Reflections from Westcast 2014

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Westcast 2014 Conference in Winnipeg, MB. Westcast provides pre-service teachers like me with a great sharing and learning opportunity. It gives us the experience of presenting and attending other students' sessions, and allows us to make connections and share ideas with future teachers from Universities all over western Canada. 

A session that really excited me was, "Inquiry-Based Learning Through Genius Hour," presented by Sean Giesbrecht and Clara Haimes-Kusumoto. Genius Hour, is basically an hour a week or day (whatever works best in your classroom), where students are given the opportunity to research and learn about something that is of interest to them. They may cover numerous topics throughout the school year of which they become a "Genius" at, and they share their findings with their class (in whatever way they choose) at the end of each topic.

Genius Hour follows the principles of Daniel Pinks book on Motivation, "Drive." That is, it gives students opportunities for:

1. Purpose: Students may work to solve a problem, reach a goal or uncover interests
2. Autonomy: Students are given choice and power over their learning
3. Mastery: Students are given the time, resources, and skills to become a "Genius" of their chosen topic

Here's How it Works:

When introducing Genius Hour into your classroom, you might have your students brainstorm the meaning of the words, "Genius," and "Hour." For example, in this session we thought of  innovative master, knowledgeable, abstract and creative for Genius, and a block of time or 60 minutes for hour. You may also introduce Genius Hour with a Kid President video.

The format of Genius Hour is simple. The teacher is setting up a block of time for students to follow these 3 steps:

1. Research
2. Prepare
3. Present

Included in these 3 steps, are: 

1. Think Time:

• Differentiate between thin vs. thick questions
• Talk about how to create essential questions
• Teach inquiry skills 

2. Work Time and Research:

• Teach research skills
• Provide lab time
• Show students how to get involved in the community to find answers to their questions and encourage them to do so.

3. Assessment:

• Formative (Conferencing) and Summative (Check-list of criteria agreed upon in class) Assessment
• Peer/Self Assessment
• Exit Slips

4. Celebration:

• Gallery Walk
• Question and Answer Period, Star and a Wish
• PowerPoint, Prezi, Student Choice
• Full Participation

 I love the idea of implementing Genius Hour into the classroom. I think it would be super engaging for all students and would help create a great classroom learning community. If you are interested in starting Genius Hour in your classroom, here are some websites the presenters left us with:

www.artjunktion.com

www.geniushourinquiry.weebly.com

www.geniushour.com

~Miss A

Pay it Forward... A Great Project for Teachers and Students!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=fhHmX4V27Ms

When you give students the freedom to be creative and take ownership of their learning.... they just might do something amazing! The professor of my ICT class found this out, after giving us the assignment of creating a video with the topic of our choice, which resulted in him being given a coffee and a cookie. Amazing, right?! ;) 

Some of you may have noticed that there is a new fad of "NEKnominations" that have gone viral all over the world. The jist of this nomination: It involves the person who is nominated downing a drink, within 24 hours of their nomination and then passing on the torch to someone else. Somehow this has really caught on and lately my facebook wall is full of video's of people participating in this. I couldn't help but think how pointless this all seemed and wondered if a positive nomination of people doing good for others would catch on like NEK nominations have. So, when brainstorming video ideas with my group members, we came up with the idea of PIF nominations, which stands for Pay It Forward nominations. We then set to work, thinking of simple, small ways that we could brighten the lives of those around us, and we created the above video.

We have decided to share our video online and are challenging everyone to participate in paying it forward. PIF nominations would be a great project for building community within a classroom. Students could complete a PIF nomination individually or as a class, brainstorm some good deeds that they can do for others and have the experience of creating and sharing a video. They would also share the sense of accomplishment and the warm and fuzzy feeling of helping others. I plan to do a PIF nomination in my upcoming final student teaching placement. I hope you will join me and my group members in spreading this nomination. Good luck everyone! ~Miss A

Video Production, Digital Stories, Website Building, and Photo Editing... We've been busy!

These last few weeks our ICT class has been very busy learning how to create videos and digital stories, build websites, and edit photos. These are very useful tools/skills to have experienced firsthand.  I am excited to share these ideas with students, and have included a bunch of links to online resources in this blog post. Check them out. :)  

Video Production & Digital Stories

Video production and digital stories are a fun and creative way to have students present and share their knowledge and ideas with the class.  I really enjoyed using animoto to create a personal digital story: Our summer Trip- Las Vegas 2013 I think that there are many educational ways that students could use animoto. 

Other sites that can be used to create digital stories:
stupeflix
flipsnack
storybird
prezi

Last week, our class began the process of creating a video. To create our video we have decided to use iMovie,  a great resources, however it is only available on apple products. We are still in the process of editing our video, so stay tuned for the final product! Another great resource for creating videos is Windows Movie Maker.

Classroom Website Creation

Creating a website is another great way for students to share information, and is a great skill to have. I created my own classroom website in preparation for my teaching career, using weebly. Weebly has been very user friendly and it creates attractive and easy to navigate sites. 

