Better World Ed Lesson Plans

I've taught several lessons now using the content from Better World Ed.

They have a repository of videos, stories that accompany the videos, and lesson plans to match.  The videos are about people from different parts of the world.

I've taught 2 lessons in the last couple months as well as one back in December.

The most recent lesson was about the story "Ghani Grows Rice".
A quick run down of how I ran the lesson for 2nd/3rd graders.

• I showed a little of the video and then stopped and asked students to brainstorm what they thought the main idea of the video would be.  Answers included plants, forest, water, farmer. 
• I read a little of the story and pairs of students shared their experience with rice--different varieties of rice they had seen or tried and their opinions about them.
• We went over vocabulary words sow and yield and talked about weather here in California and how drought has impacted their lives.
• I tied this part in to 2nd grade social studies and the concept that price rises when there's less supply.
• We watched the rest of the video.
• We talked abut the amount of water mentioned in the story.  I related 1 kg of patty to be about 1 pineapple or what would fill a 1 L water bottle (which I showed). 
• Math: the fraction of water saved with the new growing system.
• We related overall water need to school-size swimming pools.
• Students did some math to determine how much rice their family eats each year (measuring cups were helpful) and then how much water would be needed for the amount of rice their family might eat in a year.
• They did a partner project at the end to brainstorm ways they could conserve water in their own life.

In February I taught a lesson about the story "I am Touhid".

• --Start with a reminder to students of books I had read aloud (Blue Tarp School, Malala's Pencil, Beatrice's Goat, The Water Princess) that were part of our Change For Good unit.  We reviewed on a map where those countries were located.

• --We watched the "I am Touhid" video until he starts to fix the fuse

• --Discussion about the problem that just happened, how that has happened to me and what I have to do to fix the problem in my house in California, and has that ever happened to their family and if so what did they do to solve the problem.

• --I read the story through "joyful lives" and tell them there's info about a problem that we'll return to later

• --I finished reading the story, also skipping the specifics about $, telling them there's a 2nd problem we'll return to later

• --I showed the rest of the video

• --I mentioned that in US it's a law that kids have to go to school, students talked about why that's a law

• --Students talked about character traits they say in Touhid and evidence, the themes from the video that were also in the above books, and similarities between themselves and Touhid

• --Students individually wrote a reflection about theme, one of Touhid's character traits with evidence, and what motivated him

• --Pairs of students worked together to determine how much it cost to go to school for a year (2nd problem from earlier in the lesson)

• --Pairs of students worked together to re-arrange Touhid's schedule so he could spend time with the elderly (1st problem from earlier in the lesson)

Student Goal Setting and Reflection

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present at SV CUE.  I talked about the importance of student goal setting and reflection as well as my ongoing journey to include this in my students' day and improve the quality of their reflections.  The goal not being better reflections for the sake of better reflections, but better reflections as a tool leading to better learning.

If you'd like to see the slides you can find them here.

Epic! for Readers Workshop Information Book Clubs

I've enjoyed Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop model so much that this year I decided to switch my reading block to reading workshop.  My school has not purchased Lucy Calkins' curriculum, so I've been creating the teaching points and lesson sequence on my own.

Having access to Epic! and all the amazing fiction and non fiction books in their FREE school library has been incredibly helpful for this switch.

My students and I are just about to start an information book club unit that will last for the next 6 weeks.  I gave the students several general topics and asked them to vote on the one they wanted to learn about during this unit.  The winning topic was habitats/ecosystems.  To start, each student will choose a habitat they want to focus on, and students who have chosen the same habitat will form a book club.

I've been busy creating collections of books for each habitat so that when we have reading time the students will be focused on reading rather than searching for books on their own.  This will also ensure that when book clubs meet they will have a common set of resources that they'll be discussing.  For each habitat I found 6-9 books that span the range of 1st-4th grade reading level, thus meeting the needs of all the readers in the class.

Here's the collection I created for the wetlands habitat.

Initially students will spend a few days doing book walks and diving deeper into learning about their chosen habitat.  After that, each student in the group will choose a specific subtopic to research in depth, becoming the expert in their book club on that topic.  It will be their job to find facts and photos about their subtopic.

Following review lessons about copyright, plagiarism and citing sources, students will gather information, either by taking notes on paper or in an app on their iPad, or by annotating screenshots from the books.

