The Packet is Dead! (or at least it should be)

Remember the packet?  I mentioned “the packet” the other day in a workshop could see that everyone knew exactly what I was talking about.   The packet – a number of “worksheets” stapled together that students can work on independently -in theory, not so bad, in practice, not so good.  Not too long ago, there was a Youtube video, of a student ranting against the packet- (warning – “strong language”).  The video went viral, mostly because everyone understood what this student was talking about! 

However, not all packets are created equal.  Some very good project-, problem- and challenge-based learning activities start with something like a packet, but questions, challenges, and resources send students far beyond the packet.  The thing is, there are simple ways to get students to work independently, creatively, collaboratively, and thinking critically.  Why not avoid the packet all together?  You can present interactive problems with links, collaborative discussion areas, brainstorming centers and student workspaces using simple technology tools.   

Take a look of these sample projects and launch your project with the same creativity and learning objectives you expect from your students (and look like you are some kind of techno-geek in the process).  

These simple tools offer students (and parents) 24-7 access to the project that they can never lose:

Wiki – this wiki is a great example of how a problem can be presented, resources linked and places provided where students can work and share with other students.  This problem was presented to teams of teachers in the problem-based learning style. 

Livebinders- I am a great fan of Livebinders because they are so simple to use.  You can insert documents, provide links and resources all in one nice neat package (note I did not say packet!))  This one presents a challenge to students, provides links, resources, rubrics, and even a place for them to share their finished products.

Blendspace  provides a place for you to insert text to present the challenge and then places that you can link websites, photos, videos, etc. to give students different perspectives to study.  This is a great way to share informational text for common core standards. 

Ted-Ed provides a really simple interface where you can start students out with a challenge via video (or just provide a video to get them thinking) and you can then supply “The right questions” to get them thinking and learning.  You can provide links to information, and collaborative sites to enrich the lesson or project.  Here is my most recent critical thinking problem on graffiti presented Ted-ED style.

Google web site and docs – This is a great mock-up of a class web page made by the people at ITSCO for their AMLE work session.  They used a Google site with links to separate Google docs for the students to work on in small groups.  They provided a large group timeline for the entire group to work on and an exit quiz using Google forms for assessment.  What a great way to leverage all of these free Google tools to provide resources, a collaborative space and assessment.  The ITSCO people did a great job with all of their mini workshops at AMLE, you can check out their other workshops and resources  with this link.  Top quality work!

Web page I attended a PBL workshop last year, where Mr. Cooper was kind enough to share his website with us.  He shared some great examples of how a teacher might use a website to present students with a project, provide resources, etc. (Note:  he has a place where you can “print the packet” for those of you that ask “what if a child does not have access to technology at home?”) 

Want apps?  Check out apps for challenge based learning which provides suggestions for apps for launching and supporting a challenge based learning project from start to finish.

Setting up a SCAN scenario for discussion can be a great way to launch a problem-based learning experience with your students.  You can attach links customized to reading levels, and get them to see a problem from different perspectives before they get started.

Although, I might not express myself in the same way as Jeff Bliss has in his viral youtube video (although, I am pretty sure I might have in high school!) I agree that “if you want kids to come in here and get excited for this, you gotta make ‘em excited!”  PBL’s and technology are a great way to achieve that goal.  Ditch those packets, as Bliss says “you gotta take this job serious, it is the future of the nation!”

Witchful Thinking: Trick Them into Learning on Halloween

Lily Jones confesses to be a Halloween Grinch in her latest blog post, but there are plenty of creative teachers devising ways to mix the fun of the holiday in their witches’ cauldron.  The last #njed twitter discussion had my tweeps coming up with applications for every grade level and subject area. 

Ideas from the pumpkin patch

@principalarc had kids decorate pumpkins based on lit characters.  Here are some guidelines for that activity.

@mrnesi remembers predicting the volume of a pumpkin – other suggestions include counting ridges, seeds, graphing, averaging, and estimating with pumpkin seeds.

Or the candy store

Although some would rather not ruin their festivities with negative aspects of candy, you can do a lot of math with a bag of it:  count and graph, weigh for accuracy, look at nutritional information, calculate the calories in your trick or treat bag.

Or costumes from the old trunk upstairs

@wwpscience Theme it for the class. If reading a book with the class, costumes of characters. I gave credit for dressing up as scientists.

Dress as literary characters, scientists, historical figures, etc.

 

Or the science lab

Great experiements @dandanscience offers spooky science experiments

 @mrnesi – feely bags- record notes, make predictions.

Did I miss your subject area?

