November Strategy Sharing

Many fabulous ideas were shared by your colleagues at the November Strategy Sessions. If you have a chance, I recommend checking out the resources posted on the Deepening & Reinforcing Learning Discussion board. I've included a few highlights below:

How is this picture like the law of diminishing returns?

• Brandon Wolf shared four different strategies that he uses and posted the templates. He talked about how his students find non-linguistic representations helpful in solidifying and personalizing concepts, giving the example of students who remembered the law of diminishing returns because they had represented it with a box of donuts or another who connected it to Spotify. I also really like the At Home Discussion Chart, where students summarize a conversation that they had at home about their recent learning and reflect on why they better understand the concept discussed as a result.  
• Dakota Cronin shared the Feynman Technique, which is based on the idea expressed in this quote from Albert Einstein: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." The basic idea is that the process of explaining (verbally or in writing) a concept without using complex vocabulary or jargon helps you to understand it better. Learn more about this mental model in this 4 minute video.
• Dominic Mooney shared one of his favorite tools for curating content: Pocket. With an easy to navigate visual interface, Pocket is a great way for you and your students to easily save articles, videos and other resources that are related to what they are learning about. All of the content goes to one place, so you can view it anytime, on any device. You don't even need an internet connection. I'm sure that Dom would be more than happy to personally share with you how he uses it - just drop by his lair and ask for a tutorial!
• And finally, here are a few ideas that teachers shared for grouping students: by VIA strengths, clock partners, popsicle sticks, the flippity.net random name picker, which also creates random groupings, playing cards, and multiple copies of pictures/visuals related to content passed out as students enter the room. Plus, did you know that Power School has a random student selector tool? I did not. This handy tidbit was shared by Robert Ogle. 

Thanks to everyone who has shared ideas so far! The next round of sessions isn't until February, so you have lots of time to try something new. :-)

Strategy Sharing

During the September and October Strategy Sessions, some great ideas were shared. I'm posting them here so everyone can benefit!

In September, Dan Inns shared how he starts out a new unit and prepares students for new learning by using a variety of interactive technology tools:

"When we start a next section of the course, I will have students brainstorm using pollEverywhere or wordle.  We then identify key words that match with the IB Sports, Exercise and Health Science syllabus and we will do a T/P/S (Think Pair Share) or a W/P/S (Write Pair Share).  Alternatively I may ask the students to do a 5 minute exploration on a given 'word' and then feedback to the rest of the class.   I have also used Plickers with a selection of 5 questions to establish what the students already know."

Plickers allows you to set up a student response system with printed hold-ups that you can scan with your iPad or phone and easily collect the data. It gets every student participating and gives you accurate information about what each student knows. You can read more about it here and print out your own cards here.

Another great idea for implementing a modified "hold ups" strategy was shared by Doug Andrew. If you don't have physical whiteboards, Doug suggested creating a Google presentation with enough blank slides for each of the students in your class. Assign them each a slide and they can type in their answers. So innovative!

Mr. Jerry Koontz introduced Newsela to the 4B cohort and posted about it on the Schoology Strategy Sessions group. Newsela is a free website that features current news articles; topics range from politics, science, environment to social trends and quirky events. According to Jerry, "The most useful aspect of the site is that articles can be leveled to the appropriate lexile reading level of each student with the click of a button. The same article, different reading levels. The students enjoy reading the articles and each one comes with a 4 question quiz and short writing prompt.  All done online so it's easy to check progress. Although the benefits to an ELA program are obvious, this website also could be used by Social Studies, Science, Health, and Spanish teachers (articles are available in Spanish)." 

One last handy tip, brought to you by James Linzel. James wanted to display a timer for pair shares, table group discussions and other activities to manage pacing in his class, but he was not happy with having to toggle between a presentation and an online timer. He discovered that there are a plethora of countdown timer videos on youtube that you can embed in your presentation. Just do a google search for the time that you want, e.g. "3 minute timer video." Seamless!

Thanks to everyone who shared their ideas in the first two sessions. See you in November for more inspiring suggestions. 

Center for Inquiry and Design

If you haven't had a chance to visit the new space, here are a few snapshots of teachers and students in action. While there is still work to be done, there is definitely an air of excitement surrounding the opening of the Center for Inquiry and Design!

The grade 9 Innovation Institute students are starting off on day one
in a large group with all four instructors teaching in tandem. 

