Week 8 Reflection

This week we discussed Project Based Learning and how it lends itself to differentiation. Through the readings this week, twitter session and reading other peers blogs, PBL is a type of differentiation. With our twitter session, Tyler asked which intelligence do you find yourself? I found my self as inter/intra personal, musical and audio/visual. With PBL, all intelligences can be used when completing the project. It is a way for students to work on an individual goal, but also work as a team to complete it. Thomas mentioned in his blog and from his findings this week, PBL is not the "magic tool for all student learning types and lessons" he also mentioned how he has many topics to cover in the school year and PBL is not the answer for all of the subjects. We can't do a project for each topic discussed in the classroom, we can use it when we feel necessary, but it's too time consuming to use for everything. Time is the major essence in making sure the project is successful. It takes a lot of planning time to create a project. One of our colleagues mentioned on twitter, how she found a spider at her house, brought it into her classroom and designed a project around that. To have a successful Project, it needs to be over a topic students can relate to and what they will find engaging. Using the Understanding by Design format is key to a successful project. Mia found a guide to use when designing a project. I plan on using this guide for my future PBL units. The whole time I was reading about PBL, I thought about Givercraft/Survival Craft and how it engages the students to the core. It's important when creating a project we find a tool that students will know how to use, or some so they can help others (another differentiation part!) and also a tool that will engage them, help them set goals and work together to achieve them.

Week 8

How does project-based-learning lend itself to differentiation in the classroom?

When designing a project, it’s important to remember where your students are. What’s their previous knowledge to the topic? What kind of skills do they know how to do? Will there need to be any introduction before the project starts? How will you differentiate to meet the needs for all students? How will you assess the students learning based on the goals that have been created and finally what ways do your students learn? These are important questions to ask before designing a project for your students.

As I think of this question after the reading this week, I kept thinking of Givercraft/Survival Craft. It’s so engaging to the students. As I have been observing and helping a colleague of mine this week while his students are in Givercraft, I have heard many times “this is awesome!” “I can’t wait to do this tomorrow!” O.K. When was the last time you heard those comments from a regular math worksheet lesson or after reading a story from the required grade level text? Personally, I have never heard my students say this, unless I have found a way to relate it to an “real life connection” (Zouganeli), or find something they enjoy doing. The “focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning” (Brown and Alder) this is spot on.

The requirement was to read the “Giver” students could have read the text, and then answered questions the teacher had made up or wrote a book report on the text. BORING!! Instead, they are engaged and using a differentiating tool MinecraftEdu. Students are working independently, as they engage in inquiry. This allows the teacher to provide differentiated support to teams and individuals (McCarthy). Many times during this week, I have seen my colleague use “Minecraft experts” students who know Minecraft really well in the classroom to assist other students. If students have a question, they ask the “expert” if the expert can’t help them, then they ask the teacher. The students are working on an independent goal, but working together to complete the goal. They are also assisting each other. This is differentiation in itself.

The other part of differentiation that goes with project –based – learning is a “driving question for a project is open-ended, so it offers multiple ways for students to come up with their own solution or formulate an answer” (McCarthy). With Givercraft students can choose what to build, but have to explain their reasoning for it in their wiki.

“Blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging systems, mashups and content - sharing sites emphasize participation over presentation” (Brown and Alder).

While observing my colleagues classroom, there are goals posted on the wall and the names for each building students are working on to create is posted.  Students are learning the content remembering the text extremely well and staying engaged.

         When “engaging students in ‘real-world activities seems to be effective” (Tawflik). Students can understand what they’re learning, why they’re learning it and how they can use it for future use. Times are changing. We are moving away, from the traditional classroom setting. Teachers are not lecturing to their students the whole time and having them recite what they learned on a multiple-choice assessment. Students are interacting with each other and problem solving with each other. It is “student-centered, student-driven and gives space for teachers to meet the needs of students in a variety of ways” (Miller). While students are working together on creating their buildings, the teacher and I are able to walk around and give 1-1 support to other students. I found that students would differentiate their own instruction and seek me out to ask a question. Some didn’t know how to build or move.

         Miller explains six strategies for differentiation while in a project based learning environment.

1.Differentiate through teams

2.Reflection and Goal Setting

3.Mini-Lessons

4.Voice and Choice in Products

5.Differentiate Through Formative Assessments

6.Balance Teamwork and Individual Work

         The strategies explain how it’s important to put your students into small groups. During my math lesson I always have a lesson plan formed as “I do it, we do it, and you do it.” I explain the strategy, students are asked to work with their group in solving the next practice problem, while I walk around and observe. I take note at which students could need extra support. I make sure students are understanding the concept, if they don’t I then re-teach using a different method. Once students understand the concept, I let them work independently and observe. Any student that doesn’t understand the concept, I bring to the back table and work with them 1-1. This could be one student or a few students depending on the topic.

         What I have noticed too is even though students are working independently, if they’re not understanding the concept, they will reflect on their own learning, set a goal and come to the back table for support. While working with the small group, I also have the other students bring me their completed work to assess. If they understand it, then I give them an enrichment activity to complete. If they need support, I have them join the small group. This continues until all students understand the content. This doesn’t mean they finish the whole assignment, only get enough practice to understand what they’re doing. After all students understand, we meet as a whole group again. I have students work with groups and problem solve the rest of the problems, which are usually word problems. Even with my math lesson, I use these six strategies and have students work in groups.