Of course, Jerry Blumengarten, better known as @Cybraryman1 has got you covered with his wonderful collection of links and resources for every aspect of Halloween. 

There are tons of potential writing prompts for Halloween, but what about the critical thinking component?  Are you hitting the common core?

Ratchet up their thinking

Let’s circle back to our self-proclaimed Grinch, what if your town was carefully considering cancelling Halloween?  This is the premise of the free SCAN lesson, “Should We Cancel Halloween?”  The scenario starts:

Due to some recent vandalism in your town, the town council is discussing canceling trick or treating this year.  You have been invited to the town meeting to decide what action should be taken.  After listening to the concerns of parents, students, police and council members you will help develop a plan of action for Halloween night.

Of course, using the SCAN tool, students would take on the roles of those in the meeting, visit web resources to gather evidence to support their point of view and discuss and clarify the issues online.  From this collaboration, they would decide what should be done.  Throw in a little civics with a discussion around whether the government has the right to cancel a holiday!   A little critical thinking, a little creativity and a little common core all swirled together in a witches brew!

To access this lesson and learn more about the SCAN online discussion tool, check out this short video.

Teachable Moment: 3 Things the Government Shutdown and Graffiti Have in Common

What does the government shutdown have to do with a graffiti artist in NYC?  First, both arise as teachable moments, an unplanned opportunity to connect social studies, language arts, and the arts to real world current events.  Second, resolution of the issues will take the ability to see other perspectives and compromise.  Third, they are both “complex situations” with plenty of different perspectives that can teach students to think critically about such questions as:

• How do rules protect individual rights as well as meet the needs of society?
• What are the responsibilities of a good citizen? 
• What are the responsibilities of our leaders?
• What are the lessons that can be learned from current events?
• What role does social media or the media, in general, play in our perspective of events?

No time like the present

Many educators feel they might not have the time to talk about current events, but with increased expectations for critical thinking, evidence-based persuasive writing, and literacy skills in all subject areas, hot news stories can hook your students and encourage them to develop critical thinking around the issues. 

Embrace, deface or erase?

Look at the issues surrounding the famed (or infamous?) British graffiti artist, Banksy, who is taking up an “artist’s residency” this month in New York City.  Each day in October he is “installing” art in a New York City neighborhood.  The art, sometimes whimsical (he has painted “the musical” under some other NYC graffiti so that it read Playground Mob – the musical) or complex as the painting of horses at war with night vision goggles, or beautiful as this truck transformed into the ultimate diarama.  His graffiti/art is drawing crowds and creating quite a buzz in social media as people strive to discover and share it before it disappears.

Ask your students

Is this person an artist or a criminal?  Should his art be covered up or protected from other graffiti behind plexiglass?  Should we embrace or erase?  Are the people defacing his art any different? Being outside the law is part of his popularity, should he be stopped?

There is a great lesson in the SCAN library that can give your students a head start in their critical thinking.  The Graffiti:  Freedom of Expression or Vandalism? Scenario in the SCAN tool at TregoED.org provides 4 different perspectives, guiding critical thinking questions and a private discussion area for your class.  (The SCAN library holds over 100 other free scenarios that teachers can use with their classes.  For a short video about the tool or how to set up a lesson go to http://tregoed.org/teachers/new-to-scan.html.) 

You can add these links to your lesson to provide background research to help students develop their perspective:

Video news clips:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50156760n

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0b90YppquE

http://news.yahoo.com/video/banksy-goes-rogue-nyc-233840768.html

News stories:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/elusive-graffiti-artist-banksy-hits-nyc-20474753

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/urban-artist-banksy-dots-boroughs-creations-article-1.1477611

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/9/4819726/banksy-interviewed-about-new-york-art-show-better-out-than-in

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/08/20871038-banksys-nyc-street-show-draws-fans-and-defacers?lite

Don’t miss this opportunity to use this event as an opportunity to think critically about our laws and responsibilities as citizens as well as consider how compromise, civil discourse and different perspectives all come to play in the resolution of the problem.

Make another connection

Use these Best Resources on Compromise and Best Resources to help Understand the Federal Government Shutdown compiled by Larry Ferlazzo and posted on his blog “Websites of the Day” to take student thinking one step further.  How do those same essential questions apply to this situation?

NOTE:  The SCAN lesson library and discussion tool is 100% free to educators. This SCAN lesson was inspired by MaryAnne Molishus elementary class project http://scan-werecriticaltothinking.blogspot.com/2012/02/current-events-prompt-critical-thinking.html. 