Upper division students are utilizing the space for quiet, independent study as well as more collaborative and interactive learning during their free period.

Chris and Khadijah co-taught their Freshmen during 2A and utilized one of the larger spaces, as well as the wall of whiteboards.

Here a few more photos! When you have a chance, go check it out. It's inspiring. :-)

MWH Museum Exhibits

The Modern World History team wrapped up the year with a PBL unit focused around the question: How do individuals create and change culture, authority, or governance? Student teams were required to establish a clear connection between an individual and the resulting change by using historical evidence, logical reasoning and persuasion. On the last day of class, they presented their final product in a museum display and answered questions from their peers, as well as teachers and staff who visited. A variety of well-known historical figures were featured, including Che Guevara, Adam Smith, Fidel Castro. Malcolm X, Mao Zedong and Jesse Owens, to name a few.

The centerpiece of each display was the group's collaborative persuasive piece. These included "Crash Course" style videos, documentaries, comics, web sites, and even an issue of Time Magazine that featured economist Adam Smith. Each student also contributed their own individual persuasive piece to the display, such as a propaganda poster or video, letter to the editor,  or photo essay. The final component of the displays were multiple primary source documents and the students' accompanying analysis.

Students talked about the benefits and challenges of working collaboratively, with many groups mentioning negotiating and coming to consensus around their thesis as being one of the significant hurdles they had to overcome. The products were both informative and creative, and the students reported that they enjoyed the learning process, and ultimately came to a deeper understanding of how the individual they studied impacted the world they live in today.

Feature Friday: Summer Reading!

Summer break offers a great opportunity to reflect on our teaching and to catch up on some of the reading that is so hard to fit in during the school year. There are a variety of summer reading opportunities that you can take advantage of as a member of the Puxi HS staff.

August Book Club Discussion
If you like discussing books with others, but can't fit it in during the school year, an August Book Club could work for you! Participants would read the book over the summer and then we would meet when we get back to Shanghai in August to discuss. Professional reads and just for fun titles are both an option. Interested? Click here to give your input by the end of the day on Wednesday, June 1st, and then look for more details in a follow-up email.

Teacher Professional Library
As we shift our focus to assessment next year, you may want to get a jump start on ideas for yourself and/or your PLC, or perhaps do some reading to learn from the experts in the field. You can now check out books right from my office (thanks to Marie for setting that up!). Here are a few examples of available titles that are relevant to our current work:

• Classroom Assessment for Student Learning (Chappuis)
• Kid by Kid, Skill by Skill (Eaker & Keating)
• Collaborating for Success with the Common Core (Baily, Jakicic & Spiller)
• Essential Questions (McTighe & Wiggins)
• Learning Targets (Moss & Brookhart)
• Test Better, Teach Better (Popham)
• Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom (Tomlinson & Moon)
• How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading (Brookhart)
• Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning (Larmer)
• Five Disciplines of PLC Leaders (Kanold)

Need Something Shorter or More Portable?

The bulletin board in the mailroom currently features a selection of articles focused on sound assessment practices that support the implementation of Question 2: How will we know if they know it or are able to do it? If you are a member of ASCD, you can access these digitally; otherwise, pick up a hard copy to read on the flight to whatever cool place you're headed this summer. 

Another awesome option is The Main Idea: Current Education Book Summaries. Founder Jenn David-Lang creates an 8-page summary of a current education book each month and maintains an archive of all past titles. The summary contains the core ideas of the book, and she organizes those ideas with enough accompanying details and examples so that you can have a working knowledge of its content. While The Main Idea is a subscription service, I will confide that I have found some of the summaries posted online by using my Google machine. Definitely worth a browse!

World Language Projects

With the year coming to a close, many students are engaged in completing projects that highlight the knowledge and skills they have acquired. Here are a few projects that wrapped up recently in the World Languages department:

Spanish 4: Mr. Kelso

A student tries to convince his father to allow him to attend Julliard to
 study music. The father wants his son to go to Stanford or Harvard.

"The project of writing a play in Spanish (Proyecto obra de teatro) was actually a confluence of thoughts," says Ahmed Kelso. "At the beginning of the second semester I had the idea of talking to my students from Spanish 4 about writing a play but never mentioned it. When we returned from spring break, however, one of my students made the suggestion of creating a play. The project was born. Students began working on the play in early April and worked on it in stages. Except for some minimal editing that I provided after revisions, each stage was managed by the students."