Other sites that can be used to create your own website:
Simple Site
Yola

Photo Editing

One way of finding great photo's is searching compfight photos, and selecting "creative commons," to find photos that are free to use ( so long as you give credit to the photographer). Once you've selected your photo, you can edit it using pixlr. This is my favorite way to find and edit photos because it is so simple. Here is an example of a photo I found on compfight and edited with pixlr: 

Other sites that can be used for photo editing:

photofunia

citrify

befunky

I hope you are able to try out some of these awesome resources with your students. 

Until my next post,

~ Miss A

Stephen Tonti Ted Talk: ADHD as a difference in cognition, not a disorder.

ADD and ADHD diagnosis' are becoming more and more common and medication is often the answer to "fix" students with these "disorders." Stephen Tonti is a young man who was diagnosed with ADHD in the second grade. In the above video, he provides his audience with a glimpse and a better understanding of what it is like to have ADHD. This understanding is very beneficial for teachers who are likely to come across students like Stephen and will need to know how best to teach them. 

Stephen discusses how it is hard for him to focus on the "mundane" things in life, however when his curiosity is peaked, he is able to hyperfocus. What does this tell us as teachers? We need to know our ADHD students well and provide learning opportunities that will peak their interest... this is something we should strive to do for all of our students. 

Stephen says, "We are attention different, not attention deficit." He urges his audience that society needs to have a healthier attitude towards ADHD and not view it as a negative or something that needs fixing. He says, "ADHD can't be fixed, it can only be sedated," and describes the effects of medication as an added weight or pressure. He provides an example of this, quoting a report a teacher had made of his friend Adam, who also has ADHD:  "Adam is less motivated, less animated and less involved in class activities. But at least he is quiet now." It is so disheartening that this teacher would rather have a "quiet" student, as opposed to a motivated, involved and animated student. This brings me to Stephen's next quote: "Learning differently requires teaching differently." Rather than changing our students through medication to make them "quiet" for class, maybe it is the teachers who need to change. Perhaps moving from the traditional teacher-led classroom to a student-led, democratic classroom would have been a great fit for Adam, and very beneficial for his classmates as well.

 I will conclude this post with a final quote from Stephen: "Our society has to embrace cognitive diversity." I hope that watching this video has given you a new perspective on how you will accommodate students with ADD or ADHD in your classroom. I know it has certainly given me a  lot to think about. Ultimately, the decision to medicate a child with these cognitive differences is up to the parents. However, as a caring teacher, I will be sure to let parents know that I am willing to create a learning environment that is able to meet their child's needs without the use of medication and with the parents support. I think that is the best that we can do. What do you think?

Until my next post, 
~Miss A

Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum - Notes from John Finch

Yesterday, our ICT class was privileged to have John Finch visit and talk to us about, "Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum." This document can be found on this Manitoba Education Government Website. The website provides us with a great definition of Literacy with ICT:

"Literacy with Information and Communication Technology (LwICT)
means thinking critically and creatively, about information and about communication, as citizens of the global community, using ICT responsibly and ethically."

John Finch expanded upon the ideas presented in the above definition to give our class a better understanding. He talked about the Inquiry process, and how well it works with LwICT.  The first part of the LwICT continuum is called, "Plan and Question." John talked about the importance of helping students develop thin questions into thick questions through the inquiry process. The second part of the LwICT continuum is called, "Gather and Make Sense." John told us that when gathering and making sense, kids often suffer from information overload. He told us that kids need to think about the information they find through 3 different lenses:

                1. Validity- Who wrote this? Why did they write it?

                2. Reliability- Is this a consensus? Who agrees?

                3. Currency- How recent is the information?

To develop critical thinkers, kids must actively consider those 3 lenses and think critically about everything they read and see. Not only is it important for students to think critically, but it is also important for students to think creatively. The ability for students to create and publish is contained in the devices that nearly every student holds in their hands, providing plenty of opportunity for them to use their imaginations. So why not let them? Often teachers worry that students will become off task when using their devices. However, if students are fully engaged in the inquiry process, we need not worry. 

It is important for teachers to allow their students to communicate and share beyond the four walls of the classroom. Allowing and providing students with a platform to do this greatly affects student motivation and the quality of their work. When kids are writing for an audience, they feed off of feedback. John likened this to Facebook, saying that no one would post anything on Facebook if it weren't for the feedback that they received. People are motivated to share when there is an audience. By allowing students to share their work online, teachers are providing their students with greater opportunities to receive descriptive feedback from multiple people. This will help to inform students of what they do well and what they can  improve upon. The final stages of LwICT are: Produce to show understanding, communicate and reflect. Like the inquiry process,the LwICT Continuum is cyclical. It continues and is not always in the right order. Students may jump back and forth between different stages. To quote John, "We want students to ask better and deeper questions. We want to move kids through the continuum so we can assess what stage of the inquiry process kids are at."

I am excited to have learned more about LwICT. It provides a great framework for teaching instruction and assessment. I look forward to referring to this document throughout my teaching career. Thanks John! ~T