Everybody's Doing It - Using Books to Create Communities

There is no doubt that people get interested in things when “everybody’s doing it” – that is the basis for going viral…everyone is watching OR those hard to come by toys that become a craze at the holidays (I am hearing that the rainbow loom bracelets are going to be hot this holiday…I feel driven to purchase them even though I have no one to give them too!).  Harry Potter is a great example of “viral” reading –all ages got in on the reading because we wanted to know what the hubbub was about.  That’s the idea of community book reads – get people talking, making connections, and reading! 

I have joined an adult book club, that is, a book club made up of adults, not reading adult books, well, we are, but not that kind, but, well, I digress.  Anyway, we are a diverse group (except that many of us have been in education in one form or another), different interests and experiences which makes our discussions very rich.  I can attest to the fact that having just one book in common, we have indeed become a community, we have a built-in connection, camaraderie, relationships, because we have something to talk about, something in common, something to connect with.  And we are forced to think outside the box (that is the TV box). 

Going beyond the Language Arts Classroom

Extending a common book choice beyond the classroom walls, to the entire school community and beyond can help students, teachers and other adults connect.  Whether they like the book or not is immaterial (some of our best book club discussions are the books that we do not all love!). Building a community is easy when you all start out with similar interests, ideals or experiences, and building a community is essential in the classrooms!

Going beyond the School Building

Extending a community book choice beyond the school to parents and community has great relationship-building potential.  The Black Rive Middle School in Chester, NJ has selected Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt as a community read.  They will be using it as one of the foundations for advisory discussions – a great way to connect kids to kids and kids to adults.  Parents, too can benefit from having read the same book as their child – gives them a topic beyond “what did you do in school today?”. 

So how do you get started?

Looking for a good book?  The Library of Congress has resources for the “One Book” program.  It lists books that have been used by state or community over the last years.  The lists go by state – apparently it is no longer active, but there are some great ideas and reads listed there.

Want to start a formal discussion?

Just type in the title of your book and “book club discussions” and you will get a set of standard questions to get you started.  I use little sticky note tabs to make places in the books that I am reading that catch my attention to share with the group.  In my book club, some question-types make you glaze over (more appropriate for that language arts classroom), however, everyone seems to like the questions that ask you to connect the book to your own life – making the book relevant works with all ages.  Litlovers.com is an excellent resource for questions, etc.

Need something to get kids interested?  

Get kids hooked by looking at the Banned books list. Here is a list of activities that you can get kids reading and thinking about around banned books:  Banned Books:  The Forbidden Fruit

Want to start a virtual discussion? Try these tools:

Collaborizeclassroom.com is another great platform for discussions, check out this great facilitators guide to get you started.  

Google hangouts can be used for real time book discussions AND you can often get authors to “hang out” with you there!  Mary Beth Hertz suggests this and other ideas for Google hangouts in her blog on Edutopia.

Google groups can also be used to form a group for discussion outside the classroom. 

Connected Educators

Why not try out getting connected to other educators by joining a nationwide book discussion.  Sign up at njamle.wikispaces.com to join us.  We will start a discussion on Dave Burgess’s book “Teach Like a Pirate” on October 15^th.  We’ll even get Dave to join us!

What books would you recommend for community reads?  What tools would you use to facilitate them?

All Work, No Play, Makes a Teacher.....

Much is said about the fact that teachers (technically) have two months off!  Truth be told, most of us find some kind of summer job to keep a paycheck coming in.  Others take on the daunting task of full time parenthood.  As a mother of two active boys, I often tried to unionize the other mothers on the beach to fight for a 35 minute, duty-free lunch….but alas!

Hit the Refresh Button

Many of us do try to schedule a vacation “while we have the time”…and there is something to be said for traveling.  Getting away in a tent, motorhome, bed and breakfast or hotel, gives you time to refresh and sometime to build memories with your own children.  Often our destinations are selected to fuel our passions – for art, history, or the great out of doors

Teachers in the Real World

The fact is, you need life experiences to be a teacher.  How can you relate the reasons for learning something or offer authentic experiences if you don’t have any yourself?  Even going through a museum –the same museum you have been to many times with students- is a different experience when you are not spending the whole time counting heads!   Why, you can even read some of the signage!  There are so many opportunities that you use to connect your life experiences to the world to academics in the classroom.   

