Check out these fun bookmarks for your students to reference during reading. They highlight the strategies of Asking Questions, Making Connections, Making Predictions, Making Inferences, Monitoring Comprehension, and Making Evaluations.
Available in color or black line, they come three to a page.
Have your students grab a pencil, some sticky notes and a bookmark for reference and get started documenting their thinking. Great for formative assessment!
The ISTE experience has become one of the highlights of my personal professional development. I enjoy meeting people from around the world, and visiting with them about effective classroom instructional practices. I had the blessing of helping in the Digital Storytelling Network Playground, and presenting a poster session about Makerspaces. In a time span of just thirty minutes, I could visit with educators from multiple countries and ten or more states. My co-presenter had the blessing of meeting a teacher from New Zealand who Periscoped her class about the Bloxels kit we had on display during our poster session.
My top takeaways from ISTE 2016:
1. It's time to change the culture of schools. We have been working in a model that prepares students for the 1950s. Jobs of the future require creativity, imagination, and experience. Our education system needs to catch up, then prepare to lead the way.
2. As educators, we need to take a bigger part in preparing students to work in STEM related fields, by providing students opportunities to create, iterate, problem solve, code, and think critically. I visited with a COO of a tech company, and he indicated they had engineers that were high school dropouts and engineers that had their PhD from Yale. It didn't matter how employees knew what they knew, as long as they knew it. When their company interviewed potential applicants, they asked prospective employees to SHOW them what they knew, not tell them. Applicants brought in projects they had been working on to demonstrate their expertise.
3. Encourage your students to imagine future possibilities. Don't limit them to things that seem realistic. Science Fiction movies and books? Those technologies are being developed in the labs of today.
4. Classrooms must become labs for social change. We need to defy politics as usual, and teach students to develop the quality of their relationships. Empathy is the core for solving problems.
5. Inequality is engineered. Think it's better for the present? Better for whom? Carefully consider whose version of the good life is being promoted. Who are we leaving out? Look at it from as many perspectives as possible, and continue to reconsider your thinking as you encounter new information.
6. "The battle over real power tomorrow begins with who gets to dream today." ALL students need to be a part of innovation. ALL voices need a role in creating our collective future.
7. If we can hack tech, we can hack the underlying codes of social society. Guide students in working together to change the operating structure of society. Talk about the current social code, then get busy rewriting it. Just because something has always been done a certain way, doesn't make it right.
8. Have students tell you their questions, not just their answers. Questions are more important than answers. Q > A.
9. Educators are cultural workers. Do your instructional practices change the story or keep it the same for your students? Are you empowering them or stifling them? Correct the micro-inequalities or instances of unconscious bias in your school. Treat everyone with respect.
10. Tech can become the #plottwist that reaches a struggling student. Each child deserves a better story. Search for apps, extensions, websites, and tech tools that can help rewrite a child's story.
11. Make it real - real tools, real problems, real science. Use project based learning, STEM/STEAM challenges, flipped lessons, and flexible classrooms. Connect with the community, mentors, and world.
12. It's not a question of are you good or bad at it, but are you willing to learn? It's how you respond to failure that defines who you are as a person, not the successes you have.
Work hard.
Create bravely.
Keep wonder alive.
Stay humble.
Thankful for the life of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate. His book Night is one of my favorites to share with students when they are ready for an autobiographical account of the Holocaust. The Nobel citation described him as a "messenger to mankind" with a message of "peace, atonement, and human dignity." May we carry on his work, "Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices." -Elie Wiesel
I'm starting to collect pictures of innovative ideas to share with my students for inspiration during Innovation Hour (also known as Genius Hour, 20% Time, or Independent Study). My husband and I had walked to the beach in Evanston, Illinois, while waiting for our car to be repaired. We saw this at an intersection without a pedestrian light. A slight problem for us ~ the side of the road we were on did not have any red flags available to carry across the street. They were all on the other side.
I think I would share this photograph with my students, and discuss several things: How does this method of crossing the street compare to pedestrian lights, crosswalk signs, pedestrian bridges, and intersections with no signs. What types of intersections would be best for each method? I would ask for potential problems with the method used in this photograph to see if they could image the problem I experienced. I would then ask how the design could be changed to prevent my experience from happening to others. Finally, I would ask for their original ideas to allow pedestrians to cross the street safely. Students could consider these factors and implement them if they were designing a city as mentioned in yesterday's post.