         I think it’s important for students to learn from each other and be guided in the right direction by the teacher. Differentiation is project-based-learning. It is a way for students to work together, set goals, reflect on their own learning, connect what their learning to every day life “real life situations” (Zouganeli) and be engaged. It also gives teachers time to assess and give support to students individually and as a group.  I will leave you with my favorite quote from the reading this week, by Brown and Alder “Focus is not on what we are learning but on how are learning.”

Resources

Seely Brown & Adler. (2008). Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0. Retrieved from: http://ngw.cs.colorado.edu/bin/download/DCNM2009/Relevant+Resources/Brown-minds-of-fire.pdf

Tawfik, A., Trueman, R. J., & Lorz, M. M. (2014). Engaging non-scientists in STEM through problem-based learning and service learning. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 8(2), 4. Retrieved from: http://tinyurl.com/oq4wkwc

Zouganeli, E., Tyssø, V., Feng, B., Arnesen, K., & Kapetanovic, N. (2014). Project-based learning in programming classes the effect of open project scope on student motivation and learning outcome. Retrieved from: https://oda.hio.no/jspui/bitstream/10642/2318/1/1152690.pdf

McCarthy, J. (2012, January 9). Experts & NewBIEs | Bloggers on Project Based Learning: How does PBL support Differentiated Instruction? Retrieved March 3, 2015, from http://biepbl.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-does-pbl-support-differentiated.html

Miller, A. (2012, February 8). Six Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning. Retrieved March 2, 2015, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-strategies-pbl-andrew-miller

Week 7 Reflection

This week was a very busy week. My other class, Virtual Teaching and Learning (OLTAK) had trainings for the teachers enrolled in Givercraft. This made it difficult to make the twitter session. I tried to multi-task during the training and be logged into twitter, but to focus on the training was difficult when trying to process the topics that were occurring on twitter.  I told my teammates I was in a training and wouldn't be able to join them for Twitter.

During this week I finished adding books into the chests and made sure the houses were not broken and ready to go for Givercraft's first week. I noticed there was a house in the teleport station I made and none of my teammates had made it... so I'm not sure why it is there...?

I made a tutorial video for the teachers to watch. The video shows how to teleport to the station my team made. I gave a tour of the station and showed each house. I explained that it was built with disallow blocks so if students did happen to find this station, they wouldn't be able to break the house. I showed the teachers where to find the memories. While I was showing them the different houses, I noticed that the chests and books that I had created were different from when I left it. After reading my teams blogs it all came clear as to what happened. One of my teammates, had accidentally destroyed the chest while checking to make sure there were enough books for scenario 2. My teammate spent many hours fixing the problem and re-creating the books that were broken. I read this part on my partners blog and informed her, everything was ok. I went into the world to make sure everything was fine and built correctly. We are good to go for Scenario 2.

I also emailed Ali back to her question and explained how we should send the document she made directly to the teachers signed up in the course. We talked about if there were enough books... I explained in the tutorial video I had made, I showed the teachers how to make a memory book if they came to a chest that was empty.

My team and I plan on observing the chests to see if any of the books were used or are missing. We also plan on sending a survey to teachers, to ask if this tool was useful to them. We thought of observing the students wiki pages, but found it might be impossible to tell which memory the students made and which memory our team made. Ali has written some good questions to start thinking about on her blog for our evaluation survey.

I also saw this week that our other colleagues in the course are creating a link for teachers to go to if they need extra support during Givercraft and a place they can debrief afterwards. I think this is a great tool for teachers to have during the experience. Thomas has also created badges for students who are not the gamer type. One that is my favorite is the grammar badge. Which student has the best grammar on their wiki for that week. Genious! I'm excited for Givercraft to start again. Last semester was full of excitement new things to tweak and change for the nex time. I'm looking forward to seeing how the students build this time around.

Week 7

This is a video I created for teachers to use during Givercraft. It explains where to find the memories released stations and how to create their own memory book. I have an awesome team with Ali and Andrea. We have created houses and books for teachers to give to students if they can't think of a memory to build.

I think the best way to assess this tool my team has created is to observe the use of books during Givercraft. How many books leave the chests from the teleport station. I thought of reading the students wiki pages and watching to see if any "book was given" to them by their teacher, but I'm not sure how effective that would be. While I don't want teachers to be bombarded with surveys, I think this is the only best tool to use to assess if this idea worked. I will send this video to the teachers directly through the Givercrat Community Google Group. I have mentioned in the video if they have any questions to write in the group. I will also observe how many teachers need assistance with this idea from the group. I think the best result will be from the survey the teachers will complete at the end of Givercraft Scenario 2. I will discuss other ideas with my team and evaluate how our idea worked. Was it effective, did the teacher's use our idea?

