ENG1D "To Kill A Mockingbird" Civil Rights Assignment

Student Need: To improve students’ critical thinking, by making connections between the text and world. Students will also improve their skills in collaboration and technology.  

Action: Students will make connections between the civil rights movement and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, by conducting research in pairs, and creating a presentation by using technology such as Office Mix or Educreation and Google Slide

Student Work: Pairs had two periods to research their topic and complete their presentations (they could have used one more period to fine-tune)

What we learned: Learned and used some of the global competencies, specifically collaboration and critical thinking.

Next Steps: Make sure students have access to necessary software (Office Mix). Learn new medium (technology) together.

CGG 300 Twin Lakes Secondary School

The deep learning/deep thinking activity my classroom participated in were two fold. They originally completed a staff travel interview and then developed their own five day travel blog. For the blog they had to chose a location to travel to and discuss their motivations/barriers along with the cultural and physical aspects of the region. Here are some examples:

http://billysjamaicablog.blogspot.ca/

MFM1P1- online practise options

I wanted to find extra online practice questions for my students where they could get individual feedback and results.  I had become disenchanted with Kahoot as more time was spent booting out kids using inappropriate names and then watching while students who weren't winning quickly gave up or began just randomly guessing on questions.

Some research brought me to ixl.com where I signed up for a trial membership and was able to assign questions to students to complete.  They were much more invested in the questions because they were able to work at their own pace and receive their own feedback.  I could hear students in the classroom exclaiming when they did well, "I just earned a new medal" or "I'm at 87%".

Unfortunately the free trial ran out and I was once again looking for a free or affordable option.  This brought me to Mathletics (free trial), which I found too overwhelming, not the most user friendly, and also Knowledgehook.com.  Knowledgehook was more like a Kahoot until they conveniently opened up a free trial of their 'homework' section.  Here I was able to select questions and set up 'missions' for the students to individually complete.  This worked well but once again a cost is associated with keeping it year round.

I attended the OAME conference in May and discovered several new options to look into, Quizziz, Socratic, Quizlet, etc.  I also saw a demonstration on Plickers, which might solve some of the annoying problems with kahoots.  With plickers there is no need to choose names, and the cards are made to make the student selections more private and anonymous.  I have tried plickers once so far with good results.

I will be continuing to research and trial options in order to find valuable practice questions students can work on at their own pace, that will save results and provide feedback, both for them and for me.

Philosophy

Philosophy. I chose to get my students to try some other options for their ISU research, gathering and organizing process. I don't impose a process on students but after asking them about their process I found a lot of them make paper notes. That's fine but they should be aware of other options and that was the learning goal here. 

I gave them a handout that directed them to get free accounts at DIIGO and EVERNOTE and they were to bookmark, annotate, make notes, save pics, links etc. 

A few already use Google docs to make notes on which is great. I couldn't get laptops, or a computer lab- as usual for this period- so I grabbed the ipads. Then I realized they can't get EVERNOTE because it's not on the SCDSB apps section. So I had them gather and organize using Google Docs. DIIGO worked well and we created a group so all their research notes and bookmarks are going into a group that we can all see.  

After the class I went on and collaborated with some of the students so I could help them with their ISU. This was great!! 

For me I realized that although it's an ISU it is really helpful for me to SEE their PROCESS and offer ideas to expand their minds on researching- TED talks etc.- things they don't automatically go to. 

Because of this activity I am going to make students use Google Docs at least once during ISU and share their work with me. 

The main reason is many students who are kind of lost in their ISU will NOT ask questions- they don't even know what questions to ask. 

When interviewing in person, often students will just say "everything is fine" and I can't prove it to myself because their research is somewhere else.  

So, in conclusion, as usual, I learned more than my students probably, but hey that's okay!! I'll be able to help them better in future ISU's. 

NEXT STEPS: 

My next step for this project is to encourage students to find information through social media by connecting to people in the filed of their study. Any ideas? Hastags on Twitter is my first thought.... 

Sample: Using Ollie to Make Regular Polygons

After using Scratch to create programs to solve geometry equations, I challenged students to figure out how to make Mr. Ollie create a regular polygon with 5 sides using the TickleApp. How about 6? 7? 8? 21?

Is there a way that the same program (code) could work for all regular polygons if you entered in the number of sides?

This led students to 'discover' the formula for regular polygons and understand the difference betwen interior and exterior angles. Here are some examples of student work. 

Sample (LONG): Designing a School

My students are in a unique situation. Part way through their educational career they will merge with another local high school into the current building. Then, they will all move into a new building for their last year of high school together. Currently the board team is assessing the site, formalizing designs and planning the new building.

This led to a final task idea. Students designed a new school and created a scale model. However, due to our unique situation we are able to step this up a bit to make it a bit more authentic.

Mr. Dance (Superintendent) and Mr. Parker (an architectural technologist) from our school board came in as guest speakers. Mr. Parker ran us through the process of making decisions for school design. Right from the spreadsheet supplied by the Ministry that helps you determine the square meterage per student, number of classrooms and other spaces, up to the virtual walk through created using 3D design software. For the record, the virtual walkthrough example Steve created of our current building got actual “ohhhhhh’s and ahhhhhh’s” from the students.

Before I explain the rest of the students task – a quick shout out to Steve Parker who actually took my task idea and designed his presentation with my curriculum expectations in mind. He also let us totally pick his brain over the pathway he took to get such an amazing job. We learned about the college programs, different streams in the same field and experiences. He brought in the big idea of environmental impact and sustainability. Lastly, he connected to the software technology we have in our technology department in the school, to engage students in design tech courses as well.

I had no idea how a school was designed. I can’t believe I even dreamed of doing this task before going and learning with Steve myself first. As he worked through the process, he touched on ratios and critical thinking when deciding on rooms and spaces needing to meet the Ministry “benchmarks” (another new term I learned). Steve also showed us what “bubble diagrams” are and how they are kind of like visual brainstorming in proportions. I had never seen these. Students described them as “sick”.

After the guest speaker session I had to revamp the task based on the great things I learned and student input. We ended with students using the Ministry spreadsheet to work with the ratios and end up at a correct number of classrooms, washrooms, special function rooms, etc. Then, they created a bubble diagram and a sketch with approximate dimensions. Lastly, they created a scale model using their choice of 3D design software, Minecraft, Lego, cardboard, etc. At the end, students presented their schools to the class. We were invited to send in digital copies of student designs to Mr. Dance and Mr. Parker.

In the future I would definitely start this long before June and work in pieces throughout the semester. I would also bring in a component where students connected with other students to see what they wanted in a new school. Perhaps surveying students in other schools who have just moved into new buildings. I would also collaborate with a science class to get more exposure and connections to the environmental aspect of designing new buildings.