The students performed their final "obritas" on Tuesday in the BBT to an audience that included their peers, parents and SAS staff. Students had memorized their lines and did a good job of thinking on their feet and ad-libbing when they didn't remember the exact line. Themes ranged from self-acceptance, to forbidden love, and even having the courage to follow your dreams. Audience members were provided with English translations of the scripts so non-Spanish speakers could follow along, and the students had fun showcasing their Spanish skills.

French 3: Ms. Fogiel

"In French 3, we learn through the PBL model, where students work on 4 projects per year," explains teacher Caroline Fogiel. "Individual topics are chosen by students within the broader areas of study that the class identified. I started off the year with a focus on History, because I wanted students to get significant practice with the past tense." Based on the interest of the students in the class, Sports, Music, Arts were then identified as the themes for the other three projects.  Presentations are roughly 3 minutes long, and students are required to use key vocabulary and relevant grammar. Another key component is to include a detailed description of a picture, as this is a skill students will need to master for the IB exam. 

In addition to having choice about their topic, students can also be creative with the format of their presentation. Each presentation is followed by questions, and then the listeners summarize the content to consolidate their learning and reinforce active listening skills. "The learning journey is for all of us in the classroom," says Caroline. "We all learn from one another. Throughout the year, we learned about Chinese music instruments, famous painters, famous music composers and above all, about people who meant something special to students." 

Sofie Fella created a video highlighting the Cles D'Une Passion exhibition
taking place in the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Surveys and Stickies and Polls, Oh My!

It's that time of year when your Inbox is flooded with requests for feedback via a variety of surveys and polling tools. Why not include your students in the fun? Here are three tools that are great for gathering students' opinions all year long, and of course they can also serve as quick and easy checks for understanding. 

ParticiPoll is a service that you can use to add interactive polls to your PowerPoint presentations. Your polls are created and delivered within your PowerPoint slides. Once you've added ParticiPoll to your PowerPoint you can create as many polls as you like. Each poll can have up to six response options. The best aspect of ParticiPoll is that you don't have to leave your slidedeck at all in order to administer the poll and see the results of your poll. Your audience can respond to your ParticiPoll poll through their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. To respond they simply go to the URL for your poll and choose a response. When you want to display the poll results you just click to the next element in your PowerPoint slidedeck and the results are displayed for all to see. All polls are anonymous.

AnswerGarden is a neat service that allows you to embed a open-ended feedback tool into your classroom blog or website. With an AnswerGarden embedded into your blog your students can simply type responses to your question and see their responses appear in a word cloud. Creating an AnswerGarden is a simple process that does not require you to create an account. To get started go to the AnswerGarden homepage and click "create AnswerGarden." On the next screen you will enter a question or statement for your students to respond to. To share your AnswerGarden with students you can give them the link or embed the AnswerGarden into your blog. Optionally, before sharing your AnswerGarden you can turn on moderation of responses and set an admin password.

Dotstorming combines a bit of Padlet (online sticky notes) with a polling tool. On Dotstorming you can create a space for people to post digital sticky notes. Those notes can contain text and or images. That part of Dotstorming is just like Padlet. What makes Dotstorming different is that once the notes are posted, you can have people vote for their favorite notes. As the creator of a Dotstorming space you can restrict the number of votes that each person can cast. For example, you could say that each person gets two votes and once those votes are cast they're prevented from casting any more votes. After the voting is completed, you can sort the notes according to the number of votes they received. See Dotstorming in action in this video (from freetech4teachers.com).

Professional Learning

A lot of professional learning has been going on behind the scenes this year. Here is one highlight from this past week:

Book Study Group
The last meeting of the year for the Common Formative Assessment book study group took place on Wednesday at lunch with a discussion focused on how to more fully involve students in the assessment process. Teachers shared a range of strategies that they have tried in the past or currently use, and they reflected on the positive benefits they've experienced, including a shifting of the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student.

This book group met six times throughout the school year, with each meeting's discussion focused around one or two chapters. According to Bob Cook, "For me, the best part of the book club were the conversations about how other people tackle the same issues that I find myself confronting. They provided insights that I hadn't thought of myself.  Oh, and great brownies!" Bob also appreciated that the meetings gave him the opportunity to talk with people in other departments whom he doesn't typically see that often.