Here's an annotation a student did when research US symbols.

Having Epic! as a resource will make it easy for my students to be successful readers and researchers as we start this new reading workshop unit.  I won't need to visit multiple libraries to gather enough paper books, students won't have to wait their turn to read a book that I only have 1 copy of, and I won't have to spend a lot of money on book purchases.

Reflective Conversations About Student Thinking

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in 2 conversations regarding students thinking about their own learning.  Both were excellent reminders of why it's important for students to participate in such activities and strategies to make it happen.

The first conversation was a closing conversation to 5 week activity between CraftEd and Sown to Grow.  During the conversation leaders from each organization and other teacher participants talked about how we had used the 2 products together in our classrooms, what had worked well, next steps, and changes we would suggest to the companies.  Teachers ranged from K through high school and as always it was helpful to hear about experiences from both ends of the spectrum.  In addition I came away with a sentence stem I'm going to use this week with students, "I will ____ (strategy) so that _____."  Hopefully this will encourage students to think about why a particular strategy might be helpful.

The second conversation was a "webshop" with Common Sense Education's Steven Garton and Danny Wagner about formative assessment.  This conversation focused on metacognition and students shaping their own understanding.  It was a great reminder to have students connect learning to past learning, future learning, and their own life and experiences.  Remember to ask students how and why they are learning, not just what they are learning!

Thoughts From Common Sense Education's Teacher Institute

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend and speak at Common Sense Education's Teacher Institute.  The topics this year was Assessment Beyond the Gradebook.  I enjoyed the small conference size (about 100 people) with attendees arranged at tables of 8 and 10 minute breaks in between sessions for conversation.

Here are some brief thoughts on the presentations.

Kari Croft and Erin Whalen from RISE High

• It must be amazing to have the opportunity to build a school from the ground up and reimagine everything
• This talk made me think about topics I never imagined would be a problem in school, such as low attendance due to life circumstances
• Wouldn't it be cool if we could all start teaching from a student's current level of understanding, rather than teaching specific content because of a student's age/grade

Kelly Mendoza from Common Sense Education

• lateral reading (students read a news article and compare what the read to other sources on that topics)
•  there has been a significant spike in "fake" news and most students students can't detect the difference between an ad and news
• media literacy lessons coming in March from Common Sense Education

Adam Bellow and James Sanders from BreakoutEDU

• learning and fun are not antonyms
• you can be wrong a lot
• respect failure

Jeff Knutson and tanner Higgin from Common Sense Education

• formative assessment should be a green light not a red light
• formative assessment should be a check for understanding, allow teachers to adapt instruction, and spark metacognition
• check out their teaching strategies at bit.ly/TS_FA 

 Ariel Raz from the Stanford d.School

• use the design thinking model to get students thinking
• to be empathetic you really have to listen
• Shadow a Student Challenge can really change your impressions on life as a student (my husband, a high school math teacher, did it last year and he learned a lot)

Makers Empire 3D Printing

As part of Silicon Valley Education Foundations iHub program, a co-worker and I piloted Makers Empire in the fall.  It's a 3D printing app we used on our iPads.  I haven't used any other 3D printing apps so I can't make a comparison, but I've been very impressed with it.

With minimal guidance (a 5 minute basic intro from me) my students were easily able to create objects to print.  We primarily used the Shaper and Blocker  sections of the app, although students have had fun with the Toy Tester.  Creation involves easy drag and drop features along with re-sizing and changing colors of items.

After some initial play time, the first assignment was to create a monster to go with our "I'm Not Scared" literature unit.  That was followed by creating landforms (social studies), a symbol of hope, a healthy snack (science) and a plant (science).

The teacher dashboard allows me to check and comment on student creations as well as send them to the printer.  In addition, there's a lesson plan section with lesson ideas for specific grades and tied to Common Core standards.  My students did one of the suggested 2nd grade lessons, which was to create a device that would allow Ormie (a pig) to get a cookie jar off the top of a refrigerator.

We plan to use Makers Empire for the rest of the year and even my co-worker's kindergarten students have independently created spiders and people.

Using FaceTime to Offer Real World Solutions

This school year rather than having my students FaceTime other classes or professionals to gather information, we've been using FaceTime to solve problems.

