Not much time left!

With 6 ½ weeks of school left, I am realizing that there is still a lot to do! Will we get it all done? Will my students be ready to move on to the next grade? Will they have acquired the learning and skills expected of them? I definitely feel more confident than last year at this time, and I suppose that my confidence will increase in regards to these questions with each year to come.

I appreciated that in our E2T2 text, the authors admitted that project-based learning is flexible and changing, and probably never perfect. I have to make a concerted effort to let go and realize that I can’t script or plan for every nuance. I tend towards perfectionism and like to be over-organized. However, this experience of project-based learning and incorporating technology has helped me relax a bit and learn to go with the flow. I have realized that I am more flexible than I previously thought and that unforeseen events can even be good!

I do enjoy change so it is probably a good thing that I decided to be a teacher. Even a successful and well-planned project is going to be different each time by changing the most important variable- the students.

Unit update

Well, I’ve been reading a few more chapters of Project-based Learning with my unit in mind. Good timing! I’ve been writing down ideas like crazy. The basic premise of the unit is debate and persuasive language.

Here are my notes: give groups of students pro and con sides of an issue, they read together and highlight best arguments before beginning debate with todaysmeet.com and ipod touches; Show examples of strong vs. weak arguments, have students rate; Reflect/review The Great Debaters movie using todaysmeet and ipod touches; Have students reflect at least a few times during the unit on their wiki pages; Use wiki as project home: post examples of persuasive writing, use calendar, checklists, rubric, and jing screencasts; Use screencasts to give feedback on writing; find student debate examples on youtube; search the internet to find out if there are online debates students could participate in; require an interview as a source for the persuasive paper; students use wiki to collect and organize notes or other web-based organizer like Desire2Learn of Moodle; check out research tools: ASK for Kids, del.icio.us bookmarking and Citation Machine; have students read draft to an adult, record questions or alternative viewpoints to address.

Wow- looks like I’ve got a plethora of ideas to research and consider in order to make this unit engaging, motivating, and effective for my students. I'd better get to work!

E2T2 Unit

We're pretty close to starting our unit. It falls in the "cowboy" theme I have going for the last part of the school year. Students are going to investigate controversy and write a persuasive essay. In the beginning of the unit students will use ipod touches to interact with each other by sharing opinions on a few topics. One of the topics will be animal welfare and rodeo. We'll use todaysmeet.com (thanks Noel and Stephanie!) so that students can participate in an open debate after reading some articles on the subject. Towards the end of the unit my 7th graders will create a newsletter highlighting the unit and publish some of their writing.

One very exciting part of the unit doesn't include technology at all (although if anyone has any suggestions how I could do so send them my way) but is a huge motivator. We're taking a full day field trip to the Eagle River Center so my students can get first hand experience with horses and other livestock. There will be horses to ride, miniature donkeys, goats, steers, and roping lessons too! Last year I brought my horse to school, this year I'm stepping it up a notch with a full day of activities. Volunteers welcome for this huge undertaking!!! Call me to sign up.

Monk-e mail

Today was one of those rare days in the technology realm when everything works perfectly according to plan. As part of a unit on "The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make," students were to explore Sean Covey's website. I was going to have them read the author's short bio and then be ready to share something they learned about him. However, as I was perusing the website I noticed a link to "cool links." There I found Monk-e mail- a hilarious site that allows you to compose an email with special effects. For example, you get to dress your monkey and choose the setting. Best of all, you can write whatever you want the monkey to say and he'll deliver your personal voice message in an e-mail. So, I created one first and had the students listen to it. It gave them instructions to compose their own monk-e mail with something they learned about the author. After creating their own, they were to send it to my e-mail. I was able to assess whether they read the bio and learned anything about the author. It was one of the most enjoyable assessments ever! And it was obvious how much fun they had with an assignment that would have normally been ho-hum.

Middle School

So, I now have almost two years under my belt teaching middle school. Why is it that I am still so surprised at how different one day can be from the next? I will have a day or days where I feel such a strong bond with my students, feel so lucky to have my job, and think that maybe I'm getting the hang of this teaching thing. Then, the very next day I am convinced that I am the most inept teacher, the students aren't learning a thing, and that they must be out to get me! Fortunately, I now know enough to not get too discouraged because it can and will turn around just as drastically in a positive way.

I've also found myself surprised by the degree of care, concern, and love I feel for these "tweeners." I quite vividly remember the awkwardness and volatility of my own middle school experience, and I think that this helps me relate to my students. At times I am also amazed by how entertaining and funny kids this age can be. Even on the down days I end up laughing more than I ever did in any other workplace. I believe their humor keeps me youthful- in my mind at least. Where else can you get this as part of your benefits package?

Spring...

...Is on its way! I can feel it. It has infused its way into my every thought, even into my curriculum planning. As I was at the store buying seeds and peet starters for my own garden, the thought came to me to bring my love of growing living things into the classroom. For such a unit the vocabulary options are endless, higher level thinking skills ingrained, and instant engagement almost guaranteed. Why not? I started searching the internet for lesson plans and projects related to plants. There are tons: plant parts, cells, functions, life cycle, forcing blooms, greenhouses, and bird houses, oh my! I will easily be able to pull and adapt those that will fulfill the standards I still need to incorporate this year. I am going to collaborate with the science teacher so that I can reinforce the concepts my ELA students will need for that core class. I'm looking forward to sharing my excitement and love of learning about plants with my students. I know how greatly my own enthusiasm affects theirs.

Ooops! I just looked outside. Snow. Lots of it. But, I am not going to let that dampen my bright, sunny thoughts. Come on spring...

Argh!

What a frustrating week! On Monday, I was fully prepared after spending hours over the weekend finalizing the lesson plan and creating the model video for our theme project. I had the computer lab booked, and the set up instructions on the eboard for students to create their own accounts at masher.com. As usual, it took a while for the students to create their user names, passwords, and in some cases mailinator e-mail accounts, to successfully register with the site. I have 17 students in this particular class. Once they were all up on masher the trouble started. "Mrs. Blick, Mrs. Blick, it's not working," "Mrs. Blick, I can't hear anything," "Mrs. Blick, it's frozen!" Yes, the site must have been overloaded and only a few students had functionality to work on their videos. The following day I separated the students into two groups and had one group work on an alternative activity in the hopes that fewer students logged in would free up the site. However, there were still several students whose applications ran far too slow and they were unable to make any progress. So, after 3 hours in the lab working on this project we have very little to show for it. And with CSAP coming up, I'm hesitant to spend any more time on it. What have I learned? Well, that even the best laid plans don't ensure success every time!