Reflection Week 13

This week we talked about informative and formative assessments. After reading my peers blogs, the jest is that educators need to create an assessment that is motivating to students. Mia mentioned how she uses a UBD when creating her units for the classroom. This helps create assessments that will motivate students and check their understanding of the topic. In her unit and in Thomas's they are both using MinecraftEdu. From personal experience, I have seen students be motivated like there was no tomorrow. A colleague of mine that completed Givercraft saw a different moral in his students when they were not allowed to be in MinecraftEdu during the school day. Parents were letting students stay in school instead of picking them up with other siblings for appointments because of the MinecraftEdu project. We found a program that motivates students and they want to succeed.

Throughout the activity in my colleagues class, he always had the rubric and expectations sitting in front of the students to refer back to. Students were able to set goals and motivate themselves. Educators also received "best work" from students and were able to assess their understanding of the content being taught. Ali mentions how it's important to give feedback, but also to provide grades to show what areas students need specific support in. I think portfolio's and a collection of the students work is a better way to assess the standards, but from the comments this week, it's important to think about college entrance exams and middle school advancements. Without grades we can't put the student in the correct class. I think grades need to provide evidence of student understanding and areas they need support on. Portfolio's and informative assessments can be what makes the student motivated and to show their best work. Something they will be proud in sharing and setting goals to achieve. These are the kinds of assessments we want to create in our classroom.

UBD Differentiation Unit/ Reflection 13

For my unit I am using Accelerated Reader. This program allows students to read at different leveled books. I have them working with groups and asking each other questions on what they read. While students are reading together, I am reading with a different group each day and assessing their learning. Students will then take a quiz individually on the computer. The quiz is formatted by Accelerated Reader. The quiz will ask students questions about key details and major events from the text they read. Students will then receive instant feedback on their score from the quiz. Students will have an opportunity to review the missed questions and go back over the areas that were incorrect and see the correct response. Students will be asked to complete a log of the books they read and the scores that they received. Students will complete an exit slip at the end to assess their own learning and cooperative work with their group.

You can view the UBD unit here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pISR7QNy6WiIHOi1IQ1vAE5RO7iiNliJWB4JzznwIL4/edit?usp=sharing


Reflection for Week 13 here:

Week 13

Essential question: How can I use both formative and summative assessment to enhance (or at least not interfere with) intrinsic motivation?

         Let me start out by saying I’m not a fan of assessments. I think it’s important to understand where your student is and if they understand what you are teaching to them. However, the assessments that we are required to give to our students are ridiculous. This is a personal opinion and I don’t intend to offend anyone from this statement. My apologies in advance; we have literally spent almost the whole month of April giving students the new SBA, which is now called AMP. When the students are taking this test, no one else can use the computer lab in lower grades 2-K.  The SBA’s used to be paper-based, multiple choice and have students write essays. This year is the new Amp and the students are required to use the computer. I think it’s about time we have a test that uses the technology we have in our lifetime, but this test needs work. The students who took this test this year started at 9:00 a.m. and didn’t finish until 3:00. They had recess and lunch breaks, but that was it. Looking at a computer screen for that long and reading is extremely hard on the students’ eyes. None of the teachers or administrators I have discussed the AMP with are pleased with the new system. I know all new things will take time to get used to and to change to best suite the students.

            The AMP is all multiple choice questions. Students do not write essays or have problems to solve (show work). Throughout the years it will change, but I’m wondering how are the other students doing with taking this test? Writing turns into typing? Our school had the Amp on specific Air books, and had no access to an Internet. We talk about how students can cheat when given an assessment, so what are other schools/states doing for the AMP to make sure students don’t look up on the Internet their answer. Teachers are monitoring and the test is not timed (as of now) so how is cheating being prevented?