Have you found some interesting signs in your travels?
While in Chicago, we stopped by the Chicago Architecture Foundation and discovered the Chicago Modeland the LEGO Design Studio, where families can build a representation of a current architectural piece, or create an original design. While my husband and daughter sat down to build, I started taking pictures, thinking this would be a great addition to my Makerspace. While the exhibit featured white architectural LEGO pieces exclusively, I think it would be feasible to use whatever color of LEGO pieces you have available.
The exhibit featured pictures of famous architectural buildings in Chicago that visitors could replicate. In a Makerspace, you could display pictures of famous buildings from around the world for students to reproduce.
Santa Fe Building
Other visitors had created original designs to be left on display, including buildings, boats, dragons, and furniture. As students build pieces in your Makerspace, you could display them as inspiration for other students.
Building with lots of windows
Boat and Buildings
Pianos
Star Wars Pieces
In one section of the Design Studio, visitors could add to the "growing city" by drawing a building on a long piece of paper that covered a section of the wall. This would be another great thing to add to a Makerspace ~ either a paper version, a LEGO version, or a cardboard/recycled materials version. Students could work collaboratively to build a replica of the city you reside in, a city you are studying, a city from an historical time, or an "ideal city" your students imagine. The additional prompt of "What does every good city need?" can get your students thinking beyond buildings to parks, roads, transportation, and infrastructure.
I love to gather ideas from places I visit. Chicago has provided a lot of inspiration for me this past week. Where have you been inspired for your Makerspace?
Last week my daughter attended a STEM camp at Loyola University in Chicago. Each day we stopped in the lobby of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability building, where we saw these rain barrels:
While it would be neat to make and decorate a rain barrel as a class, it might not be financially feasible, depending on your classroom budget and access to materials. Another environmental awareness option could be trash cans. In Missouri, the Department of Conservation offers the "No More Trash" Contestto encourage students to fight litter. Classes decorate a thematic trash can and enter it in the contest. Check out the 2016 winning classes here.
I think a school building could also have a trash can decorating contest to encourage students to reduce, reuse, and recycle. It could be held at the beginning of the school year, or in conjunction with Earth Day in April. It could certainly be a Makerspace-friendlyproject, where students could repurpose materials to creatively decorate the trash cans.
At an elementary building where I taught, one of the 7 Habits Leadership Groups collected paper recycling from each classroom once a week as part of their environment project. Classes who recycled correctly were awarded student-made badges for their recycling bins. It was a win-win situation for the students, teachers, and custodial staff.
What ideas do you have to promote environmental awareness with students?
Last week my daughter attended a STEM camp at Loyola University in Chicago. As we walked through the Lake Shore Campus, we found many signs that described the landscaping design. I plan on sharing these examples with my students during Innovation Hour. They are eye-friendly infographics that explain in clear language the thought process that went into an eco-friendly design.
As innovators, we want our work to begin with empathy. Students need to understand the audience for whom they are designing, while also considering the impact on plants, animals, and the environment.
Reading these signs made me wonder what impact our decades-old school buildings have on the environment. What steps could we take as a class to improve the environmental impact of the current building design? Are we affecting plants, wildlife, or the air quality in our neighborhoods? These questions would be great ones to pose and address as part of an environmental study PBL or as part of an independent study project. It would also provide an opportunity to connect with community-based organizations that focus on environmental topics.
Have you found infographic examples that demonstrate empathy in the design process to share with your students?
Last week, my daughter attended a STEM camp at Loyola University in Chicago. The Lake Shore Campus is breathtaking ~ combing gorgeous landscaping, beautiful architecture, and exceptional design elements to promote environmental sustainability.
Our first evening stroll through campus revealed this beautiful thought, "May peace prevail on earth". This photograph only captures the English version, but each of the four sides had the message displayed in two languages ~ a powerful statement of hope.
Read the original post of how I use Fun Finds on Fridays.
This week's finds:
1. Brilliant- Website designed to help you excel in math and science. Users can "learn from wiki pages and problems written by a community of mathematicians, scientists, and engineers". Students can choose from subjects such as algebra, geometry, basic mathematics, chemistry, computer science, and electricity and magnetism.
2. Pantheon - Visualizes global culture by analyzing data. Check out their Tree Maps, Matrices, Scatterplots, and Maps ~ all are awesome!