In addition, it is also good for your students to actually know you have a life.  How many times have you seen the look on a kids face when they “catch” you outside the building?  There is usually a look of shock, a whisper to their mom, “That’s Mrs. Wozniak,” followed by a big grin that they have somehow caught you in the act of living.   Of course, the encounter usually happens when you are buying toilet paper in Shoprite, having a beer at the bowling alleys or sunning yourself on the nude beach (just seeing if you are paying attention – I actually wear one of those 1920’s bathing suits with the pantaloons unless I have left the state, but I digress. )

The bottom line is that, teachers do have two months outside of the classroom, but it seems like we never stop thinking about it.  Once we have hit the refresh button, our minds go back to the many possibilities for connections in the classroom.  How does taking a break make YOU a better teacher?

Plan Now: Start Small, Think Big and Celebrate!

Well, I started my summer off  in the Mecca of PD- at the ISTE 2013 Conference.  There was sharing and problem solving, presentations and conversations, tweets and chats.  I am wondering if my PD Certificate will cover all that I learned:

on the bus
 in the elevator

in the cafes

in the ballroom with 5000 thumb wrestlers

in the open space classroom of the exhibit hall

                                                      in the frozen tundra of a classroom for 500

                                                      on the plane, in the van, and even in the classrooms.

Here is what I learned:

1. Passion is catching…that’s right, you pirates out there, passion does not just get passed to the kids, but we can share it with each other!
2. Giving teachers a voice and a choice is invigorating.  Again, this is something that we know works with kids.  Surprise!  Educators respond well to taking control of their own professional development, seeking out what they needed, finding what they were interested in and looking for answers for their kids and their districts.  What is good for the goose….
3. There are tons of great ideas, activities, tools, collaborators and colleagues out there happy to share so that you do not have to reinvent the wheel!

So now what do you do with all your new found knowledge? How can this lead to change in your classroom, your teaching, and your students?  It can seem overwhelming.

Small Changes, Big Differences

In a July/August 2013 article “Small Changes, Big Differences” in Teaching Exceptional Children (Council for Exceptional Children), Barbara Ludlow states that change happens with many small improvements over time.  She points to the Japanese term, Kaizen, which is a combination of the characters for “change” and “good.”  She says that term expresses the belief that change comes from the efforts of workers rather than researchers or leaders.  Applying that philosophy to education the change would happen in the classroom with the workers being both teachers and students.  Barbara adds that not only does change come about with small continual improvements, but that those same small changes should be celebrated!

So how does that translate to us?

“Small improvements over time” means that you can take that huge pile of ideas, activities, and suggestions and start small.  Tweak a lesson, a unit, or a procedure with the things you have learned.  Make your classroom an endless cycle of continuous improvement and celebrate those improvements.  Change does not have to be overwhelming and in fact is happening on a regular basis at the hands of millions of practitioners in schools every day.

So, start your plans now, start small, think big…but don’t stop there – celebrate your successes and share!

Awards Assembly with a Twist

I have sat through a number of great and some mind numbing assemblies at the end of the year.  (You know the ones-where everyone gets a certificate and the few that don’t, don’t care?)  Don’t get me wrong, I think that students should be recognized for their successes. (Students loved being honored on my “wall of fame” bulletin board in my class…but I digress).   I recently attended an awards assembly with a twist at the the Black River Middle School in Chester, NJ. 

The Hall of Fame

This assembly had both staff and students proud and excited.  It was a “Hall of Fame Induction” honoring outstanding alumni of their middle school.   (Alas, I graduated from this same school system, but since there is no one alive that can attest to that, and there was no BRMS at the time, I am not eligibleJ).  What a great way to have students learn about their own potential, through the eyes of someone who had sat in their very same chairs not so long ago. 

Sharing Memories and Inspiration

The inductees represented a wide range of areas of success from politics, law and community volunteerism to business and athletics. Each honored guest gave a short speech with some anecdotes about their time at the school (some pointing out their teachers) and then pointing out that any one of the 7^th graders in that audience could achieve their dreams if they just put their minds to it.  Joseph S. Pizzo, language arts teacher, created the Hall with his students “to honor exemplary former students and community members who provide real-life success stories for our students.”  That’s the key, not just real life, but connecting to their lives!

Project Based Learning

I cannot help but think of all of the potential learning opportunities that can come just from having students participate in all phases of the planning process- from collecting nominees, research, etc. to planning the actual event (writing, reading introductions, writing press releases, letters of invitation, etc).  The selection process itself, from setting criteria, weighing candidates and making the selection is a great lesson in decision analysis.  Sounds like a problem based learning activity waiting to happen- complete with critical thinking processes and multiple writing opportunities.

I want to thank Joe Pizzo for inviting me in and invite the rest of you to share any twists that you might add to your end of the year assemblies.