I started by identifying real problems and decisions that people I know are currently facing.  The key was to choose problems with multiple viable and desirable solutions and problems that could be understood by 2nd graders.

Next, students FaceTimed with the person who had the problem.  This was an information gathering phase in which the person shared details and the students asked clarifying questions.

Students created groups of 2-4 to work out a solution.  They created a presentation, poster, or mock-up of their solution with evidence to support their reasoning.

At a follow-up FaceTime conference each group presented their advice.

So far we've offered advice about

--creating a video game character that would appeal to elementary age students
--how to organize supplies in a college dorm desk
--options for exercise on a rainy day
--options for replacing an afternoon nanny who was moving
--staying in a current job or accepting a new job offer
--which vacation house to rent for a family reunion

These activities have presented authentic topics for my students to discuss and they've had to listen carefully and work on their empathy skills to clearly understand the problem and the pros/cons.

Seesaw NBC Interview

Last week I had the opportunity, along with Kelly Galante, another teacher at my school, to talk about Seesaw.  We were interviewed on the Asian Pacific America show on NBC.

Here's the clip of what we had to say.  It was part of a longer segment about our school district.

Webinar About Collaboration in the Classroom

Through Common Sense Education I had the opportunity to give a webinar on EdWeb about collaboration in the digital classroom.

To watch a recording click here

How I Use Epic! in the Classroom

Last week I gave a webinar about how I use Epic! in my 2nd grade classroom.  In case you missed it, here's a link to a recording of the video.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3dJ2lWFsHMDekZXc0puTEMwYzg/view?usp=sharing

Thank you Edpuzzle, good-bye Zaption

I have been a fan of Zaption for the last couple years and sorry to hear that they're shutting down at the end of September.  I decided my project for the weekend would be to transfer my videos from Zaption to Edpuzzle, the service I had decided to use instead.  Video formatting isn't my forte and I thought I would have to spend hours figuring out how to move my content and retain the trimming and questions I had in Zaption, or even worse yet re-create that video personalization.

I was so excited when I created an Edpuzzle account and discovered that Edpuzzle has made the process easy.  In less than 10 minutes, starting at edpuzzle.com/zaption, I was able to move my videos.  The trimming and embedded questions and comments all transferred beautifully.

Amazon Education Has an OER Platform

A few months ago Amazon Education launched a private beta open education resource platform.  I've been lucky enough to be a private beta participant and I'm enjoying the site.  It's easy to find resources and get ideas from other innovative and effective educators.

Currently the site allows invited educators to post and search for K - 12 resources.  Educators can search the site by grade level, subject area, standard, and creator. 

The open resource movement is a fantastic way for educators to collaborate throughout the world and provides a free way to find high quality teaching resources outside what has been purchased in a box from a school district.

Back in October 2015 the U.S. Department of Education announced the launch of #GoOpen to encourage such collaboration.  Amazon was named as a collaborator in that announcement.  Fourteen states (unfortunately not California) have launched statewide initiatives.

 If you'd like to join the wait list for the platform go to http://bit.ly/AmazonEduWaitList

Upstander Comments Using MC Squares

The last activity of the year that we did with the MC Squares was to write positive comments about each classmate.  Each student wrote their name in the middle of their MC Square.  We passed the squares around and each student wrote a bucket-filling comment about each of their peers.  When students got their own square back they took a picture of themselves holding the square and had a chance to read all the positive feedback.  It was a great feel-good end of year activity. (no photos for privacy reasons)

Disney Imagineer Lesson with MC Squares

In June 2015 I wrote about a Disney Imagineer lesson my students worked on.  I updated it this year to include the use of the MC Squares.  Students used the squares to map their ride.  When they shared their ride with the class they were able to point to different aspects of the ride on the map as they described it or showed pictures either on paper or a digital presentation tool.  Most groups used 2 squares for their map so they had space for a map key and the details of the ride.

MC Squares reading response

Earlier in the week I read The Secret Shortcut by Mark Teague to the class.  I then asked students to  independently create their own shortcut from home to school.  They needed to show their shortcut by making a map, including a map key (missing from some on the initial attempt). Students then had an opportunity to act out the shortcut for the class.