            Speaking about cheating I have only seen a few times where students in my classroom try to cheat. The reason is they care about the “grade” (Kohn).  They don’t know the problem or how to solve the problem so instead they decide to cheat (plagiarize) to get a good remark. I always tell my students, it doesn’t matter what the grade is. All that matters is if you have learned it and understand it. Still a few will try to look on other’s papers. Howard Seeman lists many tips to help prevent students from cheating. One of the tips #2 reminds me of my teacher in high school science class. My teacher would always give out two sets of tests. Each test would have the questions in a different order. Seeman mentions how to have the answers backwards from each other and use the paper to grade the two together. Also to use different colored paper. If the “learning is genuinely engaging and meaningful to students cheating is very rare” (Kohn).

            If students are “led to focus on how well they’re doing more than on what they’re doing, they may do whatever they think is necessary to make it look as though they’re succeeding” (Kohn).

            One thing that I have noticed throughout the years is that assessments and the results from them has become the creator of our education system. Every school that I have taught in has a block system. “Valuable activities such as play, project-based learning, the arts, and even science and social studies are being crowded out for more test preparation, often focusing only on reading and mathematics” (Wheatley).  Throughout my week I only have 30 minutes two times per week to teach science or social studies. I had to find a way to integrate the subjects into the reading block.

            I have found I use more a norm-referenced assessment in my classrooms. This helps me “select students for different ability level reading or mathematics instructional groups” (Bond). I think the best way to use formative and summative assessments is to have the students be driven and want to see the results. Let students set goals and have them work to achieve those goals.

            In my unit, the website and program I am using has assessments created in the program. After the students are done reading their leveled book they take a quiz. Immediately the students are given a percentage score on how well they answered the questions. They are then allowed to look back at the questions and notice which ones were answered incorrectly and what the correct answer was. I have noticed that my students can’t wait to take a quiz. They are excited to complete the quiz and watch their flower grow from the points they acquire after successfully taking the quiz. I think if students have goals to set they will be motivated to achieve them and do well on any kind of assessments.

            When I taught at a charter school in Fairbanks, the school didn’t have grades/report cards after each quarter for the students. Instead they had a portfolio with all of the evidence showing how the student mastered the standard. Inside the portfolio was a letter from the teacher and a letter from the parents explaining what they noticed the students strengths were and areas they could improve on. This type of assessment would let students create goals to work towards. It would help students step away from getting the “correct” answer on a test and work towards understanding what their learning rather than memorizing. Portfolio assessments provide an insight into the student’s work and views. I think it’s important to have an assessment that still shows students can “learn how to read, write, and do math capably before they graduate” (Mathews). Portfolios will give students something to work towards and teachers will have an assessment to give that checks student understanding towards the standards being taught.

            Personally giving a timed one-minute assessment on reading fluency does not properly assess the student’s ability. Depending on when the test was given, the student could have been having an on or off day and the score is affected. Showing evidence and growth from a certain time, that is a proper assessment on the student’s ability.

Resources:

Bond, L. A. (1996). Norm-and Criterion-Referenced Testing. ERIC/AE Digest. Retrieved from: http://www.ericdigests.org/1998-1/norm.htm

Kohn, A. (2008). Who’s Cheating Whom? Phi Delta Kappan. Retrieved from: http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/whos-cheating/ 13 April 2015.

Wheatley, K. F. (2015). Factors that Perpetuate Test-Driven, Factory-Style Schooling: Implications for Policy and Practice. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 10(2). Retrieved from:http://ijlter.org/index.php/ijlter/article/viewFile/261/pdf

Seeman, H. (2004, December 6). Cheating in the Classroom: How to Prevent It (and How to Handle It If It Happens). Retrieved April 15, 2015, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev045.shtml

Mathews, J. (2009, November 19). Portfolio Assessment - Education Next. Retrieved April 15, 2015, from http://educationnext.org/portfolio-assessment/

Week 12 Reflection

            This week we talked about Brain Based Learning. It was a very interesting week. I found myself during all of the readings, having to take brain breaks and walks to clear my head and help my brain sink in the knowledge I was reading about. It was a lot of information to take in! There was no way I could read the chapters in one sitting and reflect with a clear mind.

            During the readings I reminisced the days that I taught in an ELS (Title I school). I thought of the students I had with different scenarios from the text and how I handled the situation and then thought how I probably should have handled the situation after reading this book! One probably calling parents or the principal to fix the problem, was not the best choice. Instead having a lesson on how to “be a friend” treat others with the whole class or that particular student would have been the better choice.