3. The 30-Second Brain Test - Which side of your brain is more dominant? Take this 30-second test to find out.
4. DIY - Kids can learn how to do some amazing things - from other kids! They can try a challenge, get peer feedback, and earn badges.
One of our Makerspace sessions this month is a poster session at ISTE in Denver. I attended ISTE for the first time last summer with an eLearning team from my school district. Of all the professional development opportunities I have experienced in my twenty year career, ISTE has had the biggest impact. Twenty thousand people convened in Philadelphia in June of 2015 to learn more about technology in education, and I was fortunate to be one of them.
The ISTE format is the ultimate "Design Your Own PD" experience. You can mix and match from a variety of formats to best meet your learning needs: lectures, panels, research papers, snapshots, forums, interactive lectures, poster sessions, learning academies, playgrounds, and workshops. And, you choose the content that is most applicable to you.
I had the best time at the playgrounds (STEM, Maker, Digital Storytelling, Creativity, Mobile Learning, Games and Virtual Environments, Ed Tech Coaches, and InnovativeEducation), where you could listen to short "how to" presentations, then try the tech out yourself. I gleaned lots of information from visiting with presenters at the posters sessions, where you can sweep through the room and gather perspectives from across the country on a featured topic.
One of my most memorable sessions was a littleBits interactive workshop, where I worked with a team of seven to complete a challenge. We grouped ourselves together randomly, and my small group represented educators from three countries and four states. It was exciting to be part of a team gathered for just thirty minutes, that represented seven different grade levels/subject areas, and had such global diversity. We talked about what education looked like in our part of the world, and how we could integrate littleBits into our specific learning environments.
I am excited/scared/nervous/anxious about presenting next week. I love that we will be part of the Makerspace Poster Session environment. I will learn so much from the other presenters in the session who share my passion for maker environments. I will learn so much from those walking through to visit with us about how the Makerspace concept works in our setting. And, that will just comprise two hours of a four day conference. So much learning!
Two years ago I converted my classroom to a Makerspace environment. In preparing for a couple of professional development sessions we are presenting this summer, I have been reflecting on what has helped the Makerspace concept be successful in my classroom. Here are some tips!
Makerspace Tips
M - Make learning meaningful. Makerspaces are full of opportunities. Students can "make" to show their learning on a topic, demonstrating how they are meeting the learning standards for your district. They can "make" as part of genius hour/passion projects/independent study/innovation hour. They can make in response to a teacher prompt. Or, they can make as part of a PBL project.
A - Ask for donations of supplies. Give parents, staff, and the community a list of materials you would like to add to your space. I have received LEGOs, wood and foam scraps, sewing supplies, art materials, and more. People are very generous, and are often looking for a place to donate things they no longer use.
K - Keep it organized. I use tubs to sort cardboard, plastic, and Styrofoam. I put picturesin LEGO kits to help keep the pieces in the right place. I sort materials by the type of supply. Ikea has fun and inexpensive containers, and the dollar spot at Target is a great place to visit. (Okay, Target in general is a great place to visit.)
E - Expand the possibilities of your space. Find open-ended supplies that will enable students to do a variety of different things. Some examples include Makey Makey, Green Screen, Raspberry Pis, Circuit Stickers, Squishy Circuits, and Roominate.
R - Robotics. There are some really cool robots available to add to your space, in a range of prices. I have added Ozobot, Wonder Workshop's Dash and Dot, Cubelets, Snap Rover, and LEGO WeDo.
S - Start with what you already have. I started with the art supplies that had accumulated over 18 years of teaching. My first summer, I saved cardboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towel rolls. I collected cardboard boxes, plastic lids, Styrofoam from packages, and plastic containers from food items. If you have an iPad, you can download a stop motion animation app and be on your way. Kids can take apart old technology to see how it works, then repurpose the materials to make something new.
P - Passion Projects. If you run a genius hour/innovation hour/20% time, students can use the materials in your Makerspace to create "answers" to "problems" they have identified.
A - Add materials over time. Start adding materials in your classroom budget. Write proposals and grants through websites like Donors Choose, Think It Up, Kids in Need, and local foundations.
C - Challenges. There are so many challenges out there. Use your Makerspace to participate in the International Cardboard Challenge, LEGO creative uses challenge, Wonder Workshop Robotics Competition, Hour of Code, Rube Goldberg Challenge, or Google Science Fair. Watch social media channels to spot additional challenges ~ they pop up all the time!