MC Squares to Solve Math

Yesterday my students worked in groups of 3 to solve a math problem.  We used several of the steps that make up CueThink (what do you know, what do you need to find out, what strategy do you want to use, solve, check work, does answer make sense).

Students created a final set of information to share with the class and this was done with the MC Squares.

MC Squares Just Out of the Box

A 24 pack of MC Squares arrived for me yesterday, purchased as a pilot by my district office.  MC Squares are individual whiteboards about 1 square foot in size that snap into mounting frames.  Students can easily take down a square, draw/write on it with a dry erase marker, and hang it back up again.  Check out their website here.

The mounts won't be installed in my classroom until the summer, so right now the students will lean them against the wall at the front of the room.  Based on a session about vertical learning that I attended at the FutureNow! conference in San Diego last month, I plan to hang the squares in 6 groups of 4 at standing height for my students.

Since I wasn't sure exactly when they'd arrive, I hadn't planned any lessons for this week. However, we had a few minutes at the end of the day and had just finished PE, so I asked students to draw and write a caption showing their favorite PE activity of the year.

Creating Themed Reading Units

Recently I wrote a blog post for Graphite about creating themed reading units that directly relate to student interests.  In fact, I took the unit themes from the results I student polls.

Here's a link to the post.

BreakoutEDU in 2nd Grade

Back in December I heard (from a source I can't recall) about an activity called BreakoutEDU.  The context in which I heard about it was related to high school.  While it sounded cool, and the website looked interesting, it was something I decided not to invest in because I had a difficult time determining the usefulness for 2nd graders.

A few weeks ago I attended EdCampSV and one of the sessions I attended was about BreakoutEDU.  The session participants, in fact, had to solve a BreakoutEDU puzzle.  It was a lot of fun and being able to experience the activities firsthand made it easy for me to see how I could apply the idea to second grade.

In addition, when I returned to the BreakoutEDU website I discovered several games had been created and added specifically for younger students.

Last week my students completed a leprechaun BreakoutEDU from the website (I made a few minor modifications).  They completed the puzzles whole-class so I could guide them more easily through the process of having clues and objects related to several puzzles all available to sort through at the same time.  In general I wouldn't recommend having 24 students all do the same activity at the same time simply because that means that a few students are activitly participating at any given moment while most are waiting for their turn.  However, it was successful in that everyone had a turn or 2 or 3 at different points in the challenge and by the end of the activity everyone understood how a Breakout worked.  Plus, they successfully opened the box and found some candy!

Pictures show items arranged for easy photographing, but in reality the items were spread around and not grouped together as shown.

Today the students completed another BreakoutEDU challenge.  This challenge was basically The Swamp, found at BreakoutEDU, with a few modifications to relate to the book My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza instead, because I had read that to the class last week.

They completed the challenge in a center format with 6 students in a group and I gave them 20 minutes to open the 3 locks.  Three of the 4 groups were successful.

Despite comments I made directing them back to the clues (have you found anything that could help you with that, what do the clues say), many of the students preferred to use a "guess and check" strategy or random searching of the area instead of really thinking about the clues.  That's something I'll have to keep in mind in the future.  Since we were working in centers only a small part of the classroom was used the BreakoutEDU so this method was fairly successful.

I am excited to find time for our next BreakoutEDU activity and I'm very grateful for the creators and all the teachers who have posted ideas.

New Uses for Sown to Grow

Using Sown to Grow in class has been popular with my students.  In a class vote, they preferred Sown to Grow 20/23 students for tracking math facts and Raz Kids data.

Last week we expanded the use of the website to 2 new applications.  Students are now tracking their writing score on paragraphs.  When they meet with me to discuss their writing they enter the rubric grade they've received.  Based on our conversation they also add a note about 1 thing they can do better in their next writing.  For example, they might need to capitalize sentences, add a topic sentence, turn fragments into complete sentences, or add more varied verbs.  Before they write the next assignment they check Sown to Grow to see their specific goal.

Also, students are tracking kindness.  Each Friday they will either mark "completed" or "not completed" as their status (hopefully never the latter).  In the notes they will describe one specific act of kindness from the week.

Speaking of which, The Great Kindness Challenge starts Monday.  Find more information here.  My class was lucky enough to have Melissa Dyrdahl from Ella Health visit a few weeks ago to talk to students about kindness has impacted her career and they shared their thoughts about kindness with her.