CFA Study Group members (Jo, YiYun and Alyson not pictured)

I am currently taking suggestions for possible books for next year (or a summer book group if there's interest) and will send out a survey in a week or so to see who would like to participate. If you have a topic or a particular book you'd be interested in reading, please let me know! A few that are already on the table for consideration:

Teaching for Social Justice

Developing Assessments for the NGSS

Kid by Kid, Skill by Skill

Collaborating for Success with the Common Core

Essential Questions &/or Learning Targets

Embedded Formative Assessment

3 Tools for Sharing Part of a Video

"Online videos can be quite useful for reiterating a lesson to your students, for inspiring thought and conversation, and for introducing a new concept to your students. The struggle we have sometimes is finding a video that gets to the point quickly. And sometimes we don't need students to watch all of a TED Talk or other lecture in order to get them thinking about a concept. That's where tools for sharing portions of videos are useful.

In YouTube there is an option to start a video at a specific point. Under the sharing options on a YouTube video there is an option to select a start time for the video. Unfortunately, there is not an option to select an end time. See the image below for a look at the time-stamped sharing option in YouTube. 

Vibby is a service for breaking YouTube videos into segments and inserting comments into those segments. To segment a YouTube video on Vibby simply grab the URL for the video and paste into the Vibby editor. Once inserted into Vibby you can highlight a segment on the video timeline. Vibby then plays only the sections you've highlighted. Click on a highlighted section to add a comment to it. Videos edited through Vibby can be shared via email, social media, or embedded into a blog or website. Click here for a Vibby tutorial.

TubeChop gives you the ability to clip a section from any YouTube video and share it with others via a link or via an embed code added to your own blog or website. TubeChop lets you select a start time and an end time for an video that you share." 

Have questions or need a "tech partner" to collaborate with you on using one of these tools? Your instructional coach is here for you!

The content in this post is excerpted from Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers blog.

Science Spotlight

Thanks to guest bloggers Chris Roules and Adam Fusco for sharing about some cool things going on in Science this week!

Capstone Project
by Chris Roules

All who have come to the LMC in recent weeks will have found it to be very different.   Since the science department moved out of its own space, the LMC has been the primary science lab for the grade 9 and 10 students.   During the month of April, the grade 9 students are using the LMC as they complete their “Capstone Project." 

Now in its fourth year, the Capstone Project is an individual culminating activity completed by every student in grade 9 and again in grade 10. Students design and conduct their own scientific research or engineering design cycle. Grade 9 student projects need to be linked to chemistry or physics.  If conducting scientific research, the student will clearly define the problem, establish the control variables, and do hands-on experiments of how the independent variable affects the dependent variable.  If doing an engineering cycle, the student will define a problem they wish to address, and then design a physical solution for that problem.  The prototype is made, then tested and evaluated through at least five iterations. The Capstone Project incorporates hands-on aspects, which must be done at school, a journal of the student's day-to-day progress, a final presentation to their peers, and a formal written report.  There is a wide variety of fascinating projects this year, and no two are identical. You are welcome to stop by the LMC now through Wednesday, April 27^th, and see the students in action during periods 1A, 3A, 1B and 2B.  

IB Group 4 Project 
by Adam Fusco
How can I make a rocket fly higher? What happens when I get sick? These are two of many questions the Grade 11 IB students had the grade 5 students try to answer through 5 - 15 minute interactive lessons. All year, students who are taking IB have to partake in a group 4 project. There are three aims of the project, which all basically boil down to being able to work together to complete a common goal. The goal for this year was to provide an interactive science fair where each of the grade 5 students were taught a concept in five science disciplines: biology, chemistry, computer science, sports science and physics.
The group 4 project lasts a total of 10 hours which includes planning, doing and reflecting. The planning phase was a week prior to the group 4 day in which students had to come up with and design a lesson in one of the pre-chosen science disciplines stated above. The active day was held in the high school gym for the entire school day on Tuesday where students had to set up their lesson and practice, practice and practice where other groups would critique and offer feedback for improvement. After lunch all the work and preparation was then put into practice as 121 fifth graders went through the 5 – 15 minute science lessons. The last aspect of group 4 is the reflection piece where each group will develop a TED ED lesson that they can send the fifth graders for review and extension. All in all, many lessons were learned in how to break down material for young students, how to work together, and definitely a humbling perspective of what it is like to be an SAS teacher.