            Students brains react to the change in their environment. When a person is in a hostile environment and has a lot of stress, their brain does not function correctly or they might not think of the problem the same, if they were in a calm and safe environment. As an educator it’s important to always have a safe learning environment for your students. I remember when I had a student hit another student across the back with a chair. The student that kept getting hurt, didn’t feel safe and started to not come to school. It took a lot of interventions, meetings, phone calls, home visits to make sure this child felt safe again. Granted I was gone and had a sub when this whole thing went down, so that made it even worse to fix the problem.

            I don’t thing every solution or problem can be fixed by teaching the students how to solve it differently. Some students need a lot of extra support.  CSF is a program within our school district that teaches students how to make “safe and positive choices”. Understanding how the brain is and what the environment is with these students, will help know how to create a program for them.

            It will help teachers know what strategies to use when creating lessons and differentiating throughout the lesson.  After reading my peers’ blogs this week, we all have a theme. Know your students’ background, prior knowledge, have a safe learning environment for them to learn in and relate what they’re learning to every day life to bring to long term memory. Also, it’s important to give students time to reflect on what they learned and provide feedback to the students. Tell them how they solved the problem and guide them to the correct solution. Direct instruction needs to be 5-8 minutes or we will lose our students.

            I wrote this on Tristan’s blog to help with reflection in the classroom. I tried this out after the readings this week. Instead of having my students sit, turn and talk to their partner to reflect on what they learned from a math lesson. I had them find  a partner and walk around the room. While they were walking around the room I had them reflect on what they learned. Then after a minute or so I had them stop and share (using a stick cup to call on students) what they learned from the activity. I had more engaged students and didn’t get the blank stare response.

            This week I also tried the brain break activity from Moore and Seller’s presentation. It was the thumb up and pointed finger switch. My students and I were learning the steps to writing a letter. I asked a question and had no response from my students. I also saw the blank/glazed eyes. I quickly stopped the lesson, had the students stand up and tried the new brain break. The students loved it. After the break, we sat down and they were more engaged and ready to learn.

            I always do a brain break in the afternoon, but my goal for the future is to incorporate more breaks throughout the day and when I see my students needing one. I will also use the pair, share and walk reflection time from now on and keep finding ways to change my students brain from short term memory to long term memory.

Resources

http://www.asdk12.org/forms/uploads/CSF_brochure.pdf

Week 12

What is brain-based learning and how can it inform problem based learning and differentation?

            Brain based learning is the “purposeful engagement of effective strategies derived from principles of neuroscience” (Moore and Sellers). It’s what keeps students engaged in the classroom. Every morning we start the day with a morning song. It gives the students a chance to get in the rhythm to learn and wake up their brain. It’s kind of funny, to think of waking up your brain, but it’s true. Students need breaks throughout their day. A classroom should not have students sitting for long periods of time. Students should only have “5-8 minutes of direction instruction” (Jensen) and many brain breaks throughout the day. One tool I like to use in my classroom is Gonoodle.com this site has many different videos you can play for your students. My students favorite is Zumba. I particularly like the Flow videos to have my students do before taking an assessment. It calms them down and gets them ready to do their best on the test.

         Students need to be active learners in the classroom. Teachers who “avoid active learning run the risk of having bored, fatigued learners.” (Jensen). We have all been there, asking ourselves “when is this class ever going to end!” The trick is to give the students a lot of movement throughout each lesson. It’s also important for students to build on their “prior knowledge” (Jensen). KWL charts are my favorite for this activity. You can do them as a whole class and in higher grade levels you can complete them independently and then pair and share with a partner. It really helps the teacher understand what the students know before the lesson, what they want to learn and a great reflection tool to use at the end of the lesson. 

         Constantly throughout out my lessons I have students working with partners and groups. They are problem solving with each other and collaborating to find a solution for a problem and also to check the other peers understanding and get different ideas on a vocabulary world, for example. “When students have to talk to others about information, they retain the information longer and more efficiently” (Moore and Sellers) they are able to build off of each other’s prior knowledge and provide a more in-depth understanding.