E - Even more ideas. Play with polymers. Use 3D Doodler Pens. Try claymation. Solve a problem in the world. Complete a STEM challenge. Learn to program. Just tinker!
Read the original post on how I use Tech Tip Tuesday.
"Teachery" Tech Tips for this week:
It's summer, so my focus will be on Tech Tips that can help teachers in their classrooms.
1. ViewPureallows you to "watch YouTube videos without comments, ads, or other distractions". It's in beta, and just as awesome as it sounds! I've been using it extensively this week while I've been building a course in Moodle(which is equally awesome for blended learning).
2. EdPuzzle allows you to crop, add your own audio track, record audio notes, and ask questions of the viewers. You can pull videos directly from YouTube, Khan Academy, LearnZillion, National Geographic, TED Talks, Vimeo, and more! You can even use content developed by other EdPuzzle users. It will send your creations directly to your Google Classroom, if you wish, or you can use the URL link. Another exceptional tool for blended learning!
3. youcubed, sponsored by Stanford University, offers a week of iMath with lessons and activities for use in your classroom. Jo Boaler specializes in growth mindsets and the field of math, and offers an extensive research-based collection of amazing resources on the site. Check it out!
I have never been able to draw. I have a standard stick person (which covers both genders and all ages), a stick animal (which encompasses animals of the land, see, and air), and a basic house, tree, and flower. Any time I play a game with my own children that requires drawing, I just groan. And silently question why Santa brought those games to begin with - what WAS he thinking?
This winter, Santa brought an independent drawing game that both the kids and I LOVE. Not because I can draw now, but because it requires creative thought! (And, one person can play by themselves, relieving me from a drawing requirement.)
The Extraordinaire Design Studio is described as "a creative thinking game for problem solvers. If you've ever wondered what it's like to invent a music player for a robot, a remote control for a pirate, or a cooking utensil for a vampire teen, this game is for you." This is an amazing opportunity for children to be creative!
In the above image, my daughter drew the Extraordinaire card "future child" and the project card "ceremony place". Her design title is China's New Year, and she has created a transportation tube, reusable fireworks (maybe because our family describes fireworks as watching your money burn up in front of you), a hover board, a floating dragon, and the future child with flaps and rocket boots.
As for me, I still can't draw. But, I am trying. I have been working on developing a Growth Mindset along with my students, grades kindergarten through eighth. In most areas, I do have a growth mindset, but when it comes to drawing, I have a fixed mindset. Fixed as in "set in concrete and never going to change type of mindset". So, as an example to my students, I am working on drawing. I know that I will never be great at drawing, but I can get better.
Here is a "before" example:
We were playing Who What Where Jr. The Funny Drawing Game for Kids. In this game, you draw three cards: a who, a what, and a where, and combine them into a picture. Using my interpretive skills, I think this example was a snake/worm, flying a kite, in a barn. My family always lets me draw multiple cards of each category, knowing that I need to find something that I can make halfway recognizable for them.
While my drawings are more recognizable (my goal), and a huge step forward from the snake/worm flying a kite in a barn, I still need the heavily structured advice of the book. I can work step-by-step through a lesson and draw a picture that my family can recognize. I am not yet able to transfer my skills to a random drawing situation (which I still avoid at all costs). But, I have only completed seven lessons (in four months). And, as I tell my students, a growth mindset means "I can work hard and improve", so I will keep working.
Read the original post of how I use Fun Finds on Fridays.
This week's finds:
1. Secrets of the Snowy Owl - Watch this video to "follow the migration path of Baltimore, the young male snowy owl outfitted with a GPS transmitter backpack for a research project called Project Snowstorm."
Many names - similar purpose - a time when students are allowed to independently (or collaboratively) investigate topics of their choice. In my classroom, it is the highlight of every grade level of students I work with - first through eighth. They love the chance to delve deeper into their passion areas.
The best video I have found for launching this part of our day is The Time You Have (in JellyBeans). It helps students realize the importance of focusing on something they are passionate about.
After viewing the video, and thinking carefully about the limited amount of time we have to focus on things we are truly passionate about, we brainstorm a list of things we want to learn more about.
