meant to strictly portray what happens in the play but to get students curious and interested in what might happen. The line has been beaten to death but it seemed like portraying it more literally and with a dystopian-future twist would capture some attention.

It also has a chance to resonate because of all the terrorism and killer virus scares going on. The biohazard sign is shaped like an “A” so I left that out of the quote. Leaving out the “A” also increases the focus on the fear word – “plague.” “O both your houses” kind of reminds me of “all your base are belong to us.” I may be the only one to think that but it amuses me.

The students may or may not recognize the biohazard symbol for what it is but I think they’ll understand it enough to draw them in. I believe there’s a fine line between hitting their interests, being patronizing, and doing things that are played out.

I’ll probably get around to making a few of these for some other pieces of literature and maybe some historical figures as well.

—Advertisement found via Ads of the World which always has interesting stuff.

1 I’m going to pitch this from the teacher does the work POV but you could just as easily work the idea into student projects based around lines or facts.

2 Note to self- There’s a big difference between making something less sucky and actually making it interesting.

Topics: Design, English, Examples, History, Projects | 9 Comments »

Modernist Posters

By Tom | February 5, 2010

This is a bent paperclip on a green background. It is awesome.

When it rains, it pours snows people panic and Richmond shuts down.

Also when I find one good thing on the Internet, others often show up.

So here are minimalist TV show posters by Albert Exergian.

I’d do this for sure. It’s another in the line of restriction = creativity possibilities. The drawing skills are really low. It’s all about figuring out the essence of the novel/era/historical person and figuring out how to represent it as simply as possible. You’d have to stress what makes things modernist and really get students thinking about using color, shape etc. with as much thought as possible.

The example would be key, as would your explanation of it1.

I ended up with this from one of the few email newsletters I find worth subscribing to – Very Short List. If you like this type of thing, it’s worth checking out.

1

Topics: 21st Century Skills, Art, Creative Communication, Design, English, History, creativity | 3 Comments »

6 Frame Comic Summaries

By Tom | February 5, 2010

We’re asking you to take your favourite film and re-imagine it for us in the form of a comic, within a six-frame panel (download template files). That’s the whole film, condensed into six frames.

This is another beautiful, reductionist way to analyze a book, historical figure, era, epoch or movement. I don’t see much use for math but I could also see some science possibilities.

You could pair up with an art teacher or just do it on your own. I’d have a stable of activities1 similar to these and allow students the option to choose between them at various points.

Keep in mind, they don’t have to be drawn. Let them use photographs. They could even take their own pictures. The concept/framework is simple but don’t let it box you in.

This is the stuff I really like in history and English. It’s low work on the teacher, high processing on the students. Deciding what elements are essential is a task that requires a lot of understanding and critical thinking, then representing those ideas graphically is another level of processing.

I’m working on a history example but it’s taking too much time (and thought) to do well immediately.

1 Of the condense and remix type. I’ve posted a few in the past.

Topics: 21st Century Skills, Creative Communication, English, History, creativity | 10 Comments »

Snow Days Don’t Stop Assessment

By Tom | February 4, 2010

This wouldn’t be worth of mocking except for the fact that it was retweeted time and time again by the Blackboard Twitter fanboy crowd and when I finally read it I couldn’t get the taste of bile out of my mouth. This is the garbage they celebrate as a success.

So the following post is an attempt at purging my system.

Original article here. Italics and footnotes, as always, are mine.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The snow led to more than 300 local closings and delays today — but if a district uses too many snow days, there’s less time to test. No one wants that. One local school figured out a way to have the best of both worlds -students at home *and*1 a full day of testing. Joe Webb says it works through technology -insert dramatic music here.

The kids at Taft Elementary will lose a day of class because they’re at home. McAuley High School has figured out a way to reach out to its students and have them in class at home. At Beechwood Elementary, Miss Burns’ fourth grade class beat the elements and had a school not a snow day. But in 2010 this is truly old school.2

McAuley sophomore Sam Rack kicked it new school3 today at home but taking all her regular classes online. It counts as a school day. Sam Rack has done the math. “I actually like this a lot more because if we have a lot of snow days like last year, we had to take days off of our summer vacation. Please don’t make me go to school a day longer than I have to.”

Sam had Blackboard to thank for her new found ability to add and subtract one digit numerals.

Blackboard CEO, Michael Chasen, crowed with excited when informed of this development. “Another 21st century skill down! Bb NG is transforming education!”

It’s part of McAuley’s high-tech teaching push4. The principal notified students and parents yesterday that today was an online day and all work had to be done. At his suggestion, we interviewed him online today via Skype5. He says McAuley uses the popular school software *Blackboard*6 to sort of “home school” on days like today.

“Don’t get carried away though” cautioned Webb, “You still need us. It’s not real home school. I used air quotes. Make sure you put the quotes in the article.”

“Students have to go on Blackboard and each teacher is going to post assignments and they’re doing all kinds of things. You know, like tests, quizzes, some timed quizzes and I bet you’ll see some timed tests. Others are probably reading stuff. It’s really amazing. Thank god for Technology.”

At 1:40 this afternoon, Sam logged in to take an AP European History quiz. She had 20 minutes to get it done. This wasn’t a full day on or off but she did get to sleep in and leave the uniform in the closet7. Plus not have her parents worry about her driving to and from school. “This was kind of a no-brainer for us. We thought this was a way to keep our kids safe and keep moving forward from an educational standpoint. We had to synergize our enterprise CMS to strategerize our learning outcomes towards our state standards. There is a race to the top to be won.“

Half the students at McAuley have laptops they’ve purchased through the school. That makes this whole thing possible. The other half weren’t going to graduate anyway. It’s better that they remain laptop-less so that they’re happier with their eventual role in life.

Technology is a great thing…but not everyone has the access. Until that happens…. snowy days will mean no class for most schools.8

1 Apparently the * has become an accepted journalistic punctuation mark. It denotes sparkles or jazz hands- depending on the context.

2 I read this 3 times and it made less sense each time.

3 I did NOT add this. This is real. Other phrases that didn’t make the final edit included bodacious, funky fresh, col’ chilling and maxing n’ relaxing.

4 Several high-tech pulls went terribly wrong.

5 Skype audio failed due to bandwidth issues and the principal refused to accept our phone call because it wasn’t *technologified* enough so the interview was carried out via text chat.

6 I have no idea why BB is in bracketed by asterisks.

7 Imagine the freedom to both wear the clothes you want and get up when you want.

8 And that ladies and gentlemen is a closing line. It’s deep, poignant and leaves you wondering why it didn’t have asterisks sprinkled on it.

Topics: Assessment, Humor, Lost | 10 Comments »

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