         Anytime I can, I have students move around the classroom. When they are reading with a partner, I have them sit anywhere of their choosing in the room. The only place they can’t sit is their desk. The quick few minutes of walking to a new area is a nice break for them. The other day we were doing a science activity on balancing. The students worked with partners to create their structures and practice balancing it. They were sitting for a while, so the next activity I wanted them to practice balancing after listening to a story of a gymnast. This next activity was not in the “teachers manual” but, I know my students and they learn a lot better by moving “kinesthetic activities in your classroom” (Willis) than auditory. So I took the beams we were given in the kit and created “balance beams” for the students. The students paired up and walked over to their “balance beam”. The students practiced walking on the beam and noticed the difference in their balance with their hands moving up and down. Not to go into the whole lesson, but this was an activity that I used to help them retain the information in their brain. After the activity we reflected, wrote and illustrated in our science journal. The students informed me a few days later, they remembered the activity and their favorite one was walking on the “balance beam.” If it’s engaging to the students they will enjoy it and retain it.

         Another activity you could do in the classroom is “put a number line down on the floor and have students walk on it when learning negative and positive numbers” (Willis) you could also do this when practicing skip counting. Think outside the box. Do whatever is going to keep students engaged and moving during the activity!

         The reading this week mentioned about how teachers need to “reduce homework stress by incorporating time for homework in class or right after class” (Jensen). I couldn’t agree more. I don’t believe in homework and I’m not sure if it’s because I had 3 hours ever night when I was in 5^th and 6^th grade or I think students are in school for a long time and need to be kids after. Whatever the reason is, the only homework I give is reading 20 minutes a night and any math concept they didn’t understand in class. The students are given an intervention technology program to complete at home. It is in the format of a game, which makes it not like “homework” to the students. I don’t believe in busy work. It’s such a waste a time and an overload on the students brain for no reason.

         I used to teach at a Title I school. When I read about it this week, there were a lot of ah ha moments. I had many behavioral issues teaching at that school, more than I have ever encountered in my life. While teaching at the school and after reading Jensen’s view on Title I students, you have to feel very sad for them. It’s out of their control. A lot of my students would go to an empty house after school or have an older sibling raise them. The parents either had two jobs morning to night or other stuff that kept them away. I won’t go into the details.

         While I taught there, I made sure my students or any students I came across throughout the day had food and water with them. We would have constant breaks and if students were extra hungry after lunch I would open up a food drawer in my desk and they would be able to choose what they wanted to snack on. I like the idea of not disciplining on the behavior, but finding another opportunity for the students to do instead. For instance, if a student throws down a marker on the floor and interrupts the class, of course they need a warning, but make them have a job “marker passer” or something of that sort. I think it’s a great idea to have these resources available for the students: “a physician on-site once a week. Working with a local pharmacy to arrange for access to medications. Arranging for a dentist to make designated school visits. Educating students’ caregivers about school resources. Providing tutors to help students who miss classes to catch up. Improving awareness among staff about health-related issues”(Jensen).

         If we understand the students background and how their brain is designed created to learn this will help prevent behavior issues in the classroom and keep students engaged. We need to constantly assess students while we have them. Not give them tests, but check their understanding, find the areas “students need support in and the right intervention to give them” (Jensen). The Title I school I taught at had a tutoring program in the morning for students. We were able to implement interventions and help students who missed work or needed extra support Pre-school – 5^th grade. It was an amazing program we had at our school. Educators should remember that “students brains change and so do their levels of attention, learning and cognition” (Jensen). If we know how to keep our students brains a live and keep them engaged in the activity, we will have very small behavioral issues in our classroom. Students learn from modeling. If a student has an environment that causes them stress and is dysfunctional, they will have a difficult time learning and staying focused. Our goal as educators is to give them a safe learning environment where they feel relaxed and their brain is engaged. We also need to know what helps our students learn (specific manipulatives, strategies..etc) and how we can connect and help them understand the content we are teaching to them.  