During the next session, we try to narrow down our focus of study (knowing that this is always flexible). Most of my students have two or three different projects they are working on, and will move fluidly between them. At first I worried about this, but after reading Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, I realized that an innovator needs to let an idea simmer in the back of the mind for a while (maybe even for a decade), waiting for it to connect with the missing pieces of the puzzle before it can be acted upon.
An example of a student project:
Writing, casting, acting, directing, and editing a movie. On the side, developing a plan for a natural grocery store, creating advertising, and analyzing potential revenue and expenditures.
Check-in Process:
As part of our check-in process, each student briefly shares what he or she worked on that day, struggled with, or had questions about. It is through this process that we discover how we can be the "missing pieces" for others. In the student example above, one classmate stepped in to sew the costumes for the actors in the movie, one stepped in to create the special effects, and one stepped in to help design the props. While each student was working on their "individual projects", they discovered that they could use their area of passion to help each other be successful.
Providing Inspiration Along the Way:
As the year progresses, I share inspirational stories and video clips about innovators from around the world. I watch for features about students and adults who have worked to solve problems through innovation - in a variety of fields. Kids need to know that regardless of their passion area, they can make a contribution to the world. TED has a playlist of 8 Talks to Inspire Projects With Kidsthat is a great resource to encourage students to tinker, make, and innovate.
Final Products:
In our room, we share our "final" products when they are individually done. We don't have a set deadline for the class. Each student works at his or her own pace, and I help guide, nudge, and encourage them along the way. Some students work on one idea in-depth for the entire school year. Some work for a semester, a quarter, a month, or just a week, then move on to another area. Each student is allowed great control over the length of time they spend on a topic, and can abandon it or set it aside for a while as needed. I honor student voice in this way, because I am noticing, documenting, and visiting with them about their interest areas, attempts, success, and growth as a learner. Through this process, we have had had a wealth of products created and shared. These include: models of businesses, creation of original stuffed animals, toys designed for pets, plays written, polymers investigated, original games coded, languages studied, vocal ranges increased, blogs created, public service announcements produced, movies made, chess studied, programming languages learned, websites developed, commercials made, and music composed.
Innovation / Genius Hour Symbaloo Webmix:
(A living document that will be edited and updated)
The top purple area links to ideas for launching a genius hour
The pink portion comprises innovator resources
Teal represents foreign language links
Greenlinks to kid-friendly search engines
Grayfocuses on compassion connections
The other shade of purpleis for video conferencing
Blueis presentation tools
The Next Step:
We have started to add a global compassion connection to our independent study time. It consists of connecting each student and their passion area to a person in a different country, who has a similar passion area. This project is in its infancy, but I will be blogging about it in the future!
We recently visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and my daughter was thrilled that the museum offered booklets for children to work in as they visited many of the collections.
We eventually worked our way to the Japanese collection and discovered a collection of poetry. Visitors were asked to write a poem after viewing the screens, scrolls, woodblock prints, ceramics, and sculptures. They could choose to take their poem with them, or contribute to the collection, which is show in the image below.
A notebook of "Poetic Inspiration" was available for visitors to look through while they wrote their poems.
I think this idea would make a great addition to a classroom or library. Contributors could write a poem and add it to the collection.
Read the original post on how I use Tech Tip Tuesday.
I recently attended Chromebooks in the Classroom training courtesy of MOREnet. Next year, our middle school is going 1:1, and an elementary building and our high school should be 2:1. I learned a lot of helpful tips and tricks, and would share the following ones first with students.
Chromebook Tech Tips:
1. Use the search key (magnifying glass where caps lock usually is). It opens a smaller window to do a Google search and is a shortcut to apps.
2. Keyboard Shortcuts: Use Control, Alt, and ? to highlight what the shortcuts are. When the smaller window is open, hold in on Control, Alt, Shift, or Search (magnifying glass) individually to see what the shortcuts are ~ Game Changer!
3. Make a Split Screen: Use Alt { to split your screen to the left. Use a second time to make it smaller, and a third time to go back to original size. Alt } does the same thing for a right split.
Ideas.Ted.Com's article How to turn small talk into smart conversation is a gem for those looking to move small talk to a deeper level. It includes tips from a comedian and a journalist on how to ask for stories, not answers, break the typical "mirror" response to small talk conversation, and leapfrog over the expected responses to move conversation along.
I find that students need guidance to enhance their surface-level conversational skills. I model the prompts in the article to help guide students to deeper, more meaningful conversations. It's fun to try these prompts when you converse with adults too.