Reflection Week 6

Thomas and I just finished presenting Givercraft at ASTE 2015. What a very awesome experience that was. We were able to explain a program that we helped create. It was neat that we could talk about the different differentiating tools that we are creating this time around and also the teacher training. This week I worked extremely hard to create 3 houses in MinecraftEdu and fill them with chests. In each chest were books for students. These books will only be for students who can't think of a memory. I also created a new teleport stations for teachers to find the memories. My hope is students do not find these buildings or the books that I created. I first built houses out of wood, and then realized I needed (with Mia's help during a google impromptu hangout) to build a border. So we had a border built, but then I thought if I have a student that is grieving and wants to break things.... I would not like if my house was broken. So I took the disallow blocks and created  houses out of those blocks. I basically built around the already built houses . If the students want to break the house, they can go inside and break the inside, but the outline will be the disallow blocks.

I posted on my teams blog where to find the memories and asked them to make the rest of the books. I filled up one chest and the other two half way full. With creating the teacher training module for Tuesday and preparing for ASTE it was a lot of work this week. I read through other peers ideas. I liked how Thomas created badges for the students who had the most non grammatical errors during the week. It wasn't finishing the scenario, he really thought outside the box for the students who needed that extra feedback or achievement for a certain part of the activity. While prepping for the ASTE presentation I looked over the other ideas our team had thought of. I like the idea that teachers are going to have a resource they can find and it will be located in the Memories Released station I created. Sunshine's group is creating that differentiating tool.

Week 6 Differentiating Tools for Givercraft

Differentiating Tools for Givercraft 

I have built a house where the memories have been placed. They are in a secret location. It will be interesting to see if this house stays built. I might need to rebuild it using the "safe" building blocks. 

Here is the chest. At first I built it into the ground and then realized I couldn't build blocks on top of the chest. So, I had to build around the chest. The world kept changing when I was in there. So I put torches up to stay light while I worked. 

I have started to add memories to the chest. As you can see, this takes a long time and I have only been able to make a few. I'm still not sure if I'm making only one set of books or multiple copies of each memory. This is a differentiation tool, so I don't think I need to make a bunch like last time. I'm not even sure if this tool/idea will be used. It might, there's no expectation or requirement outlined for how the students are to pick and build their memories. It will be interesting to see how this idea pans out. Last time the team made all of the books and then placed them all over the different zones. I'm interested to see what memories the students come up with and how many students ask for support with this scenario.

To create a zone for the memories, I had to make sure the students were not able to see the zone. This is in teacher mode. I created a new zone, for teachers to find. It's called Memories Released. This name might need to be changed if students find the chest. We will have to see. Also, I created this zone ahead of time. Teachers are required to make their own zone and world for their students. I didn't want to delete one of the teachers zones or place the memories in a zone where teachers had a difficult time finding it. You can't see it due to the gray box, but behind the box is the teleport cube. Teachers will click on the memories released zone, be placed by the teleport block and face the house. They will have to walk to the back to find the door and open it. Then they will walk in to find the chest. We will have to make sure teachers know now to create their zone in the "memories released area" or near by it. That would be an easy way for students to find the memories. If students found the memories, it wouldn't be a horrible thing.... they are the receiver of memory and came across many memories! I'm looking forward to seeing how the students build this time around.

Week 5 Reflection

            This week we had to create a video from our MinecraftEdu challenge, using the tacher tools. Where we had to show our favorite part of the challenge, I had an interesting time trying to build and not have potions thrown on me. I had a feeling there was a peer of mine who was “throwing” the potions. I wasn’t sure even using the teacher tools, but after watching Thomas’s video (with the fabulous Sound of Music playing in the background!) I know exactly who was throwing potions. Mystery is solved.

            From this experience this week, I learned that to set teacher up for success, they need to know the ins and outs of the teacher tools. In my other class, we are creating a training for teachers to take to learn about the teacher tools. While in the challenge this week, if I didn’t know how to freeze, take supplies away from a student or give supplies to a student, my students would not be engaged, the whole world would have been chaos and classroom management would be intolerable.

            I think with differentiation classroom management is key. I also read from my other peers blogs this week, that other teachers, parents, administrators and IT personal with districts are not supportive of gaming in the classroom. Tristan’s video had an interesting perspective from the students. The students explained if they would like MinecraftEdu in the classroom and if their parents would approve. The response’s were interesting and not at all surprising. One  student said,  her mom wouldn’t want her to be wasting time and looking at a screen all day… I think we have brainwashed parents into thinking all video games are bad and should only be played at home. I wonder what would happen if you took the word “game” away from the program and called it an technology education tool. When explaining it, don’t mention the word game. It would be interesting to see what the parents would thik then…

            I have a lot of online tools to use with my classroom. The one I’m excited to try in the next few weeks, is planet turtle. It’s an online math program that is aligned with the common core state standards. Teachers can select the content students will use in the classroom. It’s a tool that allows teachers to differentiate and work with students in a smaller group.

            I think to be able to provide differentiation with an online “game” we need to explain the program and reasoning to the parents and administrators first. If we get them on board, we can do many things in our classroom. Worksheets are old school. Our time is technology. We are surrounded by technology, it needs to be used in a classroom. Students will be engaged, they will want to learn and will retain the content much better than working through “busy work activities in class.