Resources

Jensen, Eric. Teaching with the Brain in Mind (2nd Edition). Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD), 2005. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 5 April 2015. Retreived from: http://egandb.uas.alaska.edu:2081/lib/uasoutheast/reader.action?ppg=6&docID=10089220&tm=1428258945648

Jensen, Eric. Teaching with Poverty in Mind : What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It. Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD), 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 5 April 2015. Retrieved from: http://egandb.uas.alaska.edu:2081/lib/uasoutheast/reader.action?ppg=28&docID=10375878&tm=1428259489468

Willis, J. (2012, January 1). Brain-Based Learning Strategies: Hold Students' Attention With a Radish. Retrieved April 8, 2015, from http://www.teachhub.com/brain-based-learning-strategies-hold-students-attention-radish

https://www.gonoodle.com/

Moore, J., & Sellers, T. (n.d.). Practical Applications of Brain-based Strategies to Eh L i n hance Learn ing. Retrieved April 8, 2015, from http://www.polk-fl.net/staff/teachers/reading/documents/Read180Day2/Tuesday2/PracticalA _Moore/PracticalA _Moore [Compatibility Mode].pdf

Reflection week 11

This week was by far the most busiest. Every week is, but a lot of my time went to creating the online training for Oltak.  We designed a course that teachers can take asynchronously. I hope it works. For diffi this week, after reading my peers blogs, I was a lot of differentiation tools for more writing. There were ideas to have students make brochures, write a journal entry about their experience and complete a math activity taking stats on the number attempts it took to solve the other classrooms maze. I'm super excited about this experience. I can't wait to see what the students build. I'm a little worried, because some tools have not been created yet. Thomas had a great idea and thought that it would be best to team up with others. I think this is a good idea. If everyone creates a tool, it will be over load for the teachers. They will have a difficult time remembering which tool goes with which scenario or which tool to use...etc However, if everyone teams up, then there might not be enough tools created and students could lose their interest. I don't think this will happen. I think everyone has created some pretty great tools. Some that will involve the wiki and hopefully have more students use it. Ali, Andrea and I are teaming up again. We are going to create one house instead of three with a lot of chests in them. Last time for the Giver we created three houses, but one house was never used. So we decided to make it easier on the teachers, we're going to have only one house to receive all the tools and food students need to survive. The teachers will be given the Give setting to use in the teacher menu, but our tool should hopefully give them an easier way to give students supplies if they're getting frustrated. I hope our tool gets used. This week Ali, Andrea and I plan on meeting in the world to create the house and start filling the chests for the students to use. We have a lot of work to do and not very much time. It will be another busy week, but if we work as a team, I'm sure we will get it done in time for Survivalcraft to start.

Week 11 Infographics and Diffi Tool

The diffi tool my team and I are going to create is a house with chests. The chests will be filled with weapons and food for students during survival mode. Like the Giver these houses will have tools and food inside of them instead of books. Our idea is for teachers to be able to give students resources during survival mode from both books; Lord of the Flies and Maze Runner. Also if students are getting frustrated with being killed from the monsters in the game, this tool will give them some reassurance and be able to participate. Teachers will have access to the Give setting in the teacher menu, however they might not understand how to use this tool correctly even after watching the training Oltak put together. Ali, Andrea and I are going to create a lot of chests in one house for the teachers. The teachers then can access the tools and food, place them in their inventory and give to the students or place them directly in the students chest. Either way, we hope this tool will help students when they are in survival mode.

Short description of Diffi tool being created 

In a secret location ONLY FOR TEACHERS there will be houses and chests filled with tools and food. If your student is having difficulty creating a tool or making food during Scenario 2 when the world is in Survival mode, you can give them a tool. There is a setting on the teacher menu to "give" tools to students. To make this easier on you, we have created houses and chests for you to teleport yourself to the location, place the tools in your inventory and give them to the student. If this is difficult, another option is to place the tool in your inventory and then place the tool into your students chest. Please do not teleport students to the secret location or let students get tools from the houses. This tool is only to be used for students who are having difficulty making there own tool or cooking food to survive.